The ember in her eyes

I have been to this place once and never have I imagined it again. Here in my field of vision, awoke a teeming forest. A woodland sworn to protection.

Therefore I sat at its center and reminisced about the birds; singing a song only they knew somewhere in the tree tops above me and then I felt the heat of the sun sear my acne-filled back.

Sadly I hadn't had any alkaline water in my purse and drank my saliva instead. Eventually the stillness became overwhelming. I was safe to keep on moving. Upon my first step I crushed the dried mud and made fissures therein.

What I hadn't notice beneath my combat boots were a shard of someone's heart. A golden locket gleamed: revealing a tender moment one man shared with his devoted wife.

Suddenly leaves bustled through the soaring winds and blew most of my amber hair into tangles.

When my fingers combed the knots I had been yanking through. A beautiful yet terrifying eastern wolf prowled before me.

I presumed I would be at a standoff with a female canid seeing her fixed stare and bare teeth. However as I slowly backed away, aware of my background.

The beast never done anything except sat in recognition. I must say I was rendered speechless and so was it.

The glint in its eyes told me a story. One that she could remember yet I, not. So as I went to touch her wet muzzle and feel its submissive energy. Her tail became erected and then I knew she was of high hierarchy.

In this moment, I dismissed any tell-tale signs of misconception and believed she was amicable. However as soon as I exited the woodland. A howl formed packs on a wild frenzy for me.

A concerted effort of strides to quicken my pace was inferior to that of the first beast.

This bitch wasn't going to give up until I had deja vu in which I never had. Thereby in sync with me.

The crazed woman pounced on me and in her suspense. The anthromorphic creature said I was the catalyst in which shaped her dire past to a static future. A future where she wore the remnants of my wrong doings and lost friends.

This moment was music to my ears as growls were vocalized along with the songbirds.

Amidst the chorus though. The respected alpha made me recognize pain, betrayal and anger.

Warring with her emotions was my father- The tempest in her awake and additionally, so was I although I never crossed any boundaries.

Through this encounter. The woman agreed to show me what she meant and on follow. I gasped.

Subtly, the fire confronted me. The wallowing of life and death grieved me. Matter-of-factly the prehistoric nature my family represented left a mark. A mark that conceded all others via good nature.

In turn. Everyone was able to bear their third degree burns and in the nakedness of it all. I gulped. Was I guilty that a village of people lost their life? No. I was guilty I had not know prior to wolf depredation. My father wasn't a hunter to protect human life.

My father was a man exposing an attitude in which a beast could adopt if any kindred of theirs were killed and evidently no undomesticated animal never meant any harm neither ill-intent. The mistake of a wolf is a price of a man and now. I have to make a sacrifice while the circle closes in on me. Is it I or him?

Usually I would have ran. But outnumbered and in paralyzing fear. The wolves tormented my mental. I was seeing flashes they experienced. Wounds they licked and singed coats they let lie in a mound of ashes.

I was sad by this burden of memory. No hope lived in either man or beast.

Man were determine to riddle all myths as true and stop surplus killings. Yet these canines knew not to eat a whole carcass if they could, and wait till the chance of returning was absolve; free of guilt.

On return. Packs would be chipped to locate others in an unknown areas and be terminated or aerial hunted.

Whatever my parents done as a blood sport was condemned for these spiritual beings.

Therefore I apologised. Still, there was no pardon.

"The real beast is the one that could kill an animal. As beautiful as this" were the words of a phantomed ghost and on memoir. I cried.

Only then was I tortured in the same manner as they; All elk, white tail deers and various of wildlife whom suffered and lamented because of an arson attack.

Throughout the aftermath. My father visited the same place where his past was-with me and broke its sanction.

Third time. Panoply of howls enchanted the forest. Rattling its leaves and moving the ground. On bent knees, he too, challenged their opposition and came to surrender quicker than he realized- game over.

Reading the newspapers. A parent heard her daughter screamed and ran upstairs. Through the daunting process. The woman was relieved her daughter had a nightmare and that her father had been out docking lambs.

Therefore with a premonition of the foretelling events. The father of the girl, shook his head and sighed with a gentle smile:

"Things like that aren't to be taken seriously, Ruby. No man can be a beast. It's just a dream"

When Ruby listened to her father and pondered over her vivid 'dream'. Noise resounded in the forest. Alerting father of their presence.

"If anything. I should be making noise." Dad says, cocking his gun and arresting birds that plummeted to the ground from fright; And as lifeless as they were.

So was his interest of keeping the family rite alive.

Thereby Ruby wandered away and came to nestled in her favorite spot just as she had remembered and felt its butterfly effect resonate with her rale-sounding lungs.

Onwards, her father was sure that no predators or poachers ransack his farm as they had in 1996.

So, as time went on. An Arabian horse was an invite to new pups on a mission to bring back food for their achieved goal in hunting.

But, as premature as their initial response was when stumbling across a carcass on the Burberry farm.

Steers warned Ruby and so did her boerboel- Smokey.

This is when her father found out this was all too good to be true and lighted his property on fire, causing friction between his marriage and separation from his daughter.

Ruby who ran into town so she won't be hunted and only, him, pay the price.

In spite of her attempts. Her father was right about one thing. "No man can be beast" as nothing lunged out at her. Only her mother who collected the teenager and told authorities, her husband committed suicide when his appeal for compensation was rejected as of no succeeding evidence etcetera.

With all livestock lost and a property Ruby could have inherited.

The Burberry slept in a homeless shelter until an intrepid couple came to offer room at their place with little knowledge of human affairs except the story to tell their offspring of one arsonist who set fire to the wind.

Unbeknown who the protagonist was. Ruby and her mother sat near the TV and watched the children exchanged glances. Definitely they were at a lost and so was them humans.

Figuring out how to move on when Dave- was enamored of his sport and saw no reason for animal retaliation.