A Drizzle of Home

1 | A Drizzle of Unknown

Warmth lapped at my face. A soft pink glow filled my vision, and a nearby chirp tickled my ears. They pivoted toward the source.

The wind whispered, the sound slipping through soft, swaying leaves. I inhaled sharply to taste the breeze, and the scent of the forest filled my snout. Sweet and full of life, like spring.

I dared a peek out of the safety of my blindness, the cozy embrace of sleep. My narrowed pupils blinked in the brightness, adjusting to find bright blurs of green. Clusters of narrow, pointed leaves focused from among the haze. They were needles, bitter pine by the scent, emerging from a dark branch. My gaze followed the tree trunk upward. Skewed limbs stretched toward the sky.

I willed my neck upward to stare at the blue expanse above, but my muscles only groaned in response. Dejected, I focused instead on the ground. The pale, gritty soil shifted beneath my body. Something cold and wet tugged at my tail, and the glinting surface of water flashed in my peripherals.

None of this seemed right. I let the air I'd been holding in my lungs trickle out through my teeth, a slow and steady stream, until a sharp pain latched its claws into my chest.

I clenched my jaws through the rest of the breath. The numbness of my mind wore away, and a high-pitched whine left my muzzle. Why did it hurt so badly? Ignoring the reluctance of my body, I shifted my weight to one side. It took more effort than my weak muscles had to spare, but I rolled over to lay in an upright position.

Regret reared its ugly head. The world spun at my paws, and darkened spots danced in my vision. My bones' peaceful slumber had been disrupted, sparking a riot amongst them. A fierce flame gnawed at my legs, and the fire consumed my body. Each breath grew heavier with coals of burning pain, and my belly lay raw against the sand, like it'd been scorched from the smoke.

I was bruised, battered, and exhausted all over. I looked the part too.

Dull gray fur was missing from my hide in patches. Scrapes and scratches littered my pelt, while clumps of wiry hair were matted so thickly with twigs and mud I'd have to gnaw them out. Along my underside was a rough and flaky husk, a scar the color of a mahogany branch. The scabbed-over wound ran from my belly, between my forelegs, and up into my neck. Tender pink skin peeked out at the edges, and the fur around it was stained with red.

Another glimpse of crimson quickly claimed my sight. I counted my limbs sprawled all around me, finding three mostly unscathed. The last wasn't so lucky.

My left foreleg stretched out in front of me. Where my paw would be was only a gorey absence. Sharp, white fragments emerged from where the leg abruptly ended, a mixture of mangled muscle and fur. The pale color was replaced by jagged holes seeping blood, and the fury of torn flesh was visible beneath my skin. It stung like the poison of a nest full of buzzing bees, and I gently licked the wound.

I wasn't sure how this had happened. Slumped over my belly, I lay on a sloping bank of sand. The river it belonged to flowed near my side, and the translucent color reflected the murky green and brown of the wooded surroundings. I judged its depth at just over a wolf's head, while the width stretched several deer-bounds. Near the bank, the current was slow and the water was shallow.

The river wound through the trees in both directions for as far as I could see, though my line of sight was limited by the forest's growth. There was no blue above me, only fast-approaching storm clouds darkening the sky to a dismal gray. The musky scent of oncoming rain hung heavy in the air. Sparse trees were nestled into the sandy soil around the embankment, but the forest grew denser farther from the river. Hardly any branches bore leaves over the waxy quills of evergreens, and their lifeless equivalent littered the ground in the form of pale and prickly straw. The trees' painful spawn were scattered amongst it, rounded cones of sharp-toothed spines.