Outside
It took a moment for Daniel to realize that he wasn’t in his room anymore; in fact, he didn’t know where he was. He was outside, that much he could tell from the cool wind brushing against him, from the smells of the forest invading his nose, and… Daniel’s mind was awakened rather abruptly when he saw that he wasn’t just outside; he felt much, much different, like how for starters, he was standing on all fours.
‘What the hell?’ Daniel thought. He tried to speak the words, but instead, they came from his head. The noise that escaped his lips wasn’t a word, rather, some sort of growl.
It didn’t take long for Daniel to realize what was different.
‘You are a wolf, Daniel,’ the wolf woman’s voice said. ‘This is what it means to receive my blessing: you are now more than human, more than animal - you are both at the same time.’
Daniel’s eyes scrunched together. He looked around, whipping his head about to try and take in his own body, yet all he saw was dark gray fur. He looked down, and lo and behold, his hands were now paws. He was a wolf, just like the spirit said. Daniel didn’t know what to think, let alone how to react to this.
‘Breathe,’ the voice said. ‘Breathe and calm yourself. Accept the gift you’ve taken, and adjust to this. This is only a fraction of what you will have gained, Daniel. But here is where we start. Breathe.’
Daniel’s heart - sounding louder and striking harder than he was used to - steadied, and he calmed himself to the best of his abilities. He breathed in deep, and at once, his nostrils were filled with a variety of different scents, more powerful than he had ever smelled before.
He smelled the trees. He smelled the wet earth under his bare paws - which he felt, the softeness, the texture of mud and rainwater. He smelled the moisture in the air, the moisture clinging to everything, and then realized it was no longer raining. The weather had calmed; there was wind, yet no rain, no thunder, no lightning. It was nicer, quieter out. He breathed in again. He picked up other smells, including scents he couldn’t put words to, mostly because they were distant. But he smelled them nonetheless.
‘Now, try to move. Learn to use four legs,’ the voice said.
Daniel glanced down at the ground, at his new paws, then looked forward. He took one step - lifting the right front paw first, then putting it on the ground. It was weird; the sensation of being on all fours, of having four legs, was the strangest feeling Daniel had ever experienced in his life. Yet he was able to adjust to this, rather easily, as he began taking more steps - one at a time, until he was trotting - was that the word, he wondered - forward.
‘This is insane,’ Daniel thought. He was moving on all fours like a wolf - AS a wolf. ‘So this is what it’s like to be an animal on all fours…’
‘Quite intriguing, isn’t it?’ the voice replied. She chuckled, the sound echoing throughout Daniel’s mind. ‘You should pick up speed. Run, Daniel. Feel the wind against your body, let the blood pulse! Run and witness true speed.’
Written by Hollowpages on 22 April 2019