Dark Snow

I breathed into my hands, trying to warm them and my nose. Out of my peripheral vision, I saw something big and dark gray. I turned only to wish that I hadn’t when I saw a huge gray wolf coming at me with enormous speed. My whole body automatically tensed. “Shit.” I whispered under my breath as I squeezed my eyes shut and waited for the inevitable. But instead of being slammed to the ground and torn apart, I heard growling as if I was in the middle of a huge dog fight. Cautiously peeking one eye open to see what the sounds were. To my surprise another beast was crouched in attack not two feet from me. This new one was black, the fur standing on end, its head held low and teeth bared as it dared the gray wolf to come closer. What the hell? Was this new one protecting me? Not wanting to wait and find out, I pelted pal-mal up the iced over steps to get up to the porch, but slipped on the third step up. Shit, I’m going to die. I thought as my chin hit the top step and my teeth crashed together. Wicked bright lights flashed before my eyes, as bells went off in my ears. Dizziness filled my head, as I ran my tongue over my teeth to see if any were broken. None were, but even if, that would’ve been just my luck. I lifted my head off the frozen wooden stair only to meet the throbbing in my neck. I tried to glance over as the growling behind me seemed to take a horrific pitch as the wolves flew at each other in a match that could only end in death. All I could see was a show of colors blending with one another, as they continued to snap and claw. Blood was everywhere. Not doing much for my head, it only made me nauseous. If I was an expert at this mountain life thing, I probably would’ve had more sense to move my ass faster. But, being just a slow, southern city girl, my body was not only fighting the shock of the probably close to arctic temperatures, rather than the fact that two wolves were fighting over a piece of dinner. I pulled my gaze away from the animals, and hung my head, pushing off the steps with my arms. Glancing down at the spot where my chin hit, sure enough there was blood. Great. For all I knew the beasts would probably smell it, end the war, become allies and both come after me.