The roaring of a painful death followed his shadow, always hairs behind him, if not in his coat, eyes, and nose. A flutter of wings indicated a bee trying to plant it's stinger inside his nostril. How anything could get up there after his last episode with a stray stick was beyond his comprehension, but still a yelp gurgled in his throat, the best he could do in his present situation of running for his pitiful life.

How had he even gotten into this mess? Blurry images flashed before his eyes, his family photograph now faded with age, the woman he loved and lost, the pack who hated him but merely tollerate him for entertainment's sake, the porcupine he almost stepped on, the skunk that sprayed him in alarm, the blurry forest he kept dashing into, the tree that now bore the imprint of his skull, the sticky yellow splashes from a beehive that nearly fell on his head from the impact, the swarm of irate citizens behind him, the blur of black ahead that looked like a safe spot... oh lawdies, a baby bear! He pedaled his feet trying to escape but a distant roar and approaching train of dark color indicated that mother bear was indeed nearby and now more pissed off than pissed.

Fright couldn't begin to describe his situation as he'd already emptied his bowels once.... make that twice. Leaves stirred up in every dirrection as he hurtled himself towards a river ahead. Perhaps if he got into the current, it would protect him from the bees? But what about the bear? Another roar thundered, quickly approaching in both anger and anticipation of a new furry meal beginning to swell with the furry of golden, black-striped insects. A hurricane of chaos, he threw himself into the river, a great splash following. His legs slipped beneath him as he tried to swim but felt his body being dragged away. When he felt ground, he began to run, squinting his eyes to protect him from the onslaught that was surely following.

He emerged from the river in flailing moments and began his run once more, not noticing the wolf in front of him, or how he was one second away from running into it, possibly even tripping, falling on his face, and into a land that wasn't his. But he had no time to smell.

"Kiy yai!", was as much as he could manage, hardly a phatic greeting, if it could even be dubbed that.

Crashing into a foreign body not his own was a brutal hit and it took him a few minutes to recover and begin his lope again, but his muscles didn't have the strength to pick up the fervor of his previous pace. This time the roar came from a distance and he dared to look out of his peripherals. Seeing nothing, he allowed his head to whip around and saw that it had at last came to a stop, perhaps not wanting to get its feet wet, panting, he sniffed the air, his tongue lolling out of his mouth as he did so. Feeling safe from the bees, his flank and demeanor seemed to droop now.

He studied the expression of the wolf for a moment, his own face going from neutral to a happy bafflement, froze, and then mutated to horror as he realized what had just happened. He had traded the bears and the bees for a very angry wolf. One half of his brain began to ponder the implications of those words, that the land was claimed, that this was not his home, and that he must speak, while the other began to wonder how to explain what had happened.

"Uuuu.....", he gasped for breath, panting heavily with all the exertion. "I ... I ... ", he began to paw at his face and nose, realizing that the skunk spray hadn't quite hit him as directly as he first thought. But his story wasn't complete! "And then.... asppppeeeewwww PLUNK", he tried to demonstrate something falling. "bbbbZZZZZZZZ dieeeee!", he did his best to wiggle his paws. "rrrroooooaaarrrr!!! aaah!", he demonstrated standing on his back legs holding his paws to his chest and attempting to show his tonsils. Backing down to the ground, he pedaled his feet as best he could, staying in place the whole while.

His eyes suddenly widened. "You're a ... g-g-gir....", he didn't get to finish his sentence as he plopped his front end on the ground, his rear still sticking up preposterously, and attempted to cover his eyes with his paws. Realizing this wasn't working, he began to paw up dirt, and tried to pile it on his head and cover his paws on top of that. His rear end began to quake with nervous fear as he half-stood as still as he was capable of.

The sound of ivories clashing was just one of the many sounds of a haunting nature around him ready to devour the flesh from his bones. Here, he could not see her, or smell her. There was only dirt and darkness. In the sanctity of his quiet place, he felt at peace and gradually his nervous wag began to fade to a mere drooping, pathetic tail. "Skittles?, came his muffled response.

He didn't realize his belabor as he began to ramble on, his thoughts taking the edge on the tips of his tongue and beginning to slice open his lips from the inside, where all defeat started: internally. "But I'm a boy and you're a girl so you have the cooties so I'm not talking to you and you don't exist and I'm not trespassing because I never ran into a territory because I didn't have time to smell and wasn't almost drowning and didn't knock anyone over and there's not honey on my face and an angry bear in the woods with a skunk that squirted me and a bunch of homeless bees stinging me and the poo that I stepped in and a very bad day. Nothing ever happened because it's black right now and the only thing that exists is the sound of my own voice."

There. His lungs heaved in. And heaved out. Fresh air began to oxygenate to his brain, though still clogged with dirt. He sneezed and proceeded to pile on more dirt. "So you're going to say now that none of that matters because you are all evil for the sake of having a cool name and are going to eat me alive because it's scary and edgy. Just say it so I can run away!", he half whined and half shouted and whimpered with no iota of sarcasm. "Calllllliiiiiiiii.", he repeated the name to himself to grind it in and to finish his sentence.

His feet re-adjusted himself in his posture, taking another moment to shovel more sand onto his nose, holding his eyes shut tight. What an awful day it was. Hopefully this female would tell him the truth so he could run away.

If ever there had been a wolf with no luck, or luck that got decimated at every opportunity until there was nothing left but the worst of bad kharma, it was surely Skittles. Whatever he had done in his past life surely had to be as atrocious as a child rapist slave-trader murdering scum. Though it was true that some of these things he brought on himself. One could only wonder if there was a portion of the man's subconscious that somehow created all these situations, perhaps out of spite.

He listened to the woman who seemed to half-invite him to stay with her pack and at the same time make an effort to get him to go away. Whatever the case, he wasn't welcome here and yes, he was still trespassing. Couldn't he have his tiny dirt mound where the bees and bears and skunks didn't chase him? Couldn't he have one small tattered corner of the world that didn't involve scraping by for a meager and pitiful existence barely worthy of the word? Clearly, the answer was no.

He made no effort to reply or move, and when he clenched his eyes shut, he knew that the woman was still there. The situation didn't seem to be going away any time soon. He began to grind his teeth in agitation. What could he do, what could he say? What did he even want? He wanted to get out and away from this mess and this woman. Readying his muscles, he suddenly burst out of his makeshift mound and sprang away, loping both away from the woman and back towards the river at the same time, his dignity in shambles, and a dust cloud following him. At least it wouldn't try to eat him later. He shook his head, wanting to forget the name of Cali, this land, this day, and so far, this entire year.

With Cali behind him, he began to wonder, what if he had never been born? Would things have been better? Would his mother have less disappointment? Would Mim have had a better life ... ?

With the woods around him and the river behind him, he paused, standing in the shadow of an ancient oak, it's trunk wider than his length. He didn't particularly want to turn around, but he felt compelled to, for whatever reason, like an itch. Bronze eyes took in the female who seemed to give a sigh of relief and fetch a drink of water. As he watched her movements, he wondered what it was like to be like her. What if he was in her paws? He could go around telling everyone how this was his home and they couldn't enter just because. Perhaps he'd even act deeply concerned and concerted.

What was it like to be the boss? Or to be liked? To have a home? He narrowed his eyes as he gazed at her ribs, noting the contours between each bone, and how it was difficult to tell. Turning his head backwards, he took a gander at his own, which protruded far more. At least she hadn't been hungry enough to go for his throat, he admired her for that, and she hadn't seemed to raise her voice once.

Turning, he padded away into the shadows, as jagged as the hunger that persistently burned in his ribs. The umbra of the wild was thin, must like himself. Perhaps they could both be wild together, nature and he, free, without a care in the world. It was what happiness was all about, wasn't it?