the road curved

The road curved, it wound, it curled around the mountain, overgrowth hanging into the street. It was a road not well traveled, alone and dark most of the time. Two lanes of highway, sometimes not even large enough for bypassing cars. No middle marker dividing the lane, nothing to distinguish one side from another. The sky was darkened, clouds hanging low over the road, pushing up against the mountains, soaking the flora with soft droplets of water.

 A lone wolf walked the concrete ground, the pads on the bottoms of his paws barely making a sound. She stops in the middle of the road, looking to each side, listening closely to the sounds of the surrounding forest. She’d been alone for a few days now, having strayed from her pack, leaving them. There were bite marks, scratch marks that trailed up the sides of her legs, open wounds the still bled freely, lightly, but freely. She was panting from running, the weight of her heavy winter coat slowing her down. She was so tired.

She shook her shaggy head, grays and whites shaking in the low clouds, her yellow eyes staring out into the distance before her. She looked behind her, in front of her, behind her again. And then she heard the howl, reverberating off the branches, the soil, the ground, the clouds. It was all around her. She took off running, her legs and her paws burning with pain, on fire as the blood seeped in between her toes, leaving scarlet paw prints in her wake. The howl came again, causing her to run faster down the increasingly dark path, not taking in where she was going, what direction she was going in.

She was afraid of that howl. She knew where it came from, who was making it. Her mind was racing so fast that she almost stumbled over a rock in the road, not having noticed it. She tried to keep from falling onto the cold concrete, but her paws gave way to the slipperiness of the path, and she fell. The momentum of the running caused her to roll furiously across the road. When she came to a stop, she just laid there, panting, hurting, angry. She tried to move, but her muscles screamed at her not to. She put her head back down onto the road, focusing on the light pitter patter as it came down on her snout, her eyelids.

Suddenly, the drops from the clouds ceased. She opened one eye, and her heart stopped. The sound of the howl had found her, in the shape a large brownish white wolf, teeth bared. He was so large, that at first, she thought he might have been a bear. But he was a different kind of enemy. His head loomed over her, blocking rain and fading sunlight alike. He looked down at her, lowering his snout to hers. He licked her cheek a couple of times, causing her to whimper. She tried to lift her own head, to move away from him, slowly putting weight on her exhausted feet. She trembled while he sat hunched back on his hinds, waiting, calculating, evaluating.

She tried to run from him, she tried to get away. But he caught up to her easily, alongside her damp winter coat, nudging her with his snout, bruised and bloody, like her legs. She growled, hackles raising, warning him to stay away from her, trying to turn into another direction. Wind swept up them both, blowing through their fur, rustling the leaves on the branches, leaves falling and flying within its grasp.

Clouds wisped around them, covering them, shielding them, though try as she might, every time she turned away, hiding behind the increasingly thick fog, he was constantly in front of her, facing her, wouldn’t let her turn away from him. He rubbed his head against the side of her neck, causing her to react defensively, snapping her jaws in his direction, almost catching his muzzle in her sharp teeth. He looked at her, eyes so dark brown, they appeared black. She growled ferociously, cautioning his actions, making sure he knew he shouldn’t get any closer.  

He moved to her side again, and just stood next to her, not touching her, not making any efforts to. She kept growling, snapping at him, breaking skin on his foreleg. He snapped back, startling her out of her focus. He shuttered as the pain swept through him again, releasing a small howl. His ears lay flat on against his head, the wound bleeding furiously, puddles of red pooling around his toes, her toes alike. He dipped on his knees, splashes coming out from the sides, wetting her fur. But he would not leave her, he would not attack her.

She looked at him, her anger dissipating, upset with herself for causing him pain. She moved closer to him, putting her muzzle under his own, understanding.