Night
Dedication to my love of wolves ~
A young women is running through the woods. She hear howling and her hairs spike. She tries to avoid branches that can be tripping hazards. Her shoes are not helping, she was at a small party at her friend's house so her shoes are not ideal for running in the woods late at night. It's getting dark and harder to see so her eyes are squinting. She hears bushes that are shaking behind her and tiny noises that sound like someone is following her. How did she get here?
She looks behind as she runs to see what's chasing her but she sees nothing. She screams, falling down. She must have tripped over something. She looks at what she tripped over, thinking it's a branch. It's a skull. She lets out a tiny scream, covering her mouth. When she looks down, she realizes it cut her hand and she winces. She licks the blood on her wound and gets up. She tries to run again but now her legs are wobbly.
Something grabs her jeans and tugs it. She yelps and falls flat on her face. She turns her body to where she's laying on her back and lets her eyes focus to see what's touching her. It's a wolf?
The last thing she sees is a wolf before she blacks out.
She suddenly wakes up. Someone is pulling on her leg and she groans. Her head is throbbing and her vison is blurry. She lifts her head to see two wolves tugging on her leg. So it's not a human, it's wolves. They are dragging her and her leg weakly kicks out, trying to get loose. One wolf notices and growls. His fur is black with a streak of white on his back. He snarls at her, daring her to be more powerful, his teeth are ready to pierce her skin. She can see in his eyes that he wants to, but he just watches her.
She looks over and sees the other wolf tugging on her leg. He is a normal grey color but there's some brown in it. His teeth are in her skin, drawing blood. The grey-brown wolf stops and growls at the black wolf. The other one starts to help drag her. She tries to stop them by digging her hands in the dirt.
She swipes at the wolf and he bites the air, causing her to pull back her hand.
A beautiful brown wolf runs up to the other wolves and starts to howl. They start to growl and bite each other. Her eyes are getting heavy so she starts to close her eyes. She sees the fight in little fragments.
The last thing she sees is the brown wolf and his eyes. So pretty but he's going to kill her. She closes her eyes.
All of a sudden, she hears the wind and it's quiet. Is she alive? The wolves are gone and her breaths are short and ragged. Her eyes are closed still, she's too weak to open them.
They left her for dead.
I wake up groggy and sees bandages on my body. I grunt in pain as I tries to get up.
"Heyy, whoa there. I wouldn't move just yet." I look around to see a blonde hair guy with green hazel eyes and he's sitting down with his phone.
"Um, where am I?" I say, still trying to move.
"Welcome to Darolf: The Dark City Of The Wolf." He smiles at me and his smile is very addicting. I smile back at him.
"Oh, well where am I?" I say, repeating the question. He didn't exactly answer the question.
"In the middle of nowhere, actually." He says.
"Great," I say, sarcastically. I put my feet on the floor and the guy gets up and puts his phone in his front pocket.
"Come with me," He says, and reaches for my hand.
"I don't even know you, why would I come with you?" I say, not letting him touch me.
"Okay, look, I'm Griffin and this is a very old town. It might seem small but you'll never find what you're looking for without some help." He says, offering his hand.
I sigh. I don't think I can get out of this town alone and I don't even know how I got here. Maybe he can help, he is kinda cute and I wouldn't mind going with a kinda cute stranger so I grab his hand and say, "Okay, fine. I need to go home so how can I sneak out of this place?"
"I know just the place," He says, pulling on my hand and I follow.
Two hours earlier:
"Council present, silence!" The chief says, raising his voice. "You may sit down." He sits down and everyone joins him. "The problem is that one of our wolves attacked a girl last night and we need to figure out what to do with it. She must be a part of our clan now because I'm sure she'll change. This is a bad thing for our community because if she leaves this town, she'll tell everyone. So she must stay here. But for right now, bring out the wolf that bit her."
A man comes out with a sad look on his face.
The chief says, "Why did you attack the girl in the woods?"
"U-um, it looked like she was running away from something and it was in the middle of the night and, I-I don't know. It just happened to where I was there, looking-"
"Speak, child. It's a very simple question. Please answer as simple as you can." The chief looks annoyed and he leans back in his chair.
"She was already bleeding a-and I guess, it lured me in?" He says, shrinking his shoulders and looking down.
"Boy, we are not vampires. We have to learn to control ourselves. This is ridiculous, don't do it again or you'll either be banned or put in the cage."
Everyone murmured, looking around, scared.
He quickly looks up at the chief and shudders. "Yes, sir. I won't do it again."
"Good, we got this settled so case dismissed. Someone check up on the girl," the chief says, banging the gravel.
We are walking on the side of the road and I'm scanning the area with my eyes. I've never been here before in my life. Everything seems old, the houses are cute little cottages with flowers in the windowsill. Everything looks small but it's cute. The houses look like it could be a studio, maybe one-two rooms. I look down and he's still holding my hand from when he offered it back at the hospital. I mean, I wouldn't call it a hospital but it looked like where they took the sick.
"Griffin!" Someone yells from behind them. Griffin quickly lets go of my hand and turns around.
"Where are you guys going?" A middle-aged woman says, walking up. Her face looks concerned.
"Oh hey, Willow," Griffin says, "We're just headed to the river, the one by Ember's house."
"Ok, just know she can't leave," she says, eyeing me. "I'm sure that's where you're headed."
"No, of course n-" Griffin starts.
"Ok, honey, I'm just saying. Why don't we head back up to the main town, we can do the river some other day."
"Oh ok, yeah for sure. Come on, Aspen," he grabbed her arm and pulls her back towards where they came from. I smile at the lady as I'm getting pulled away from her. She genuinely smiles back at me.
We end up back at the town and when I look at Griffin, he's mad and he looks fuming. He thankfully let go of my arm after that whole thing with the lady. He really pulled hard on my arm, so now that he let go, I can rub it.
A teenage girl walks up and says, "Hi, I'm Ember, welcome to Darolf, it's been awhile since a new person visits this town. And oh," she turns to Griffin, "the Chief wants to see her, fyi."
"Oh ok, right now?" he asks her.
"Yeah, right now. It was nice meeting you!" she says, giving me a big smile, then turning around to skip down the road.
When we walk into the town hall, it looks normal from the outside. Once I go in, everything changes. The walls are almost black with crown molding and wall trim. Big portraits hung down in the never-ending hallway. There was a red fancy carpet going down the hall and the stairs. It looked very cool and fantastical.
Guards by the door ushered me inside and shut the doors behind me. These guards didn't look the part but they did look serious and firm. They were wearing worn-down boots and baggy black pants with pockets on the sides. All of the guards had messy hair with no hats. Each carried a firearm, whether it was a shotgun or a handgun.
At the very end of the large room, was a big chair that looked like a throne chair. Inside sat a very serene man. He was an older guy but he was unmistakely handsome. His hair was very clean and cut, in a fancy but simple hairstyle. He has scruff on his face but it looks good.
"Hello, girl, what's your name?" He says, looking at me.
"Aspen," says Griffin, quickly.
"I asked the girl." he says plainly.
"Sorry."
I cleared my throat. "My name is Aspen Corral."
"Nice, nice," he smiles at me. "Why don't you come closer, Aspen. Just the girl."
I walk forward and stands at the bottom of the stairs, that's when I could see him better because I was more closer.
"Do you know why you're here?" he says, looking genuine.
"No, I don't even know how I got here." I say.
"Do you remember anything from last night?"
"No, I don't. I'm sorry, sir."
He chuckles. "It's okay, Aspen. I'm just trying to see if there's anything I can do. Like maybe send you home but you don't seem to remember. And please, call me Zev."
"I don't even remember what I was doing last night before the 'accident'." I say, using air quotes.
"Is that what they told you?" He asks, looking concerned.
"Yeah, just some accident but they won't expand on it. Do you know what happened?"
"Well, a wolf attacked you. And bit you. Actually two wolves did, someone from our town heard your screams and rescued you." He said, then he started to rub his eyes.
"Do you know who saved me?" I say, hopeful. Maybe I can say thank you to this person.
He stops rubbing his eyes to look at me. He must see the hope in my eyes because he says, "Oh, I'm sorry, we don't know who it is yet. They haven't come out of the light yet, but we will find out and we will reward him."
"Thank you," I say, still hopeful, "that means a lot to me."
"Of course, but the real reason I brought you here is to discuss something." He scoots to the edge of his chair. "While you were sleeping, you called out a name. This name - this person," he said, slowing down his words to over-pronunciation his words. "is very important to us and we think you can help us find her. So I'm asking if you can please help us while you are recovering. Once you find out who you are and where you live, you can go home. But for now, no one knows who you are so maybe you can help us in return for food and bedding."
"Oh ok, I can try. What is her name?" I say, unsure of how I'm going to find this mystery person.
"Her name is Raven."
