Wolven Rising: Untold Stories

GR-1: Dreams and Nightmares

Shasta (12 years old)

"Dad, no! I want to go with you," I screamed, reaching out for his hand.

"Go to the safe room, now! I'll run and get your mother!" My father shouted, pushing me toward the packhouse. I clung to his hand as he drew away, towards the sounds of the fight. "Shasta, go! I need you safe! His hand was slowly slipping through my fingers.

"Dad!" I wailed, terrified and confused by what was happening.

My dad finally pulled free, turning his back on me and running toward the battle and certain death, leaving me grasping at empty air.

---

I woke up sweaty, hands clenched at my side, the ragged blanket twisted around me. I stared unseeingly in the direction of the smooth rock ceiling of the cave and forced myself to calm down. Breathe in through the nose. Out through the mouth. In through the nose. Out through the mouth.

Nearby, a small figure sat up in the dark. I sensed it more than saw, since it was still pitch black, an hour or so before the earth would turn enough to let a little of the sun's light touch us.

"Are you okay, Shasta?" Kendria whispered sleepily.

"Yeah," I lied.

A beat of silence. "Was it that dream again?"

I sighed. "Yeah."

There were some soft shuffling sounds, then Kendria was right next to me. She didn't say anything else, but lay back down beside me under her own thin blanket.

My breathing was calm, and now I felt embarrassed. "Sorry," I muttered.

Kendria was quiet. "I have bad dreams, too," she finally whispered.

There was a faint rustling, then I felt her cold hand wrap around mine. She squeezed it. There, in the dark, with nobody else awake to witness my weakness, I squeezed back.

The nightmare wasn't new, not by a long shot. It wasn't even a nightmare really, but a memory. It had been almost a year now, but in my sleep it was always there, lurking, waiting to remind me.

The thing that nobody understood, not even Kendria—who had finally pried the dream out of me about a month ago—was that it was my fault my parents were dead. My fault that I was an orphan. My fault that my family was gone. The nightmare was just a reminder. I had prevented my father from getting my mother from the fight more quickly. If I had just let him go, he would have saved her. Her and my unborn younger sibling. If I hadn't held on to his hand for so long, he would have lived, too.

Kendria's hand felt warmer now, as our skin reflected the faint body heat we managed to retain. It would have been fall, back at Blue Hills, but up on Mount Haven it was already winter. She had lost her brothers and her father, but her mother, Luna Adina, led us all to safety. If that's what you called this cold, desolate place that was our new home. I got jealous of her sometimes when I saw her with her mom. Not because I wanted her as my mom, but because she had someone. She had her person, her link to how things used to be, to share the burden of loss and face our uncertain future together. I had no one.

Both my parents were warriors, but my mom wasn't supposed to fight after she got pregnant again. Still, when the rogues surrounded the pack out of nowhere, she went to fight along with the other warriors, since she was already close by. Her first instinct was to protect her pack. But what about me, or the baby sibling I was supposed to have? Fighting for the sake of the pack meant that she left me alone. My dad had no chance to save her, cut down right next to her.

I didn't know all of these things right away, of course. We had to get away as quickly as we could, and didn't stop for three grueling days. But later, after Luna Adina found a place to shelter the kids in—the very place we were sleeping in now—she went back with a couple of others to find out what happened. I wasn't supposed to know that my parents died next to each other, but I overheard them, talking in hushed whispers in the night. Even their hands had been outstretched towards each other.

Next to me, Kendria's breathing evened out as she slipped back into sleep. I didn't know her that well before, but in the past year we'd gotten to be good friends, along with another girl, Harlie, who was my age. Kendria was a year older. I knew we probably wouldn't have hung out if we were still back at Blue Hills, but I was glad to have them here. The one thing that set me apart from them was that they both had their moms, while I had no parents. Still, they included me in everything they did, and they had lost their fathers and family too, so it wasn't like I was the only one with grief. Maybe it was out of necessity, or maybe it would have happened anyway, but all I knew was that they took up a little new place inside, did a little to fill the gaping hole left behind by my lost family.

I didn't know if the cave was getting lighter, or my eyes were playing tricks on me. Either way, the last thing I saw was different shades of gray as I too, drifted back off to sleep.

---

"I've decided I'm going to become the leader of our pack when I'm old enough," Kendria announced. She, Harlie, and I were sitting in a tree near the entrance to the cave, on watch while some of the younger kids were napping and the mothers and she-wolves were out hunting for food. They didn't like to leave us without much protection, but wolves hunt better in packs, and if they went as a group, they could get away with leaving us less often and catch more deer and other animals to eat.

"What pack?" Harlie scoffed, kicking her legs. She was wrapped in a white bubble coat with a faux fur-lined hood, her most prized possession. The moms had managed to pull together a small Christmas celebration, and the coat was Mrs. Fontaine's gift to her daughter. I was pretty sure it was stolen, but the edges of the sleeves were a bit frayed and there was a small rip in the armpit that Harlie kept steadfastly hidden by keeping her arm pinned to her side, so it was still secondhand. "We don't have a pack."

"Yes, we do," Kendria argued. "My mom is still a Luna."

"But we have no Alpha, and Blue Hills is gone," Harlie said bitterly.

"I'll become Alpha, then," Kendria replied stubbornly.

"How?" I asked. "You're a girl."

"So?" She retorted. "There have been girl Alphas before. I have Alpha blood, so there's no reason why I couldn't become our official pack Alpha."

"I repeat, what pack?" Harlie asked, tossing her hands up, but not high enough to reveal the rip in the coat. "There's only a dozen of us. We have no packhouse, no houses, no money. There's no point!"

"Those are just things, Harlie," Kendria argued impatiently. "A pack is a group of wolves that are loyal to each other. We're definitely that. We can always build a packhouse and houses, and we can make money."

"How can we make money?" I asked. It did sound nice, the idea of being in a pack again.

"I don't know, we could sell pelts and furs from stuff we kill," Kendria said thoughtfully. "Or we could learn to build things and sell them. Humans are suckers for handmade stuff."

"I know how to whittle," I offered helpfully.

"Awesome! You can teach everyone else," Kendria said excitedly.

"I don't want to whittle," Harlie complained.

"Well, you can be in charge of something else, then," Kendria said with a flap of her hand.

"I'd be in charge of fashion," Harlie said dreamily, hugging her coat close.

I wrinkled my nose. "Who cares about that?"

"I do!" Harlie squealed. "We've been dressing in rags and stuff that doesn't fit right for a year now. If we become a real pack, then we have to look good while we do it!"

"That sounds like the kind of thing we couldn't do until we make money," Kendria said doubtfully.

"So? Once we do, I'd just—"

"Shhh!" Kendria hushed us all of the sudden. "What's that?" She whispered.

I clamped my mouth shut and started scanning the ground, listening hard. There was a rustling in the bushes, coming from the south, and I snapped my eyes on it. Oh no.

"Bear," Kendria breathed, confirming what I saw. Harlie whimpered quietly and Kendria shushed her. I kept my eyes trained on the massive beast, crashing into the clearing near the cave. What was a bear doing awake right now? It was winter. They should all be hibernating. If this one wasn't...

It must be hungry.

I racked my brain. I remember my father teaching me about how to handle bears. They're usually more scared of humans than we were of them. They were supposedly terrified of werewolves, too. But there was still some food left from the she-wolves' latest kill...maybe this one was starving enough to brave the enemy in hopes of a decent meal.

There was just one very big problem. The leftover food was currently in the back of the cave. With the rest of the kids taking an afternoon nap between it and the entrance. And the bear was heading right towards it.

Kendria waved her hand in my face, getting my attention. She silently signalled for us to climb down the tree. I gave her a look that said, are you crazy? And she responded with an equally silent, trust me!

One by one, we dropped down to the snow. The bear heard us and stopped, eyeing us warily. "Stand side by side, so we look bigger," I whispered under my breath. Harlie and Kendria quickly complied, shoulder to shoulder on either side of me as we positioned ourselves between the bear and the entrance to the cave.

The bear huffed. Not good. "Lift your arms up so we look big," I hissed.

"Aren't we supposed to curl up in a ball?" Harlie quavered.

"Only if it's attacking us," Kendria whispered.

I raised my hands over my head. Kendria and Harlie did the same. If we were in any other situation, we'd look completely stupid, but facing a bear that was long overdue for hibernation and likely cranky about it, I was hoping we looked intimidating.

Harlie sniffled a little. "Don't cry," I whispered out of the corner of my mouth. "We can't sound like prey."

"What—should we—sound like?" she stammered back under her breath, trying to control her fear.

I thought for a minute. "If he doesn't go away, we should sound like sirens."

"Sirens?" Kendria hissed incredulously next to me.

I nodded. "Like police cars. They don't like sounds like horns and sirens, it might scare him."

"Might?"

"You got any better ideas?"

Kendria let out an exasperated tsk. "No."

I started waving my arms, preparing to let out a piercing holler, when the bear huffed again and stood up on its hind legs. "If it charges, that's when we drop to the ground and curl in a ball," I said a little louder. There was no point in whispering anymore. "Ready?"

"Yes," Kendria said with determination.

"Y-yes," Harlie said uncertainly.

I took a deep breath and started bellowing and modulating my voice up and down. Kendria started screaming, "WEEE, OOOOO, WEEEEE, OOOO," And Harlie did her best to join the fray, shaking her arms in the air, the hole in her coat on full display. The bear started, caught off guard by our sudden loud display, then took off into the woods, back down the mountain.

I dropped my arms to my sides and flopped down into the snow. Kendria crossed her arms and shivered while Harlie cried quietly. "That was close," Kendria muttered, looking at where the bear stood not a minute before.

"Too close," I said from my spot on the ground. Now that it was over, I felt incredibly tired.

"You saved us, Shasta," Kendria said, looking down at me.

"What?" I asked, propping myself up on my elbows. I should get up soon. It would take forever to dry out my coat if I let it get too wet.

"You knew exactly what to do, and you kept calm. You saved us," she repeated. Harlie nodded next to her. Behind them, some of the younger kids were venturing out of the mouth of the cave, their nap ruined by all of our shouting.

Kendria held out her hand to help me up, and I took it. "That settles it," she said with a note of finality.

"Settles what?" I asked, bewildered.

"You'll be my Beta," Kendria said simply.

"I'll be your—what?" I asked.

"Stop saying 'what,'" she said impatiently. "When I'm Alpha, you'll be my Beta." She turned to Harlie. "And you'll be my Gamma."

"Really?" Harlie asked, wiping her eyes.

"Yeah," Kendria said. "This just proves it. We're already friends, and now we know we make a good team. That's what every pack needs, doesn't it? Good leaders who are friends and also good in a crisis."

I stood up a little straighter. "If you can pull it off, I'd be honored to be your Beta," I said seriously.

Kendria extended her hand, and I shook it. She did the same with Harlie. "Now we have a pact," she said. "When we become a real pack—"

"If we become a real pack," Harlie said.

"When we become a real pack," Kendria repeated with a glare. "I will be Alpha, you guys will be my Beta and Gamma. Agreed?"

"Agreed," Harlie and I said in unison.

"Good. Now let's check on the kids," Kendria said, going back towards the cave. "They might be scared."

Harlie followed her back to the pups, but I stayed behind inspecting the tracks the bear had left in the snow. They were enormous. I shivered to think of what would have happened to us all if the bear had decided to attack instead of run away. But it was gone, and we were safe. For now.

I looked up at the sky. It was clear and bright blue, making it hard to look at the snow-covered trees. I wasn't sure why, but it was on days like this that I felt the presence of my parents most. For once, though, I didn't feel like they were disappointed in me.

Instead, I felt they would be proud.