Hati

When I am awake, I think of Sköll — how he will be annihilated by his fire. I once thought the sun a queen, radiant and merciless. Lately, he feels more like a tyrant king, hammering my brother down with heat. I look back at Sköll. He’s wearing thin, bones showing beneath the fur. Gaunt, but fixated. He needs rest. I do too. But rest is forbidden until Ragnarök.

Sometimes, a glass-cold wind cuts through me, reminding me that I am nothing but bones and hollowness — no longer the young wolf who thought he knew everything. Yet still, I run.

The gods allow mortals to sleep, even dream. But not us. It’s cruel, isn’t it? That our only rest comes when humanity is gone — a world we have never even breathed. A painful irony. I once thought gods could show mercy — perhaps the moon dust has left me blind to the signs. Or perhaps mercy itself is Ragnarök.

I don’t remember when we started chasing them. And they don’t seem to care that we’re chasing at all. Sometimes it comes back in flashes – this fate sealed into our marrow – but then it dissolves again. I am unsure if I am running forwards or backwards, the rhythm remains the same – I just know I am in perpetual motion.

The dream always starts on the twenty-eighth celestial turn. I am wrestling with her — the moon. Her strength is far greater than I had expected, a cold force pulling me into her barren plains. I am aware of Thor watching, shaking his godly head at the long time it takes me to lock my jaws into her rocky, desolate skin. I almost break a tooth as one plunges into a deep valley.

Once she relents, I collapse into long chapters of dreaming. It is as if she controls them — my eyes rolling, my body limp, my thoughts no longer mine. A howl rises from the gulley of my throat, a howl I have ached to release for eons.

There is no end to the world in these dreams — only reams of stars, some just beginning, some nearing the end of their reign in the sky. Then I am flung into space, past planets I have never seen. It frightens me — this place feels like the farthest part of the universe, and something deeper within me.

I relax into the light-speed that hurls me into the depths. The unfamiliar tugs at my skin as I pass collapsing, unstable stars. Then — seconds, or less than seconds — nothing. Not despair, but renewal. My life reignites, as if I have been living among the ashes of who I was. I am free.

Something about this dream feels familiar. I realise I have been living a nightmare, and now I am awake inside my dream.

The stars dissolve, and I wish my brother were beside me, and then my wish is answered, I see him. Not the gaunt hunter he has become, but the pup I tumbled with. I am a wolf-cub again, squealing in play, he as always, a little stronger than me, our mother’s wary eyes watching from a distance. I am safe, wrapped in the depth of my playful squeals. Hours seem to pass unnoticed. Who could have known that the celestial bodies in the sky would one day become our tormentors? That the silver disc I once howled at in jest would become my eternal mistress?

But even here I know I will wake again and be thrown back into the living nightmare.

Oh, but there is another chapter to this earlier life. I feel stronger now — at times I can even overpower my brother. We roam together along the rivers, moving farther from the pack despite our mother’s many reprimands. We believe we know the world.

To be honest, we were wary when we saw him across the river. We thought he was just a roamer looking for a new pack — they usually moved on quickly. But this wolf was still. Glacial. A light wind played with his fur, yet he did not move. The fast-running river only made his stillness louder, more imposing. It was unclear whether he was staring at us or into the distance.

We both felt the pull — that deep, wordless command to turn back to the pack. Then the disorientation struck. The river’s roar clogged our ears until the world went mute. We shook our heads, clawing for fragments of sound, but the silence was dense, sealing us off from the world. Our limbs grew granite-heavy. Our bodies collided as our inner compasses spun. I felt we had been scented — mythically — by that ice-wolf. He had blurred the solid lines of our world, and we were stumbling towards a destiny that I sensed was going to be ruinous.

I felt my legs slammed into a rhythm I could not stop. Each stride got faster until my breath rasped, my chest fighting to supress an explosion. The pace unrelenting, my legs tangling, I tried to escape the rhythm, but it held me locked.

The world unblurred. My eyes drank in a world I could not fathom — an infinite darkness, huge light-shapes and flares, and an unrecognisable silence. The sound of the river, once close and homely — snuffed out, as if it had never been.

Then I saw my tormentor, my forever. Grey and cratered, dragging me toward her rocky surface. A rush of relief surged through me — I felt she was my final resting place. My eyes closed. But then a celestial leash tightened, choking me. My howl ripped from my chest, breaking the silence — and it was answered, harmonised, by my brother’s. I saw him pounding at lightning speed toward the fireball — saliva dripping, breath staccato, every pant as if it should have been his last.

And here I am, tumbling through light-years to nowhere, yet resting in this void. I wish my brother were here with me in this cosmic dream. If only this were Ragnarök. I remember the deep sleep Sköll and I would fall into after a kill—a lazy, arrogant satisfaction—we believed nothing could ever change.

As soon as I feel that cold sky breeze blow through my hollow cage, I force my eyes shut. I know I have been hurled back – wrenched awake by that unseen malevolent source. She is there, waiting, silver-grey and ethereally patient. My legs already beating the familiar rhythm. Sköll, chasing the fire ball - I don’t know if he dreams. Twenty-eight turns and the cosmic rest returns – maybe that is our compensation, maybe this is how they show their mercy – but we still have to run.