'Paws were hitting the detris in heavy beats. Thud-thud, thud-thud, thud-thudthudthud... It sounded almost like a heartbeat. It was coming closer, but I wasn't afraid. Flashes of a gray pelt reaching about the height of a horse could be caught out of the corner of my eye, in between the trees. I should be worried, I though. But I couldn't muster up the correct feelings. I actually was anticipating the arrival of the owner of the paws. He was going to save me.'
Then I woke up. Same as every night, in a cold sweat, my covers strewn across the small room. My breathing sounded like I just ran a marathon, so I reached over to my nightstand, flipping on the light. My lamp was in odd dischordance with the rest of my room, a heavy black and white Contemporary piece while the rest of the room was in a more Romantic style. The harsh light made me flinch, and I had to close my eyes while the painful process of my eyes dialating rapidly occured. My inhaler was around here somewhere... My room was a mess. I couldn't keep it clean to save my life, and this might even be a matter of life and death. I found my ProAir HFA inhaler in my purse after tearing my room apart, and I took two puffs, as perscribed.
"3:00." I moaned, throwing my inhaler to the right side of my bed, because the left side of my bed is pushed against a wall, as I fell back into my pillow. Better than most days, but I've never been able to sleep a whole night through, for some reason. I've always had the same dream... a thin gray wolf with darker spots on his back, running towards me. I'm never upset by the abnormally huge wolf barreling at me, as a matter of fact, I'm relieved by my phantom.
I clicked off my lamp, and my room was plunged into darkness. There were advantages to having a basement bedroom. Namely, my light-sensitivity never came into play down here. I lay in the darkness with my floor fan on it's second level, churning the chilly air around. I live in Forks, Washington, where the air is freezing cold ninety-nine percent of the time, and I sleep in a freezing cold basement, and I sleep with a fan on level two every night. There are so many things wrong with me.
I finally gave up on the whole institution of sleep and turned on my lamp for good. Something was different about my dream tonight. My wolf usually showed his mug, but tonight he never once showed himself, he just ran around the edges of my dream, as if enticing me to get out of my dream. He was trying to tell me something... but I'm just too dense to tell what he was trying to say. He was anxious about something, but what? I ran my fingers through my long blonde hair, sighing.
'Why am I so thirsty?' I thought as it suddenly hit me that I was parched as a desert. Carefully threading my way across my floor, I wrenched open my door and was hit by a wall of smoke.
"WHAT THE HELL." I yelled, coughing as I fell to my knees, crawling across the floor to the stairs, then running up the stairs like my dog did while she was still alive.
"MOM! DAD!" I shrieked on the top of my lungs, my strides covering the ground level quickly. "MOM! DAD!" I burst into their room, listening to them rousing.
"What is it, sweetie?" my mom said, and I could tell that she was ready to calm me after a nightmare, like I was a child.
"Smoke. Fire. Basement. Now." I was in panic mode, so I said the bare minimum to get the story across. My dad bolted out bed immediatly, running to grab the fire extinguisher that we kept under the sink and racing down the stairs. I sat on the corner of their bed as my mom enfolded me in her embrace, stroking my hair in a soothing manner. While she tried to calm me, all I could think about was my wolf. He had saved me.