Prologue
Steven
Two and a half months before...
I walked into the woods that were behind my house with my sketch book and guitar, breathing in the scent of dry leaves changing colors. I was headed towards one of my favorite clearings where there is a flat rock, three feet high, that the sun warms up during the day, even in September. I usually end up sprawled out with a book, reading, but I had to finish a drawing and a song.
The sun was perfectly warm on my back—where it shined through the breaks in the trees—when I pushed through the last branch that led to the clearing, making a scratching noise against my black guitar case. I walked over to the huge rock, put the case down and took out my guitar. After sitting down on the rock I started strumming some cords, humming a wordless song in my head.
Snap!
I stopped. Starring at a patch of grass, listening.
Snap!
"Hello?" I called out. Nothing.
I looked at the trees, suspiciously. Normal, completely normal, trees.
When I was sure nothing was there, I went back to strumming my guitar and started to sing Viva La Vida by Coldplay quietly to myself.
Snap! SNAP!
"Hello!" I yelled. Still nothing.
I stood up on the rock, rotating slowly.
"I used to rule the world," I sang loudly.
No more snaps, so I continued to sing loudly, still rotating.
"I used to rule the world,
Seas would rise when I––"
Snap! Snap snap snap snap snap! Running. Something was running just outside the clearing, hidden in the shadows. I slowly knelt down and put my guitar into it's case, along with my sketchbook.
I was fifty or sixty yards away from my yard, then its twenty back to the back door which I had left unlocked. I will use the strap that makes my guitar hang on my back then jump and run and run and run for my life. I didn't know what was in the woods but there were a lot because the last snapping noises lasted for a long time, and there were some wolves in these woods.
When I was younger I had heard a story about how someone saw a wolf that had their best friend's eyes. I had wondered about this, I was nine, okay? My mom and I would joke a little about it, and laugh.
I slung my guitar case over my head and sang some more.
"Where did I leave off!?" I called out. "Oh!"
"Seas would rise when I gave the word
Now in the morning I sleep alone.
Sweep the streets I used to know!"
Then I leaped from the rock and ran full speed into the woods.
Run run run run! Nothing followed me but I didn't stop running. But I guess I jinxed it because that was when I heard a howl, lonely and haunting, eco from somewhere behind me, then snapping and crashing as the wolves started to chase me.
Shoot shoot shoot! I thought, trying to run faster, my breathes coming out in puffs.
I could just barely see my yard about ten yards ahead. Eight...six...five...
And all I could see was the ground, pine needles and dirt. NO! I had tripped on a root.
I glanced behind me and saw one wolf standing ten feet away, and about ten others standing behind it.
"I'm dead," I whispered.
The wolf closest to me, all black, with brown...almost human eyes...pulled it's lips back over it's teeth and growled. NO, thats not possible, those aren't the eyes of a wolf.
I turned around, never taking my eyes off him.
He started towards me, slowly. I crawled backwards, just as slow, then the wolf lunged at me, snarling.
The only thing I could hear were my screams.