Captured

CASSANDRA ARCHER

before there was any to tell

There was no reason for optimism.  What, with the lightless sky a dead weight above our heads, the damp scent of our blankets soaked by rain and never dried, as well as the gnawing of hunger deep in the pits of our stomachs.  Out here, we were never content, never just okay.  There was always something about this land that brought out ones pessimistic side, no matter how life had looked on you before now, wether or not you’d had the preferable time to prepare. 

There was a slight eerie glow to the landscape; dark blues not quiet black, a trickling of light in an otherwise dead place.  Wolves let out low sounds caught somewhere between too soft and too loud, bringing a hiss of pain to my ears.  They were no ordinary wolves though, no – those had long since died out here.  They were, rather, shifters, a blend of man and beast. Inside them, the wolf and human lived harmoniously, two souls blended into one, at a perfect balance.

Yet, somehow, this place seemed to throw that balance completely off.

“Sam,” I hissed in a low tone, hoping that only he could hear my words, “the hunt has begun,”

He rose, his matted black wolf-coat tight to his thinned frame, his eyes dark and gleaming in the near non-existent light.  He pressed his cold black nose into my palm and looked into my eyes, human emotions behind the harshness of his wolf.

“Don’t worry for me,” I told him, again in a hushed tone, “Just catch what they scatter,”

Letting out a long, low whine, he tapped my palm again with his nose.  “Go now,” I urged, “you need to stay ahead of them,”

With another sound somewhere between a sigh and a whine, he pressed his nose, this time to my cheek, and took off into the night, a barley visible silhouette against the dark.

I buried our blankets between layers of sand and rock and thin wooden boards, hoping to disguise our scent, hoping to prevent them from catching us.  They were our most prized possession, what kept us from losing toes and fingers to the dangers of the desert night.  Even now, pressed against the wall of our underground den, hidden from the cold in a thick coat, I could feel the nipping of the frozen air. 

As the howls of distant wolves echoed throughout the darkened Elseriyelian night, I felt my own wolf stir beneath my skin.  Not now, I scolded, we must wait.  Refusing my order, my wolf pushed, trying to break through my weak human-skinned barrier.  No, I repeated firmly, if we don’t wait we will die - you know this.  My answer was met with more resistance, a nervous whine escaping my lips, then an even stronger push against my skin. 

Then, I realised what she was trying to tell me, a louder nervous whine, rather than escaping me, consumed me.  The scents of many wolves hit my nose at once, and my wolf took that as nothing more than run.

The shift tore through me, all human and then all wolf, as though I’d never been a human before.  Escape, escape! my wolf commanded, new senses and instincts overriding all of what I had been until all I could find was the black sky above me and the scolding of sand between my claws.

I found that the heart-thundering and the mind-shuddering of such an experience had a distinct familiarity to it, a single, calming note amongst the threatening song the rabid wolves at my tail sung, with their growls and snarls and crazed tongues.   

I cared not to gaze upon the ruined land around me as I raced as quickly as my thinned wolf frame could carry me, paws rarely finding the ground in my absolutely consuming need to escape.  The darkness beckoned, a haven I could not quiet reach.