A ghost told me to meet you

Rudy felt his heartache but it was diminished from the old pain of when it was fresh and the end of Resin’s life so fresh in his mind. He watched the wolf in front of her and acknowledged even a blind pup could see she was suffering in some fashion on her own.  
Rudy gave her some time to get herself together, gave some time to remember mom, and tried to imagine the good times versus the final days.  Then of course she asked the one question that brought every single painful memory to the front of his mind.  How had she died?  Rudy’s eyes did a double-blink, swallowing back the tightness in his throat.  Actually, there was a lot of sudden tightness..

Rudy had just breathed in but suddenly his air was gone, the throat passage blocked.  Mouth opened, jaw stretched to the limit, head down with his teeth visible, and with his eyes squeezed shut Rudy coughed and gagged to push out whatever was stuck in there.  It was coming out but it was a horrible sense What was it?  A bit of horror pricked his mind as Rudy opened his eyes and saw his imagination correct.

Fireflies.  Fireflies.  He had felt most of them leave but even now a few had landed on his muzzle or perhaps just crawled out having not been fully forced out from the cough? Rudy swallowed a breath of air, pulled back his lips in disgust, shook his head and another firefly that had been sucked in came back out.

“The hell,” the boy snarled and coughed.  Were they all gone now?  Geeze he could just imagine the feeling in his throat of more walking around, it was his imagination right? “I, a moment,” he’d answer her question but for a moment he was going to shut his mouth and just breath in air through his nose, focusing inside and deciding what was imagination and if anything real.  How, how could there be so many fireflies?? He’d been spitting them out, sure a few could have been swallowed but not like this!

Rudyard Carpathius