Dreamweaver

It’s the same room as last time, Joshua thought as the boy curled himself in a little ball along the cold, obsidian wall. It was the same room, the same table, the same wall that always felt as though he were up north along the shores of Arctic Point. Curling himself together, trying to keep the heat within him as much as he possibly could never helped; it always escaped easier than he did, and his body kept growing colder and colder.

It’s coming, Joshua thought, pushing up the rims of his glasses.

No signs indicated something was even approaching him. Everything stood still in the encompassing blackness. It had taken Joshua a long time to even get this far, knowing the signs of what was to come; the appearance of the strange room, the dimming of the lights until he couldn’t even see his own hand, the sudden chill that would always descend and would suck out all the warmth from him until nothing was left. He knew it was coming, and wished it would stop.

A low rumble caused him to open his eyes and dart around the room; the darkness behind his eyelids melting away into the darkness of the room he had been in for what felt like hours. Either way, he didn’t want to see what was coming, but it was always hard to tell what was happening to him when the room became all black like it was. Last time it had become so dark he skinned his knee on the harsh, splintered wood that made up the table, so he always took that position on the wall with his hands wrapped around his knees as he sat against the wall simply so he knew where he was, thankful that at least the darkness came gradually.

Another rumble made Joshua stand up. He had almost made it out of here the last time this happened. There was a lone door that was always locked and stood too high for Joshua to reach the handle; he wasn’t a little kid anymore, but he always felt like he was four and trying to reach the closet door. But this time meant survival. This time meant freedom. He didn’t know how many times he had tried escaping it during the short moments of freedom he had found before, but it always closed before he could reach it.

The third rumble sounded and the walls at the back of the room began to glow with strange runes that shone blue like the coastal waters of the southern Brishind Coast. He never knew what they said, only that they were from the older languages of T’sivet before the common language existed and that the first set of them said “Joshua” from when he remembered what they were and took the symbols to an interpreter back in Ikasarat who said what they were. He never disclosed any information about the room or about how they glowed on the walls and were a sign of oncoming disaster.

The rumbling became less distant and more continuous. Hardly the ground would stop shaking before it started again, causing the table in the center to start rattling around the stone floor. It never followed the same path any of the times he had come here, which Joshua thought was odd because everything else always followed the same pattern, the same sequence, every other time. Even his methods of escape. Of course, when he became as panicked as he eventually got, there was no other option but run.

The rumbling stopped. The thing he feared had arrived. He knew it was right outside the door. He couldn’t run right away. Every time he tried that before he had failed. He learned to wait, then run. But wait too long, and it would catch him before it could move. Wait too little and it would still be at the door and ready to attack him. Joshua had never figured out the right time to run, always within reach of the door before he was pulled away.

What’s the use? Joshua thought. It happens the same way every time. I can’t help it.

No sooner had Joshua thought this than a very loud banging came from the other side of the door, followed by a low growl. Joshua flattened himself against the wall as he waited for the moment to run. The growling became louder and louder and the banging more repetitive; Joshua could see the door slowly breaking apart as the growls became louder and louder before finally busting off its hinges and falling apart to reveal the monster he knew had come for him.

The wolf stood on four legs like any other feral wolf would, but one of its paws alone was as long as Joshua’s forearm, and its muzzle as long as Joshua himself was tall. It’s rough and weathered fur was coated with crimson, much like the otherwise pearly white teeth that shone brightly as they reflected the light of the runes. Its golden eyes locked with Joshua, causing the boy to shiver with fear as it began walking slowly toward him. Joshua could tell it liked to savor the moment, it liked the thrill of watching its prey cower in fear before it. Joshua had to admit it had a right to; it was successful every single time.

The wolf’s steps were deliberate as it padded towards him, calling his name. “Joshua…” it said in its low, threatening growl. “Joshua… You can never win, Joshua…”

“No,” Joshua said, trying to be brave over the quiver in his voice. “I… I won’t let you.”

“Come now, Joshua…” the wolf said again. “You know as well as I do. You’ve failed our little game every time. What’s going to make you think you stand a chance at reaching the freedom you desire so much?”

“I… I have a plan,” Joshua lied.

The wolf immediately saw through it. Its muzzle was now directly next to Joshua’s face, nearly touching his pale blue, and Joshua could feel its hot breath as it laughed at him much the same way it growled at him. “And what sort of plan do you have for me to foil this time? Running?”

“What do you know?” Joshua said.

“I am part of you,” the wolf said. “I am your deepest, darkest fear. I am what terrifies you in the middle of the night. I am what restrains you in the light of day. I am what keeps you from doing what you want to do so badly. I know as much as you do about why I am here, and why you can’t escape from it. Ever.”

“J-just watch me.”

“I shall enjoy it.” And the wolf lunged at him.

Joshua was too quick and fell out of the way so that the wolf smashed its nose against the obsidian wall. It wasn’t hurt a bit and didn’t even recoil, instead making another lunge at Joshua as the boy picked himself up and began to run in a zigzag around the room. Joshua could feel his heart beating, his lungs already short of breath, his panting cold air as his body became colder and colder.

Joshua almost managed to reach the door and his escape, but the wolf growled at Joshua and smacked him with one of its over-sized paws. Joshua found himself rolling head over heels until he hit the wall with his back and head, dazed and confused. The hot breath of the wolf brought him back to his senses and Joshua got up before the wolf could lunge at him again. Joshua panicked and ran away from the door, only realizing he was running in the opposite direction one he found himself against the back wall searching for the door.

Fortunately for him, the wolf was slow in this small space and he was able to see his area of escape through the wolf’s legs, towering above him and revealing a small open space in the middle of the floor where he could safely run through. Joshua picked up all the strength he could muster and ran for the door, towards the bright white light on the other side of the door that marked his freedom.

I’m going to make it this time, Joshua thought. I’m actually going to make it!

“No, you aren’t,” the wolf said as though reading his mind. With one swift swipe, Joshua found himself launched backwards, the wind knocked out of him by the paw hitting him square in the chest and scooping him up. Joshua tried to wiggle out of the wolf’s paw, but it had caught his shirt on one of its claws and brought Joshua up to meet its muzzle.

“I love the thrill of the hunt,” the wolf growled. “And I love repeat performances. You did well this time, boy. Better than I thought you would. But it made this all the more rewarding for me. Ah well, a hunt is a hunt and food is food, no matter how you look at it.” And it opened up its muzzle to reveal a huge, slobbery maw.

Joshua hardly felt any of it. All he knew was the wolf flicking his paw, sending him flying through the air and into the maw of the wolf. Joshua fell down, down, down into the blackness of the wolf, screaming in terror until he woke up sweating in his own bedroom.

Only after Joshua had finally regained sense of where he was did he finally calm down and run his hands through his light brown hair. He was sitting up in his bed, still dressed in the black pajama shirt and pants with the white trim around the collar, sleeves, and legs. His black, thin-rimmed glasses were over on the table next to him, and the moon shone through the open window, a cool breeze coming in. Joshua looked over at the mirror, seeing a fourteen year old boy having just woken up from a nightmare staring back at him with a sort of relief that he was back somewhere where he at least could go to someone for help.

He didn’t have to. A light clicked on in the hallway and Joshua watched as the door opened and his stepmother, a large tan and white mountain lion Felid in her early forties, entered the room dressed in a light blue nightgown staring concerned at him with her brown eyes. “Joshua?” she said. “I thought you had a math test tomorrow and wanted the extra sleep.”

“I do,” Joshua said. “I did. But… I had that dream again.”

The Felid’s mouth turned into a concerned frown and she walked over to sit with Joshua on the bed. Joshua felt her black-tipped tail wrap around his back as she hugged him and he willingly hugged back, trying to fight tears. “I can’t believe it’s still going on. I think I’ll arrange for you to see a therapist sometime this week. Can’t be tomorrow if you have a test tomorrow, and I don’t want to stress you out more than there is.”

“Maybe dad could take me,” Joshua said. “If he’s not busy.”

“We’ll have to see,” the Felid said. “Your father would know more about it than me and would be able to explain things more in depth than I could.”

The two sat in silence for a while.

“Do you know anything about my real mom before you married dad?”

“Yes.”

“Can you tell me what you knew about her?”

The Felid sighed. “If it helps you sleep. I knew your mother was a great warrior. She was very powerful with the lance. I used to have her in some of my college classes and could see her often at the training grounds. I wanted to be like her, but I opted to become a teacher. She enlisted in the army, and was killed at the paws of a wolf Canid when she was struck down by a sword. Trust me, I am as sad as you are that she was killed; she was a good friend of mine for many years before she got married. I knew your father then, too, and married him a year after your mother passed.”

Joshua nodded. “Can I have a drink of water, mom?”

The Felid nodded. “If it helps you sleep.” And she got up and left the room and went back into the hallway. Joshua settled himself back down in bed as he heard his father’s voice along with his mother padding softly down the hallway.

“Did he have that dream again?”

“Yeah. He did.”

“We really should take him to see Kirota.”

“You know how he feels about that Canid. He can’t even stand being in the same room with her. Not even with her magic in effect. He gets shivers, stands paralyzed for a moment or two, then starts screaming. It’s always dealt with his fear ever since his mother died.”

“You have a point. If she was alive… well, it’s likely he wouldn’t be having these dreams as much as he does.”

“Well, I’m making him an appointment with another therapist somewhere in town. I know of one not too far from my school. Joshua could walk to the school and I could take him after I get off work unless you feel you should go since you know more.”

“I’ve got to see. It was a long day at the office today. I don’t know how bad it will be later this week, if that’s when you’re planning for him to go. Maybe I could meet you there later.”

There was the sound of running water for a few seconds and the soft padding of feline feet as Joshua’s cougar Felid stepmother returned to the room and set the glass of water on the nightstand next to the bed. Joshua sat himself upright and drank all the water from the glass before his stepmother took it, drew him close for a hug and kissed his forehead.

“Good night, Joshua,” the Felid purred.

“Good night, mom,” Joshua said and settled down to sleep again as his mother walked back through the hallway and put the glass away, turning off the light in the hallway as she returned to bed herself. All Joshua could hope for was that the dream didn’t return by the time he fell back asleep.

* * *

Joshua awoke a few days later and got dressed before his stepmother had left the house to go to work. She wore a nice little black dress and small diamond earrings at the top of her rounded ears that Joshua recognized as the night that his father brought her home and the night he proposed to her in an attempt to bring Joshua back to peace. Joshua never understood why he married her; he was a human and she was a Felid, so it was very likely they would never be able to have a child of their own unless they didn’t mind the complications. At least she was kind and caring, Joshua thought, and she did all she could to be there for him as much as possible.

“Oh, you’re awake,” she said when Joshua discovered her putting on makeup at the kitchen table in the early hours of the morning. “Did the dream come back again last night?”

“Yes,” Joshua said. “I was able to get back to sleep, but it did come back before that.”

“I know. I heard you screaming.”

“I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay. I did want to let you know, though, that I’ve arranged for us to go consult a therapist today after I get off work. You know where my school is, so just walk over there when you finish school and we’ll go as soon as I’m done.”

“Dad can’t go?”

“He has a meeting this evening. He tried to get out early, but wasn’t able to make it, but wrote down some notes for me that I could give or tell the therapist when we go.”

“Oh, okay.”

The cougar got up from her seat, went over and hugged Joshua. “Make sure you eat a good breakfast before you go. I still want you to do well on that math test today. And don’t let those bullies at school get you down.”

“Okay, mom,” Joshua said as he hugged her back. “I’ll try.”

The cougar smiled, picked up her purse, and left. Joshua could hear his father snoring in his parent’s room down the hall and almost thought of waking him up, but instead he went over to the apartment window at the living room and watched until he could see the cougar Felid walking out of the downstairs glass doors onto the sparsely-populated streets of Ikasarat before the sun rose.

His father had done well enough when his mother died, Joshua thought as he walked around the apartment. They used to own a two story house in the Ikasaratan suburb of Nogune, back when his mother’s job as a local mercenary turned army foot soldier was enough to support her family’s housing and medical care and was enough to put bread on the table all by herself. His father sold all but a few of the most precious of his mother’s items after that day she went off to combat an uprising and a wolf Canid thrust his own lance into her. Now they lived in a six-room living space on the fourth floor of an apartment complex in central Ikasarat with a room for his parents, one room for Joshua himself, a kitchen, a living room, two small bathrooms and an office where his father worked late into the night getting projects done for his work. It was a nice little apartment, well-aerated and in good condition, and it was close to a few good schools, one of which was the small high school with only about one hundred and twenty five students from seventh to twelfth grade, of which Joshua was in the spring semester of his ninth grade year.

Joshua went to his room and got his backpack out of his room and replaced it with his pajamas – his stepmother had his dad install a hook in his room to put the backpack on – packed up his homework and books from the previous night currently on the desk in his room and went over to the kitchen, taking a pan out and some eggs from the fridge and turned on the stove, in addition to taking a few pieces of bread on the side of the flat-top stove, cooking some extra for his dad. When the eggs and toast were done cooking, he placed them on a plate and began eating them with a fork from the drawer.

His dad woke up soon after he started eating; the door to his parents’ room shut as his father woke up in only his underwear and shorts and he heard his father opening the closet to change into his clothes. A few minutes later, Joshua was washing his breakfast dishes when his father came out, a fair-skinned human like Joshua himself with light brown hair and a beard of the same color, wearing a black formal shirt with collar and black pants with leather shoes. He had little muscle and was very tall and skinny and often caused Joshua to wonder how he could stand working around the Felids, Canids, and Vulpines that were his office-mates.

“Smells good in here, son,” his father said. “You cook breakfast for yourself this morning?”

“There’s some egg and toast on a plate for you, too, dad.” Joshua turned around and pointed to the remaining plate on the table.

“Thanks, buddy,” Joshua’s father said, walking over to Joshua and rubbing his hand through his hair. “Ready for that test today?”

“I’m more worried about the therapist visit today,” Joshua admitted.

Joshua’s father piled his egg in between the two slices of toast and pulled out a chair before motioning Joshua over. Joshua sat down and waited for his father to finish before he began to speak. “I know all this wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for your mother’s death, but you’ve got to understand that none of this was your fault, and it wasn’t your mother’s fault either. Catherine was a good friend of your mother and is really trying her best to help us out here. I see you’re getting along great with her, so that’s good, and you seem to be doing really well in school, but you’ve got to let it go, Joshua. It’s not going to go away until you move onwards. Just because one wolf Canid killed your mother doesn’t mean all of them are out to get you.”

“You don’t know what it’s like at school, dad,” Joshua said.

“No, I don’t,” his father admitted. “But I do know that you’re my son, and that I want you to be successful and not held back by why your mother died. Stop remembering that she died, and remember what a kind, loving, strong woman she was and how much she cared for you.”

Joshua nodded. “I’ll try.”

“That’s my boy,” his father said, taking another bite of his sandwich. “Now, then, shouldn’t you be going off to school?”

Joshua nodded and went through the living room towards the door.

“Don’t forget your keys!” his father called after him.

Joshua turned back around and grabbed a set of three keys from the nightstand in his room before racing towards the door, calling back “Bye, Dad!” before heading down the hallway and down four flights of stairs to the first floor and out the glass doors that led into the earthen-colored apartment complex; Joshua could see the kitchen light on from down in the still quiet street; the sun was barely reaching over the Ikasaratan castle off in the distance as Joshua began to walk down the street towards his school.

The south-west district of Ikasarat had three high schools, two larger private schools and the Ikasaratan General Public High School, or IPHS as it was known. Joshua went to the IPHS, of which the southwest district branch was the smallest; the previous year’s graduating class had only about ninety graduates, and this year’s was only suspected to be about eighty-five. Joshua liked the smaller class sizes because they meant more time spent with the teachers and shorter lines at the library for his research for his classes; it also meant an easier time obtaining shelter in a classroom from a gang of wolves who were known around school as “The Pack.”

“The Pack” was a group of about ten to fifteen young male wolves in tenth through twelfth grade and their mates, who never really seemed to be of much use except as onlookers. While in general they never caused too much trouble – mostly because they lacked an alpha – they always were harassing anyone of a lower grade than themselves. Joshua had been unlucky to come across them one time during lunch and, paralyzed by fear, was first jeered, then had dust kicked in his face, then was kicked in the side a few times.

When he arrived in the morning, “The Pack” was nowhere to be seen, so Joshua swiftly made his way to his first classroom to find the door open and the teacher inside looking over papers, so he went inside and sat down at a desk and waited for his day to begin.

Joshua’s morning went very smoothly. He was able to push out the dream for notes in history and biology following that, got a good paper back in his literature class and managed to kick a goal during soccer in gym class. After gym came lunch and Joshua, feeling much more upbeat than that morning, went over to buy himself some lunch from the cafeteria and found a small, out-of-the-way place near the library to eat his lunch.

Lunch finished, Joshua picked up his trash and went to go throw it away before heading to the library, but before he could move any farther, he noticed that a fairly large group of wolf Canids surrounding him, some with silver pelts, others with brown, and one even with red. Before he knew it, Joshua had been surrounded by “The Pack.”

“Well, well, well,” one of the older ones said. “If it isn’t little Joshua Four-Eyes sitting all by his little lonesome.” “The Pack” laughed at the remark.

“That’s a stupid taunt,” Joshua said as he pushed the glasses up higher on the bridge of his nose.

The wolves ignored him and laughed harder. “It seems we always meet up like this, don’t you think?” another one said. “Such a shame. Why can’t we just sit and talk?”

Joshua already knew where this was headed. Last time they had “talked” back when Joshua was in the seventh grade, he had lost all of the money he had on hand; it wasn’t much, but enough to realize they weren’t the best anthropomorphs to encounter if the tattered shirts and pants didn’t give it away. “No,” he said feebly as he cowered against the cold wall. “I… I won’t let you.”

“The Pack” laughed again. One of the Canids knelt down over Joshua and began to speak in a sort of growl that Joshua did not like at all, a haunting growl that sounded too familiar. “Oh? You know as well as I do. You’ve failed our little game every time. What’s going to make you think you stand a chance at fighting back?”

“I… I have a plan,” Joshua lied.

The Canid immediately saw through it. Its muzzle was now directly next to Joshua’s face, nearly touching his skin, and Joshua could feel its hot breath as it laughed at him much the same way it growled at him. “And what sort of plan do you have for us to deal with this time? Running?”

“W-what do you know?” Joshua said.

“The Pack” laughed at him, and Joshua suddenly began to feel the ground rumble beneath his feet as the shadows of “The Pack” blocked out the sun. The rumbling became louder and louder and more continuous, causing Joshua to wonder whether or not the others felt it, whether or not they knew what was coming. Joshua wanted to scream out for help, but his voice failed him and all he could do was whimper, making “The Pack” laugh louder and louder, but not loud enough over the rumbling and the growling of the figure standing above them.

The wolf was there, staring down at him and laughing even harder than it had in his dreams. The wolf laughed even harder as the members of “The Pack” punched and kicked Joshua, one of them even breaking his glasses and shoved his own trash all over his shirt and face and hair and were laughing even harder as the wolf slobbered all over one of them.

“Ew…” said the member who had gotten slobbered on. “What’s on my arm!?”

“Looks like a bird took a dump on you,” said another.

“Disgusting,” the first one said. “I need to get it cleaned off.”

One of the other members turned around back to Joshua. “We’ll be coming back later to finish this, Joshua Four-Eyes.” Then “The Pack” grouped together and began walking off towards a restroom.

The wolf faded from view entirely as a pigeon cooed overhead and Joshua sat on the floor in a daze, staggering back to his feet and over to the gym lockers to put on his gym shirt to replace his now dirty tee before making his way through the school to his computer class, where the teacher immediately made him go to the nurse’s office to put a bandage on his head after Joshua explained that he hadn’t watched where he was walking and ran headfirst into a pole. Joshua gratefully accepted the offer to lie down in the nurse’s office until next period, after which he had a drink and felt better but kept the bandage on his head.

After his computer class was the math class with the test, so Joshua packed up his things and checked out of the nurse’s office to go back to class if only to take his test. The nurse agreed and let him check himself out and go, so Joshua walked across campus, avoiding the members of “The Pack” wandering around the campus as he walked over to the math building on campus and slipped quietly into the building and down the hall to his room, where a few students were inside.

One of these students was a young female wolf Canid named Rebekah, who had white fur and white bangs with black tips and the same age as Joshua. Rebekah was the little sister of one of the members of “The Pack” but detested what they did and stayed away from them as much as anyone else did even though she wouldn’t have gotten harmed by them anyways. Because of the few students per grade at IPHS, Joshua often had classes with Rebekah, but never bothered speaking to her; the fact that she was a wolf, and one of the sisters of a member of “The Pack”, meant Joshua nearly always kept his distance from her and never really socialized with her much despite the fact that they had as few as two classes together the entire time they were at school.

Joshua tried to slip in quietly to his desk in the hopes that Rebekah, currently in a red shirt and black dress, wouldn’t notice him, but the wolf’s sensitive white ears, also with black tips, soon swiveled around in his direction and she followed soon after, her bright green eyes looking at him kindly. “Hey, Joshua!” she said, then noticed the bump on his head. “Oh, my! Are you alright? Where’d you get that bump?”

“I’m fine,” Joshua said, hoping it was the end of the conversation and she wouldn’t have to say anything more, but Rebekah continued. “Did you run into my brother’s gang again? Ooh… he is so going to get it when he gets home if mom found out they went around beating people up again. And your hair is such a mess and your glasses are broken, too…”

Rebekah kept talking as Joshua looked around for the teacher, who was currently talking with another student at his desk. Joshua ended up going over for the tape as Rebekah kept talking to him and Joshua kept wishing she would just shut up.

“…you know, my dad’s an optometrist and could probably give you a free checkup and help you get a new pair of glasses if ever you needed one.”

“Fine,” Joshua said feebly as he took the tape and applied a liberal amount to his broken glasses. “Just fine. Go out there and point out to everyone that I have glasses. I won’t mind.”

“Anyways,” Rebekah said, seemingly ignoring Joshua, “did you get problem seventeen on the review assignment? I was working on it for a while and just couldn’t figure it out.”

“I don’t know,” Joshua said, again hoping to divert the conversation, but Rebekah seemingly found another excuse. “You don’t know? Why don’t you just look at your homework and see what you got? And if there were any problems that you were having problems with, maybe I could help you out with them. We could help each other out and study for the math test today.”

“I don’t know,” Joshua said again as he returned to his desk and put his head in his arms. “I don’t want to talk right now.”

“Oh,” Rebekah said and finally became quiet again.

What Joshua didn’t say was “I don’t want to talk to you anymore because you are a wolf Canid and your kind killed my mother.” It took only a moment for Joshua to realize he was crying, remembering his mother’s funeral on a rainy afternoon in the eighth month, a month after her death one year and seven months ago. He remembered seeing a few wolf Canid families there, and wondered why they would provide insult to injury by attending his mother’s funeral when they were the ones that killed him. It was that night that he started to have the dream, when he was happily playing with his mother when the wolf appeared out of nowhere and locked him in the room, beginning it’s hunt.

“Joshua?” Rebekah said quietly. “Are you crying?”

“No,” Joshua sobbed. “Leave me alone.”

It took the better part of five minutes before class for Joshua to calm down at which point he looked around the room and saw the teacher getting up to being class and begin the test. Joshua braced himself for the test as the teacher passed around papers and Rebekah whispered “Good luck” to him.

Forty-five minutes later, Joshua had finished his test and was turning it in with the rest of the class. The teacher told them to start reading the next lesson during the weekend and dismissed them for the day. Joshua packed up his things and started to leave the campus to go to his mother’s school where she worked.

Rebekah followed Joshua out of the classroom, with Joshua pretending to ignore her. “Joshua!” she called after him as she caught up to him and walked with him out of the building. “Joshua! Why were you crying during math class today?”

Joshua didn’t respond.

“Joshua,” Rebekah whined. “Why aren’t you talking to me? I’m just trying to be nice.”

By this time they were on the street and Joshua had started walking towards his school. He stopped and turned around to see Rebekah with a concerned look on her face. “I’m just trying to be nice.”

Joshua turned around. “If only you knew…” he said, but his voice faded away as he walked away.

“I would know if you told me!” Rebekah shouted behind him.

Joshua turned around with the intent of chastising Rebekah simply because she was a wolf Canid and his mother was killed by her kind and he didn’t want to associate himself with someone like her. A rage began burning in his heart that wasn’t so much different from the fear as a sort of self-defense against what caused it, and turned around to Rebekah.

But Rebekah wasn’t alone. With Rebekah was a white wolf Canid with golden eyes that didn’t quite have a pupil, wearing a gold, brown, and white mages robe. In one of its paws, it held a long wooden staff with a pearl at its top much like a mages’ staff. Its robes were tied together with a golden cord and she wore a white shirt and dress underneath it with bare white feet paws and pink pads. Upon seeing the wolf, Joshua’s anger dissipated, his fear returned, and he fled from the school grounds, never stopping until he came to his stepmother’s work and sat himself down in her office while he waited for her to finish.

* * *

Joshua sat down in one of the seats across from the therapist, with Catherine his stepmother sitting next to him and the therapist they had gone to see sitting on a desk with a pad of paper and an inkwell pen that he constantly was dipping into his bottle of ink to refill as he scribbled away at his pad while Catherine spoke; Joshua only reaffirmed certain things or corrected him on others as his stepmother talked about the death of his mother and when the dream started happening and what she knew of it.

The therapist (Joshua never saw his name) was a striped skunk, wearing a blue, collared, formal shirt with black pants that nearly matched his coat pattern, black with a single white stripe going down the center. He had beady little brown eyes that Joshua originally didn’t even see with how well they had blended in with the Mephit’s fur, and only after seeing that it was indeed a Mephit and not a wolf Canid did Joshua even enter the office. He had a deeper, though calmer, voice and spoke reasonably and intellectually with both Catherine and Joshua.

“…and so these events have been going on for how long?” the Mephit asked.

“Well,” Catherine said, “he’s been having these dreams for the past year and six months…”

“Seven months,” Joshua interrupted. “The past year and seven months.”

“…year and seven months since his mother died. I started dating his father a few months later after we reconnected for the first time since college at her funeral and we married a few months later. The dreams have been going on since then and we’ve found no way to stop them as of yet.”

The Mephit dipped his pen into the ink bottle and tapped it a few times on the side until it stopped dripping before continuing. “When do these dreams usually occur?”

“Well, he usually wakes up during the middle of the night long after we’ve all gone to bed. He usually wakes up screaming, sweating and with a fever. We give him a glass of cool water and the fever dissipates after a short while, but that seems to be as much as we can do.”

“Have you taken him to see Kirota Tontura? I hear she’s sup—”

“We can’t even get him inside her office,” Catherine answered before the Mephit could finish. “He panics and becomes paralyzed before we can even take him in there. He’s been in there once, but that was barely held onto by Kirota’s magic and we had to leave because his panic set in more firmly than the presence of any calming magic has been able to thus far. It begins with heavy breathing, his voice becomes weak, he shivers…”

“It’s the other way around,” Joshua interrupted again.

“…he shivers, his voice becomes weak until it eventually gives out, and he freezes in place. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him come down with a seizure, but he can’t be around a wolf Canid for very long otherwise the symptoms set in unless he’s distracted by something else.”

“…so Kirota is out of the question…” the Mephit said thoughtfully and wrote some more notes on his pad. He scribbled for a while, tapped his pen in the bottle for what Joshua thought seemed like the fifth or sixth time within the past half hour (the clinking of the pen on the glass bottle was beginning to get annoying), and continued writing for a little while before turning to Joshua himself.

“So,” the Mephit asked Joshua. “What usually happens during these dreams?”

“Well,” Joshua began, “I’m always in some sort of room with obsidian walls that looks rounded almost like some of the towers at the castle. Eventually, the room becomes pitch black where I can’t see anything, even my own hand. The walls will then light up with strange runes that the only thing I’ve been able to decipher of them is my name even though there’s a lot more. Then comes this rumbling sound, and part of the wall breaks to let in this giant wolf with legs that are as long as I am tall. And the wolf can speak. It tells me that I can’t run away and that it’s going to hunt me down. It chases me around as I make my way towards the exit. But, before I can escape, the wolf catches me with one of its claws and eats me. That’s when I wake up.”

“Can you remember anything of what the runes say or what the wolf said?”

“No. I only figured out the runes by the old T’sivetan dialect from the Oncera dynasty, but after my name, they’re spaced too close together to figure out what they are.

The Mephit sighed thoughtfully as he finished his notes and set his pen down. He flipped through the notes for a little bit, picked up his pen once more and tapped his head with it a few times, before putting the pen back down and speaking to both Joshua and Catherine as he got up and went over to a bookcase, searching for a book.

“It looks like you’ve got paranoia coupled with a phobia of wolves, Joshua” he said. “The phobia is caused by the fact that a wolf Canid killed your mother a few years ago, and the paranoia is caused by the fact that you think you’ll suffer the same fate as her. Which, since the rebellions and battles which caused your mother’s death ended shortly after that little incident, I doubt that will be much of a problem.”

The Mephit pulled down a small book from the bookcase and placed it on the desk, flipping through a few pages. “As for your dream, let’s start with the basics. The wolf represents your fear of wolves and hatred towards the wolf Canid that killed your mother. Fully understandable; I’d be angry, too, if my mother was killed in combat. Now, darkening of the room represents your fear of the unknown, and the escape stands for your attempting to overcome this fear; you make it out of the room, you’ve bested your fear and overcome it and would be fine, but so long as you don’t reach the exit, you won’t be able to. I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you what the runes stand, especially if they’re in the old T’sivetan dialect and you can’t remember what they were, but I am surprised at the high level of memory you have. Not many can remember their dreams. Then again, this seems to have been a very sensitive and emotional experience for you.”

Joshua nodded his response.

“At any rate, this is something that I personally cannot deal with.”

“What do you mean?” Catherine spoke up.

“The only person I could recommend to you is Kirota with her level of experience. But, if your son has a problem with wolf Canids, then that remedy out of the question. However…” the Mephit stroked his chin thoughtfully before speaking directly to Catherine. “There is a certain technique that I’ve recommended to a few people that’s worked, but I don’t know how opposed to it your son will be.”

“What is it?”

The Mephit settled himself in his chair. “There is an old tale of a spirit that comes to those having problems with their dreams. The spirit is known by the name Dreamweaver, since her real name was lost long ago. She was a competent therapist that often used dreams wherein the person and her would sleep at the same time while touching each other and she would be able to go to someone’s dreams, give them a fair interpretation, and show them certain things in their memories that would be helpful in overcoming their problems. Little things that they had missed before. I have recommended summoning the spirit, a fairly easy process with no magic involved, to a few people who have all come back and told me it worked.

“Now, I have no say in whether or not it works,” the Mephit continued, “and take no responsibility for the work. People come, they pay me, and I do what I can to the best of my ability. For you, you’ll only have to pay one session because the ritual of the Dreamweaver has worked its magic on them for those where I or even Kirota have failed. This is the only piece of information I can give you.”

“How do you do it?” Joshua asked. “How do you summon her.”

“It’s a simple process, really,” the Mephit responded. “Take one of the plates from your cupboard and put it on your nightstand. Then, place a single T’sivetan coin, the one with the face of our ruler King Garou V, and place it face up so that the image of the wolf howling may be seen. Now, some have said that praying helps, but you must chant this simple phrase: ‘Come enter my dreams, the door is open.’ With this, the spirit of the Dreamweaver will know who is calling her and will come. You will see signs of her appearance before you even fall asleep; certain things will change, but you must not fear, for that is simply the sign of the Dreamweaver herself coming to your aid.”

“Is that it?” Catherine asked.

“That is it,” the Mephit responded.

“…it sounds too easy,” Joshua commented.

“It’s worked,” the Mephit said. “I’ve had to recommend it to twenty people since I started this practice, and it’s worked for every one of them. Kirota has recommended it to her patients eighty times, and it’s worked for every one of them. I’m not going to lie with the statistics of the method, as far-fetched as it may seem.”

Catherine sighed. “Do you want to try calling the Dreamweaver, or do you want to go—”

“Let’s try the Dreamweaver,” Joshua answered before his stepmother could finish. He already knew what she was going to propose, going back to Kirota, and he had no intention of stepping foot in that office ever again.

* * *

Joshua placed the plate on his nightstand and the coin his stepmother gave him with the side containing the howling wolf up in the center of the plate. He had his reservations about the whole process of summoning the Dreamweaver, but kept reminding himself this was the only thing in almost two years that might hold any idea of peace from that dream. Then again, how much could he go off of if even the therapist who recommended the idea to him remarked that it was likely nothing more than just a fairy tale?

Even so, Joshua was willing to try it as he closed the door and turned off the light in his room, even though his skepticism concerning the method was worse than his mother or his father. Joshua laid down in bed as he felt an unseasonably warm gust of wind rush through the open window, and began speaking the saying the Mephit told him.

“Come enter my dreams, the door is open.”

Joshua felt nothing. He saw nothing. He didn’t hear or otherwise sense anything different about the room. The gust of wind he felt earlier was replaced by the normal cool breeze that flowed through in the early spring months. The plate didn’t move any, and neither did the candle. His backpack was on the hook near the entry of his room, the clothes he would wear tomorrow were hanging on a single hangar on his closet door, his glasses were neatly folded and placed on the table. Joshua blinked as he noticed the kitchen chair, sitting like it usually did in the corner of the room nearest to his bed as he closed his eyes and began to drift off…

…wait a minute, Joshua thought. None of the kitchen chairs ever came into the room unless his father was helping him with his homework. But tonight was the beginning of the weekend, and thus Joshua didn’t have homework his father would help him with, and he certainly didn’t leave it there the previous night. Joshua had to spend a few minutes thinking about what the chair was doing in that corner of the room before he actually opened his eyes and turned around to look at what happened.

When he looked at the chair, there was nothing there. But other things had changed. Joshua looked around to see his glasses weren’t on the table anymore, and put a hand to his face to find that they were right on his nose. Joshua looked around a little further to see that the coin that was in the plate was now gone. The window was closed, and a figure was now sitting in the chair that Joshua once thought was empty.

In the chair was a white wolf Canid with golden eyes that didn’t quite have a pupil, wearing a gold, brown, and white mages robe. In one of its paws, it held a long wooden staff with a pearl at its top much like a mages’ staff. Its robes were tied together with a golden cord and she wore a white shirt and dress underneath it with bare white feet paws and pink pads. It was smiling at Joshua, though for some reason Joshua wasn’t quite sure it could actually see him as he pulled the covers back over his head to hide.

“It’s alright, Joshua,” it spoke. The voice was markedly feminine and almost reminded Joshua of his mother. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. You called me, remember?”

Joshua opened a small corner of the blankets and peeked out to see the white wolf flipping a coin absentmindedly, still staring at Joshua. She still knew where he was despite her lack of a pupil when Joshua realized that the wolf was blind and likely was following him via magic. She reached a paw out to Joshua and opened the blankets as Joshua became paralyzed with fear at the sight of the wolf Canid and meekly released the blanket. The wolf began stroking his head calmly as though she hadn’t realized he was afraid of her and unable to say anything in response.

“Don’t worry,” she said as though trying to soothe Joshua, though the boy felt it wasn’t helping matters at all. “I understand your fear. I’ve come to help. My name is Rebekah, much like your friend, and I am the Dreamweaver.”

Joshua mumbled something.

“Well, she tries to be your friend,” the wolf said as an answer to Joshua’s mumbled response, “despite the fact that you have treated her unfairly. She has an uncommon amount of tolerance with you, if I should say so.”

Joshua finally mustered up some courage to say something, but it only hardly came out of his mouth. “Who are you, that you can suddenly appear in my room and tell me what to do?” But, afterwards, he had the strangest feeling he might have offended this wolf, so he immediately fell quiet and began cowering in his bed.

The wolf laughed. “Have you not heard of me?” she asked him. “I am Rebekah, known mostly as the Dreamweaver. I am the manipulator of dreams, and the one you called to solve your problems. Now I understand your confusion, but it is best to know that I am not going to hurt you and I am not going to harm you in any way.”

Joshua suddenly found himself able to move again, and knew what precisely he was going to do first. “I… I’m going to tell my stepmother you’re in here,” he said, slowly getting up from the bed and backing over to the door. “And then… she’ll come over here, she-she’ll see you, and she’ll call the police over. You… you shouldn’t be here.”

The wolf reclined in the chair and lifted one leg to that it rested on the other, and lifted the other leg so that it sat on Joshua’s bed. “Go ahead,” she said. “I’m not stopping you.”

Joshua was almost surprised by how well the wolf took his action, but decided that wouldn’t matter to him anyways. Joshua fiddled for the doorknob, constantly watching the wolf watching him and smiling as though she knew something more than he did, and once he grasped the doorknob he pulled it open and nearly rushed into the hallway outside his room until he realized what was supposed to be his hallway…

…wasn’t. Instead of finding the hallway, Joshua looked into the room and saw that he was staring into the tower room he had so often cowered in from the vantage point of the door he was always watching to see what came out from it. Joshua immediately backed back into his room and closed the door, not wanting to know what was awaiting for him inside just yet.

“What did you do?” Joshua asked, panting. “Where am I? What’s going on here?”

“I told you,” the wolf replied calmly. “I’m not stopping you. What I didn’t say was if you were stopping you.”

“What do you mean?”

“What I mean is that if you were perfectly fine and didn’t need me to come,” the wolf said, “then you would have been able to go out and get your stepmother to return here. Your stepmother would have come, you and her would not have seen me, she would have told you to go back to sleep and this would all be over with. But, it’s quite obvious you have problems, and I’m here both to discuss them and to find a cure for them.”

“So…” Joshua asked, trying to make sense of things, “we’re both currently in my dream. You are the Dreamweaver, and can manipulate my dreams however you wish.”

“That is correct,” the wolf said getting up from the chair and walking over to where Joshua was, “though I prefer you call me Rebekah, since we are getting know each other on a face to face basis. So, I am Rebekah, you are Joshua, introductions are finished, and we should get started.”

Joshua blinked as Rebekah motioned him away from the door. Rebekah touched the door with her staff and opened the door, the doorway now filled with white light, and motioned Joshua through. But when Joshua refused to follow her, Rebekah gently grabbed Joshua’s arm and pulled him towards the doorway along with her.

“Wait!” Joshua screamed out. “Can’t you explain what you’re doing first!?”

“It’ll make sense when we get there,” Rebekah said and pulled Joshua through the doorway as Joshua heard a click and the door closed behind them as they entered into a large black space much like the tower but with no discernible walls or floor; everything was black, but they were walking around as though they could touch everything.

“Where are we?” Joshua asked.

“Inside your mind,” Rebekah answered. “To be specific, we are entering your subconscious, the world you don’t know. Without ever realizing it, every night this is where you travel and where you come every night on your way back to that tower. Tonight, we’re coming here for a different reason.”

“And what is that?” Joshua asked.

“To go into a bit of your personal history and of your family.”

Rebekah had by now made her way to another door, one of which Joshua didn’t recognize. Looking around the darkness of the immediate area, Joshua noticed he could see two other doors slightly apart from each other: one was the door to his room that he recognized from how it looked in the hallway, while the other was the large set of double doors that always guarded the exit from the tower room. The darkness here in this room was like the darkness he always faced in the tower, but he could see Rebekah and the two doors he recognized plus the one Rebekah was leading him to and one that for the moment lay forgotten.

“What are all these doors?” Joshua asked.

“The places of your mind that we will visit this night,” Rebekah answered. “There are other doors here, but we will not need to use them. Not for why I am here.”

Rebekah approached the door and touched it with her staff. She waited for a moment before turning around to Joshua. “We are about to go through another door,” she asked. “Are you ready?”

“Not entirely,” Joshua admitted.

Rebekah knelt down and laid a single paw on Joshua’s shoulder. “I should almost be surprised that you’re being honest,” she said. “But that’s good. You’ve already progressed.”

“I don’t understand,” Joshua said.

“You will in a minute,” Rebekah said. “But first, we have to go through that door.”

Joshua gulped. Rebekah took his hand as they opened the door, revealing another portal full of white light. Joshua hesitantly followed Rebekah through the door, closing his eyes as he braced himself for what might come, and didn’t stop until he felt the soft feeling of grass below his feet, at which point he opened his eyes and saw that he and Rebekah were standing on a large field of grass within sight of the Ikasaratan suburb of Nogune. Joshua could see the lake and the city and the palace that stood in the center, and he and Rebekah were on a small hill overlooking a large plain that stood between them and Nogune.

Rebekah looked at the sun. “We have a few minutes,” she said. “I suppose now would be the right time to talk for a little while before things occur. Come,” Rebekah said, sitting down in the shade of the tree and patting the grass next to her. “Sit down. We’ll be here for a while.”

Joshua sat uncomfortably on the grass next to Rebekah and felt the tail of the white wolf curl around his back. He felt strange about it and pushed the tail away from him; looking over to Rebekah, Joshua noticed that the wolf appeared unperturbed by his actions. Joshua sighed and looked out over the plain.

“So,” Rebekah asked, “what do you remember about the day your mother died?”

“You’re not avoiding the issue for very long, are you?”

“It’s not my job to,” the wolf said calmly. “So, what do you remember about the day your mother died? What do you remember about what you were doing and what you heard happened that day?”

Joshua sighed. “It was a year and seven months ago, in the middle of summer. A rebellion started up between some warriors and mages and they were getting ready to assault Nogune. My mother had been in the army for a while by then and was a powerful lancer herself, so she was called out to the field as part of a small force to help settle down the rebellion. It was a normal school day for me, but when I came back, there was a letter from the general saying that my mother had been killed in combat by a wolf Canid after a lance had been thrust through her chest. She died on the battlefield, and her corpse was soon recovered.”

“Do you know who killed your mother?”

“Just that it was a wolf Canid.”

“Do you know what side the wolf Canid was on?”

Joshua shrugged. “I always assumed that the wolf was on a different side.”

“Then sit back and watch, because the important part of this journey is about to occur.”

Rebekah motioned towards the field, and Joshua followed her paw out. At first, he saw nothing, but then came a small force of soldiers about six men wide and eight men deep, advancing towards the field from Nogune. A short ways away from where Joshua and Rebekah were sitting came a smaller force of men, twenty large and randomly walking towards the field opposite the other, more rigid Ikasaratan soldiers.

“Can they see us?” Joshua asked.

“They can’t even touch us,” Rebekah said. “This is but a figment of history, only available for a short amount of time that we need it to be and then nothing more.”

It was then that Joshua realized something. “Isn’t this the field on which the rebellion took place? We could go down there and do something about it so that my mother isn’t killed! Come on, Rebekah!” Joshua got up and started running down the hill, but realized that he couldn’t move anywhere and that Rebekah had a firm grip on his wrist.

“You cannot change the past, Joshua,” Rebekah said mournfully.

“But if this is the day my mother dies,” Joshua protested, “maybe I could stop her and she wouldn’t have died!” Joshua tried to pull away from Rebekah as hard as he could, but despite the seemingly loose grip that the wolf had on him, he couldn’t even so much as slip free.

“If I could change the past,” Rebekah said firmly, her voice rising for the first time, “I would go and prevent every innocent death that ever occurred.” She sighed and calmed down before continuing. “But that is beyond the realms of any powers that I or anyone else has. For now, just sit down here with me, and I promise that you will get something out of this, even if it isn’t exactly what you want.”

Joshua reluctantly sat down, and this time he did not push away the tail when it curled around him, and neither did he push away Rebekah’s arm as it went around his shoulders and rested on his back.

A man dressed in a suit of armor went out in front of the group of people standing in front of Nogune, and Joshua heard him shout loudly over to the assorted warriors and mages on the other side of the field. “Listen here, rogues! You have this one final chance to give yourselves over to his Majesty Garou IV and me in place as commander of his forces, or else die here on this field.”

A voice came up from the other side. “Why are only practitioners of our arts the same as you are. Why do we not get the same rights as others do when we know the skills we need?”

“You are not registered with your proper guild, Mages or Warriors, and therefore we cannot track your movements and potential improper usage. It is a safety precaution we must take to prevent renegades and maintain the peace among you.”

Before any more could be said, the small band of rogues attacked. Joshua watched as the two sides clashed in a flurry of magic and weapons, and began to appreciate being with Rebekah, who as far as he was concerned was the only thing keeping him safe. It wasn’t long before some of the warriors on either side were strewn about the field, and Joshua noticed that the battle had suddenly become one of a rogue warrior and mage versus a licensed warrior and mage, with the warrior being his mother. Joshua almost couldn’t recognize her in a suit of armor, but her clean face could be seen clearly and her brown hair whipped around in the wind. Behind her stood a wolf Canid mage, firing spells at the two rogues while his mother dueled with the warrior.

Eventually, the mage fired a spell that completely obliterated his mother’s armor and shredded into her flesh, leaving a large gaping hole that made Joshua want to vomit. The wolf Canid, now the only one left of the royal forces, fired two well-aimed shots of psychic energy at the opposing side, killing them each, before running over to where Joshua’s mother lay.

“Miss Jasmine!” the wolf Canid said. “Please, speak to me, Miss Jasmine!”

Joshua could see his mother coughing. “My time is up.”

“No, Miss Jasmine,” the wolf said again. “I have no healing magic on hand, but I can get you to the medics. There is enough time to take you back to Nogune for aid.”

“No,” Joshua’s mother said. “You won’t make it. Please, tell my husband and my son. Tell them I died protecting Nogune, and that I died a hero. And tell the King what happened.”

“I will,” the wolf said. “Is there any other last requests?”

“Take my lance and pierce me with it.”

“No, Miss Jasmine! I… I won’t do it!”

“I will not have it be said that I was killed by a load of rogues,” Joshua’s mother replied. “Take the lance… and let me keep my honor.”

Joshua wanted to scream as he watched the Canid take the lance and hesitantly thrust the lance into Joshua’s mother. There was a scream that was suddenly dulled out by a wind rushing across the plain and Joshua began crying, hardly even noticing Rebekah pick him up and take him through another blinding portal that led them back to Joshua’s own room, where he was set down on the bed and started crying into the soft white fur on Rebekah’s shoulder.

Joshua was thankful when the white wolf did nothing and continued sobbing into her shoulder. To think he had been harboring this perception of this event that was totally wrong… but seeing it in person had racked his brain entirely. “Why…” Joshua sobbed. “Why did you take me there? Why did you take me to an event that I could not remember?”

“I did not think it would affect you as much as it did,” Rebekah said with a tone of voice that was soothing to Joshua, a single paw gently stroking his back. “I thought it would simply change your opinions if I showed you what actually happened, but it seems I have gone too far.”

“No,” Joshua said, finally calming down. “It was better that you showed me. I… I think I understand now.”

Rebekah nodded and continued to soothe Joshua by reassuring him that everything was okay and that he didn’t have to see it again, all while gently hugging him and stroking his back. She didn’t stop until Joshua finally stopped crying and sat there sniffling on his bed.

“What next?” Joshua asked.

“You must face your fear,” Rebekah said. “You must go back to the tower and face what you fear. I will help you and remind you of what it was that you have experienced and help you overcome. Tonight, your fears shall be erased, and you shall not have to worry any longer.”

Joshua nodded and stood up from the bed.

“Let’s go.”

* * *

Joshua stood alongside Rebekah in the center of the tower. It was the same room, the same table, the same obsidian walls that stood blacker than black, but it felt different. The tower was not the same anymore after what he had just seen. Rebekah’s arm was around his shoulders again, and he felt warmer than ever entering here.

“Is it coming?” Rebekah asked.

“It’s so warm,” Joshua said, “I can’t tell. Usually, I’m freezing by now.”

“What happens after the cold?”

“The room grows dark. So dark I can’t even see my hand.”

“Will it soon?”

“I cannot tell.”

The two stood in silence for a while. It had been a lot longer in comparison to the times that Joshua had been in here before. The chill did not come and suck the warmth out of his body. The darkness did not descend as they had before. Joshua walked over to the wall and felt it. It was cool and smooth like it had been before, but not so cold that he was reminded of a cold, northern winter. He couldn’t tell if what happened was too fresh in his mind or if it had changed already and he wasn’t going to face it at all.

Joshua walked back over to the center where Rebekah was, the wolf eyeing him curiously as he walked back over and looked at the door. The only way he would know now whether or not everything was coming back was if the rumbles began. It was almost time, anyways.

“What are you doing?” Rebekah asked.

“Waiting,” Joshua replied.

“For what?”

“I cannot tell if what just happened is still too much in the front of my mind for me to remember what happens here and it hasn’t happened yet, or if I have already changed something and it isn’t going to come back.”

Then… the rumbling came. It was a low rumble that hardly could shake anything, but Joshua watched as Rebekah’s ears perked up and faced towards the door. Joshua finally knew that what he had originally feared was coming, but wondered if he really could handle it this time. The second rumble sounded, and finally the table in the center of the room began to shake with an uncertain quality to it, as though it was waiting to fall apart. Joshua waited as Rebekah stood there with him.

“What is your usual plan?” Rebekah asked.

“To escape,” Joshua said. “The door means freedom. If I make it out the door, then I have escaped the tower, and I have become free.”

“Has it ever occurred to you that it could follow you out if it made the door that you try to escape from?”

Joshua hardly had time to ponder as the third rumble came and the blue runes began to glow on the walls. Joshua noticed that the runes were still glowing blue even though the room had not even darkened, and he could make them out as clear as day instead of blurred by their faint glow in a dark room. He still couldn’t understand them, though, as they remained of the old T’sivetan language, but figured Rebekah was as good as an interpreter as anyone else.

“What do those markings say?” Joshua asked.

Rebekah took a moment to silently look at the runes as the rumbling began to grow louder and more constant until Joshua could only make out blurs of his and Rebekah’s bodies shaking up and down in the rumbling.

“They say: ‘Joshua – Confront, do not escape. Make peace, do not make haste.’”

“What do you suppose it means?” Joshua asked.

“It should be obvious.” Joshua thought he heard a bit of a condescending tone in Rebekah’s voice, but she continued without much hesitation and dropping the tone. “Do not try to run away and do not make judgments about what you see. Try to confront your fears, and do not run from them. You’ve been running from your fears, running from the truth your entire life. It is time to stand and take action instead of letting your fears get the best of you.”

Joshua gulped and looked over to Rebekah as the rumbling stopped. “Do you think I can do this?”

Rebekah turned around and smiled at him. “I have no doubt. But do you?”

Joshua couldn’t respond as a very loud banging came from the other side of the door, followed by a low growl. Joshua straightened himself upright as he waited for the moment to run. The growling became louder and louder and the banging more repetitive; Joshua could see the door slowly breaking apart as the growls became louder and louder before finally busting off its hinges and falling apart to reveal the monster he knew had come for him.

The wolf stood on four legs like any other feral wolf would, but one of its paws alone was as long as Joshua’s forearm, and its muzzle as long as Joshua himself was tall. It’s rough and weathered fur was coated with crimson, much like the otherwise pearly white teeth that shone brightly as they reflected the light of the runes. Its golden eyes locked with Joshua, who stared straight at the wolf, shaking slightly though determined.

The wolf’s familiar steps were deliberate as always as it padded towards him, calling his name. “Joshua…” it said in its usual low, threatening growl. “Joshua… You can never win, Joshua…”

“Remember what I showed you, Joshua,” Rebekah said behind him. “You can master this.”

“No you won’t,” Joshua said. “Not this time.”

The wolf laughed. “Ooh… I see the cub has managed to consider itself an adult. Come now, Joshua…” the wolf said again. “You know as well as I do. You’ve failed our little game every time. What’s going to make you think you stand a chance at reaching the freedom you desire so much?”

“Because this time, I’m not going for freedom,” Joshua said. He pointed at the wolf as he used his other hand to push the glasses up on his face. “You’ve kept me trapped in here long enough, and now it’s time that control be given to the other hand.”

Its muzzle was now directly next to Joshua’s face, nearly touching his own and Joshua could feel its hot breath as it laughed at him much the same way it growled at him. “And what sort of method of transferring control do you have for me to foil this time? Running? Has it never occurred to you that you’ve never made it to the entry of this room? Has it never occurred to you that I’ve been the one in control for nearly two years? What makes you think you can break the control you’re by now so used to?”

Joshua shivered. “What do you know?” he asked.

“I am part of you,” the wolf said. “I am your deepest, darkest fear. I am what terrifies you in the middle of the night. I am what restrains you in the light of day. I am what keeps you from doing what you want to do so badly. I know as much as you do about why I am here, and why you can’t escape from it. Ever.”

“But what if I don’t mean to escape from it?” Joshua retorted. “What if I haven’t come here to escape? What if I have come here to confront?”

“We shall see who is predator and who is prey when I continue to feed off your emotions,” the wolf said, and lunged at Joshua.

“You can win, Joshua,” the boy heard Rebekah say from behind him. “Don’t let it get you.”

Joshua balled his hand into a fist and thrust it at the wolf’s nose as it opened up its muzzle to reveal a huge, slobbery maw. But Joshua brought down his own fist and slammed it as hard as he could into the black nose of the wolf, causing the wolf to recoil. The wolf yelped in pain, then growled at Joshua, who began to shiver after seeing the wolf become angrier than before.

“Keep your composure,” Rebekah said. “You are nearly there already.”

The wolf lunged at Joshua again, but Joshua brought his fist down on the wolf’s nose yet again and the wolf recoiled, shaking its head as though to clear the pain away. The wolf lunged towards Joshua a third time, but this time, Joshua placed his two hands in front of his face and waited for the wolf to land another blow; the third blow hit directly where Joshua’s arms were crossed and Joshua could feel the wolf’s nose ram right into him as he slid backwards.

“Ow!” the wolf yelped in pain as it lay down and cradled its nose. “I… I don’t understand. What’s happening? What are you doing to me?”

“You may have once been my darkest fear,” Joshua said. “But you aren’t any longer. I’m not afraid of you any longer.”

“But I am what killed your mother!” the wolf screeched. “I am what destroyed your family!”

“You may have killed my mother,” Joshua said, “but you didn’t do it for yourself. You did it because she asked you to. She asked a wolf Canid to kill her because she was close to death already and wanted to keep her honor. I respect my mother’s decision and I shall respect my mother’s memory by harboring no ill feelings towards what killed her because she asked it to. I’m not afraid of you anymore.”

Joshua turned around to Rebekah to see what he should do next. The white wolf smiled at him and just nodded in the direction of the wolf. Joshua was unsure of what to do, but he walked to the wolf laying on the floor, looking around every once in a while to see the white wolf still smiling and nodding in the direction of the wolf. Joshua eventually reached the wolf and reached out a hand to it. It growled at him, but Joshua continued reaching out, knowing that if he didn’t it would win yet again and he’d have to go through the whole process another night.

But something amazing happened: Joshua was able to touch the wolf’s snout. He gently touched the snout and began rubbing his hand back and forth, suddenly noticing the wolf’s soft fur turning white and the blood beginning to suddenly disappear from its fur. It decreased in size, but not by much, still as tall as Joshua was at the shoulder if it was standing upright instead of laying down, its claws becoming black and finely trimmed, and its pads turning a slight pink. It’s golden eyes became less shadowy than before, and Joshua could see all the malice leaving its eyes until it looked at him apologetically.

“So… you forgive me?” the wolf asked. This time, instead of the low, threatening growl, it was speaking in a soft feminine voice that seemed to remind him of someone familiar and who Joshua wished could see what was happening. Joshua even saw its large tail beginning to wag ever so slightly.

“Y-yes,” Joshua said. “I do.” And he went up through the large paws and hugged the large white wolf around the neck. The wolf returned his hug and Joshua realized that he was no longer in the tower anymore; the three of them – Joshua, the large white wolf, and Rebekah – were all standing in a large park that Joshua remembered that his mother and father used to take him to when he was young, with a large grassy field and a set of playground equipment. It was near where their home used to be, well-guarded, and was a safe place for Joshua when he started walking to school by himself back five years ago. The warm spring sun shone down on Joshua as the wolf cradled him in his paws and began licking him and Rebekah came up to him in the paws of the white wolf.

“Thank you, Rebekah,” Joshua said. “Thank you so much.”

“It wasn’t all my work,” Rebekah said with a smile on her face. “You did most of the work.”

“But it was you who showed me what to do,” Joshua said. “Thank you.”

Rebekah smiled at him.

“You know,” Joshua said as he rolled out of the wolf’s paws, “you remind me of my mother.”

Rebekah knelt down, set down her staff, and opened her arms. Joshua ran over to her and hugged her, feeling the gentle embrace of the wolf. “If ever you need someone to talk to,” Rebekah said, “call me, and I’ll come.”

Joshua and Rebekah hugged for a while longer before Joshua went over to the large wolf and tackled her, falling on the soft fur on its belly, as the wolf wrapped its paws around him and Joshua felt himself relaxing in the warmth of the sun, seeing Rebekah sitting on a chair not far away from him, and Joshua finally fell into a peaceful, relaxed state for the first time in nearly two years.

It didn’t last long. Joshua opened his eyes to see his room blurred and his vision foggy at best. His room was quiet, the window was open and letting in the morning sunlight, and Joshua thought the bed felt more comfortable than before. Joshua rolled over to see his nightstand through his foggy vision and grabbed his glasses off from the table, putting them on before he was able to see anything.

The first thing he noticed was a small piece of paper in the middle of the place where the coin would have been. Joshua unfolded the slip of paper and read a small message written in black ink: “Remember: confront, do not escape. Make peace, do not make haste.”

Joshua smiled.

* * *

Two days later, Joshua woke up feeling rested and relaxed. He sat in his bed, enjoying the cool morning air and the quiet of Ikasarat in the early morning. His mother came and knocked on the bedroom door, and Joshua could make out her voice coming from the other side. “Joshua! I’m leaving for work. I hope you’re waking up!”

Joshua soon got out of bed, put on his glasses, ate breakfast, and began to get his things together for school, taking a folded piece of paper out from his pack and grabbing a set of three keys from the nightstand in his room before racing towards the door before heading down the hallway and down four flights of stairs to the first floor and out the glass doors that led into the earthen-colored apartment complex; Joshua could see the kitchen light on from down in the still quiet street; the sun was barely reaching over the Ikasaratan castle off in the distance – Joshua thought that he had never seen something so majestic as the castle early in the morning – as he began to walk down the street towards his school.

When he arrived in the morning, The Pack was nowhere to be seen, so Joshua swiftly made his way to his first classroom to find the door open and the teacher inside looking over papers, so he went inside and sat down at a desk and waited for his day to begin.

Joshua’s morning went very smoothly. He was able to push out the dream for notes in history and biology following that, got a good paper back in his literature class and managed to kick a goal during soccer in gym class. After gym came lunch and Joshua, feeling much more upbeat than that morning, went over to buy himself some lunch from the cafeteria and found a small, out-of-the-way place near the library to eat his lunch.

Lunch finished, Joshua picked up his trash and went to go throw it away before heading to the library, but before he could move any farther, he noticed that a fairly large group of wolf Canids surrounding him, some with silver pelts, others with brown, and one even with red. Before he knew it, Joshua had been surrounded by The Pack.

“Well, well, well,” one of the older ones said. “If it isn’t little Joshua Four-Eyes sitting all by his little lonesome.” The Pack laughed at the remark.

“That’s a stupid taunt,” Joshua said as he pushed the glasses up higher on the bridge of his nose.

The wolves ignored him and laughed harder. “It seems we always meet up like this, don’t you think?” another one said. “Such a shame. Why can’t we just sit and talk?”

“With what would you rather do the talking with?” Joshua asked. “Your mouth or your fist?”

One or two of The Pack’s members seemed to register surprised, and the others almost seemed unsure of what to say. “You mean you’re willing to fight?” one of the members asked. “Since when did you grow a pair of balls, and when did you think you could take on twelve of us if you wanted to?”

“Well, you never pick on the ones that fight back,” Joshua said, putting his fists up in self-defense.

The Pack laughed at him. “Look at him!” one close to Joshua began to say. “Joshua Four-Eyes thinks he can fight! What a surpr-oof!”

Before the others knew what happened, Joshua’s fist had rocketed outwards and slammed into the forehead of the one who had been speaking. The wolf fell backwards into the other members of the gang, who could hardly support him from the sudden blow, and stared at Joshua in surprise. “If I have four eyes,” Joshua said, “then I must be able to see better than any of your two and have better aim.”

With that, The Pack couldn’t take anymore. “I can’t believe it!” Joshua heard the one who got punched say as they all gathered together and ran away, leaving Joshua without a single scratch or wound on him as he went and threw his trash away as it became time for him to go to his computer class, whose teacher was surprised that he hadn’t come in with a large bump on his head.

After computer class, Joshua walked across campus, avoiding the members of “The Pack” wandering around the campus, in case they were mad at him, as he walked over to the math building on campus and slipped quietly into the building and down the hall to his room, where a few students were inside, including Rebekah, who let out a sigh as Joshua entered the room.

Joshua tried to slip in quietly to his desk in the hopes that Rebekah, currently in a white shirt with black rims and a blue dress, wouldn’t notice him, but the wolf’s sensitive ears soon swiveled around in his direction and she followed soon after, her bright green eyes looking at him almost accusingly. “Why were you so mad at me last week?”

Remember what the Dreamweaver taught you… “I’m sorry,” Joshua said as he sat down at his desk next to Rebekah. “I… I had a problem with wolf Canids because my mother was killed by one when she went over to help settle the rebellion nearly two years ago. I’ve sort of harbored a prejudice against wolves for a while. Look, before you say anything, I just want to say that I was extremely thoughtless and shouldn’t judge you based on what happened then. I… I think it would be better if I actually tried to be friends with you.”

Rebekah crossed her arms and huffed, but Joshua could see the beginnings of a smile form on her face. Eventually, she couldn’t hold it in any longer. “Are you serious?” she asked. “All these years I’ve been trying to talk to you and now you’re telling me you like me?”

“I’m just saying I would like to be friends with you. Nothing more.”

“I’m fine with that.” Rebekah smiled, then winked. “Besides, maybe you could help me out with the math homework sometime.”

“Sure.”

“How about tomorrow, then? Would you be fine with a study session at my house?”

“That’s sounds great.”

After school had let out, Joshua and Rebekah walked together for a little ways, discussing various things about school – such as how they never realized until then they had always had at least two classes together since entering school, how similar their interests in reading were, and how they both liked the traveling musicians and gypsy groups that came around a few times a year, among other things – until Joshua realized he and Rebekah had to part ways to get home.

“Look, Rebekah,” he said, “I have to turn here to get home.”

“Aww…” Rebekah pouted. “And it was getting fun, too.”

“Yeah,” Joshua said. “Anyways, I’ll see you around campus tomorrow and come over for that study session, if you’re still up for it.”

“Totally!” Rebekah said happily. “See you tomorrow, Joshua!”

Joshua waved as he walked down the street, soon greeted by the familiar face of a white wolf clad in mages robes that couldn’t help but make Joshua smile.

“You know,” Joshua said accusingly, though his eyes were filled with delight, “I thought the Dreamweaver would only stay in my dreams…”