The New Wolf

Chapter One

Living is easy.

You breathe, eat, sleep, and keep moving through this world and the life you’ve made. You put one food in front of the other and before you know it, your life has passed by.

What’s not easy is dying.

The fear you feel, the pain, the darkness, and the loneliness. It’s all terrifying.

And somehow beautiful, you become weightless and free. There’s no pain in this stage. There’s nothing really. Well, nothing I could describe. You just.. exist in contentment. Gone are the worldly stressors like money, bills, ordering pizza, and those failed relationships. All of your awkward experiences, the painful and the happy, the sad, and the terrible, they’re all gone as if they never were there in the first place.

Regrets and time lost don’t live here. This last stage, well, it’s peace and warmth. I’m alone and yet I’m not.

I’m okay.

Then you come slamming back into your body and the pain returns with a vengeance, but it keeps you trapped in the darkness.

I screamed.

“She’s back!”

“What’s wrong with her!?”

I recognized neither of these frantic voices and couldn’t even identify whether they were male or female. My only focus was on the fire that raced through my veins and ripped the next scream from my throat.

“It’s your blood,” I heard faintly as all of my senses succumbed to the pain. The burning agony became my new reality and I was powerless to stop it.

* * *

I don’t know how long I spent with my nerves lit up like they were on fire. It seemed like a lifetime, and it’s difficult to think of it as anything shorter than that.

Pain alters your perception, but so does the darkness. The fire has receded and left a tingling cool behind it. My only problem now is that I’m trapped in the darkness.

I would suspect that this is my death, except it’a nothing like before and I can feel the body I’m trapped in. I’m heavy, I can’t move, and there’s a smell that’s burning my nose.

There’s light on the other side of my eyelids only I can’t open them.

Then comes the ringing, or maybe it was always there and I’ve just now noticed it. I want to protect my ears from the awful noise but I have no way to. I endure it, trying my best to move my hands to my aid and failing.

The sound goes from a high pitched ringing to a gradually slowing beep. I’ve heard this steady noise before, though my foggy mind can’t pinpoint where exactly. New sounds start to reach my ears, some sounding much closer than others.

Muffled voices here, something falling there, the clicking sounds of fingers on a keyboard.

The one sound close to me but further away than the beep is the sound of someone breathing. Actually, it’s a lot of someone’s breathing, but one in particular is very near me. I hear what sounds like a rustling of clothing and a rogue heartbeat gives away my nerves as the sound nears.

That’s what it is. A monitor, surely that means I’m in a hospital.

But why?

“Hey, Doc!” A heavenly voice yells, though the volume of it causes my ears to sting. I want to flinch but know I can’t as the darkness continues to hold me down. I hear a heavy pair of footsteps approach then stop.

“Yes?” The new voice inquires, his tone a lot softer than I would expect from a heavy walker.

“She’s starting to come to,” the first voice says. Something stirs in my brain at the sound of this voice. A longing for it to come closer, to whisper sweet nothings in my ear. To never cease speaking.

“Her vitals are strong.” Heavy foot says in approval, “she will be well. The worst has past.”

The sound of swishing clothes grows nearer and along with it comes a wondrous scent. The only thing I could compare it to is the smell of the rare rainfall in a desert I visited. It was a fresh scent and brought forth feelings of happiness and excitement, the feelings I had experienced during the downpour.

Then, it’s as if I can’t control myself. My eyes fly open of their own accord and I’m staring up at the most gorgeous man I’ve ever laid eyes on.

My body fills with warmth and I involuntarily smile at the stranger. Something has come over me and I can’t help it. He rewards me with a dazzling smile in return and the simple gesture sends my insides into a frenzy.

What is happening?

Well, whatever it is, I don’t think I want it to stop.