23.Matt
1139 Words
I had taken to running since Amy had turned into an 'alpha group girl' and I found that it actually did help the exhaustion it produced tended to calm my shifts. Not that it worked when I was at school and had to walk around and bump into Amy who somehow seemed to be around every corner with Harley draped across her. I had dressed that morning in just a pair of shorts and a t-shirt with a scruffy hoodie over the top. Yes I knew dressing like a rag bag didn't help arguing the case against my dad but I didn't want to, I didn't care enough. I stomped out into the cold morning shuddering slightly as my breath came out in a white fog. The late October morning was dry but the cold winter was beginning to catch in the air. I shuddered and broke into a light jog up the hill towards the winding lane that would lead to the woodlands. As my legs broke into a steady run I felt my mind calming as I drew in the intense focus that came with such physical emersion. I zigzagged onto the path and increased my pace a little the dry crunchy leaves that carpeted the forest floor crackling under my feet as I ran. The steady constant pace had a hypnotic sort of quality, but I didn't like the fact that this allowed my mind to wander I didn't want to think I didn't like the places where my mind wandered to. I carried on and just tried not to think every thought that seemed to rule my mind were all forbidden: Amy? No don't think about that. What was happening to me? No definitely not! That was too much for me alone. What was going to happen? That thought was simply enough to make me want to cry. All the things I should be thinking about all the things that consumed my life, all the things that I will have to think about right now I couldn't do that. The whole thing was just too much for one person to deal with, a wolf thing I don't know but being in a pack would seem to make sense I didn't know what I could manage on my own. My legs suddenly caught on something maybe just each other and I stumbled, staggering to a halt I looked around into the trees around me. There was nothing there the morning was still dark dawn still short of the horizon. I swung my head around to look out into the other side of the path, my ears twitching I couldn't hear anything short of the wind moving shuffling the foliage gently, my breathing a soft hypnotic sort of sound but beyond that there was nothing. I don't know what it was that I expected to hear or see to calm me but whatever it was I couldn't find it, in contrast I became convinced that in fact something was, wrong? I felt my body tense as I inhaled slowly seeking out what it was, trying to smell it on the air. I suddenly froze my head snapping away from the path into the trees I had no idea what was out there and my rational mind could never explain
what I was doing but I didn't operate on my rational mind right then . I just slowly in took a breath steeling myself I suddenly came to some sort of irrational conclusion and I turned and ran into the trees. I zigzagged through the trees in what must have seemed completely random chaotic path but in fact there was actually some sort of plan to it. Well no plan wasn't the right word I had no idea where I was going or what it was that I was hunting down, but I did know that much I knew enough to know I was hunting something. As that thought hit me I was filled with an intense longing, the strangest desperate desire I needed to find this. What it was that I was hunting I needed. My run turned into a sprint, as I followed. I don't even know why I don't even know what trail I was following but I was clearly innately instinctively following some sort of trail as my body instinctively seemed to swing through the trees. My legs moved faster as I pushed myself on harder and harder I had to find whatever this was and whatever it was it was moving away from me. I growled as I moved my legs even faster I seemed to be moving with more speed than ever before and had established a bizarre sort of grace that I didn't really understand, it was as if I had effectively tapped into my wolf part. As if the simple act of hunting had spurred this on. I stumbled to a halt suddenly and again began swinging my head around seeking out something, I still didn't know what but I was intense in my seeking out of it. As I stood there frozen in the cold, dark landscape gazing around intensely, I had the overwhelming sensation that I was being watched. I swung my head this way and that my breathing heavy and laboured from the intense run. My eyes narrowed as I caught a flash of movement out of the corner of my eyes, I turned on instinct and bolted towards this movement. I saw a flash of white and ran towards it; no it was grey a flash of silvery grey. I inhaled slowly as I ran and somehow became aware of what It was that I was following it was a smell, I had been instinctively following a scent. The silvery grey flash disappeared and I continued on I didn't think about breathing in or what I was seeking out as instinctively my body just moved and I trusted my instincts to take me on. I suddenly stumbled to a halt with no clue as to why. Slowly I looked around me in a complete circle feeling no real need or desire to move on. I had stumbled to a halt on a patch of ground in no way distinct from the rest. I was in a small clearing surrounded by a few small bunches of dense bramble thickets, and patches of ferns. I slowly turned around breathing in slowly and my eyes suddenly snapped open, there it was air, fresh air, grass, foliage a sort of indefinable combination and there underlying it all was the faint wisp of something else the vague scent I recognized: Lilac.
"Amy." I said on a breath. I heard a shifting movement behind me and I snapped around, "Amy." I echoed as a large silvery grey wolf emerged from the gloom.
- Writer
