Arabian Dreams 2
an excerpt

Anna walked towards one pair of chatting farmers, intending on asking them what was wrong. She kicked something soft in the road and looked down. Tufts of yellowish grass grew in bunches poking through the find silty dirt. The babble of water passing over shallow rocks trickled to her ears. She looked up, finding herself in what would have been an idyllic clearing, complete with a brook, except for the rot, more evident here in a more delicate mountain ecology. A deer, thin enough that Anna didn’t think it really should be even remotely considered healthy, drank from the stream. A low growl emanated from the forest to her right. The deer lifted her head, twitching her ears and looking around for danger. Anna saw a wolf stalk forward through the sick grass. The deer froze, staring at the wolf. It was thin, almost mangy and hungry looking. It slunk past Anna, not seeming to notice her at all. The deer turned and ran, white tail flashing danger to any who could see. The wolf sprang after it, easily overtaking it’s prey. The deer gave a half hearted attempt at a struggle and then seemed to just give up, happier to be dinner for something else than starve to death.

A siren went off in the distance. The wolf looked at Anna, jaws stained red and strings of meat hanging from it’s mouth. It’s yellow eyes pierced Anna to the core. She took a step backwards, tripping on a rock. The wolf grinned and lunged at her. Anna gasped, the siren going off again, the wolf coming closer, she scrambled backwards, scraping her bare hands on the rough ground. She kicked out at the grinning wolf and threw herself backwards in a desperate attempt to avoid it’s slavering jaws.

Anna slammed into the ground, smacking her head on the table, her alarm insistently screaming at her to get up. She lay on the cool hardwood floor trying to get her bearings, her dream fading from memory. Anna grasped at the last shreds of the dream, thinking it might be important to remember. Darkness, sickness and yellow eyes came back. She lay there, remembering, holding on to the dream.