Gilded Heart

| 5 |

Ameerah knelt down in front of the opening of where she slept, readying herself to take off. Her muscles and bones were tense and tight, ready to push her to give her a good start, but she waited. 

She sat there for a moment, her breaths ragged as she listened closely to the forest around her. She shut her eyes, envisioning the forest, listening closely to the sounds. A rabbit or two a few feet from her, a few deer further into the forest, and wolves, stalking a couple hundred feet to her right, sniffing around, trying to find any trace of her. She opened her eyes, talking a big deep breath, if she ran, it would take them a moment to know it was her, giving her a lead, but she knew not where the next pack territory was and could run into more danger.

Constantly, she found herself playing a dangerous game; any wrong decision could lead to her death. She looked ahead of her, finding a clearing through the thick trees and she marked her target, readying herself to take off. She had to breathe, take a long and solid deep breath. She was going to have to use the rest of her strength to cover more ground, to find another area where she can stop and rest. Rest. Just the word alone weighed down her bones and she had to shake it off, shutting her eyes to focus. She opened them, determined, and readied herself to bolt. 

However, the wrong movement of her foot had crushed a small branch, the small sound echoing and being amplified from the thick trees. She froze, her entire body going rigid, her heart racing, and she listened. The wolves heard it, no doubt, and now they were moving closer to the spot she sat and she knew it was now or never. She needed to run, she needed to go now. It took her a moment longer than she wanted to before she was able to force her body to move and she took off, pulling her ragged hood over her head as she ran in a flash. 

She could hear the wolves running after her, hear their large paws collide with the ground, their heartbeats, their panting and growls. She ran fast and hard, not faltering once. It was still dark outside, her vision not yet failing her as she ran to the clearing she had seen. She maybe slept for an hour or two--if she were lucky--everything else she was running on was pure adrenaline. She was scared. She was so scared. She didn't want to live like this for the rest of her life. She didn't even know why she was trying so hard to survive if this was how her life was going to be. It was as if something deep within her was pushing her, telling her to survive.

She ran straight for the clearing, trying to push herself further but she knew her lack of food and sleep was catching up on her, weighing her down. She could hear the wolves coming up on her, getting close. Just from hearing them, seeing their golden bodies in the forest, she noticed they were larger werewolves than any of the others she ran into. Significantly larger. There was something else that was different about them but she could not quite understand what it was. Everything she knew and understood she learned along the way. Just like her lack of scent--she didn't know what to expect nor what else these wolves could be. 

They got closer, the five of them coming at her in a flanking position, two of them approaching her from both her left and right side at the same time. She forced herself to stop, causing the two wolves to run into each other instead. She jumped over their bodies and continued running at full-speed, the other three wolves still following close behind. She heard, too, the other two wolves managed to get up too, returning back to their formation. She couldn't shake them, they were too close, always staying that close or getting closer. She was breathing hard, her throat feeling like it was closing in on itself, her nostrils burning and flaring. 

She heard three wolves, this time, come up close to her. One of them came up on her left, snapping its jaws at her, snarling at her. She--mid-run--kicked that wolf in the jaw, running still, her heart pounding so hard that she was sure it was going to beat right out of her ribcage. Another wolf came on her right, jumping at her, jaws wide, ready to clamp down on her neck. She ducked, pushing herself up and underneath the wolf, punching it in the chest and sending it flying into the air. Her adrenaline was pumping through her veins, she could not feel her body, could not feel a single thing any more. The third wolf came up behind her, snapping its jaws at her legs, trying to take her down. She ran and ran, finding a fallen trunk in her path, using it to her advantage. She slid beneath the slim opening it left between it and the ground, the wolf that was hot on her heels trying to do the same, only to get stuck.