The Silent Haunt

There is a cool breeze blowing through the emerald leaves around me, and the lake before me is like ice to the touch.I can't help but shiver in my blindingly green, yet blue feeling surroundings. The sky above me is a cloudless blue and the sun appears to beat down on the earth, though I don't feel it. This is all I know. I don't remember anything before this. To the past, my mind is a blank. Given my surroundings, that scares me.

It would appear that civilisation is nowhere near, for as far as I can see, there is only green. The sole break in that endless green is the lake before me. I wonder how long the lake is, for it stretches out in front of me as far as my eye can see.

I just about jump out of my skin when I look down at myself. Not believing my eyes, I take another look, only to have the same sight as before greet me. That is all there is. Skin. I am unclothed, and though sight confirms this simple fact, I struggle to accept it. This is not me. I would never leave a room unclothed, let alone go out in public in this manner, which begs the question, where are my clothes? Why am I not wearing any clothes?

I stop dead at the sound, and feel my eyes grow wider as it comes again. I can only remember a few minutes, fifteen at most, before it is all blank, and in that time there has been nothing but complete and utter silence. Just when I start to think that maybe things will return to what seems to be normal now, the noise comes again, and the sound sends a chill down my spine, though I'm unsure quite why. It is the sound of wolves, howling.

The howls sound distant, and I imagine the wolves up high on a hill somewhere, for the sound of their cries seems to echo a few times over after the noise initially hits my ears. A few minutes later, I hear the howls again, only louder this time. The wolves are closer, and I feel myself tense.

Every few minutes, the cycle repeats itself. With each repeat of the cycle, the howls become louder as the wolves grow closer. As the proximity between myself and those wolves lessens, I switch to autopilot. My body takes over completely, and before I'm aware of what I' doing, I'm running. As fast as my feet will carry me, I run, not to any particular destination, just... away.

My heart is beating so fast it feels as if it is making an attempt at escape from my rib cage. The loud sound of my bare feet thudding against the leaf strewn ground fills my ears, and I wonder whether it is my footfalls alone that I hear, or that of the wolves as well. I can still hear their howls, and though I know they are gaining on me, the sound seems distant.

It was bound to happen at one point or another, but I suddenly stop, falling into a squatting position as I rest my hands on my knees, desperately trying to claim my breath as my own once more. The wolves are just behind me now, and my breath, though more controlled, is as fast as my racing heart. I feel everything within me tense as the wolves, too many to count in my state, circle me. But they do nothing to me, simply surrounding me.

I drop onto my knees on the forest floor as an excruciating pain hits me. I am screaming as my blood is taken over by a burning wild fire that courses through me in it's place. All at once, though I don't remember anything past an hour ago, everything becomes clear. My unmodest dress, or lack thereof, my completely blank mind, the wolves chasing me as if on a hunt with me as their prey, yet not harming me at all. I understand now. I am one of them. I am wolf.