The moonlight streams through our ship’s wreck, her shadow stretching over the sands as I ignore my bandaged ankle and run for all I’m worth. The beach gives under my every step, and I feel like I’m frozen in one of those horrid dreams where you can’t move no matter how hard you try. But the nightmare’s real tonight. I hear the distant howls of the island’s wolves spurring me onward toward the lapping waves and lean into a sprint, but the shoreline never seems to get any closer.
Exposed, I flee from the jungle’s comforting shadows. Trapped, my feet slide and slip over the sands. My chest feels as though my heart will explode with fear, and somewhere between the pain in my foot and the fear in my head, tears pour down my eyes.
The howls are redoubled. In part, real and distinct, lost in the shadows of the bush I’m fleeing, but also now, replaying in my head, like echoes. I hear a howling cry building inside me. The imagined sound overwhelms me, and my tired legs collapse.
On my knees, I kneel there before the soft, pale moon and stare into that white, enchanting light. The torn sail flaps, its shadow passing over my dirty, tearful face. The wound on my foot, where that beast’s fangs had torn at me, grows horribly hot, burning with the rhythm of my racing heart.
And now the howls which were inside me join those which are without, bursting from my lungs as I throw my head back.
Standing, I feel taller, and I hear behind me, from the twisted, knotted trees, my brothers’ call.
Tale Told 