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I'd never made the effort, but
the option had always been there.
    It didn't look like that'd
be a possibility in Sanctuary. In an entire day I'd had exactly one
person try and befriend me. As much as I appreciated the effort, I
couldn't shake the feeling Britney was befriending me mostly
because  she  didn't have any other options. With mom becoming less
dependable by the day, I was in for a miserable, lonely two years
until I could graduate and escape to a big city. Hopefully there I
could safely find a niche among the other quasi-loners who didn't
fit in anywhere else.
    As I turned my light out and got into bed I
realized there'd been one bright spot to the day. Brandon
Worthingfield III might not really be interested in me, but he was
obviously at the top of the social food chain, and he'd already
shown me way more attention than any of the boys back home ever
had. Maybe there was some hope after all.
    **
    I was lost, not just in the sense of not
knowing where I was, but because I'd never been anywhere even
remotely like this. The breeze was louder than any I'd ever heard
before, and was laden with an unimaginable host of scents.
    It took me several seconds to sort through
things enough to realize I was smelling things I didn't even have a
name for. After several seconds of trying to catalog the most
delightful of my new discoveries, I realized I'd had my eyes closed
since I'd gotten here, possibly an unconscious defense mechanism
meant to protect me from sensory overload.
    The distant sound of water trickling down a
rock face, of leaves gently caressing each other in the breeze
faded away as I took in an amazing wonderland of light. The trees
I'd been listening to were exactly where I expected them to be, but
it took me several heartbeats to recognize them. Gone were the
sturdy, brown behemoths I'd spent so much time climbing with
Cindi.
    Instead, pillars of soft light reached up to
the sky, swaying slowly back and forth with the wind creaking in a
rhythm I'd known by heart since I was seven. I felt tears
collecting in the corners of my eyes as I reached out and touched
the nearest tree. It was as if the world I'd known my entire life
had been simply a moldy cover designed to hide the true nature of
my surroundings. Now that the mask was gone and I was immersed in
vivid colors, living lights, and a sense of harmony so strong it
nearly overwhelmed me.
    It was impossible to say for certain how long
I sat looking at the gentle motion of the tree branches, marveling
at the way things made up of light could still cast shadows when
silhouetted by the harsher light of the sun.
    Only somehow the sun had disappeared,
replaced by the paler, colder light of the moon. The trees were
still graceful strands of light, but the breeze had changed to a
harsh thing, one carrying new scents that somehow represented
danger.
    Something inside me forced my limbs into
motion. I was running before the first howl tore through the night.
I was moving unimaginably fast, jumping fallen trees and bounding
over other obstacles which even my improved vision struggled to
make out in time for me to avoid them. The speed of my passage
wrung tears from my eyes, but I didn't dare slow.
    They were back there, four of them moving
with speed only slightly less than my own, noses to the ground to
follow my scent, save for the moments in which they let loose their
unearthly howls.
    A flicker of motion up ahead should have made
me pull up in fear, but the smell accompanying it was somehow
familiar, somehow safe. I knew if I could reach the shadowy person
I'd been unconsciously following, I'd be safe, but he was so
incredibly fast and my pursuers were gaining.
    **
    The sound of my alarm pulled me out of a
whole series of nightmares in which I was running from unknown
menaces. Each had been terrifying, but none as vivid as the first.
Bad dreams had become a frequent companion since the accident. It'd
become nearly passé to wake up emotionally exhausted from