‘Snap’, a noise came from deep within the thicket; the foliage is thick and meets the path on both sides. The trees that make the forest are dark in complexion and stoop over the dirt path below creating a canopy of leaves and branches. They give lee from the elements that siege above and a welcome shade for those of tired feet and mind to rest. One such person lies abreast, letting the calming sounds of the forest and the distant patter of rain drops lull him to sleep. ‘Snap’, but there it is again, that incessant noise, how is he to sleep he thinks to himself. He turns onto his side and brings his legs up to his chest. Drunk with one too many sleepless nights, his grogginess dulls his mind and dampens his senses. But the third ‘Snap’ drags him out of his reveries like a fish out of water. He sits bolt upright and his head rotates here and throe. If you’ve ever been to a backwater tavern, the kind that caters to the grimy underside of a city’s gentry, you’d know they all have the same tatty bat-wing doors. Those of the kind that swing in both directions; his head in every sense, at that moment, was like one of those doors. A snout pushed through the brush to his right, followed by a paw, then the rest of the beast. The canine was five feet long, two of which, a long black-tipped bushy tail. It had a coat of gray fur and a mouth of ivory daggers that did not augur well for he who saw them. It was a gray wolf, one of many indigenous to these forest, and yet one too many he thought. He got up and sprinted down the path to where it bent in the undergrowth. Running as hard as he could, his lungs burnt and his breaths were labored and heavy. He’d expended all his energy in the days prior. Pure adrenaline is the only thing that keeps him going in spite of his exhaustion and pain. If he recalls correctly, a wolf’s body has a streamlined shape built for speed when in pursuit of prey, it should be upon him shortly. He hears the tell-tale patter of paws drawing nearer and nearer. He gets a fleeting glimpse of his pursuer as he snatches a look behind him. He trips forwards over a knot of roots as the wolf passes overhead, missing its lunge. He breaks into a cold sweat as he realizes that had he been where he was moments before, he would have lost his throat. While on the ground he spots a hollow behind a tangle of tree roots that are just wide enough for him to squeeze through. Worming his way along the dirt, he tucks his shoulders and locks his elbows and fits through the only sizable gap. Reaching around the dark expanse beneath the tree, he raps his hands around a stone cobble. The wolf sticks its head through the gap in the roots and makes to take a bite out of his leg. He draws his leg back and brings the stone down upon the wolf’s vulnerable head. It howls in pain and anger and makes for his hand but he hits it atop the head again. The wolf thrashes around as it tries to pull its head out from beneath the tree but it is stuck fast. He hails blows upon the wolf with reckless abandon, in fear for his life. In his hysteria he did not notice the absence of the beast’s cries or limpness of its body at his feet. He only stops minutes later when his hand loses purchase on the stone he was using. Stooping in the blood of the wolf and that of his own scraped arms and knees, he cries himself to sleep beneath the roots of the forests trees.

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