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Lonesome Wolf
by
Ofavon
These stories by Ofavon were written to accompany a
"prompt," usually a
photograph and limited to 500 words. They had to be written and submitted within
24
hours of the appearance of the "prompt" on the site.
The grass was coarser now, and he could sense the end of summer. Soon a full
autumn moon would rise to mark the end of his first year of isolation.
There was no one now. The wolf pack shunned him and he was forced to hunt
alone. They knew there was a strangeness in him -- they stood between him and
the
females. They gathered around their young when he was near.
At such times he thought back to Lydia and the old house in Cardiff. But the
recollection was fading, and many details he once cherished so dearly had lost
their form and substance. They were man and wife; that much he remembered,
and he longed for the closeness they once shared. Sometimes in the dead of night
the sound of her voice came back to him as clearly as though she were at his
side. He would waken with a start only to find it was the distant call of a
wolf to its mate, and he was left to walk the night alone.
It was dangerous to hunt alone. He had to choose prey smaller and weaker than
he, and he had to hunt more often -- sometimes continuously. He was exposed
to hunter’s sights and he could not rest -- yet his thirst for blood was
insatiable.
He found myself back in Cardiff again. He knew he would be killed if they
found him here, but the fascination of the place was too powerful to resist. He
hunted the moor that night, the very same moor that he and Lydia walked the
year before they were married. He wanted to forgive her for what she did to him
-- to tell her that he still loved her. Another part of him wanted to kill her
-- to keep her from doing to someone else what she did to him.
He found little to satisfy him on the moor. The lambs were taken in from
pasture, so he combed the countryside for vermin. Then, suddenly -- without
warning, he saw Lydia ...
She was walking with a man; a stranger to him. He felt the wirey hair on his
back stand up stiff in anger, and even though he uttered a low growl of
warning, he was filled with a sense of moral responsibility. She must not be
allowed to take another man’s soul.
He circled around in front of them and waited on the path to the old house.
When they appeared, he did not hesitate. As straight as an arrow he went for
her lovely throat and locked his jaws in a grip that could not be broken. She struggled weakly, and silently. The man pounded on his back in vain. It was over
very quickly.
He could have run into the underbrush to hide, but instead he lay on the
bloody path to the old house. He put his head between his paws and closed his
eyes. He heard many voices approaching. He heard the clicking sound of safety
catches being released. He heard nothing else.
The End
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