Cassandra
The gunshot echoed in my head, rattling my mind.
"Why are you defending this monster?"
"She's not a monster."
A wolf at my feet. Blood pooling.
"Wolves are the beasts of the damned, composed of pure evil."
A second gunshot. A flower of red, blooming in my chest.
"I don't want to believe it. I won't believe it!"
A brilliant light, a blinding pain. The winds howled and howled, and through the storm of it all, I heard the whispers of a wolf, singing along with the madness.
"My dear, how you have suffered."
Brighter, brighter.
"Your sacrifice shall not be in vain."
Brighter! Brighter!
My eyes flew open, and I sucked in a lungful of air as my heart pounded in my head. Early rays of sun filtered through the trees, settling on and illumination the woods around me. Birds chirped. Water ran. Everything was at peace.
Where was I?
All at once, last night's memories came flooding back. Peter. He— He shot me! The realization brought a bitter taste into my mouth. Peter, my friend, my crush and desire, had shot me. The pang of betrayal following that thought shortly after shook me to my core. I trusted him. I trusted that if I threw myself in front of the barrel, he wouldn't shoot. But he shot. And then—
I gasped. Lune. What happened to Lune?
I made a move to leap to my feet and search for my friend, but to my surprise and horror, I had none. Stupefied, I sat back and stared at the paws that had replaced my feet… and hands. Paws. Like the ones dogs had—the ones wolves had.
"Okay," I said to myself. "This is fine. This is perfectly okay." Slowly and unsteadily, I got to my… paws. I wobbled, standing on all four legs. My legs shook, but they felt stronger, lighter. And in a way, it made sense. As a human, all my weight was placed on only two limbs, but now I had four. I shifted from one side to another. I could run. Faster.
I moved one front leg forward placing it delicately on the ground as if, despite my earlier observations, it would shatter instantly upon impact. It didn't, of course, and I brought a hind leg forward. Then I moved my second front leg, and then my second hind leg. Front leg, hind leg, front leg, hind leg. The pattern continued as such until I had moved about fifty feet away from my starting point. I giggled to myself. I had just walked.
With the ability of movement now remastered, I scanned my surroundings. The sunlight was brighter and the sounds were sharper. Not only had I adopted the body of the wolf, but it seemed I had the senses too. I looked up at the sky and squinted my eyes. This would take some getting used to. Swiveling my ears, I picked up every scuffle, every gnaw, every squeak, but I honed in on the rushing current instead. Instinct told me to start there and then begin the search for Lune. I inhaled before ambling towards the sound. Front leg, hind leg, front leg, hind leg. Walking was a tedious task. The amount of effort and thought I had to put into each step forward was foreign, strange, and moderately frustrating.
I paused at the edge of the creek, my destination, and peered into the water. Instead of my face—a human face—I saw the sharp features of a canine: pointed ears, narrow eyes, a slender muzzle. I sighed. I really was one of them. Leaning further down towards the water, I studied myself more closely. My coat was white with blotches of auburn streaked through it like paint that had been smudged on a canvas. And my eyes. They were two different colors. One eye had taken up my own muted shade of green, but the other… The other had taken up a vibrant blue—cerulean. Just like Lune's eyes.
A nasty feeling of unease curled in my gut. Yesterday, we had both been shot, and now Lune was missing, and I was a wolf adorned with her features. Was is possible that Lune could be—
A dog appeared in my reflection beside me.
"Hello!"
Startled, I yelped with a small jump, orienting my body to face the stranger. But once I took a second glance at my new company, a smile lit up my face. "Lune," I said. "I'm so glad you're okay."
The grin on the wolf's face faltered, withering away. "I'm not Lune," she said.
I took a third look at the wolf and felt my own giddiness die. Indeed, though she looked similar to Lune, this wolf was not her. She was smaller, about half a head shorter than Lune had been, and her fur was slightly more frizzy and puffed up like sheep's wool. Her eyes as well. They were blue, but a paler shade, matching the sky more than Lune's vibrant cerulean.
The wolf circled me, touching her nose to my fur. "I've never seen you before," she said, returning to my front. "Who are you?"
"I ought to be asking you the same thing," I said, taking an uncertain step back. As bouncy and peppy as this wolf was, it might have been a facade to lure me into a false sense of security.
"Me? I'm Arabella." The wolf started circling me again. "You aren't from our pack or are you? I thought I knew everyone, but I guess not."
"Your pack?" Was this one of Lune's family?
"Or are you one of the wolves that went rogue a while back?" Arabella suddenly squeaked, her tail wagging. "Or maybe you're like me, except not part of the pack," she said. "A wolfborn of the rogues. Wait until Alpha hears of this!"
"Rogues? Wolfborn? What are you talking about?"
Arabella stopped and her tail stilled. "You're not one of us at all, are you?"
I shook my head. "Just last night, I was a human, and now I'm"—I looked down at my furry chest—"this."
"So you… know what it's like to be human?"
"I do."
"Is it as wonderful as the elders say it is?"
I opened my mouth to respond, but paused. I had been human for all of my life. What did I have it to compare with? My new wolf form? It was clunky and unnatural, but it was new to me, and I hadn't even been in this body for a day. How could I compare? "I—"
"Wait," Arabella interrupted. "You called me Lune. You know who Lune is?"
I nodded. "She's my friend, and she looks awfully similar to you."
"You've met Lune, and you've been human." She started running along the creek. "You need to meet the Alpha."
Repeating the walking leg pattern in my head, I attempted to match Arabella's trot, but ended up stumbling over an off beat limb of mine. The wolf took notice of this and slowed herself down, falling back to my side.
She tilted her head and her ears flopped to her side. "You weren't kidding when you said you were human just last night," she said.
"Yeah," I sighed. "You wouldn't happen to have any instructions on how to wolf, would you?"
Arabella laughed and shook her head. "You're funny. Who needs instructions on how to live?" She ran a little bit ahead and turned back to face me. "Just take it one step at a time," she called.
"One step at a time. Easy for you to say," I muttered. "You've been running with four legs all your life." Still, I heeded my new companion's directions, placing one paw in front of the other, ignoring the urge to repeat front leg, hind leg indefinitely in my mind. I caught up to her soon enough.
"Okay," she said. "Do the exact same thing, but now run." Then Arabella took off sprinting into the woods.
"Alright," I breathed to myself, "I can do this." I imagined how my brothers would run in the yard, on their hands and feet, bounding forward in a two step rhythm. They moved with speed then, so I didn't see any harm in mimicking them now. Front legs, hind legs. As a human, it felt awkward, but as a wolf, it felt downright stupid. I glanced up. Arabella waited patiently just beyond the trees. Shaking myself out, I planted my paws firmly on the ground. "I am strong, and I am fast. I will run, and it will be easy."
Then I flung my limbs forward, without hesitating, without thinking. Within moments, they began to move on their own accord, taking up their own rhythm. I did it! I was running!
"Yes, yes," Arabella cheered, and once I had caught up to her, she matched my pace and took the lead.
With the wind coursing through my fur and paws drumming against the earth, I felt a fresh feeling of excitement and wonder. It was as Arabella had put it: I felt alive. I wove in and out of the trees, leapt over logs, and ran through streams. I chose the path I wanted. If I wanted to run uphill, I ran uphill. If I wanted to run downhill, I ran downhill. Nobody told me which part of the land I had to run on, and nobody told me which part of the land I couldn't run on. I was free.
Arabella slowed as we approached a gorge. I glanced over the edge, taking in the view. Sheltered pockets carpeted with moss lined the rock walls and from up here, it looked like a large block of swiss cheese. Wolves of all shapes and colors drifted and mingled at the bottom of the gorge, a scene from a fairytale. Oh Gods, there were so many beautiful wolves.
"And who is this that you've brought?"
My attention snapped back to Arabella, and I saw another wolf standing guard at the camp's entrance.
"I don't know," Arabella replied. "I was hoping you might have known, Yvette."
The wolf, Yvette, fixed me with a skeptical look. She held herself up with a silent pride, one that seemed well earned. To be posted as the entrance guard, one must be trusted by the Alpha, I presumed. Her yellow coat bristled, almost unnoticeably, as her scrutinizing gaze traveled across me. When she was finished, Yvette glanced back at Arabella. "You're taking her to the Alpha, right?"
"Of course," she said. "I wouldn't allow any stranger to walk among our ranks unless the Alpha deemed it acceptable. Not that there's many strangers out in these woods, anyways. She—" Arabella frowned abruptly and looked at me. "I didn't actually ask what your name was."
"I'm Cassandra."
"Cassandra," she continued, "is the first one."
"The first doesn't mean the last," Yvette said. "Carry on, Arabella."
Arabella nudged me forward with an encouraging nod, and I stared down the slope leading to the bottom of the gorge. Though I had my back turned to her, I still felt Yvette's gaze locked on me, and the uncomfortable feeling of being watched only increased. As I walked, I gained the attention of more and more curious eyes. I met each and every single one of their stares with my own confident one, but pressed close to Arabella's flank anyways. I wanted to make a good first impression, but that didn't mean I had to be comfortable with it.
Up on a low ledge at the very end of the gorge, three wolves emerged from a cave one by one. The first wolf was large and toned, his light grey coat rippling overtop his muscles. A mask of black fur covered his face giving him an intimidating and authoritative appearance. The second wolf was female, but she was just as well built as the first. Her fur wasn't white, but it wasn't grey either—silver like the reflection of a coin in the sunlight. The third wolf met my gaze almost immediately after leaving the den. He was smaller than the other two wolves, fur a dark and deep slate grey. Confusion flickered across his face for a moment, but then he turned his gaze away from me, stepping up to join the other two wolves on the rock with him.
"If you hadn't noticed," he said to them and simultaneously, the whole pack, "we have a newcomer."