Chapter 5. The Awakening

It all stops. Like having a cold drink poured over scorched sunburn, instant soothing hits hard and intensely as my noise becomes silent, my burns become cool, and my breaks become one.

I stop fighting my body. I am aware of the immediate cease of all of it and the eerie quiet that surrounds me so suddenly. The unnatural silence. Hazy and blurry as my head spins, and I grasp for some sense of reality. Catching my breath, gulping in cool air, and calming ambiance as the fog clears, my vision returns only slightly.

I try to get up, right myself, although it feels different and stumble sideways with a disorientated sense of uprightness. I’m on my hands and knees even though I don’t know how I got this way. I can’t stand or push myself up as I would because it all feels strange, and I blink and shake my head to clear my eyes enough to see which way up I’m facing. I blink, my eyes watering, as finally, dry is restored to moist, and I see forms and shapes and shadows which then define details and more. Confused, yet there is a calm taking over me, a sense of serene with heightened senses in every way.

I gaze down, and I see paws that startle me at first. Gasping at the closeness and realizing they are mine, where my hands should be, flat on the ground. Large, clawed but strong paws, bigger than I thought they would be. I lift one and shake it, almost as if I need to convince myself that I can use and control this limb. It’s genuinely connected to my body. My legs are solid, with thick silver-gray fur up my muscular chest. I have a streak of purest snow white that travels as far as I can see. I stare at it, lean back, and pull my chin in tight to follow it until I can’t strain any further to see.

I have very little memory of my mother in her true form, but I know this is from her. She was a white and my father a silver, yet it’s rare to combine both in such a way. Most wolves are brown or gray… white is a mutation that’s almost unheard of, and my mother used to try to hide because it brought only stares.

Staggering on strange legs and fall flat, splaying out and bumping my undercarriage as I collide with stone. I shake my head, the unfamiliar weight of a different form pulling me from side to side, not entirely in control of my limbs or movements yet, but aware it’s so much bigger than my human skull. Aware, suddenly, of the scene around me coming back into focus and realizing we are still being watched. Sobering fast as my new metabolism pushes the last dr*gs out of my system and cleanses my blood.

The atmosphere is charged, and I’m surrounded by newly changed wolves of all shades of gray and brown, although I’m the only one with white in my coat. Turning as the Shaman’s chants draw my eyes back to him, I trip over my uncoordinated self as I try to right myself and get up. It’s hard to use my hands as front legs, and I instinctively rear backward too far onto my haunches, lose my balance, and reel forward again to correct it before tumbling face on. I slump to the ground once more and meet the dust with a lower jaw clunk.

“It gets easier. Try to stay on your feet. All four of them.” The voice above me pulls my head to tilt towards it, and I recoil as I realize Colton Santo is standing right by me, watching as I make a spectacle of myself falling flat out on new legs. I don’t know if I’m shocked that he spoke to me or wary that he did.

I’ve never trusted anything about him or any of his motives and wonder when he got so close here. Avoiding looking directly at him, keeping my eyes averted from his, attempting to get to grips with this weird body and focusing on learning to use it. All I can do is whimper back, realizing I can’t form words this way, and go into my head link instinctively.

We don’t have the vocal cords for human talking. Wolves in the same pack have a connection mentally, so they can communicate without talking, which, admittedly, is impossible for a wolf. It’s also possible when close enough to speak to one, not from your pack, if they are willing to hear you.

It feels strange.

I attempt to link with him, weirded out by this new, almost natural ability I didn’t have before. I am overwhelmed by all of this and not sure if I am still heavily dr**ged when in this form or if this surreal new way to experience everything is wolf’s sense. Things affect us differently as humans, and this disorientation might be something I have to adjust to.

Yeah, well, walk it off. Learn fast.

He links me back, a husky familiarity to his voice inside my head that does strange things to my stomach. It’s hardly a polite response, and the tone tells me he doesn’t want to communicate with me, especially not in a head link.

I’m not one of his pack, and I’m not even on the same level as him. It’s disrespectful to try. He walks off towards his father to further demonstrate the point, and I flop down to get to grips with everything I got hit with. I’m heavy, unsure how to navigate my dog’s body when I’ve spent my life walking on two legs. I must weigh four times my average weight for sure, although the size of my paws suggests maybe even more.

“The turning will not last… only fleeting moments for your first time. You will be awoken when you come out, and your path will lead you to your destiny. Pay attention, be alert. You are now on the other side.” The Shaman states it loudly, and his voice echoes around the mountain like a prophetic song. I have heard it so many times, yet it finally means something to me this time.

I get up on unsure legs, slowly, like Bambi on newborn limbs, and lift my head as I know I’m meant to. In unison with all around me, we stretch our necks out, lift our noses to the heavens, and howl at the moon for the first time in our lives as one united pack; no matter who we are, where we are from, whatever our bloodline or our past, long and soulful with meaning. United in one song that completes our transformation. A sound that echoes around us, through us, is joined by the hundreds who watch until we fill the night sky with a low, eerie hum that will reverberate around the mountains and put the fear of God into the wildlife.

It feels strange at first. My throat vibrates; it aches and rasps my vocal cords, but as my belly empties, my air departs, and the longest yowl comes cascading out of me until it scratches my throat and leaves me breathless. I feel alive. Like I have been holding my breath and waiting for this my whole life. I guess I have. This is what I was born to be, and with the awakening comes freedom.

I can leave.

I can run.

I can live off the land and hunt to survive. The confines of humans no longer bind me to get by. Wolves can live anywhere as long as they can hunt, and although we have a pack mentality, I’ve heard stories of isolated wolves doing fine on their own. That is what I have planned, longed for, waited for, and I know where I’m heading. I can finally realize my dream of leaving all of this behind me and finding my solitary peace somewhere out there. As far away from these mountains and people as I can, and never looking back.