In the Realm of King Wolf

Chapter Two. Predators Within

A distant rumble pierces through my dreamless slumber.

How long have I been asleep? I ask myself still with my eyes unwilling to open. I hear another roll of thunder. Perhaps I should get up and put the buckets in its strategic places around the apartment. The leaky ceiling has always been an irritating part of life during rainy season, although it should still be summer and there were no news of possible rain tonight. But rain does not heed weather news reports, it never has. It just decides to come when you least expect it and flood the apartment. 

I don't feel like getting up. If I stay here and continue sleeping, would I drown in rainwater? It would be strange to find a drowned woman on the top floor of an apartment complex. It would become a mystery until they realize that it was caused by flooding from the leaky ceiling. Death would be a good excuse to end this pathetic life.

My musings are interrupted by a warm breath on my cheek and something moist prodding it.

"Wake up," a low female voice whispers.

Leaky ceilings and a chance to die by drowning, I don't really care for. But an intruder in my apartment is due cause for worry. I immediately sit up and open my eyes, moving hastily away from the voice. My heart fall still for a moment as I find a pair of cerulean eyes looking at me and realizing its owner.

"S-siberian husky?" I stutter questioning the image before me. Now my eyes are wide open taking in the big white wolfish dog that stood where the voice has come from. It has a gentleness about it, but how did it get inside my apartment?

"Oh, Sisky, you are no fun at all. Why'd you wake her up?" a hoarse voice speaks up from behind her. It belongs to a wolf, huge enough to be mistaken for those werewolves in movies. Somehow, I do not think it is one. 

"Asleep or awake, it's still warm food." I hear an equally creepy voice from behind me.

I turn around and find three human-sized vultures one of whom has its wings extended as it tries to balance its fat body on a thin branch of a leafless tree as it moves. My mind does not try to comprehend how my apartment has transformed into this dark void full of shadows with a dead tree and hungry predators.

"It's a little bit meatless unlike others, but it should do," says the fat vulture. Its piercing eyes are the scariest. I instinctively cross my arms in front of me as if that would protect me from these predators.

"It is food, glorious food," the thinnest one who has been having some difficulty on its perch whenever the fat one gets off balanced. "We can all see I need it."

"She is not yours, Böse." The Siberian husky replied in a commanding yet gentle voice.

The wolf sniffs at the air around me. "She is either theirs or mine, Sisky. She smells of tequila."

"She definitely is too old to be of the white one's concern," said the fat vulture who flaps his massive wings and swoop closer to me. "The Geier Community would have fun with this meatless one."

The wolf snarls at him. The guttural sound is enough to make the vulture hop back in a hurry that it trips on its claws. This makes the wolf laugh, a strange mirthless sound.

"She belongs to me, old fool," the wolf declares and moves in between me and the vultures. "I'm willing to fight you for her."

"What need have you of this human?" The vulture who has remained quiet all this time finally lends his voice to the party.

"She's," the wolf glances back at me, "interesting." He turns his attention back to the trio of bald buzzards. "She's not quite so lost to be yours."

"She's near it enough," the eloquent of the vultures argue.

"We have rules, Puter," the husky interjects. "She may not be mine, but she is neither carrion for you."

"The wise Sisky hath spoken," the wolf agrees with one side of his mouth lifting to form a sort of a smirk. "We abide by the rules of this court. She is mine."

The vultures screams as they are also bound by the rules even though they may not agree with it. With a flurry of feathers, they take flight and blend into the shadows.

"Thank you for the assist, Sisky," the wolf says.

The white Siberian husky looks at me with kind but somber eyes and howls sadly before turning away and melting into the dark void.

The wolf howls back. "Damn it," he curses. "Can never get that howling back out of my system." He walks closer to me. "Well?"

I stare back at him.

"Do you not speak?"

"Um," I try my voice out but do not speak. I do not know what to say.

"Very well," he gruffly says. "Let's move on. Go."

"Where?" I ask, finally.

"Forward," he tells me. "Just keep walking forward."