Not A Nightmare # 409

I was its prey.

The wolf had claws of polished steel, its hide, white and impenetrable. Bullets could not kill it, and neither could knives, arrows and poison. It loped after me, grunting and heaving, wanting nothing but to tear me apart. I had neglected to leave food in its lair, so it was hungry. In this dream-world, anger is exacted on the kind and the innocent.

As I ran, white clouds fell from the sky and covered me. Red leaves broke from their flaming branches, carpeting the road with fire. Flocks of four-winged birds, the usual kind of unearthly fowl that appears in my dreams, swooped down and crowded around the wolf, pecking at it with their sharp, pink beaks.

I kept running.

After what felt like hundreds of miles, the heaving and grunting stopped. I looked behind me: the wolf lay on its side, bloody and mangled. It was dead. Its white fur was singed black, it eyes gouged out, its heart carved out so that it kept beating (thump-one-two, thump-one-two), a hard crimson muscle moving on its own on the pavement.

I was free.