Of Monsters and Memories

She hadn’t expected the complete stranger to wrap himself around her. If she wasn’t already panicking and struggling to breathe, she might have panicked about this unexpected development instead. As it was, she only had room for one problem at a time. She concentrated hard on her breathing. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Again, and again, and again.

She concentrated on that, and on the wolf in front of her. And slowly, painfully slowly, but surely, she could feel the attack slowly ebb away. Her breathing felt like it was actually doing something. Her desperate lungs were filling, and with it much of her panic began to ease. Breathe. She could breathe.

A couple more lungfuls of air, and then she felt almost normal again. Through a normal where her throat felt wrecked, her heart was a little quick, and there was a strange wolf wrapped around her. She cleared her throat, wincing a little. “It’s over now” she said, sounding as if she had gurgled stones for an hour. “You can, uhm. Let me go now.”

"Cryptis"