Dawn

6

Dawn

Sunday was to be uneventful since I had no plans, so I decided to spend it drawing.

I was good at art— it was one of the only things I could express myself with. The other was singing in the shower, but that wasn't something I was willing to practice at.

I felt a kind of need to draw, maybe because I hadn't in a while; maybe it was because I had sourced emotions and feelings that were fighting to show themselves. My mind wouldn't sway from the wolf I saw a few nights ago. In a way, I didn't know how to feel about it.

It just didn't make any sense.

I was in the road staring at a wolf. A car came speeding towards me. Then suddenly, the wolf was gone, somebody was holding me, rescuing me, and I was safe. But how? If Hayden saved me when he did, he must have seen the wolf. And if he did see it, wouldn't he have told me? I didn't understand.

My thoughts returned to what took place before I woke up in Jackie and Harvey's house.

Suddenly a loud horn sent me jumping out of my skin, as I span around to see headlights racing straight towards me.

"Shit! Do you have some kind of death wish?!" I heard as the car sped away. Somebody was holding me, pulling me off the road. I hoped it was my dad. My eyes were wide with fright, but unseeing. I couldn't understand— everything was muddled. Was I dead? Had I been run over again?

I heard a loud cracking noise beside me, then rustling. "Shut up, Michael! Give her to me." I was passed over to someone else, and with seconds I was hoisted up, lying in someone's arms. Immediately I was surrounded by warmth, fighting off my goosebumps.

"...huh?" I mumbled. My eyes were flicking around frantically but still, I couldn't get my vision to work. What was happening?

"She's still recovering from last week, Hayden. She's going into shock— and she's freezing."

A hand was pressed to my forehead and ran through my hair. It was unfamiliar, but calming.

"Shh... It's okay, go to sleep. Everything's okay."

Michael... Michael had rescued me. He had asked me if I had a death wish, meaning he knew that I was standing in the middle of the road, staring at something, or he knew about my accident. Hayden had taken me from Michael, had helped me fall asleep. But there was someone else.

Someone I knew.

I couldn't shake the feeling of recognition when I played the voice in my mind... A girl's voice. I thought it might have been Mum at the time, but Jackie said that Hayden's friends were with him. Jackie also knew my name because one of his friends went to my school— that must be how I recognised the girl's voice. But who? Who was it?

My eyes found the page of my sketchbook, and I gasped when I realised that I had been drawing the black wolf that was in the road with me. It's eyes weren't in colour— I never used colours in my drawings —but they were shaded carefully. I quickly added some extra detail to the irises and the nostrils, watching the drawing almost come alive. It was jarring seeing the wolf again, even when it was only a drawing.

"Dawn?" I heard Dad call.

"Yeah?" I yelled.

"Come down a sec," he responded. Sighing, I closed my sketchbook and slid it underneath my mattress, where my family wouldn't find it. I hated people looking at my drawings; they were too personal, images that came straight out of my mind. It was like giving someone an insight into my thoughts and memories.