Wolves

The children’s cries were metal in the Siberian forest.

In some sort of act of concern, I had raised my hand to my mouth. I knew it was too late, for Johan sees things quickly. He told me not to be worried about it, the faster we ran towards the screams, the quicker the wolves would devour.

"But it is on the way."

"And we were like trains."

There was a large stone tower, which was now a chimney with smoke. The children were outside in their pyjamas. There were seven of them, which happened to be my lucky number, and apparently God’s, too.

"How did it happen?"

The children turned towards us, completely wet eyes. I thought about the severed horror of living on the street in your unfashionable nightclothes, without even a spare pair of pants. It was unfortunate, but all I could think about was how cute it would look if I wore pyjama bottoms with my favourite angora sweater.

"Monster," said the dream child.
"Fire demon," said the lore child.
"Fate," said the cynic child.
"God," said the religious child.
This was too much, I thought.
"Somebody kicked over a lamp, and it lit the carpet on fire."

The tower smoked, and I could not help but shiver at the mention of the voice of fire. It truly happens with the icy type. One mention of fire and the anaemic soul comes out.
I stared at Johan and he stared at the snow on the ground. He’s never been able to look me straight in the face after what I’ve done to myself, anyway.

"The flames." One of the children spoke. I must have gained some sort of heroic gleam in my eyes.
"They have manifested themselves into a rhinoceros and thunder-bird."

I said I would have no problem with that.

I ran into the tower, which was very much on fire. I had entered the Bone Room on the fifth floor, and I could not find the rhinoceros or the thunderbird. I became aware that I would probably reek of smoke and heroism for days.

"No!" I said. Those things smelled strong and dominant, and I couldn’t have that.

The rhinoceros and the thunderbird were in a chamber to the right of the Bone Room. The rhinoceros was huge and unsubtle, and the thunderbird was spiky and a health hazard. I rapidly became aware that the only way to pierce the rhinoceros’s tough hide would be to use the thunderbird’s electricity to electrically fry him. I transposed myself so that I was fast than a lightning bolt, and I waited. The thunderbird charged his wings, and the rhinoceros was stampeding me from behind. The lightning bolt came and I evaded. It struck the rhinoceros and he burned internally. I then took a candlestick from a nearby table and beat the thunderbird with it until it stopped moving.
The flames went out.

I went back outside and the children hugged me and thanked me. I didn’t want to dream of the children anymore, and the painful amount of labour it would take to repair their singed home, I told Johan that we should leave.
We had a party to get to, after all. Johan just kind of smiled, and that was when I lost it.

I must have dropped my consciousness because I fell through the floor into another world. I was wearing a thin white baptismal robe, and I was walking through sunset forest. I was bent double, staring at the ground, searching for something. My body was locked in a physical ecstasy. I could feel Johan shaking my body above me, and the coldness of the snow was leaking through, for I must have fallen. I couldn’t find what I was looking for, and Johan kept on pulling.

I was waiting for the divine reconciliation!