Howl 2

Crumbling

Have you ever gotten that feeling where you just didn't have a grip on anything? Like everything was slipping through your fingers.

I had no idea what to do now.

A part of me was mad, angry at myself for actually believing a person that I just met. For all I knew, she could manipulate thoughts and was making me believe that she was my sister. I might be playing right into a trap. But then she touched my forehead and showed me something - a vision as I'd like to call it. It was very similar to what I've experienced when the barrier began to slip. The only difference was that it ran smoothly without any lapses as if I was sitting in a cinema while watching events of the past roll past me.

***

I was back in the same forest. It was still full moon and cheerful laughter sounded behind me. I could actually control my movements this time and turned around.

There, in the middle of a clearing among the trees, a small camp was set up. Around thirty people were gathered around a campfire, some disappeared into tents, and others were talking in small groups around the area. No one seemed to notice me and I assumed that I was invisible, considering this was a memory.

The people seemed normal at first, but then one of the children stuck his hands into the fire and captured a ball of flames. He played with it as if it was a normal ball, throwing it from one hand to the other until a woman I assumed was his mother, scolded him.

"Vince, this is a family gathering, not a training session. Put it back or you'll start a wildfire."

The boy, Vince, who I guessed was about thirteen or fourteen, casually threw the ball of flames back into the campfire and laughed at she sparks that swirled into the air. Then he turned his head and looked right at me, "Ramona, stop being a party pooper and get over here."

The next thing I knew, I was moving forward towards the group around the fire. It's then when I realized that I wasn't just seeing a memory, I was experiencing it from Ramona's perspective.

When she stopped at the fire, I could see the boy clearly. He had the same pale skin, the same sky blue eyes but with a few green specks around the pupil, and his dark brown hair was shaggy and wild like the wind played through it earlier.

The woman who I assumed was his mother, turned around with a satisfied smile while the light of the fire reflected in her blue eyes, "Finally, my youngest decided to join the fun. We were just waiting for you to..."

But I wasn't paying attention to the rest of her sentence. I was gawking and stared at her as I've just seen a ghost. It couldn't be possible. It just couldn't be!

This woman was an older version of me.

I was literally staring into a mirror, and the reflection stared back at me with my eye, my smile, my sharp nose, my everything - minus the mature details like the deepened laugh lines around her mouth, the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, and the fine lines on her forehead. Of course, also the very obvious greying hair at her roots. But other than that, this woman was like my doppelganger.

And she was pregnant.

I swallowed, not even having to guess how many months. It felt like a matter of minutes for her to give birth.

However, the air grew chilly all of a sudden. I blinked and the scene morphed.

I was met with the same clearing, but the tents were all burning and the once peaceful people were all running and screaming. Shadows with red eyes chased after them and in the light of the burning tents, I made out the shapes of werewolves infiltrating the camp. They grabbed every person they could find and stabbed their claws through them, and the forest floor turned into a blood bath in a matter of seconds.