Wolves by Fue Yang grade 10

I died on April 18, 1966. It wasn’t a fast death or a torturous one. I merely faded from existence. I suppose I was born once, but my parents never held me. I remember the day I was born, the moon was heavy, dragging the stars down along with it. The night was somber and dead and the lively corn stalks sang high into the atmosphere. At first, I couldn’t see anything, but I could hear the crow serenading my limp, infant form. It was the late summer and the cornstalks were wilting, I could smell autumn being born, but for me, time stood still.
Off away, in the deadening horizon were the whispers of hush noises. A boy and a girl emerged, like me, they were nameless, nonexistent. The girl, her wide forehead and heart lips, swung me onto her shoulders, and fastened me with her scarf. Their bare feet marched, deep into the cornstalks.
Winter fell swiftly, heavily on top of two ambiguous silhouettes, their bare feet marching. We wandered into the woods, thick heavy tress sheltered us against the turbulence. We ate the carcasses and flesh of the deer who could not outrun the death of winter. Together we were alone, but never lonely. The girl whose shoulders I borrowed never cried in frustration, in desperation. She never mourned nor appeared funereal, her expression always steadfast, and the boy who led us, his brows always furrowed. Near the heart of the lynching trees stood a wide, meadow clearing. A small field, absent of sound, was fenced in by thick tree trunks. We had begun to settle when we heard the echoes of low growls, waltzing through the misshapen trees.
The indigenous people of this area had once told rumors of giant wolves, larger than seven feet when standing on their hind legs. The people and the rumors had died, but the wolves did not. The girl, the boy, and I held our breaths, listened intently on the paw prints, but the wolves made no sound. Then, the sound of growling came from all sides.
‘Crunch,’ the beasts pace quickened and they no longer worried about stealth. They lunged into the clearing. There were five of them, dirty, gray coats protected them against the wind. Their eyes were hollow, calculating their next meal.
The first one lunged from behind. Its teeth, an index finger long and its jaw, menacing with drool. The child flung forward, jumping, her little feet sprinting through the cold fangs of snow. The young boy followed quickly. The other wolves snarled behind us. There was no way we could outrun them. The little girl began weaving through the trees. The big wolves were not as agile as her. Two collided with bark, the other three were suddenly more tenacious. Branches whipped into our faces, our feet being eaten by the snow, more snarling. They were close now, We could see them running beside us, their white bodies a blur. We ran towards the sound of rushing water.
A cliff stood before us, linking another landmass by a single, rickety, wooden bridge. She glanced at the young boy, they were moving further and further apart, but his smile reassured her. She began crossing the bridge, tiny foot in front of tiny foot. She reached the end. He was still at the beginning, knife in hand. Her wide eyes grew larger.
For a second the sunlight faded. The bridge fell apart and so did our little family. He ran back into the woods. Suddenly deep within the nothingness of the woods, a foreign, white, figure raced. The shape jumped and for a second we mistook it for a moving mass of snow.
Before us stood the mother, she had leapt across the river and her coat was pure white. She stood on her hind legs. The mother stood almost seven feet. She smirked, her fangs making up half of her face. Her eyes were bloodshot and mad. I could feel us slipping, and then the ledge broke. We all fell into the river, but we were striving to survive. Our family did not die that day. We could not die without each other.