A fierce glare filtered through Hiro’s eyelids to prick at his retinas, rousing him to wakefulness. He raised a hand to shade his face and gingerly opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was a great tree, grown giant with age, towering into the sky above him. Sunlight spilled down through the gaps in its tangle of leaves and branches.
He eased himself upright and looked around. Trees stretched away all around him, more than he could count, so thickly clustered that he could not see what lay beyond. Curiously, nothing about the sight struck him as particularly uncanny. If anything, the opposite was true. He might have panicked or screamed or burst into tears, but the forest’s gentle air seemed to put him at ease. Still, the silence eventually grew too uncomfortable to bear.
“Where the hell am I?” he asked out loud. It was another clichéd line, he knew, but with everything that was happening, his brain didn’t seem to have room for anything else.
Fronds and foliage brushed against his hands. The wind carried the scents of the natural world into his nostrils. He was lying not on hard asphalt, but amid lush greenery. For all that he remembered walking to school only a few minutes before, his senses told him this was too real to be a dream.
“Well, if this is a dream, I’ve gotta wake up sometime,” he said, trying to reassure himself. Soon, surely, he would open his eyes and find himself back in his room, cringing with embarrassment to think how scared he’d been. “Guess I might as well explore while I wait.”
Doing his best to ignore his nagging doubts, Hiro stood up from the great tree’s roots and set out into the forest. However, it never seemed to end. On and on he trudged, but the press of trees remained as dense as ever, too thick to see through even if he squinted. Eventually, he despaired and stopped, on the point of giving up all hope.
Then he realized he was not alone.
From the shadows between the boughs, two golden eyes fixed him with a burning gaze. Leaf litter crunched beneath heavy paws as a beast stepped surely from the undergrowth. It advanced on him, its throat rumbling with a low growl. Drool dripped to the ground from its long fangs in anticipation of a coming meal.
“Is that...a wolf?”
The animal was about as large as a medium-sized dog. As it padded through the dappled sunlight filtering through the forest canopy, Hiro realized that its coat was pure white. Its legs bulged with muscles, ending in long-clawed paws that gouged ruts into the forest floor with every step. Hiro whimpered as it drew closer, bracing for it to pounce.
Instead, the wolf stopped and maintained a steady distance.
Is it...scared of me?
If so, perhaps he might be able to get away. Most wild animals were scared of fire, he knew, but he had no way of producing it here. In that case, his next best option was to maintain eye contact and back away slowly. That was what he’d seen on TV once, anyway. Now that advice might save his life.
Hiro locked eyes with the wolf and took one step back. The wolf took one step forward.
He took another step back. The wolf took another step forward.
A third step back. A third step forward.
This was clearly going nowhere fast. Aside from anything else, he had no idea how far he was supposed to back up or even in which direction he ought to run.
And that’s assuming this thing doesn’t follow me through the whole forest...
The wolf didn’t seem to care much about Hiro’s dismay. It sat down on its haunches, gave a toothy yawn, and scratched its ear disinterestedly with a rear leg for a time. Finally, it arched its back like a cat and lay down on the ground. It might have seemed docile if its golden eyes hadn’t remained fixed on Hiro all the while. Don’t think I’ve forgotten about you, they seemed to say. Move a muscle and lose a limb.
The minutes dragged on as the pair stared at one another. Suddenly, the wolf’s ears pricked up, and it rose to its feet. The nearby foliage began to rustle with movement. For a moment, Hiro feared another wolf, but instead a beautiful girl emerged from the undergrowth.
“Hmm?” She looked at him curiously. “Who are you?”
Drying her wet hair with a cloth, she moved to stand beside the wolf. She laid a hand on its head and scratched it affectionately, though her gaze never moved from Hiro as he looked on in silence.
She cocked her head at him quizzically. “Excuse me. I asked you a question.”
Hiro jumped. “Erm...you mean...m-me?”
“Who else could I mean?”
Although Hiro wouldn’t dream of telling her, the sight of her had left him tongue-tied. Her glossy crimson hair shimmered like living flame as it fell to her shoulders in silky strands. Though her shapely face still retained some youthful roundness, her eyes shone like cut rubies and smoldered with a fiery will. Faint blue veins pulsed with life beneath her porcelain skin.
Hiro noted regretfully that what God had given her in loveliness, he had taken from her in womanly charm, but her modest chest promised to fill out with age and in the meantime did nothing to detract from her beauty.
✦ ✦ ✦
