.• Rotating DTA Entry: .• Neap •. .• Click the Arrow Keys to go to the Next Slide .• Backstory: The cool misty air greeted me with the same lonelyness I had for a month. The floor was cool all around. Clenching my jaws for a moment, I shivered all around my body. The noises of silence was enough for me, and the cold was even more to bare with. I was in a corner of the cave, beside a never-rotting oak log. Mother always told me they weren’t so dark in color; it was just the dept of lighting in this cave. Either way, it was sturdy and strong. I lazily got up to my paws, hungry for anything edible I could find in this lonely cave. I scampered towards something that always catched my glow — The Stone. It held many secrets none of us know, and it showed some — yet not all — ancient carvings of the markings. It always was an attraction to my glow, and mother never told me the reason why. Perhaps, because of my markings on there, dotteds ones and speckeled ones. For a moment, I stared at it with awe, but it was normal for me. [1] I shook my head, it was obviously something important and special. I looked around, my starvation growing and becoming no better every second. As a small, white-and-grey mouse had been cleaning its nose off, I hid around a rocky corner. Although mother never told us how to hunt hanging — or even flying — bats, other than mice and lizards, I taught myself. In just a second.. one more, and I’d get to the mouse. One pounce, and no more hunger for a moment. I crawled along the rocky stones, nearing to the mouse, checking the corners, and finally, the stone-cave roof. Clear. I neared even closer, when, I realized I had forgotten something. *Twick!* I heard a snap of a branch. The mouse nearly drove off when I knew it was now or never: the caved lizards were hiding from me, and it was rare I found a plump mouse. I dashed, catching up to the mouse, and in one pounce, I had it. My stoumach curled as I heard the dead mouses’ sweak of death. Dead, and my food, to myself. Before, hunting was a passion, a fun thing to do. Now, it was a live-or-death situation. I ate the mouse and was partly full, yet didn’t care. It was enough for me for a while, anyways. Even though it was.. nothing. [2] My ears perked up at the emence glow of The Cove. It was a part of the vast cave. It had its monthly teal-and-blue glow peering from its inside. I knew it was time. [3] Before the mystery of Mother and my siblings going missing, I would have learned life lessons from this cave. It was mystical and mysterious, with these taught life-lessons from spirits of dead wolves. I trotted towards the glow and looked inside, then whimpered and folded my ears back. A sound, odd and off, but beautiful at the same time. I usually came here for a drink of cool, refreshing water The Cove offered me, but this sound, this song, only happened every month. I glanced to the cherry-blossom-filled tree, blooming with might and strength. It was sustained by the soft, black soil and the peeking sunshine from the cracks of the rocks, making a small opening. The mushrooms that growed there were like no other, Mother would say. [4 - 5] I tipped in one of my paws into the cool-trickling water, then the other [6], and plunged my head into it, drinking as fast as I could. I could wait a bit for the lessons. I needed water. Thirst gone, I looked up, then, a curl at the ground. Horrible. I felt a shake and the now-sturdy rocks were sliding away from eachother, fast and strong, bulking against eachother and drifting into the depths of the waters. I was sucked into the water, my vision blurry and I pawed the surface faster than I would have liked to. The surface of the water bubbled up before depleting down again, with me. My instinct was to go to the surface, but I knew I couldn’t. This wasn’t a lesson. I was in the Coves’ waters. I plunged again, a sickening feeling in my stomach [7], swallowing the pure water, then retreating to the surface, and catching a glimpse of something. As I broke the surface in splashes and gulps, I freed myself from the grasp of water for a few seconds, then got pulled back in, forced by the waves and tides. We were great swimmers, but I didn’t know how to swim. I moved my paws to where the shore was, and the beastly shadow was becoming bigger and larger. I worried on what that was. I gulped, more water, felt a sickening sensation, and my body was becoming slower, my blood flow was stopping from my heart, and I knew I was in shock from the water. I nearly blacked out as I hauled myself onto the shore and moved farther away from the water. I breathed heavily, shuddering and shivering with pain and stress. Frozen, I was frozen in place. I was wet to the bone. All I could do it hope for the wind to stop completely. Another Spirit. [8] It bulged and broke the surface, and splashes of water were about to hit me. Just as I feared, until..
..It wasn’t water. It was small, soft seedling-like things attached to a long strand, and then fluff. It was something my Mother called a “rare occasion,” and I took a breath in. The Blossom Trees’ Seeds. [9] They planted themselves father away from me. Only a few were in the sunlight, scattered like small shards. I was shocked and with awe. A real spirit, a different one. She had many markings that were both familiar and unfamiliar to me. I tilted my head slightly, still shivering and in awe, with unblinking eyes towards the spirit. “I see, you’re here for your lesson?” She asked me, yet had no mouth like our last spirit. I nodded, then paused. I was in no shape for a lesson, but perhaps this spirit could tell me what happened to my pack. She could already read my expressions before I even opened my mouth to speak. “They have gone far,” she stated. “Where?” I barked out, interested and bug-eyed. “Well.. I cannot tell you exactly..” I wasn’t liking her tone of voice. No, it was not the end. I needed to know. “But, use what you have learned from your last lesson,” she answered finally, after a long pause of silence. “Wait, bu-” she had then dove back down, into the water with silent crashing waves. I shook my fur widely before turning away and thinking; what did I do in our last lesson together? It didn’t take long to realize: sense and time. In our last lesson, we learned how we could travel back in time up to years by smelling. We had excellent smell, and I could use that to my advantage. Only thing was, I was running out of time. I started to get up, body out of shock, and glance around The Cove. I leaned and smelled two months ago. An etched vision of me and my pack, together, learning this lesson. I had to smell to one month ago. I sniffed, yet nothing was etched. Only the rocks and the tree, and the mushrooms. I moved my head and walked towards where I would sleep with my big brother and middle sister. I saw them, waking up. Then stood, stretched, and glanced to me. Sister nudged me, carefully, but Mother shook her head. She had my two younger sisters and my younger brother, all three pups. Before dad went missing. The youngest sister was about 6 months, the other one 7, and the brother, 9. My older Brother stared at sister with a worried look. Mother then trotted to The Cove. She motioned to The Coves’ Entrance. It was not shining. It was normal. Yet, she put the pups to my siblings, and walked to the tree. She then got a petal and then slow-trotted to the water. She put the petal on the waters surface, and I couldn’t look away. The water had a thin sheet of an ice-like substance atop it. She walked over in, and I felt something. I opened my eyes, and caught myself to jolt backwards before I fell again. Close one. I then closed my eyes, sniff, I could see Mother walk towards a centre.. no.. left.. right.. my vision of her etch was getting lazy. Until she stopped. She looked down to the ice and spoke something to it. What was it? I didn’t know, but it was to one of the spirits. Something important, perhaps. She then ran to the others. “It’s time,” she told them, guiding them to the entrance.. unfolding her wings slightly.. and.. No, she was going outside with the pups? Without me? I was close to leaving, but I moved back with disbelief. She had done it for the good, right? Possibly. No, she would never have left me. Never. But she just did, I just saw — yet smelled — it! I looked back into the cave and sighed. I had to do it one day. I was a yearling, and all yearlings went out of the Cave or Den, one way or another. I pushed on and decided. I stepped out, the light so heavy and bright it was blinding to me. As I slowly opened my eyes, everything was so.. new.. so.. Fresh. The green grass blades had been perfect and a fresh dew scent on them. The sun was peaking and emitted a yellow glow, usually when it just started sunrise. The grass blades, in some areas, grew half as long as me, and other times, normal. The wind wasn’t lonely. It had a fresh cling to it, and a welcoming joy. Maybe it wasn’t bad. It was amazing. Maybe Mother would have stayed here. And then, an odd smell. Another wolf. A booming voice was heard and the wolf rolled me and pinned me onto the ground, snarling at me. I clenched my teeth, then had a worrying face, my stoumach turning and flipping over and over again. Her face had many markings, too, but she had a chocolate-colour, a soil colour rich in brown and black, or tan and white with speckles. Her wings were only 1/4 unfolded, yet were half the size of mines. I unfurled my wings in self-defence [10] and flushed them, but, with one swift movement, pinned them, too. “Who Goes There?!” • .• Comments Section!
