31 Days of Wayhaven
Day 19: Wolf
{Hearing Damage}
Characters: Detective Kyara Torthevi
Words: 447
Summary: Kyara is h(a)unted by events of her past and can no longer run from them.
A/N: Sorry if there are any errors! I wrote this at an ungodly hour, and I’m determined to post it before my inner critic can stop me. Hope y’all enjoy! @31daysofwayhaven
t/w: blood and mentions of violence
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Bullets ricocheted through the halls of her tattered mind, each shot ringing like the snarling crackle of thunder outside the window. Once more, frozen. Once more, at the mercy of steel fangs and shrapnel claws. Once more, powerless.
It hunted her. Relentlessly, tirelessly it stalked her until her legs gave and her lungs heaved for air she couldn’t find amidst the smoke and sand. It paced amidst the dark, rolling clouds that had loomed on the horizon, closer and closer until it could sink its teeth into the very heart of her waning resolve.
The news had said the storm would surely miss Wayhaven.
They lied.
They lied, and now Kyara was cornered in the recesses of her mind by a wolf of her own making.
Vicious eyes gleamed in the dark, illuminated with each wicked crack of lightning. Haunting and goading, they seized at her, pulled at the worn threads holding her together.
Bit by bloody bit, those icy metal teeth tore at her. The shouts, the gunfire, the blood— Oh, the blood. Everywhere, staining her hands and the paws before her.
Her blood?
Or was it his?
Too much.
Everywhere.
Seeping through her uniform.
Catching under her nails.
Red.
Warm.
Too red.
Too warm.
Everywhere.
Somewhere in the spiral, she found her footing and stumbled into the bathroom. The chill of the floor was a welcome shock to her system, grounding in a way she hadn’t expected. The sprawling desert had frozen away, leaving her alone among pristine tiles. After the growling thunder passed, she waited.
One.
Two.
Three long seconds before looking to see if the wolf had followed her.
No paw prints.
No bullets.
No blood.
She could finally breathe, it seems. There was no sand to clog her lungs, no blood to stain each desperate gulp she took. Just her, the tiles, and the rain.
With trembling hands, she turned on the faucet and splashed her face with cool water. The sensation was divine, a respite from the heat of the desert.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Finally, once her breathing had steadied, she turned the faucet off and lifted her gaze to the mirror only for the fear to seize her, only for the sand to fill her lungs and the blood to stain each desperate gulp.
The eyes stared back at her, gleaming in the dark like false beacons. Piercing, relentless they saw right through to the quivering, cowering truth she tried to bury.
It howled as she sobbed.
It leapt as she fell.
It tore her asunder as she buckled under the weight of steel fangs and shrapnel claws.
The wolf had found her, or rather—
It had finally escaped.
