Writing Prompt: Wolves howled in the distance.

I may be running late but I am feeling super splendiferous today. I really thought i was coming down with something due to the gummy mix up but no grogginess today. So slow but feeling fine. It seems like a good way to start Good Friday. So does a writing prompt. Shall we get into the last one of the week? excellent. Let’s go.

I am not entirely sure what to do with this one. There has to be a reason she was left alone because it can’t be a coincidence. I just don’t know what it is or what is going to happen in the night. I will be thinking about this all day today. I can just feel it.

Friday, April 7^th: Wolves howled in the distance.

Wolves howled in the distance.  It was an eerie sound.  When watching television I always thought of it as the sound of the wilderness.  It was a sign that the area was unspoiled by man and wild.  I also thought it sounded like it was part of something added by the audio team in the studio.  A laugh track for wilderness shows as laughter was piped into comedic ones.  It always sounded to perfect to be real.

Here it had that same perfect sound as though prerecorded but I knew no one was hiding in the bushes with a soundboard.  It was the real deal.

I sat inside my small dome of a tent.  I was inside the sleeping bag, sitting up and listening. 

‘Maybe getting fully inside will help,’ I thought. 

I lay down and zipped up the sleeping bag completely.  The bag even had a hood so that I could bull it up and tie it down.  It made me look like a mummy with just my face exposed.  But I felt safer as I didn’t think the wolves could unzip the tent and then unzip and untie the sleeping bag. 

I had visions of them clawing through the tent and eating my exposed face, so I wiggled down a little but so that my face was no longer in the face hole but lower.  The hood was loose now and I curved it down protectively.

Now the wolves couldn’t eat my face.  I knew even as the thought skittered across my minds that it wasn’t a rational one, but I wasn’t feeling in a particularly rational mood.  I was looking forward to this trip.  My first time camping out under the stars.  I pictured it somewhat differently.  I thought I would be one tent among several and there would be campfires and sing alongs. 

I was looking forward to roasting marshmallows.  Both my parents were dentists and growing up marshmallows were forbidden. Even as an adult the thought of marshmallows seemed an illicit treat.  

‘They were in Justine’s pack’, I recalled.  There would be no marshmallows. 

It was one more disappointment among many.  We reached our campsite as a group and set up our tents.  Marcie’s cell phone rang and she and Justin were called back for an emergency.  Alex, Denise and Mark too suddenly needed to leave.  It was just me with no emergency.  I prepared to go back with them but they told me to stay.  After all I was the one who arranged the trip and was so looking forward to it.  They didn’t want to spoil it for me. 

I knew I didn’t want to stay alone, yet somehow that is exactly what had happened.  I went to collect the fishing gear we left by the lakeside and by the time I came back, they were packed and already on the trail.

It felt planned.  I went fishing as I wanted and caught a rainbow trout.  I cooked and ate it.  It was lovely but after I cleaned up so that my meal would attract no attention., paying strict attention to the rules given when we hiked out, it was dark.  So I went to bed. 

‘In the morning I am leaving,’ I decided.  What to do about the abandonment of my so called friends was something I would figure out later.