Awakenings

Darkness surrounds him, an endless sea of oppressive nothingness that threatens to erase all sense of self. Twisting and turning he tries in vain to fight against that which cannot be fought, tries to hold on to himself. The harder he tries the farther he falls, the darkness pulling on his mind like quicksand, draining the very essence of self that is his soul. He is lost. As the last grains of awareness slip away like sand through his fingers he feels a change in the darkness. The presence of another, rushing like wind across the meadow on a summer’s day it surrounds him, envelops him, pushing back the darkness. He is aware. His mind flooded with images where before it was empty. Images of the sun in a clear blue sky, the moon hidden behind ragged bands of cloud, and the stars burning fiercely in the darkness, a man striding across a plain of sere grass under a leaden sky, a wolf by his side. The wolf turns its head bringing its golden eyed gaze upon him and the scene changes. It is him that walks now beside the wolf. Again the wolfs eyes meet his, and again the scene changes. Now he is the wolf, looking up into the golden eyes of the man.

He awakes with a jolt and knows pain. The pain floods over him completely, washing over him in waves of pure agony so intense that he has to force himself to breathe, bringing yet more pain. The pain is good, it means he’s alive. Struggling to sit up brings more pain but he must try, why he does not know, but he must try. Once upright he tries to turn his head to see about him and is greeted by more pain. It is twilight, dim shadows surround him while the sky burns in reds and pinks. His eyes struggle to adjust to the dimness and slowly he becomes aware of the carnage that surrounds him. Bodies lie everywhere the ground littered with twisted forms from a child’s worst nightmare come true, beasts with horns and beaks, muzzles and claws, hooves from goats and the boots of men. The stink overwhelms him and turns his head vomiting onto the bloody paving stones. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand he pulls himself to his feet and staggers forward only to trip and fall heavily on his hands, lifting his head he sees what caused his fall, and the sight before his eyes freezes him to the bone. A woman in a blue riding dress of once fine silk lay on her back, her golden hair fanning out around her head like a bloodstained halo. She was beautiful even in death. Memory stirs in his pain shrouded mind, he knows this woman, of that he is certain, but he cannot bring her name from the depths of his tortured mind. The harder he tries to remember the more the pain grows, threatening to pull him back into the darkness. Slowly he regains his feet, unable to pull his eyes from her face.

He stands looking down upon her until the light fails and he is surrounded again by darkness. He stands alone, one life in a sea of death, an island in an ocean of blood. How long he stood there he does not know nor does he care. An image slowly forms in his mind’s eye, an image of a man in a blood red cloak with eyes of fire looking down from a great height upon a lone wolf surrounded by a sea of darkness. He realizes that he is the wolf and the man death, he must find this man wrapped in fire and blood and destroy him. Tilting his head to the sky he sees the moon hidden behind ragged bands of cloud and raises his voice in a wordless howl of agony, grief, and hate. Other voices join his, the sound of them filling him with a sense of purpose, of comradeship. He is no longer alone. The image in his mind expands, there are now hundreds, thousands of wolves howling their rage and hatred. A sea of golden eyes locked upon eyes of fire.

Howl and image fade, leaving only the echo of both in his mind, as he looks again too the body lying at his feet. The man turns his head slowly away from her face to look around him one last time, committing the atrocity before him to memory, before picking his way through the carnage and walking slowly into the darkness of the night.