The smell of rain, blood, and mud fills my nose, adrenaline running through my veins. The night is pitch black with the faintest light of the moon trying to break through the storm and the canopy of the forest. Is that light I see? I ran toward it, though I don't smell smoke, no humans. It felt like hours before I reached it, a porch light. I don't see many other houses near, and I don't hear or see any movement inside. So I decided to take a minute to clean the graze I got from a bullet a while back.

Hearing a faint rustle in a nearby bush, I looked up and sniffed. Squirrel. Slowly and quietly did I get ready to attack, my belly grumbled, bloodlust filled my mind. Attack was all I could think of, but before I could launch at it, the squirrel scurried out of reach. And out of nowhere I saw a light flash at the corner of my eye. The house. Before I'm found by another human I ran as fast as I could back into the forest I came from.

****

After what felt like an eternity of running the rain slowed to a light drizzle. I've reached the edge of part of the forest where it breaks into a field and the forest begins again a bit ahead. To my left the two pieces of forest meets and a flat narrow piece of rock lies, a road, to my right. Just beyond the road was more field and a body of water that is splashing quietly in the far distance. But what caught my attention was movement on the far end of the field. It was significantly larger than a coyote, which are pretty common around here from what I've noticed. Slowly I walked toward it, being careful not to scare the creature away or alarm it. When I got through about half the distance, I realized the creature I saw was a family of wolves, but they were larger than I initially thought.

All from what I've noticed were grey in color, but getting closer their furs varied from one another. One was a female whose fur was primarily a light grey with some areas slightly darker, two were younger males, perhaps a little bigger than pups, who had fur that was a smokey darker grey than the first, and the other looked the oldest of the group, perhaps the alpha male of the group, and was the color of graphite and had a bit of light grey and white fur on his face. Once getting within a few yards away, one of the wolves noticed me, lifting their head up in my direction which got the attention of the others who did the same, licking the blood from their snouts, yellow eyes piercing. Now closer, I saw another wolf with them that i didn't seem to see before. He was about as black as the night itself and there is a sliver of blue-silver in its left eye.

Before I could leave the family be, the black wolf launched into the air, landing on me and