Chapter 5: No Road Home
1211 Words
The floor was cold again that night. The thin mat Celeste called a bed had long since flattened beneath her. She curled in on herself, bruised cheek pressed to her arm, staring into the shadows that danced across the pantry walls. A single candle flickered in the corner, nearly dead.
She could still feel Greta’s slap echoing in her bones. Still taste the iron in her mouth.
Her wolf—whatever trace of it stirred inside her—remained silent now. Whatever flicker she had felt in the forest, it had vanished the moment she returned to the packhouse.
As if the walls themselves smothered all hope.
She swallowed hard, pushing the thin blanket tighter around her. The ache in her chest had nothing to do with her bruises. It was older. Deeper.
And tonight, it ached more than ever.
She pressed her forehead to her knees and whispered, “I wish I was anywhere else.”
No answer. Just the creak of the wind through old wood.
She didn’t know when sleep finally found her.
But when it did, it came with claws—and wings—and wind.
She was running.
Through open fields. Fast. Wild.
Her bare feet touched the earth like it belonged to her. The moon lit her path in silver, and the stars were so close she could almost taste them. Her hair streamed behind her like a banner. The wind roared in her ears.
But she wasn’t afraid.
She was free.
The scent of pine filled her nose. Flowers brushed her legs. The forest welcomed her—didn’t reject her.
She turned her face to the sky and laughed.
There was no pain in her limbs. No shame in her chest. Only movement. Motion. Power.
A howl rose in the distance, and she didn’t flinch from it.
She joined it.
It didn’t come from her throat.
It came from within.
She looked down—and realized she wasn’t human.
She had paws, fur, and claws.
She was a wolf.
Her heart nearly burst.
Tears welled in her glowing golden eyes as she ran, ran, ran—leaping over logs, splashing through rivers, slicing through the air like a star fallen from the heavens.
She had no pack chasing her.
No Greta screaming.
No voices mocking her for being broken.
She was alone—but it was the good kind of alone.
She was herself.
And she didn’t want it to end.
But it did.
The sky split like glass.
The ground turned to ash.
And a wall rose in front of her, made of stone and fire and voices she knew too well.
You don’t belong.
You’re not one of us.
You have no wolf.
You are a mistake.
She tried to leap over the wall.
Tried to claw it down.
But the stronger she pushed, the more it grew—higher and thicker and hotter.
She howled—but her voice cracked.
Her fur fell away.
Her claws crumbled.
And suddenly she was back in her frail human form, kneeling in the dirt, n***d and shaking.
Behind the wall, she heard them laughing.
Behind the wall, she heard Greta say, "You can run all you want. But there’s nowhere for trash to go."
And the dream shattered into darkness.
Celeste woke with a gasp.
Sweat drenched her shirt. Her heart pounded like it was trying to escape her ribs.
She sat up on her cot, breathing hard.
The candle had burned out.
The room was cold again.
She buried her face in her hands.
The dream had felt real. So real. She had run like that before—in another life. A life where she had claws and teeth and freedom. A life where her wolf wasn’t afraid to rise.
But it was just a dream.
Because she was still here.
Still in the pantry.
Still scraping dried soup from wooden bowls for the same people who stepped on her name every day.
She hugged her knees to her chest and whispered, “I want to leave.”
But the words felt empty.
Where would she go?
She had no family.
No allies.
No wolf to protect her.
No pack that would take her in.
Even rogues would reject her. She’d be meat to them. A walking target. Easy prey.
Her heart twisted.
Even if she could run like she had in her dream, she had no direction.
Just pain.
Just questions.
Just… silence.
Later that morning, she moved through the packhouse in a fog. Greta’s sharp commands bounced off her ears like stones in water. She washed. She scrubbed. She fetched supplies from the root cellar and hauled water from the stream.
But her mind was elsewhere.
Back in the dream.
Back in the wind.
She kept staring at her hands, imagining paws instead.
When the laughter and mutters of others passed her by, she no longer flinched. Not because she didn’t feel it—but because it was starting to feel smaller.
She was starting to feel something else take up space inside her.
Something more.
That evening, she made her way into the woods again. The air was crisp. The wind is colder than usual.
But she needed it.
She needed the wild more than she needed food.
She didn’t stop until the clearing surrounded her, the same mossy grove where she had felt her wolf stir. She dropped to her knees in the dirt and stared up at the moon.
“I dreamed of you,” she whispered.
“I was you.”
Silence.
“I ran. I laughed. I wasn’t afraid.”
The wind rustled the trees like an answer.
“But the wall came. And I lost you.”
She pressed her hand to the ground. “I don’t know how to tear it down.”
Still nothing.
And yet… she knew something was listening now.
Even if it was wounded.
Even if it was hiding.
She breathed in deeply. “I don’t want to be here anymore. But I don’t know where to go.”
She closed her eyes and let herself say the truth. The part she never admitted.
“I’m afraid that even if I leave, I’ll still be the same broken thing.”
The forest didn’t offer comfort.
But the wind didn’t mock her, either.
She lay down on the moss, staring up at the stars.
And for the first time in years, she let herself imagine that maybe the dream wasn’t just fantasy.
Maybe it was memory.
Or prophecy.
Or a promise waiting to be claimed.
She just had to find the strength to believe in it.
To believe in herself.
Unbeknownst to her, not far away, someone moved through the trees with near-silent steps. A tall figure cloaked in deep green paused near the treeline, watching her from a distance, his eyes sharp, unreadable.
He had been watching for three nights now.
Watching the girl everyone in the Whitemoon Pack whispered about.
The wolfless one.
The broken one.
But she didn’t look broken to him.
Not tonight.
Tonight, she looked like something wild, pressed into human shape, trying not to collapse under the weight of her own strength.
He tilted his head.
Then turned and vanished into the shadows once more.
- Writer
