Deep Scarlet Secret

When my eyes opened again, I was familiar with where I was. It was a dream, that occurred every once and a while. And as dreams have always been, they’ve seemed real and logical. Even when it really wasn’t.

The forest, the one that Sorcha and Garnet dumped me at, lay surrounding me. My eye level was now about four feet above the ground. My body had changed. My hair was extraordinarily longer and darker, providing me much warmth. My hands and feet were padded and roughened by sprinting after small animals. In these dreams, I took the form of a wolf.

This one was no different from the last. I darted in any direction that pleased me, and tonight it was west. The quiet was once again a thrashing noise ringing in my ears. Small animal squeaks and the hoot of an owl. Leaves crumpling and sticks snapping. The sound of the sweet stream that flowed was starting to hush Silence himself and let Calm reign over.

I was rushing so fast, that when I made an immediate stop, my hind legs threw over my front ones and my body toppled into the water. I barked because it was the only thing I could think at the time to do. Scurrying up the other side, I sat for a moment, letting the noise soothe my frigidness.

“We are not sisters,” the stream spoke. “We are cousins.” Should I not be annoyed? Cousins are practically equivalent; however… it was a painful thought. To be lied to your entire life about your own family. Which brought me to the idea, was the woman I called mother even mine? Or was she Sorcha’s?

My snout before me turned to the stars, barely visible behind the tree tops. “Mom, where did you go? North, with the others? Are you still alive?” I murmured, flashbacks of a town ablaze forming in my mind.

I began to growl and jumped into the water, rolling in it so I was soaked, and hopped into the dirt and leaves and sticks. I bit at my own arm and scratched so violently at my own ears that I bled. I wanted to kill and defile the wolf of my dream. It was part of a vile and disgusting race that relied on loyalty and trust, of humans no less. They claimed they wanted no war and called us the same as them. We were far from the same.

A splash had quit my own gnawing and destruction of my wolf self, and I glanced to see another wolf across the stream. “Ticks? Fleas? There’s treatment for that…” A male voice came from it, and he chuckled at the sight. My face slanted inwards and I bared my teeth.

“Oh shut up,” I snarled at him, “you pompous shit.” He was one of them, one of the ones who believed that vampires were a weak, unintelligent, and sinful species, making them hypocrites. They were the pathetic, idiotic, and evil ones.

He straightened his posture (as much as a wolf can), and sat with his head held high. Large amber eyes were all that could be seen in his black fur, and a small white tuft underneath his neck. “Well then, you’re one of them. One of the Stones, no doubt,” he spoke unimpressed, and it only made me want to rip his throat out even more.

Yet, I had no clue what he meant by ‘Stones’. “Fuck off,” I tried to sound polite.

“Make me,” he replied, and by now, I was not in the mood. I squinted at him as he slapped his paw in the water, splashing water and mud straight into my eyes. I howled and began to chase him, inner vampire ignorance taking over.

We dashed through the woods, terrifying all the little critters into hiding. We weaved in between trees and shrub and hopped over logs in the like. A growl grew in the depths of my throat, vibrating me. I began to bark and sprint faster, only for his bushy tail in front of me to leave hair in my eyes.

I decided it was now or never, so I pounced and latched on to him with my fangs, pulling him down with me. Blood danced sweetly on my tongue; yet the taste was foul, considering it was a werewolf’s. We circled each other, and I knew that finally, I had pissed him off. Finally, he was done with running.

I threw a paw at him, claws out and as sharp as I could make them. It collided with his cheek, scratching him as I brought it down. All I could think was to kill. Even if it was just a dream. Even if he wasn’t real. Even if I was scratching at a figment of my imagination.

After this, he lunged at me, gnawing on my skin as if I were the pray this time. He grappled my neck and forced me to the ground and holding me there, a sharp single claw at one of the most important arteries in my body. I whimpered. I wished that I woke up. I wish that I was in my normal body again. I wish I didn’t have to wait and live with the thought that a monster killed me in my dreams.

And then he stopped. He lifted his paw and began to skulk away. “It’s not worth it,” he mumbled and sighed, his tail swaying in the wind as he left me.

I huffed and attempted to stand up, but he had taken a large chunk out of my energy and my leg. I collapsed back into the leaves and dirt and closed my eyes out of tire. I wasn’t used to chasing and fighting in my dreams, I guess.

Upon opening my eyes again, the smell of werewolves filled my nostrils again, as they did my sight. Three of them before me, all in their human forms, in the basement of the school again. One was the janitor from sunrise and the other two were an elder woman and a young boy, probably a senior at the same high school.

“I am the principal of this school, and it is my duty to protect my students. So help me god, if you ever come near this school again, we will slaughter you without mercy,” the elder woman hissed. “And if you do in fact cause any trouble again in this entire town, we will find you, and we will destroy you in what will feel like slow motion to you.” Her words may have been provoking and scary, but they were so empty and see through that I didn’t have to struggle to stay completely calm. As they ‘escorted’ me out of the school, with the sun already set, I had no clue where I would go next. I simply knew I wasn’t staying here with the wolves.