first encounter ☽
月に吠える | tsuki ni hoeru ☽ ㅡ discontinued
❝Some day, you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again❞
ㅡ C.S. Lewis.
Jiu held her hands up in an unsuccessful attempt to keep the tree branches from scratching her skin and clothing. She knew she shouldn't have gone to the party, something in her stomach had told her that it wasn't going to end well, yet the longing to get out of the village for at least a night got the best of her and she ended up going anyway, taking the long way around the woods, out of the small, familiar village she lived in; the life in that place was dull to say the least, everyone knew each other, every day was the same, Jiu couldn't help but hold with nails and teeth onto the opportunity to get out of there when it was presented to her. But now, Jiu wished with all her might that she had just stayed home. Lamenting wasn't going to change things, though, so she put all of her strength into running faster and faster through the woods, away from the man chasing after her.
"Come back here sweetie, I just want to play!" She heard the man shout.
Scared, she tried to run as fast as her legs allowed her to. Pushing herself to keep going, she ran through the trees and fallen leaves and the trunks of cut trees. It was autumn, and though the air was starting to get progressively colder, Jiu's clothing was scarce and light, as if it were spring.
As she kept on running through the woods, her feet got caught between the roots of a fallen tree and, with a yell, Jiu fell to the ground between two trees. When she got her head up off the ground to take a look at her injured ankle, she saw the man running after her getting closer and closer to where she was helplessly lying.
She tried to get up and keep running, and for a few meter she could, but then, a misstep made her stumble back onto the ground. This time though, when she fell to the ground with a scream of pain, she felt a gust of wind whistle above her, the next thing she heard was an animalistic, guttural growl, and when she looked up resigned to see the man standing before her, she found herself looking at the disheveled, grayish fur of a crouching wolf.
She saw as the wild beast took a few steps backwards and howled into the sky before going near to the man and growling at him once again.
Jiu dragged herself a few feet away from the animal, yet didn't stand up nor made any attempt to run away, fearing that she would startle the wolf and it would attack her.
"It's okay, doggy." The man tried persuading the beast. "I'm just going to keep walking."
When he took a step to the side, the wolf growled and lunged forward towards him a little.
"Okay, okay. Easy there." The man spoke.
Every time he said something, the animal would just growl angrily at him.
Jiu tried to clear her mind. Would she be able to get out of the woods safe and sound? If the wolf didn't kill the man, she was sure she wasn't going to leave unharmed, if she even left at all; and if the wolf did kill the man, and by reasons of force majeure still was hungry, it was bound to eat her. Jiu then considered the only option left, to take a run for it. If she was careful enough, she could get up silently and just go away unnoticed; but then again, she wouldn't make it very far limping. In the end, she decided to give it a try; she determinedly tried to get up, holding onto the trunk of a tree nearby her.
She expected a lot of things to go wrong, the worst-case-scenarios ranged from the man dodging the wolf and getting her, to the wolf turning around and lunging towards her, yet when she got up and looked at the way before her, she was left with her jaw open and her eyes wide. Just before her stood at least five more wolves. They were lined up in a way that made them look like a grey scale, ranging from snow-white to coal-black and, even if their size varied a bit too, all five wolves were extremely big, just like the one confronting the man, which Jiu hadn't noticed how big it was before as she was lying on the ground.
Jiu turned around to see the man watching her with mischievous eyes and a wicked grin on his face. The wolf that stood before him turned his head around and made a movement that quite resembled a bow.
Jiu felt a moist, cold object touching the back of her hand, and when she turned around, she found herself in front of one of the wolves, the one with the fur as white as snow.
The animal nudged her hand with it's nose before signaling towards it's back with it's head.
Did the animal want her to hop on it?
Her hesitation seemed to get the other wolves impatient, for two of them went up next to her and ushered her to sit on the other wolf's back. No sooner did she do it than the wolf had already begun running through the woods. Jiu wrapped her arms around the wolf's neck, the speed making her feel a tad unsafe. She tried to look around the woods as the wolf ran, but she couldn't tell where the wolf was taking her, after all, this was the first time she had adventured into the woods; if she was lucky, then the wolf would take her to where the forest and the village came together, if not, then... She didn't want to think about it.
The cool night air hit her skin like ice picks and, before she knew it, the wolf started slowing down it's pace until it completely stopped in front of a giant cabin. She was still in the woods. Jiu felt panic slowly overrunning her.
The wolf made a sound that sounded a lot like a whimper and bowed it's head, thus making Jiu get back on the ground. She looked around, she couldn't just go into the cabin like it was no one's business, someone had to live there; but then again, the elders always said that no one lived in the woods, for it was too dangerous to do so.
The wolf made a noise and pushed Jiu towards the cabin's door. Suddenly, she turned around and crouched in front of the animal.
"I need to get out of here," she spoke to the wolf. "I need to go back home, to the village. I can't stay here."
The wolf's ears flattened, like dogs do when they get scolded. The animal then let out a wail and lunged towards Jiu, her face.
The girl shrieked and stood up, as she was wiping the saliva from her face, she heard the door open behind her.
"What the hell is going on here?" She heard the voice of a man and her heart nearly stopped beating. She instantly turned around and was about to apologize to the guy when he started speaking to the wolf. "Sehun why are you making so much noise?"
"I'm sorry Kris," Jiu heard another male voice coming from behind her. "She just wouldn't go in..."
Jiu turned around, shocked; yet, instead of seeing the wolf, she found herself facing a boy, a completely boy. At that moment, Jiu thanked every god out there that it was nighttime and dark enough to neither let her see the boy's body nor let the boys see her blushing face. She tried to clear her mind looking around and she realized, the wolf was gone.
She remembered stories that older kids and teenagers would tell when she was little, stories about men from the woods that turned into beasts by their own will, but the elders always hushed them, saying that it was nonsense, and that the only beasts inhabiting the woods were the wolves, that there was no way, and let God forbid, that men could turn into animals.
"Hey," Kris woke Jiu from her reverie. "Are you okay?"
"What?"
"Are you hurt? Do you have any major injury?"
"Uh..., I think I sprained my ankle..."
"Okay...," Kris sighed. "Sehun, help her in, I'll get Xiumin and Kyungsoo to set a room for her."
Sehun grabbed Jiu's wrist and wrapped her arm over his shoulder as his own arm wrapped around her waist in order to help her walk without her ankle aching. He walked her towards the couch, where he let her seat before voicing an apologize and heading towards his room to get dressed after seeing Jiu's flustered face. Only a few minutes had passed when yet another boy came into what Jiu supposed was the living room. Just how many guys lived in the cabin?
"Hi...," the boy said as he sat beside her on the couch. "I'm Chen. What's your name?"
"Jiu."
"Oh, what were you doing in the woods by yourself? Don't you know it's dangerous?"
"I was running."
"Running? Like, you woke up and decided to go for a jog on the forest?" He laughed a bit.
"No...," She hesitated, "I was..., running from someone."
"Oh," Chen's expression was suddenly serious. "Well, you're safe here, you know?"
Jiu only nodded.
"You're not much of a talker, are you?" He chuckled lightly.
"Not really..." She answered while looking down.
Just at that moment, Kris and Sehun came into the room, telling Jiu that her room was ready; they helped her into her bedroom and gave her some clothes to change into before giving her some space and leaving to their respective rooms.
Jiu came out of the bathroom wearing an over-sized shirt and pajama shorts and looked around 'her' room, it wasn't that big, but it wasn't small either, there were some portraits hanging on the walls and a big window on one of them. She turned off the light and limped towards 'her' bed. She laid down and heaved a sigh, she was going to get so scolded when she got back home; she could already picture her mother's flushed face as she screamed on and on about how worried she had made her, her father would be shaking his head on the background with a sad look on his face, letting Jiu know just how disappointed he was on her, and of course the whole village would find out how much of a dishonor she was to her family, for nothing stayed a secret for long in the small 'town' (if it could even be called that) of Vetus.
And, like that, with thoughts of her boring, dull life in that boring, shallow village, Jiu fell asleep in the comfort of the mattres in that giant cabin in the woods.
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