Undauntable

The letter felt heavy in my shaking hands. A black envelope, sealed with a golden wax stamp. I can’t bring myself to open it. I’ve heard of these before. Rumors have swirled around since we’ve been here in Canada. A group of mercenaries that have been hand selected to train alongside the best. The ELITE is what they call themselves, and I’ve just found a letter addressed to myself in the same envelope that is rumored to be from them. The golden stamp showed a large, elaborate letter E with two swords crossed like an X in front of it. Glancing around the room, I wonder if this is some sort of sick joke. Was Brielle staring through the window watching me have a tiny freak out about this small piece of paper? Was Wes testing me to see how strong my love was? He wouldn’t do that. No. If anyone was cold and calculated enough to play a prank on me, it would be her... How did this get here? I don’t smell any foreign scents, and whoever placed this here made it in and out of my home undetected. Even more evidence it was probably f*****g Brielle. She was a wolf with no scent. Another one of her winning qualities. She was born undetectable, where I was not. But how would she know? I’ve never told anyone about my longing to be a part of something bigger. Not even Wes, and he knows me better than I know myself. My dreams haven’t been something I’ve talked about since I was a pup. Dreams are usually just that. A compartment in your mind that you keep for a rainy day. Something to hold on to when you have nothing else. When everything else goes to s**t, you think “I have a dream to do this or that.” You hold onto it like a lifeline. Hope for the future. When I was a pup, I dreamed of becoming a warrior. But not just any warrior.. I wanted to lead. I wanted to be the best. If I could trust this letter; it would feel like an even bigger dream than that. But I can’t go down that road. There is no way that someone saw me and said, “She’s a mercenary. She’s strong enough to stand beside the best. She’s strong enough to lead a war.” My heart raced against my rib cage, feeling like an animal trying to escape its cage. I felt my back hit the cool wall, and I slid until my butt hit the floor. My head thudded against the door in succession, “This can’t be real,” I whispered to the ceiling, “It’s not real.” The problem with hope was that it opened the door to disappointment, and I’d seen enough of that in the last year. My life felt like one of those revolving doors with no exit. As if I was just walking in a circle of disappointment. The skin on my fingertips felt hot as the letter sat against them. Pulling it up to my face, I inhaled, trying to catch any scent, but it just smelled like a freshly cut pine tree mixed with hot wax. Nothing truthfully distinguishable. My fingers run over the ridges of the wax seal, tracing the swords. This letter means walking away from everything. It means giving up the life I’ve built for the unknown. It means living out a fantasy life that I could only imagine reading about in a book. “f**k,” I gritted my teeth, forcing my emotions back down into the tiny box in the back of my mind, right next to the dreams. I can’t think of this as reality. It’s not. It can’t be. It’s some stupid, sick joke my sister thought would be another notch in her belt to one up me. She could watch me from the sidelines of her perfect life, while I grasp onto a false reality. As I stare mindlessly at the goddamned letter, I can’t bring myself to open it, or tear it to pieces; I want to burn it. But I know I won’t. I’ll keep it for a rainy day. Maybe I’ll open it then. When everything else has fallen apart. Maybe if I let the idea simmer, it won’t be so disappointing when I find out it was never real.