Skipping Stones

Yellow. The most calming color when it radiates from the sun, and the most frightening when you have to see it in another’s gaze.

What a truth that is.

His eyes were locked onto mine, daring me to strike. No, he wasn’t even daring me. It was a full-on invitation.

Full of yellow.

“Attack me. Pin me to the ground. Dischevel me so that nobody will be able to tell that I was once a wolf.”

How could someone be so chillingly domineering and yet so desperate to know death?

I couldn’t tell you.

What I could tell you was this: I was trudging my way closer to the horrific act that was murder. And no one was there to stop me in my tracks.

Only to encourage.

The gray wolf’s face was demanding my capabilities more and more the longer that I held back. I had never harmed another creature before, let alone one of my own kind. In all honesty, I was still a pup.

Barely. But I was.

If this wolf could force me into, well... Doing away with him, what would that make him? A murderer? No, I don’t think it would work that way. A bystander? Not in the least. Could he even be blamed, in the end? Who would be the one in the wrong?

The answer crossed its legs in front of me. It took a seat. I didn’t need to say it out loud. I didn’t even need to think it.

And yet here I was, trapped. By undergrowth. The bushes at my back strived to drive me back toward him, but my forepaws restrained their endeavors. They shook with determination.

All in all, though, it didn’t matter. He was gaining, stepping closer… Closer, so as to… Set my teeth in his neck? I couldn’t know.

But I knew, here, that I had no choice. I had to do it.

I had to kill.

So, I began. Do not think that I took just a few seconds to decide. I mean, I did. But, it wasn’t easy. This was the most difficult quick-thinking decision I’ve ever had to make. Probably the most difficult because it was the first one. I hear that it gets easier every time, though.

What a relief.

I threw my jaws at him, clamping them firmly around his muzzle, lashing my head one way and then the other in an effort to knock him unconscious, in an effort to get away before I did serious damage. But he would growl whenever I loosened my grip.

His eyes were burned into my head as I worked. Glaring, furious, mazes of memories concealed. They were tired, dragging bundles of anxieties behind them, strained from the effort.

They never left me.