The Moon Wolf

Chapter 28 (1st Draft)

* The media image depicts the Moon goddess.

Penn experienced another restless night's sleep. She felt there was something amiss, but blamed the sleepless nights on the change in the weather. Spring had come early to the north mountain by a couple of weeks. The early spring was welcome. Though a long winter was not really a hardship for her, if there was plenty of game to be found. She was just surprised by how much she longed for the children over the winter months. And even more astounded by the growing desire to return, even for a short time, to the pack house.

She shook her head, stretched on the cave floor and struggled to her feet in an effort to shake off the drowsiness that clung to her like a wet blanket. But as she struggled to her feet she felt a wave of confusion. Why was she in her skin and not her fur? Penn touched her bare flesh to make sure she wasn't seeing things. However, the touch didn't seem to register with her senses and so she felt even more perplexed.

Looking around the cave she tried to ascertain what, if anything, was going on. Only, in the process, she discovered that she could not decipher if it was day or night, or if she was waking or in a dream state. It struck her suddenly that this feeling, this confused state, was in some strange way familiar to her. She'd experienced something like it before. Long, long ago when she was a small pup in her old pack - before anyone thought she was peculiar, before anyone had turned on her. 

She vaguely recalled once having an encounter with the Moon goddess in such a state as this. The memory now was so fleeting, so watery, that she did not remember what the goddess looked like or what she'd wanted from Penn. However, she hadn't forgotten the feeling  of being suspended in a sort of metaphysical limbo.

On a hunch of sorts, she took a chance and gently called out, "Moon goddess?"

The darkness turned into a burning inferno and Penn saw herself standing on the main drag of a small village. The mountains, the woods and the houses all around her were completely engulfed in flames. There was chaos everywhere she looked. Children stood alone in the street with their faces turned to the sky as they cried their hearts out. Grown adults stumbled out of doors and fell out of windows with their bodies engulfed in the scorching flames. People trampled one another, with children clutched under their arms, as they tried to scramble away from the fires. Several people bumped into Penn as they ran toward the end of town, but none of them appeared to see her.

Penn, clearly just an observer, looked calmly toward their escape route, but there was just a wall of fire. She turned around to search for another way out. It appeared that the only route was straight down the main street. However, there was a force heading her way. An army of men standing shoulder to shoulder who were trampling every man, woman and child in their path. The men walked right through Penn like she wasn't even there. She watched them strike down everyone who wasn't already dead. 

Someone took Penn's hand and she looked down into the face of a small child. It was no one she recognized. At least, not at first. The child, unharmed and unafraid, grinned up at her and pulled on her fingers. Penn followed her as she led her down to what appeared to be the centre of town. There, surrounded by many hostile soldiers, were a group of children who were growling and barring their teeth at the men who threatened them.  The child at her side let go of her fingers and slipped between the soldiers to stand with the other children, hand in hand, as they barked and snapped their teeth.