A Path Unknown
1162 Words
The darkness was gentle.
Not the kind that made you shrink back or glance over your shoulder. This darkness felt different, cool, still, almost protective.
The stars were faint, hidden behind drifting clouds, and the moon hung low, swollen and silver, as though it was watching me leave.
I didn’t take much.
Just the tattered cloak I’d kept folded under my bed for years, a small satchel with a hunk of stale bread, and the water flask Elder Marra had pressed into my hands months ago during a fever. That was all.
My feet were bare against the damp earth. Every step was cold enough to sting, but the ache inside me was louder than anything my body could feel.
I didn’t look back.
The path behind me was silent. No footsteps, no shouts calling me to stop. No one even noticed I was gone.
That, somehow, hurt less than I thought it would.
I slipped between the trees, the shadows closing around me like a curtain. The forest welcomed me in the only way it knew how—without judgment. The hush of wind between branches replaced the murmurs of the pack house. The damp scent of moss and frost was cleaner than the cloying perfume that had clung to the Moon Ceremony Hall.
For the first time in days, I felt like I could breathe.
I didn’t know where I was going. I didn’t care. All I knew was that I couldn’t stay.
She left you to rot in there, my wolf said at last.
Her voice was faint, but hearing her again startled me so much I stopped in my tracks.
You were on your knees, and he turned his back. And still, you stayed.
“I stayed because I didn’t want them to see me break,” I whispered aloud. My voice sounded strange, like it belonged to someone older, more worn.
My wolf didn’t answer. But her presence lingered, no longer buried completely.
It was something.
The deeper I went, the wilder the forest became. Branches caught at my cloak, and every few steps, my bare toes brushed over sharp stones or tangled roots. I stumbled, caught myself, and kept going.
Hours passed. Or maybe only minutes. In grief, time bent and twisted until it meant nothing at all.
The air grew colder, the mist curling low along the ground, clinging to my ankles like cold breath. The trees pressed closer together, their trunks black silhouettes against the dim light.
I didn’t stop.
Because the only thing more unbearable than leaving… was staying.
The silence grew heavier as the night deepened. It wasn’t unfriendly, but it was absolute—no bird calls, no rustling underbrush, no distant stream. Just the sound of my breathing and the occasional snap of a twig underfoot.
At some point, my hunger woke, gnawing at my stomach. I ignored it. My mind was still trapped in the hall, in that moment when he’d looked at me as if I were nothing.
And yet… even as the memory cut deep, I kept walking.
The forest began to thin. The mist grew thicker here, swirling in pale ribbons across the path.
And then I saw it.
Half-swallowed by vines and moss, crouched against the tree line, was an old border hut. The kind of place soldiers once manned during patrols, before peace had made them relics.
The roof sagged, and the walls leaned in like they were whispering secrets to each other. But it had four walls. A door still hanging by rusted hinges. A roof that, from here, looked like it would keep out most of the cold.
It wasn’t much. But it was shelter.
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The door resisted at first, swollen from years of rain. My hands slipped on the rusted latch, but I pressed harder, my palms scraping against the cold metal until it gave way.
The moment I stepped inside, my legs buckled. Not from fear. Not from pain. But because my body had finally found somewhere it was allowed to stop.
I collapsed to my knees, then to my palms, and let my cheek rest against the dusty floorboards.
It smelled of old wood, damp and faintly of ash. Cobwebs hung in the corners, and dust drifted in the faint beam of moonlight that slipped through a c***k in the boards.
But it was quiet.
Empty.
Safe.
Here, no one would look at me with pity. No one would whisper rejected like it was my name.
I pulled my cloak tighter and curled onto my side, my satchel pressed to my chest. My breath was shallow, uneven, but for the first time since the ceremony, it didn’t hurt to inhale.
I must have fallen asleep, because when I opened my eyes, the light filtering through the cracks was pale and thin—dawn.
My body ached from the hard floor, and my mouth was dry, but I stayed where I was for a long moment, just listening to the stillness.
It didn’t press on me like the silence of the hall had. This was… gentler.
I sat up, stretching my stiff limbs, and reached into my satchel. I broke off a piece of bread, but when I tried to swallow it, it turned to sand in my mouth. I put it back.
My thoughts wandered, unwelcome, inevitable, back to him. Back to the way the bond had felt before it broke. That warmth, that pull… gone now. In its place, only the echo of what could have been.
I closed my eyes. The image of his face burned behind my lids, but it was clearer now—colder, sharper. Easier to hate.
The hours bled into each other. I didn’t leave the hut that first day. Instead, I stayed wrapped in my cloak, my back against the wall, watching dust drift lazily in the light.
My wolf stayed quiet. But her silence wasn’t the deep absence of before. Now it felt like she was watching me, waiting.
By the second night, I realised what she was waiting for.
Decide, she whispered.
“Decide what?” I murmured into the dark.
Whether you’re going to survive this. Or let it keep you on your knees.
I didn’t answer her. Not yet.
On the third morning, I woke to a sound that didn’t belong to the forest.
A twig snapped outside.
I froze, my ears straining.
Another.
And another.
Footsteps. Slow. Deliberate.
My heart climbed into my throat. I reached for the small blade in my satchel—more ceremonial than useful, but it was something.
The steps stopped just beyond the door.
For a moment, there was nothing.
Then...three slow, steady knocks.
Not the frantic pounding of someone desperate. Not the careless rap of a passerby.
No, this was… knowing.
I didn’t move.
Didn’t breathe.
“You can hide,” a male voice said, low and certain.
“But I always find what’s mine.”
The latch began to turn.
- Writer
