I awoke on the ground. Strong blades of grass poked through the large clothes that covered me, piercing into my back and legs. My eyes looked up, past treetops, and into the night sky. Red, orange, and purple dots, swirls, and blotches filled the sky. My eyes moved once again to the trees; swirls and blotches followed always in my eyesight. My small hands slowly rose in front of me and reached out instinctively, trying to touch the faint swirls.

Then one of my hands felt something; I grabbed it, squeezed it, and rubbed it. My hands moved, trying to figure out what exactly I was touching. As my hands moved, I felt a longing for something—something I had felt before, but what was it? My brain tried to retrieve a memory but utterly failed. My surroundings were silent; there was no rustling of leaves, no sounds of insects, and the whole world had gone silent.

As my hands examined the thing I could not explain, my eyesight slowly changed. First, I saw two big white marbles look at me. My hands moved towards it and pushed. The fingers pushed part of the marbles in, and an odd red liquid appeared on the marbles exactly. Where I had pushed.

Slowly, what I was examining began to form. Next was something small and black that pointed at me. Some soft-looking fur appeared around the marbles and black, pointy things. Slowly, what I was touching appeared.

The head of an old and very sick wolf looked down at me. White froth fell from its open mouth. Its teeth were blackened; most were cracked and dulled; others were completely gone, leaving purple gums that leaked a noxious liquid.

My hands still moved on the wolf, touching its gums and teeth. I was interested in whatever it was that I was touching. It was new, and so it was interesting. Whatever it was did not move as it was slowly being examined.

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After a while, I began to hear something. It was faint, but a sound within a silent world was loud enough to draw attention. After hearing it for a while, I noticed it came from behind the wolf. It was a sound that went by quickly and was always high-pitched. Slowly, the sound was becoming louder, or was it coming closer? At first, it was only a single sound, then it was footsteps slowly coming closer—a soft crack that would always happen right before the first sound I heard. Then I heard something else, something new. Rustling leaves and the beautiful stridulation of the many insects that lived in the forest. and the rustling leaves and the atmospheric noise of insects singing.

I heard and saw something new. A pointy object struck from the back of the wolf that stood above me and flew out of its eye.

The sharp point of a javelin was seconds away from my body. Dark, rotten blood slowly dripped from the tip of the protruding javelin.

The body of the wolf was flung to the side.

My eyes moved from the wolf that had just been killed to a figure that stood looking down at me.

He had two dark red eyes and long red hair that reached to his shoulders.

He looked down at me with a sad face. He reached down and lifted my small and frail body.

The man looked over his shoulder and yelled something I could barely hear.

"We have a kid over here!"

I heard footsteps as a group of people came next to the man and looked down at me.

One bald man among them spoke, "Sorry—we have to postpone your job for now."

The man nodded in agreement before reaching into his satchel and taking his hand out, grasping something within his palm. The man put one hand above me and slightly opened his hand. A small amount of powder fell from his hands and onto me.

The dust hit my eyes and went into my nose. I felt odd as my eyesight slowly began to get worse until everything went dark.