*

  In moonlit silence, shadows creep, Wolves emerge from darkness deep. A battle rages, fierce and wild, As pain and blood begin to pile. The silver wolf, with eyes of blue, Fights to save, to see it through. A bond unspoken, strong and true, In the night, a promise new.

  *

  ---

  The fire had dwindled to a faint, flickering glow by the time I woke. I stirred under the weight of the night’s chill, my burned face still raw as ever. Sitting up, I reached for the ashes of the fire, brushing my hand through the cooling embers.

  With a few well-pced sticks and a strike of my st matchstick, I coaxed the fmes back to life. The fire sputtered weakly at first but then caught, fring up into a warm, golden glow. I poked at it idly with a stick, my thoughts wandering.

  "What the hell am I doing here?" I muttered, my voice rasping against the thick silence. "What’s the point of surviving if it’s just this... every day?"

  The words hung in the air, unanswered, like all the other questions that had been gnawing at me for years. Loneliness had a way of making you talk to yourself, filling the void where conversation used to live. My mind drifted to the silver wolf, its beautiful blue eyes, the way it had looked at me, listened to me. My fingers slipped into my pocket, brushing against the tuft of fur I’d tucked away.

  I pulled it out and held it up to the firelight. The strands glimmered, silver as moonlight, soft against my calloused skin. For a moment, I imagined what it might be like to have a companion, even if it was just a wild animal.

  "Not like it’d stay," I whispered to the fire, my voice cracking. "Nothing does."

  The fmes crackled in response, sparks flying into the night.

  I leaned back against the rough bark of the tree sheltering me and gazed upward. The full moon hung heavy in the sky, its pale light washing over the forest. It was beautiful, but also haunting, casting long shadows that danced with the firelight. Something about it made my chest ache.

  For a moment, I felt... small. Like the forest could swallow me whole and no one would notice.

  The sound of snapping branches shattered my thoughts.

  My heart leapt into my throat. I froze, every muscle in my body tensing as I stared into the darkness beyond the firelight. The forest was alive with sound now rustling leaves, the crunch of footsteps on deadfall. Something was out there.

  I grabbed the nearest stick, gripping it tight like it was a weapon, though I knew it’d do little against anything rger than a raccoon. My breath came shallow and quick as the noises grew louder, closer.

  Then they appeared.

  Four wolves emerged from the shadows, their eyes glowing faintly in the moonlight. They weren’t as rge as the silver one, but they were still massive too big to be ordinary wolves. Their fur gleamed in varying shades of gray and brown, rippling over powerful muscles as they moved with predatory grace.

  In the middle of the group was a bck wolf, rger than the rest, its presence commanding. Its golden eyes locked onto me, then to the tuft of fur and I felt a chill crawl down my spine.

  “Shit,” I whispered, my voice barely audible.

  The bck wolf growled low, the sound vibrating through the air like a warning. The other wolves spread out, circling the edges of the firelight. My grip on the stick tightened until my knuckles turned white.

  “What do you want?” I whispered, as if they could understand me.

  The bck wolf didn’t hesitate. It lunged.

  Its massive body smmed into me, knocking me to the ground with a force that drove the air from my lungs. I screamed a raw, guttural sound as its teeth sank into my left shoulder. The pain was blinding, a white-hot explosion that radiated down my arm and into my chest.

  I thrashed beneath the wolf, my free hand scrabbling against its thick fur, trying to push it off, but it was too strong. Its jaws cmped down harder, tearing into flesh. Warm blood spilled over my skin, soaking my shirt and pooling beneath me.

  "Get off!" I gasped, panic rising like a tidal wave. My vision blurred with tears, the world spinning as I struggled against the crushing weight. But I was too weak. The wolf was too heavy, its strength overwhelming.

  The edges of my consciousness began to fray. The thought crept into my mind, cold and merciless: This is how I die.

  The world seemed to slow. The fire crackled faintly in the distance, the moonlight casting the scene in stark contrast. I stopped fighting, my muscles going sck as I waited for the end.

  But it never came.

  Then, out of nowhere, a silver blur barreled into the bck wolf, knocking it off me with a feral snarl.

  I y there, gasping for air, my hands trembling as I pressed them to the wound on my shoulder. Blood seeped through my fingers, warm and sticky. My vision swam, but I managed to lift my head enough to see what was happening.

  The silver wolf was back.

  It stood between me and the bck wolf, its sleek body bristling with tension. Its lips were pulled back in a snarl, sharp teeth gleaming in the firelight. The bck wolf growled in response, its golden eyes burning with rage, but the silver wolf didn’t back down.

  They cshed.

  The sound of snarls and snapping jaws filled the air as the two wolves tore into each other. Fur flew in tufts, and the firelight glinted off blood-slicked fur. I couldn’t tell who was winning my vision was too blurred, my head too foggy from blood loss.

  At some point in time another wolf joined the fray, this one even rger than the silver wolf. Its fur was a dark gray, almost bck, and its presence was terrifying. Without hesitation, it lunged at the other three wolves, its powerful jaws snapping with lethal precision.

  The battle was chaos a blur of motion, sound, and violence. I couldn’t keep track of who was who, couldn’t make sense of what was happening. All I could do was lie there, my body trembling as blood continued to seep from my shoulder.

  The silver wolf’s howl cut through the night, sharp and piercing, like a bde slicing through the chaos.

  The gray wolf killed the st of the smaller wolves with brutal efficiency, its jaws crushing throats and breaking bones. The bck wolf, wounded and outnumbered, let out a frustrated snarl before retreating into the shadows, disappearing as quickly as it had appeared.

  Silence fell over the clearing, broken only by the crackling of the fire and my own ragged breathing.

  I turned my head, my vision swimming as I tried to focus on the silver wolf. It stood a few feet away, its body bloodied and battered, but still standing strong. Its eyes met mine, that same beautiful blue piercing, and strangely... comforting.

  The moonlight bathed it in an ethereal glow, highlighting the sleek curve of its body, the intelligence in its gaze. For a moment, everything else faded the pain, the fear, the chaos and all I could see was the wolf.

  I wanted to speak, to thank it, to say something, but the words wouldn’t come. My mouth was dry, my throat raw.

  The world tilted, the edges of my vision darkening. My body felt heavy, my limbs like lead.

  The st thing I saw before I lost consciousness was the silver wolf, its eyes burning into mine like twin fmes, a silent promise in their depths.

  Queen