Nocturne (ch. 1)

Koa, the wolf cub.

The runt, the unloved.

The stupid, the useless.

Koa's fur bristled as he walked through the cold night, his snout cutting through the mist, breathing it in and out.

Useless, useless! I'm nothing but! For if I wasn't what I would be I don't know; wouldn't that also prove I'm dumb? Dumb, dumb.

He was trapped in his own head so much so that he tripped over an abnormally shaped tree root that jutted out of the ground by its middle, a rabbit sized wooden arch.

Instead of getting up, he simply stayed on the ground, the cold dirt, as if started to rain. His body quivered and wobbled at the cold and his nerves seemed to scream at him to get up, but his brain would not let him budge.

He wanted to sit there and die.

Days passed, and though the wolf cub longed to get up, more than half of him pushed himself down deeper into the dirt. What other way was there to explain than Koa was killing himself without wanting to while also, very much, wanting to.

If I had been perfect I would not have been abandoned. How I wish I could turn back time..

The small cub had been so still that a bird flew over and sat atop him, for he must have looked like a nice, cozy, non-sentient perch. Then, Koa breathed, and the bird, startled, flew away.

"What are you doing here all alone?"

Koa, for the first time in four days, looks up. He cannot find the sound source. "I am rotting away," he declares. "Let me decompose in peace."

The voice laughs. "Rotting? You'd be dead by now, no?"

That is when Koa finally saw something: Two small glowing eyes, just shiny enough to reflect the moonlight.

tbc