I didn't lose my mind, it was mine to give away...
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Then, out of the stillness, there came a deep growl, and when I looked up, a pair of startlingly yellow eyes.
I froze, then gasped, and the air rushing through my throat created a harsh whistling sound that seemed to provoke the wolf even more. It growled again, and stepped forward, causing me to stumble back a few steps, abandoning all the wisdom about not fleeing and becoming prey.
I was already prey, and both of us knew it.
I was blinking rapidly at the advancing monster, it was huge, with grey snow flecked fur that would have been beautiful in any other situation. If its teeth hadn’t been bared and its eyes hadn’t been fixed on me with a ravenous stare.
It lunged forward suddenly and I was too caught up in my panic to realise it was only a feint. I threw myself backwards, forgetting my balance and landed squarely of my backside in the snow, cursing I scrambled back through the wet snow, cutting myself on the twigs and branches the blanket of whiteness hid as I went. I glanced quickly around, looking for something, anything to save myself from certain death; there was nothing, but what did I expect in the middle of a forest, and a cursed one at that.
The cold inside me was teeming up, brought to the forefront by my terror, I couldn’t hold it back like I was before, and it crept around inside me, spreading to all of my limbs, filling me with that feeling of untameable iciness.
Great, so now not only was I going to die painfully, my last moments of life would also be filled with uncomfortable wildness, so much so that I didn’t feel at home in my skin.
Just great.
Unaware of my inner turmoil, or perhaps it knew I was distracted, the wolf crouched again, and its noises increased into a crescendo of snarls that made its earlier growls seem like gentle cooing. I was petrified beyond measure now.
Then it lunged, and this time it wasn’t a feint.
The animals leap was almost too quick for me to see, but somehow, for some reason my hand flashed up just as it neared landing on me and ripping my throat out, and grabbed the huge wolf by the neck. What happened in that next second was something I struggle to understand up to this day.
The cold inside me seemed to stream out of my body as soon as my finger came into contact with the monster, it rushed out as a jagged stream of pure arctic chill, ripping through my veins, and then bursting out of my throbbing fingertips and onto the wolf’s greasy fur. The creature’s weight crashed down on me in the next moment, crushing my completely to the ground, but I could feel no sharp teeth at my jugular, no warm blood dripping down my neck. I realised my eyes had closed at some point, and that my hand still grasped the wolf’s throat.
It was then I noticed that I could no longer feel a pulse against my fingertips, and that the animal was stone cold, no longer the creature so full of life that had viciously leapt at me.
Hesitantly, my eyes flickered open, drawn instantly to the grey fur inches away from my face, luckily its face was facing away from me, if I had had a muzzle lined with uneven teeth right in my face when I opened my eyes I wouldn’t have been able to keep my sanity.
After a few moments, when I was sure it definitely wasn’t going to move and kill me after all, for one reason or another, I gingerly let go of the wolf’s fur and extracted myself from it by giving the huge thing a firm push. Its body slid off me and slumped heavily on the ground, and as I looked down on the furry thing, I noticed details I hadn’t when it was crouched and about to attack me.
