Page 34 of Solivagant

It could be.

No.

What if?

I had to fight to take in a full breath. Paresthesia engulfed my hands and feet. My lips. Tingling. Burning. Freezing.

Blood loss.

No.

Yes.

It will pass. It always passes.

Seconds lasted longer than they were. A minute. I focused on moving one finger at a time until my limbs unlocked. Until the fear faded and I could breathe again.

I hit the base of the lamp on the nightstand. Warm light flickered and then illuminated my small bedroom. No blood.

It’s not real. It’s never real.

The nightmares had been a recurring problem ever since I was a child. Though lately they were more frequent. I could never remember them when I was awake. Something blocked them from me like a wall inside my mind.

Without an outlet, the restlessness was growing. Hunting with Tash had been a bust. Nothing but wild boars we left alone.

Rage. Anger. Darkness. They belonged to me. They were mine, but also not. They existed in me like a demon possessing a host, filling me with something other. Or maybe it was taking from me? Feeding off me like a parasite, only I didn’t know where it ended and I began.

I wished I could say it scared me.

There had been a time when it did. A time I’d tried to ignore it and push it deep down into the depths of me to bury it there like a beast in a cage. Except the cage was open now, the beast clawing up my insides as it attempted to escape. I wanted to let it. The darkness it held didn’t feel wrong. It felt justified.

My feet hit the ground. It was still hours from dawn, but there was no chance of me sleeping any more tonight.

I pulled on my jacket and my boots. And I grabbed my axe, because I knew too well what lived in the forest.

My clouded exhales mixed with the frigid night air. A breeze whispered through leaves and tree branches, carrying the echoing hoots of owls, the song of insects, and whatever else might be out there, hidden beyond the tree line.

My property was on the edge of town, swallowed by the woods. It was peaceful, being so far away from the closest human neighbor, until the sounds of nature were disturbed by voices that should have long ago fallen silent, or the eerie howl of some beast in the distance.

The Hollow Creek Howler people called it. It sounded like a wolf, but not quite. A howl mixed with a scream. Whatever it was, it was far away, its cry carried on the wind only on truly silent nights.

The people who’d heard it thought it sounded creepy, or scary, or just… wrong. But I’d always thought it sounded sad.

Branches cracked and leaves crunched under my boots as I walked into the shadows.

I wasn’t sure where I was going, I just walked, every step calming me further.

Hours passed, and still I walked, axe in hand and mind finally quiet.

The restlessness eased, replaced with a familiar pull, like an instinct trying to guide me some place I’d never been.

This weren’t the first time I’d followed it. Though as moonlight gave way to the first beams of the morning sun, I realized I’d never come quite this far before. At least not in this direction.

There wasn’t supposed to be anything but the wilds and the mountains out here. So the wall was a surprise.

PRIVATE PROPERTY.

KEEP OUT.