NOT A PROPHETIC DREAM-consider yourself warned.
I'm dreaming again. You know this and I know this. But am I in a prophetic dream?
I am running in a forest. I look down and check my hands, they are still hands so I guess I won't see my wolf.
Maybe the moon goddess realised that she showed me the wrong prophetic dream last night. Maybe last night's dream belonged to the golden eyes. Tonight's dream would be a proper pre-shifting prophetic dream.
Back to running in the forest. It's sort of evening time, but unlike evening time, the sky doesn't turn completely dark. It's like the sun got stuck on its way down, just at the last bit...
And then I realise that if this is a dream from the moon goddess, there should be a moon somewhere. I looked up and TADA! Behold the full moon.
So it wasn't evening time, the night sky just had a really bright moon.
I cannot figure out this forest. I'm running like I know where I'm going, but I've never been here before. I keep running and this dream doesn't seem to be moving its plot line.
I'm running in the forest. Still running in the forest. I notice that I'm not tired or perspiring and my feet doesn't get scratched up from running barefoot.
And just FYI I had clothes on. Pretty ordinary looking clothes that I hadn't notice the design of.
Back to the dream, I am running in the forest, yes, I'm still running. Am I running from something, or to something? Maybe I'm just going for a run in a forest at night just for casual exercise. I am running but no one is chasing me. I'm not chasing anything either. Should I be?
Okay, maybe in these dreams your mate is supposed to be chasing you, then you meet. But my mate is not chasing me. Maybe I should chase him down.
And then I saw a pool of water. I stopped running and hesitated. If I were in my wolf form, I would go look at wolf and tell you her fur and eye colour, but I'm in human form.
Maybe it means I'm mateless! OMG.
Maybe my mate will be in the pool. I mean, not his reflection, maybe my mate will be a merman, except I don't think mermen live in ponds in the forest.
Maybe my mate will be a fish... Or a salamander. Omo.
I walk over to the water, I mean it's either this or running in the forest again, right?
Suddenly my dream becomes a which way book. (Which I've read too many of before school started. I blame Savy for buying so many.)
Anyway, choose an option
1 Look into the water
2 Something crazy
You choose 1: look into the water.
As I approached the pool, I saw it was more of a lake than a pond. It was wide, as if it expanded with every step I took toward it.
I hesitated. Should I look into the water? I'm not sure what I would find there. I decide to look before I creep myself out.
I hope it's not a salamander. I don't know where that came from. I remembered Terrence. Oh, that's right. Just a human taunt. So no worries. The Moon Goddess wasn't going to give me a salamander for a mate.
I'm stalling, yes. I should really stop overthinking these things. Just look into the water and wake up.
I approach the still water. It is a very deep blue, almost black, darker than the moonlit sky. There were stars reflecting on it so it looked like a large shiny piece of sky on the floor.
I looked into the water and saw...Me. Just me, standing alone in the dark. My hair was long though, all the way down my back. My skin looked pale. I don't see the colour of anything in the dark. Everything dark coloured looked black, everything light coloured looked pale.
How the hell did those ladies see their wolf being tan or grey? Everything looked black, or dark, or pale to me.
Great. I'm dreaming in black and white. But if you want a description, then my hair is black and my eyes are black?
Definitely they are darker than my usual brown hair and eyes, but I am in the dark... So my usual hair and eye colours would have also been black in the dark... I am trying to figure this out when...I hear a growl from behind me.
I spin around realising that I am being watched by something in the shadows of the forest. Mate?
My heart starts hammering, the sound is from the forest, I take that as a good sign. It is not a merman, fish, or salamander. But I see nothing.
"Show yourself." I command.
Nothing.
I take a tentative step forward. And then another.
Still nothing.
Walking into the forest, I sniff but smell nothing because dreams have no smell, of course. And then I see it...
A dark sticky liquid on the ground, like footprints and small dark patches. Mud? The footprints lead away from the pool.
I step back and turn meaning to retreat quickly, afraid of what I might find if I follow them.
The scene is seriously freaking me out. It's just mud. I keep telling myself. A lot of mud. And then I see more mud, on a tree trunk this time. A large handprint in ah... Mud. It's mud. It's just mud.
But my breathing is quickened. Breathing that doesn't smell anything in a dream.
Another handprint and everything I learned in hunting and tracking lessons as a child tells me someone was here, and the someone was serverly injured... I mean, dirty, you know... covered with mud. And the someone had leaned on this tree and saw me at the pool.
I examine the mud on the tree, another large handprint. A man's hand for sure. But also probably a shoulder would have been pressed on this larger mud blotch and the rest of the trunk had sticky mud smeared on its bark where it had supported his weight.
It was a tall man. The shoulder blotch was at the height of my chin... and I'm considering that he couldn't have been standing upright given all the... Urm... Mud that he had been dripping. And at the foot of the tree where I stood, a puddle of mud, so I know that he had stopped here for quite a while.
By now, I've seen enough. I want to wake up. Moon Goddess you've messed up! This is a really bad pre-shift prophetic dream.
I want a redo. A proper one! Without blood-I mean mud everywhere.
One that I actually see a wolf. One that I can actually see the colours in. What a stupid dream.
I should've done something crazy...
Actually, let's rewind the dream and do just that:
You choose 2: Something crazy
At this point, I might as well do something crazy. It doesn't look like I'd be able to wake up anytime soon anyway.
I look around me at the quiet dark forest and try to think of the craziest thing possible.
Whatever it is, it won't be heading to the water, because that is just what the goddess would be expecting.
But everywhere else is forest, right? I've been running for ages and the forest doesn't seem to have a beginning or an end.
Am I alone in this dream? I try to sniff the air, but I already know there are no smells in this forest, not the smell of the dirt or pine... Which would have been pretty apparent. I mean, it's pine. And I'm surrounded by pine trees...
Which doesn't grow anywhere near the green packlands... Not in a whole forest anyway. So at least I know I'm not going to run into my pack town and see it burning to the ground.
I groan in frustration. I want to do something crazy, but I can't think of anything. I'm trying.
If this is a wattap story, I'd wish you could send me some ideas in the comments...but it's not. I don't even know why I'm thinking that.
If I keep running forwards, then I will be just running in the forest.
If I run backwards, then I would be still just running in the forest... For what I already know would be a long time.
I begin to see how option 1, Look into the water, might have been the better choice.
It really didn't seem like I had another. Either I keep running in the forest, or I look into the water. There isn't a crazy option in this dream.
No wonder it plays out similarly for everyone I hear it from.
Wait, but in that case, not that I've heard an exhaustive example of such dreams, but if the pattern holds true, since I'm in my human form, the most likely scenario is that I'm going to see my mate...in all his full glory.
He is just going to step out from behind me should I have gone to the lake. I look around... This would place him in the forest just behind those trees.
I know what crazy thing I will do. I won't go to the lake. There is no point in seeing my own reflection in human form. I will flank him from behind and step out from behind him.
Ha! Take that Moon Goddess. Never think that Sam Kingsley, future alpha of the Night Leaf Pack would just go along quietly with your cookie cutter dreams.
If my mate is in this dream, I am going to hunt him down if it's the last thing I do.
I don't care if there are no smells. I don't care if he remains completely still and silent in the forest. I have something no other wolf have.... A very lucky sense of direction.
Oh yes, and I also had deduced which area of the forest he is most likely to be situated for him to step out from behind me at the lakeside.
I head very stealthily into the forest where the undergrowth is denser. If my mate is in this dream. I will find him.
It didn't take me long. The area isn't large to search, and I didn't even have to search, my lucky sense of direction took me there immediately.
I stop and snap myself quickly against an adjacent tree, straining to see him without being seen.
Leaning heavily in the shadow of a tree... His breathing is shallow. I could only make out his silhouette. He is tall and broad and muscled, it was not the body of a young teen. He is older than me, if his height and shoulders was anything to go by.
He hasn't seen me, he hasn't even looked up. He looks like he is concentrating, just on keeping his breathing quiet. Is he hiding? Why is he hiding?
Okay, I'm supposed to step up from behind him right? Good. But his back is facing the other side so I'll need to sneak around more trees first.
As I sneak nearer, I can hear his breathing, it is almost shaky. His heart is steady, but his breathing, I held my breath to listen, it is almost laboured as if he is holding back... What is he holding back from?
If I didn't know any better, I'd have thought he was crying. Silently, as if afraid to be found out.
Goddess, my mate is a crybaby. Okay no, I don't know that for sure. He could also be breathing in great pain because you know, being in a perfectly still forest by yourself can hurt you if you accidentally trip or get a splinter.
I'm being sacarstic, he's like, really unlikely to be hurt.
I creep closer. Seriously, if this dream had smells, it would have been impossible for me to have come so near undetected. But so far, it's been fun.
I realise I quite like hunting down my mate. I've always been pretty good at track and hunt simulations.
When I got close enough, I step out from behind him, I grin widely at my win, "Grrr..."
Checkmate! (OMG I made a good pun. Bet you didn't expect that goddess!")
But the grin is wiped off the moment he turns to face me. You know the darkness covering half his face, his whole back and the larger part of the rest of his body? It wasn't a shadow.
Some of it might have been shadow, he is still leaning in the tree, but most of it is dark wet liquid.
I look at his face. He grimaces when his back hit the rough bark. Half his face is covered with blood from a head wound, but it is blocked by a thick lock of curls.
His hair is black and glossy, swathed in darkness and moonlight. And his eyes... Golden eyes.
He turns his face away, as if he doesn't want to see me. Why? Was he unhappy to meet me?
If he dares reject me in my own prophetic dream, I will kill him.
He seems quite at the brink of death as it is, being only kept somewhat upright by the tree he is leaning against.
Wait, Goddess, you are going to show me my mate dying? So cruel...
I'm sorry if I disrespected you. I was just joking. I'm sorry I didn't play along with the typical development of your prophetic dream. I am crying now. Please don't kill my mate because of me.
"I won't die from this." He speaks through gritted teeth. His voice is deep and rumbly just like in the dream I had yesterday, like a distant thunder rolling out the words, so softly I have to strain my ears to make out the words, "So don't cry."
And then I woke up, my face wet with tears. Who's the crybaby now?
My alarm rang the start of a new day. I shut it off and wiped my face with the palm of both hands. Stupid dream.
Yeah, that's exactly what it was.
Come on, you can't believe that was a real prophetic dream, can you?
It was probably just the mashup of all the loose thoughts I left floating in my head before I fell asleep!
I mean salamanders and golden eyes and running in evergreen forests... It's just my subconscious at work while I slept.
And I'm pretty sure prophetic dreams did not come in which-way editions.
I did warn you from the start. This wasn't a prophetic dream. So there.
Don't argue with me.