Chapter 9

Natalie sat there for almost half an hour, just looking back and forth between the log and her body. 'Was it all just a dream? What had just happened? Was she just imagining things due to sleep deprivation?' All these questions and more just rattled through her brain as she tried to make any sense of what just happened. After all, having six wolves enter your body after being hit by a giant and fast wave of energy should not be a normal thing. After half an hour, a yawn escaped her lips. Realizing that she was needing sleep, otherwise she might collapse in the middle of the woods, Natalie finally got up to get back to her camp.

As she folded up her shovel, she wondered if she was delusional. After all, there was a hole under a log, dirt on her shovel, and no sign of any living being around her. The only thing that remained of the wolves was the now dried blood on her hands from the bandaging of the wound. No matter where she checked on herself though, she found no wound that could have caused the blood, nor was there any other explanation. Her tired mind slowly coming to understand the fact that she was not delusional, and the most impossible thing she could have imagined had actually happened to her. How exactly was one to just immediately accept that other living beings could enter you, and you would feel no different?

As she finished repacking her bag with her shovel and first aid kit, she got up, slung it back over her shoulder and started heading back towards her camp. Thankfully the terrain on the hill was still messed up from when she fell down. She was not sure she would have been able to find the way back. While walking, a new set of questions entered her mind. This line of thought had a much different direction that it took, mainly due to the fact that she finally viewed the events to have all actually happened. 'Okay, now am I the only one that this happened to? Is everybody able to have animals enter them? Are they able to come back out? What actually ended up happening to them?' Her questions had only increased in frequency since accepting the whole situation, now actually having a baseline to go on.

'Since this wave came, did it hit the whole world? Was it only Canada that was affected? Were her parents doing okay? What about Shannon... Nah, if anyone she will probably be fine. I don't know anyone who can fight nearly as well as she can.' The journey back was mostly uneventful, just the occasional almost falling on her face due to the tree roots sticking out. Her distracted mind failing to pay attention to where she was walking. As she got back to her camp, in her tired and addled state, she walked right into the line of bells. Snapped out of her thoughts she looked down and noticed that she had tripped her perimeter line. Looking back up, she sighed as she noticed that her entire camp was in disarray from the wave of wind and light.

Her tent was one of the only things left standing in its original spot. Looking inside it however, she could tell that some leaves, branches, and dirt had made its way into the temporary dwelling.  Her sleeping bag was thrown to the back corner of the tent, and was almost buried in the debris. In her rush to get out earlier she had left the door to her tent wide open. Ash from the fire pit was spread out in a cone, showing clearly what direction the wind was moving and how strong it was. The set of kindling and branches that she had as extra were strewn out in an almost parallel cone beside the cone of ash. Shaking her head, she started moving through her camp, fixing everything so that she could sleep in peace.

Starting first with the spread out ash, she pulled back out her folding shovel and quickly worked the dirt, doing her best to bury the particulate. This one was the biggest worry she had as if there was any ash that still had any heat left from the fire, she could be creating the biggest forest fire the region had seen in years. This took her a fair while, as the strong and fast wind had carried the ash for meters from its resting position. After that was done, she checked the perimeter line that she herself had walked into. Thankfully, nothing seemed to be wrong with it and was still able to act as a warning for the rest of the night. Then, Nat went to her tent, and started with throwing all of the debris into the general area of the fire pit. At this point, her body was sore and her mind tired. She decided to not care about all of the dirt in her tent and just gave her sleeping bag a couple of good shakes to make sure that there was no dirt present to disturb her rest.

Making sure to close up the tent, she takes her boots off right beside the sleeping bag so she can track in as little dirt as possible, only to realize the folly of her idea as she looks down at her dirt and blood covered self. Shrugging, as she was far too tired to deal with it, she climbed into the sleeping bag as is. Just as she got comfy, she feels a warm sense of weight on her chest. Looking inside the sleeping bag, she notices one of the pups had just made itself comfy and fell asleep in the sleeping bag with her. It nestled itself right in the middle of her chest, probably cause that area had the most body warmth. 'Huh, so they can come back out of me at will,' she thinks to herself before drifting off to sleep.

Huge thanks to Jake, Viktor, and Kevin for supporting me and my writing!