Part : 2

The second morning happened to a female.

She was a female because she wasn't a girl.

She wasn't a woman. She'd barely been a

teen. She was her, and herself, and that was

all there was to it.

She was a Wolf

Hers was the second morning because she'd

woken up moments after Hendrik, though

she didn't know it. There were state lines

and storms and years between them, but

mornings happened to everyone and they

were very similar to each other. They both

woke before they knew it. They both stared

and listened. They both quietly endured

their missing pieces.

The Wolf was just like her father, though

she didn't remember. It was one of the many

things she'd forgotten about the girl.

It did not rain on this morning of September

17th. There were no cars. No furnaces. No

Gails. There was the Wolf and the trees

she'd been born in. The mountain she'd

congquered. Her eyes opened and the sky

was softly waking while the was earth was a

carcass: trees rattled like bones, the breeze

heaved like a death rattle, the leaves fell like

flakes of dried blood.

The land was as starved as she was.

The creature was always hungry. Always,

and it wasn't just for food. But she ignored

the other hungers. Other hungers came from

the Old Skin. Not her. Not the Wolf.

She blinked once and stood. Shook the leaves

off and put her nose in the air, annoyed

to find there was nothing in it. No scent of

bears or cougars. No humans or Hunters.

No food, either.

A growl filled her throat.

The Wolf was far from the Old Skin's home.

Very, very far. Maybe farther than she'd

ever been before. And yet she'd have to go

farther to get any food. The Wolf knew it.

Deep down, the Old Skin knew it too. It was a

symptom of September. Prey got scarce and

she had a mouth-

mouths three of them please go backplease

I need to see them are theyalrightplease let

me outletmeplease-

NO, the creature snarled silently. Snarled

and shook and growled.

Then she was running and her body

followed. She weaved like a snake through

the bones of her home, uphill and downhill

and over fallen trees. Lesser animals

scattered and hid from the forest's Own

Reaper, the uniformed monster that boasted

swift death. They could sense their end in

her mood. She would not kill kindly today.

Little did they know the creature had a

predator of her own. One she could not

kill;: one she could only run from. Her

helplessness was infuriating. She was the

predator. It was her instincts that had kept

them both alive, kept the little ones alive.

Didn't the Old skin realize? Couldn't she see

how much better they were now, with four

legs instead of two?

Wasn't she more whole? Now that they'd

been halved?

But even these thoughts pushed the Wolf

into a deeper rage. She didn't have to explain

herself. Pandering was for others. Words

were for humans. The Wolf was an animal.

Just an animal. Just her, and herself.

So the Wolf kept running. Running and

running and running. Her and her paws.

Her lungs, heavy. Her blood, a chorus.

Strong and fast and heavy. The pale sun

rose higher. Then, a smell. A scent. Prey.

Rabbits. A family. One male, one female, one

young male. Three. She can taste them. A

full stomach. So hungry, so hungy. Three is

plenty. Three is a lot. Thre

just like them themthem they are mine

there arethree I have three and they

makemewhole they makemeinto one they are

mineplease

-she pounced.

Oh, the rage. The rage in her bones, in her

gut, in her throat. The Wolf snapped. The

rabbit's bones, snapped, the twigs under

her feet, snapped. The rabbits cried. The

branches shivered. The Wolf saw red. Red

fur, red blood, red leaves, red pieces. Not

eating. She wasn't eating them. Her teeth,

her claws. Just killkillkill. The rage, so red.

Oh, the rage. She howled and the leaves

shook.

This was when the world turned inside out.

The Wolf, so consumed by her selves, didn't

notice immediately.

But the world didn't wait for her. The sun

stopped for nobody. It sat heavy and alone in

the sky by the time she came to grips, by the

time she noticed what the sun had brought

with it. Her bloody nose pointed to the birds

overhead as she sniffed. And stopped. Her

body stilled, her mind quleted.

Because there was a smell.

A warm, wonderful, ancient smell.

A smell like...home.

But that was strange because her home was

a forest. A mountain, a valley. The old home

betore the cave. The cave where the little

ones lived now. 'Home' was a million scents,

a thousand smells. What was it about this

scent-

-home homehome fatherdaddy it smells

likehimlikedad he's here he's here tosaveme

daddyplease-

that made it smell like her?

Why did the world turning inside out smell

like Wolf?

Suddenly she was boneless, dropping to

the ground to hide from what she didn't

understand. There was something here

now, in this scent. Something beyond her.

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