The Song Of The Wolf (Unedited)

Chapter Thirty-Three

Twilight was waning and Maebh found herself back in the labyrinth. The walls had moved to proffer a single path towards its centre, as it had done before. There, on the crest of the hill where the old birch tree was rooted, several silhouettes made their spectre known, all wolfish. Their vocal cords joined in hymn, the chanteloup looming as though they had been invited to a family feast that exacted their solidarity.

A tickling sensation was felt at Maebh's feet. She looked down to see numerous spiders crawling up her legs, black as night and the size of coins. Revolted, she tried to shake them off, the retribution only serving to make the hairy creatures scuttle in random directions, wriggling further up her body and towards her face, so close that she could see their eight eyes shining like blackened pin heads, and hear the sound of their mandibles clicking in preparation.

The cries of babies split the air, mixing in with the howling of the wolves as if to reflect their zeal. That is when the sensation of panic sprung into overdrive, but Maebh could not move; she was nailed to the ground.

At an alarming rate, more spiders appeared from holes in the soil, too many to count and her muscles ached at the strain she put them under, trying with all her might to escape the jaws of the creepy crawlers.

Seemingly attempting to swallow her whole, oblivion engulfed her, overcoming her like cruel shattering shards, as if her misery had created the perfect canvas for eternal rest.

Then, resembling a flock of pigeons frightened by the scream of a hawk, the multitude dispersed and took her by the hand.

"Fillin?" Maebh asked as her stranger's touch lured her to the old birch tree, the spiders having retreated.

They neared the vicinity of the bulbous trunk, where the babies would typically lay on a bed of moss; their cries were inherent but their presence was not, they were nowhere to be seen.

"Fillin, where are they? Where are they?!"

Maebh was frantic, yelling, scared and in the distance, the mists of enigma parted to reveal the castle, something that hadn't occurred in the dream before.

"Riddle me this," the prince spoke with charred lungs, words formed of smoke. "Is a nightmare a nightmare if reality duplicates its attributes?"

As an orange hue illuminated the side of his face, Maebh tilted her head to scour the source and found a hot glowing body of ignited gas singeing and scorching the massive stone structure they called home.

A third sound filled the air, a more distant one.

The screaming of people that were being burned alive.

Maebh awoke with a gasp, feeling nauseous and paralysed as her sweaty hair matted to her scalp. The bibliotheca dormer was dark, the murals on the ceiling cankerous as she imagined them being torched to ashes.

Just another one of her nocturnal terrors, Maebh tried to tell herself. They would eventuate when she was alone and reeked of vulnerability; the ideal ingredients for the summoning of ugly phantoms.

A faint realisation fluttered over her, clouded, like using bare hands to try and grab at fish swimming in murky waters. She felt a pressure at her back that she identified as Fillin's chest, rising and falling as he slept behind her.

His soft snores were a soothing resonance, though not for long, the excruciating shrieking was imprinted in her memory bank, putridly so.

She pushed Fillin's arm from around her waist and swung her legs over the ledge of the bed as her stomach lurched, vomit attempting to emit from her oesophagus.

"Maebh?"

"I—" she couldn't finish as she raced down to the bathroom and angled herself over the toilet bowl to barf her guts out. Porcelain clashed with clam chowder and a warm hand swept her hair away from her face, rubbing her back.