07-10-2017, 07:47 AM
In the black calm of sleep, a snapping twig awakens Crevan.
At first he can only blink his eyes slowly. It’s the sort of sluggish start one would expect from a deep slumber - his vision adjusting to the dimness of this new world first, followed by the lethargic flicker of a dry tongue over even more dry lips. His mouth tastes bad. The mind is the final thing to snap into any sense of awareness, as if it was reluctant to allow reality to settle over the yearling’s senses. Once it does, Crevan understands why.
There is nothing here and yet, there is everything here.
He’s breathing; a good sign if anything because at first he thinks that he’s died. It’s the only explanation he can manage while he struggles to rise with hooves made of lead. <i>“If I were dead,”</i> The flaxen-colored horse reasons to himself, <i>“then I doubt I would feel as if I were being crushed by a fucking tree.”</i>
A logical sort of conclusion.
But it <i>does</i> feel heavy here. The act of remaining in one place begins to wear on the colt’s strength so he takes a step forward, and then another, and then another - pushing his way through invisible molasses while each precious inhale reminds him of drinking mud. <i>“So I’m not dead.”</i> He finalizes, perhaps needing to convince himself because now that everything else inside of him has awoken there’s one final thing that has yet to sink in:
Fear.
The last of all the things he could feel and what should’ve been the first; Fear drapes across his shoulders and blankets the rest of him like a demon lover. It sinks into the young boy’s heart and sends it racing with the exhilaration of near-death, descending with iron finality over his mind where it leaves the seed of terror to sprout. Crevan is trembling with fear when he reaches out to touch the bark of a muted brown tree, trailing his lips over a spot he’d burnt into the wood when he’d been traveling home with his mother and twin.
Another twig snaps.
He jerks his head around, still cemented in place by the unseen hand of fright while his eyes dart from shadow to shadow. (When you seek out the source of your panic is it because you <i>truly</i> wish to find it? Or is it because you need validation that it doesn’t exist?)
What Crevan finds is that distance, darkness, <i>the idea that he’d been alone here</i>, are all suddenly more complicated now. Those heavy gulps of air are coming in short, labored gasps and his gaze is flying wildly in circles when - <i>suddenly</i> - the quiver of something <i>orange</i> skitters in and out of view. Crevan feels that he’s nearing a state of hysteria with the way his blood is pounding in his ears, and <i>oh god</i> the darkness is <i>pressing in on all sides around him, suffocating him,</i>
But,
His mind goes blank.
All he can remember is the crooning of another voice, far away, while it sings, <i>“Don’t be afraid when the night wolves cryyyy …. Feast on their bonessss, suck the marrooow dryyyy…”</i>
Where do wolves go, when the night grows too dark?
The redhot blood in his veins surges with a jolt of adrenaline and Crevan shifts, seamlessly, into a <i>beast</i> of an animal. An ivory and sandalwood wolf, who streaks away down a twisted path in an ever-darkening wood. The last thing you could possibly see of him is the dull glint of an off-white tail as it succumbs to the inky night, while the crackling mountain is left to its own devices far behind him.
At first he can only blink his eyes slowly. It’s the sort of sluggish start one would expect from a deep slumber - his vision adjusting to the dimness of this new world first, followed by the lethargic flicker of a dry tongue over even more dry lips. His mouth tastes bad. The mind is the final thing to snap into any sense of awareness, as if it was reluctant to allow reality to settle over the yearling’s senses. Once it does, Crevan understands why.
There is nothing here and yet, there is everything here.
He’s breathing; a good sign if anything because at first he thinks that he’s died. It’s the only explanation he can manage while he struggles to rise with hooves made of lead. <i>“If I were dead,”</i> The flaxen-colored horse reasons to himself, <i>“then I doubt I would feel as if I were being crushed by a fucking tree.”</i>
A logical sort of conclusion.
But it <i>does</i> feel heavy here. The act of remaining in one place begins to wear on the colt’s strength so he takes a step forward, and then another, and then another - pushing his way through invisible molasses while each precious inhale reminds him of drinking mud. <i>“So I’m not dead.”</i> He finalizes, perhaps needing to convince himself because now that everything else inside of him has awoken there’s one final thing that has yet to sink in:
Fear.
The last of all the things he could feel and what should’ve been the first; Fear drapes across his shoulders and blankets the rest of him like a demon lover. It sinks into the young boy’s heart and sends it racing with the exhilaration of near-death, descending with iron finality over his mind where it leaves the seed of terror to sprout. Crevan is trembling with fear when he reaches out to touch the bark of a muted brown tree, trailing his lips over a spot he’d burnt into the wood when he’d been traveling home with his mother and twin.
Another twig snaps.
He jerks his head around, still cemented in place by the unseen hand of fright while his eyes dart from shadow to shadow. (When you seek out the source of your panic is it because you <i>truly</i> wish to find it? Or is it because you need validation that it doesn’t exist?)
What Crevan finds is that distance, darkness, <i>the idea that he’d been alone here</i>, are all suddenly more complicated now. Those heavy gulps of air are coming in short, labored gasps and his gaze is flying wildly in circles when - <i>suddenly</i> - the quiver of something <i>orange</i> skitters in and out of view. Crevan feels that he’s nearing a state of hysteria with the way his blood is pounding in his ears, and <i>oh god</i> the darkness is <i>pressing in on all sides around him, suffocating him,</i>
But,
His mind goes blank.
All he can remember is the crooning of another voice, far away, while it sings, <i>“Don’t be afraid when the night wolves cryyyy …. Feast on their bonessss, suck the marrooow dryyyy…”</i>
Where do wolves go, when the night grows too dark?
The redhot blood in his veins surges with a jolt of adrenaline and Crevan shifts, seamlessly, into a <i>beast</i> of an animal. An ivory and sandalwood wolf, who streaks away down a twisted path in an ever-darkening wood. The last thing you could possibly see of him is the dull glint of an off-white tail as it succumbs to the inky night, while the crackling mountain is left to its own devices far behind him.