A short story I wrote

blackrose · 05-04-2007, 07:38 PM

I'm an urban fantasy freak, there's no denying it. I also have a newfound hobby of writing. So, needless to say, one day during an extreamly boring Civics class, I decided to keep myself awake by writing a short story in my notebook. I started it and then finnished it up later while I was at home. This is my first really completed work, so I was excited about it. Tell me what you think!

Quote:

Wolf Song

She ran. Her heart was pounding so violently she thought it would leap from her chest. Tree branches slapped her face and scraped along her skin, drawing blood. Weeds and underbrush seemed to stretch out and wrap around her feet, making her stumble. The light of the full moon slinked down among the trees, casting eerie shadows upon the forest floor. The cool night breeze rustled the leaves, causing the shadows to dance around her as if they were alive.

The sad drawl of a wolf sounded behind her, wafting through the trees. The howl changed from a sad lamentation to a song of excitement; it had caught a scent, its prey was near.

The woman gasped, willing her aching muscles to pump just a little faster, a little farther. The song of the wolf faded. As the last note was absorbed by the shadows a new wolf struck up the song. This one was close, very close. The prey they had found, the thing they were chasing…it was her.

A feeling of dread overcame her, her breath came in short gasps. She couldn't outrun them even if she did manage to keep going. Her chest felt as if it was going to split and her legs felt like streaks of fire were shooting through them. The first wolf rejoined the chorus, making the solo a duo. Their song picked up in tempo and ferocity, as if they sensed their prey was slowly giving up.

She stumbled, her legs unable to take the continuing abuse. The weeds preyed upon her sing of weakness, ensnaring her legs, casting her to the forest floor.

A faint cry escaped her lips as she fell. She knew that a single mistake in her flight could cost her life. She had just made that one mistake. The wolves had fallen silent; it wouldn't do to alert the prey.

She lifted herself off the ground, dirt and mulch clinging to her clothes. Her hands stung; raw from being scraped along the forest floor. She willed her aching muscles to once again start running. Her legs felt heavy as if they were carved of wood.

She took two faulty steps forward, and then stopped abruptly, her body trembling. She prayed her eyes were playing tricks on her; she could have sworn she saw the slinking shadow of a wolf.

A snarl tore through the air, the very leaves seeming to tremble with it. The hulking form of a wolf stalked from the trees. The moonlight reflected against its bared teeth, causing them to glimmer in the pale light. The breeze sent ripples through its thick fur, causing the fur to be a swirl of auburn and grey. Its hazel eyes held nothing human; it was purely beast, hunger and aggression.

She gasped her eyes wide with fear. She stumbled backward, her hands behind her reaching for anything to help her. Terror pulsed through her body, drowning out everything else; no longer could she hear the rustling leaves or smell the bitter sweet scents of the night air. It was all secondary. The thing that required her immediate attention was slowly stalking towards her.

She continued to back away, not daring to turn and run in case it excited the wolf even more. A sudden chill went up her spine; it felt like another pair of eyes was on her. Slowly turning to the side, she looked behind her.

There was the second wolf, just as beautiful and terrifying as the first. Its teeth were also bared into a snarl; it slowly advanced, its paws not making a sound on the twigs and weeds. A small cry of helplessness escaped from her lips as she whirled around, her eyes searching desperately for a way to escape. Her life seemed to flash before her eyes. Oh, how she wished she could have changed some of the things she had done, the mistakes she had made. She saw them all clearly now. How she had chased away the things she loved, how selfish she had been. But she wouldn't live to go back and make things right. Why is it that we don't understand what wrongs we have done until it is too late to change them?

A loud snarl brought her mind back to the present. The second wolf had waited long enough, a shift of its posture was her only warning as a rush of fur and teeth lunged toward her throat. She threw her arm up to defend her neck and the intense mass of predator latched onto her forearm, biting savagely, its weight forcing her to the ground. There was no time to think, only time to react as the first wolf leapt to bite her flailing legs.

A scream escaped from her lips and adrenaline surged as she lifted her free arm up and gouged the wolf on top of her in the eyes. It yelped and jumped off only to back away a few feet, pawing at its face in anguish. The first wolf worried her leg like a bone and a sharp crack filled the air as her bone broke. She screamed yet again and with her free foot kicked the wolf in the face as hard as she could. The wolf jumped back, her blood staining its teeth as it snarled, preparing to lunge again.

Her arm and her leg felt as if they were on fire and they were both bleeding freely. She hoped that by some luck one of her arteries hadn't been severed. Being eaten alive was not one of the ways that she had wanted to die.

A second snarl echoed the first one; the second wolf had recovered and was going to join in the killing of their prey once more. Her vision blurred, black dots skittering across her sight. Thank God, she was going to pass out.

As both wolves came towards her once more, a new sound filled the air. It wasn't any of the hellish sounds that had been surrounding her for the past few moments, but an eerie, mournful cry. The wolves froze, their hackles raised. The note came again, drawling out to reverberate around the forest. It didn't sound unlike the wolves' hunting howl, but it had a different flavor to it. It seemed to sing of the night, of death and the loss of life, of the unnecessary suffering of the innocent. As it picked up pitch and fervor it reminded her of an ache for rebirth, for forgiveness, for second chances. The wolves backed up, there eyes showing white as they hunkered closer to the forest floor. Once more low, mournful cry flowed through the air and the wolves turned tail and ran, leaving only the woman's torn body and the bloodstained trampled ground as proof that they had been there.

The woman shuddered; she was going to die of blood loss if she didn't do something soon. She tried to move, but her vision swam and a blinding pain racked up her leg. The noise was now quiet, as if it had never been. The only sound she could now hear was the quiet of the breeze through the trees, the night bugs, and her heart pounding trying to keep her alive, and her labored breathing.

As she fought unconsciousness, a new sound reached her ears. The sound of large paws treading over the ground, coming straight towards her. A slice of fear surged through her; the wolves had come back. But the large form that walked from the trees and into the moonlit clearing that she was lying in put any wolf to shame. It was a wolf, if wolves could be the size of a small pony. Its fur was a dark rich honey brown color that covered its entirety except for a white blaze running down its head to its shoulders. Whereas the other wolves had had no hint of humanity in their eyes, this wolf's piercing cornflower blue eyes showed intelligence beyond that of a beast.

She stared at it in wonder, trying to decide if she should be awed by its majestic presence or faint with the fear of seeing a wolf that big. It sniffed the air as if trying to figure out what had happened here. It then shifted its gaze to hers, staring straight into her eyes like it was trying to tell her something. Compassion seemed to flit behind its eyes and a low, comforting note escaped its muzzle.

It started to walk towards her, its eyes roaming over her body giving the impression that it was trying to decide how badly she was hurt. As it came closer it looked as if it was changing shape.

Her vision blurred again, white and grey specks accompanying the black specks this time. Her head hurt and her breath was coming in short gasps. As the world around her dimmed, she faintly saw the wolf gracefully take the form of a man. He was boyishly slender, but she could see his muscles rippling under his skin in the moonlight. He finished the walk towards her in a graceful glide, full of the predator that he had just changed from.

Trying to stay awake and sure she was hallucinating, she blearily saw the man lean over her while putting pressure on her arm to stop the bleeding. His eyes met hers; they were the same corn flower blue that the wolves had been and he had a mop of honey brown hair on his head, along with what looked like days old stubble covering his chin. He whispered to her in the same beautiful voice that had howled among the trees, "Everyone deserves a second chance. I'll get you to a doctor. Just hold on."

She wearily closed her eyes, her mind sheltering her from the pain, turning it into a dull throbbing. She felt her consciousness start to slip away and she accepted it, letting herself fall into the peaceful world of oblivion.

*********

blackrose · 05-04-2007, 07:41 PM

Quote:

The ambulance's and police car's sirens pierced through the air, wrecking the peaceful stillness of the night. The emergency vehicles' lights flashed round and round, seeming all the more artificial next to the perfect paleness of the moon's light.

That is all that humanity can do, thought a slender man with cornflower blue eyes. He stood off in the sheltering darkness of the tress, watching the EMTs jump out of the back of the machine and rush into the thick forest with a stretcher and a police officer in tow. They didn't know that he was there. They can only just copy the miraculous works of nature.

He heard excited shouts coming from the woods as the EMTs found the body they had been looking for; an anonymous person had called and said that he had found a female victim suffering from wolf bites. That was why the police were here, although they didn't know if they were armed for wolf or for a deranged murderer. They had gotten some pretty interesting calls before.

The man lifted his head and sniffed the air; the woman was still alive. A tension eased from his shoulders. Thanks to him, she would stay that way.

The EMTs returned, carrying a body between them on the stretcher. The body was a woman, her right arm and leg mangled from wolf bites. They loaded her into the back of the ambulance, jumping in after her and shutting the doors so the vehicle could speed away into the night, its sirens wailing the emergency.

The man shifted his weight to his other foot as a snag of conversation from the remaining police officers drifted towards him.

"So they have no clue who made the call?"

"Nope. Whatever phone they used couldn't be traced, but whoever it was is responsible for saving that woman's life. They made a tourniquet up for her to stop her bleeding. If they hadn't gotten there when they did, she would have bled to death by now."

"You know what is weird though?"

"Besides the fact that a woman was out in the middle of the woods at one o'clock in the morning, was attacked by wolves, and then survived the attack?"

"Yeah, besides all of that. There were wolf prints all over that clearing back there, along with her prints, but that was all. There weren't any other prints."

"So?"

"If someone found her, they would have had to leave prints behind. But there aren't any."

The officers walked towards their cars, their conversation following them.

A smirk crossed the man's face. Well, at least I'm not loosing my touch. Its bad taste for a werewolf to leave his prints behind. That wouldn't do at all.

As the officers drove away in their cars, the man turned and walked back into the woods that he had come from, the shadows making him invisible. As the shadows swallowed him up and he could no longer hear the cars on the road, he ran, his heart pounding from the shear joy of the run. He flowed through the trees like liquid grace, avoiding every root and twig. The moonlight fell between the limbs of the trees causing shadows to dance in joy. And somewhere off in the distance, adding to the music of the night, was the song of a wolf.

And I'd like to ask that no-one copy this, please. If you'd like to repost it somewhere, please give me credit as the author. Thanks!