Rejected Mate and Following Fate

It's been around eleven days since I left the valley, and I can honestly say, it's finally beginning to get easier in some ways, but not all. I was a fool to believe it wouldn't be hard, on so many levels, and I still can't get my head around my own naivety. Knowing then what I do now, I don't think I would have left at all.

It's not just the survival factor that gets to you, it's the isolation, the loneliness, the living in constant high alert as you have to be aware of all that is around you, and the gnawing fear that sits in your gut hour after hour. I'm on edge, hyper-aware at all times, and mentally exhausted with it. Unable to ever really stop watching my back, and surroundings, always listening to make sure I'm safe, and afraid of even the tiniest of noises or movement near me. There are so many enemies in nature that I was oblivious to when living in the mountain bubble.

I rarely sleep, so tuned into the noises of the forests, and gulleys, and caverns, I have walked through in recent days. Always listening for something to come out of the shadows at me, and have endless dreams when I do, of vampires and monsters pulling me from my tiny crawl spaces before devouring my helpless body. Every time I'm paralyzed with the same useless inadequacy as that day in the orphanage, and completely unable to defend myself. I see Sierra often in my dreams too, my infrequent naps, and that repetitive sentence she utters on her breath which always wakes me with a start. Always the same damn thing.

"Save us."

I don't understand why she haunts me still, and can only imagine it has to do with my broken heart, and the dregs of Colton in my memory banks, that get through the steel door I'm trying to force them behind. She was one of our last conversations and maybe that's why she plays so heavily on my mind.

The first few days were the worst and thankfully behind me now, and I think it finally sunk in what I was actually doing. The first night, looking for shelter, eating Doritos I had hastily packed in my backpack for supper, and trying to find a comfy way to lie in a shallow hard floored dug out on a hillside that barely concealed me. It was a shock to my system; having come from a lifetime of shelter and home cooked meals I took for granted. Even being myself all those years, I was never alone, or without food and a roof over my head, whereas now here I am, truly in solitude.

I didn't sleep at all at first, everything swirling in my head and the cravings for not just Colton, but Meadow, the sub pack, my room in the pack house, and the safety of the valley. It was all crying out to me, reminding me that I was barely grown and only newly turned and still so vulnerable in so many ways. I sobbed so much in the first few days, I thought it would break me and send me running back with my tail between my legs, but it didn't.

storm, walking aimlessly south with no plan, and after getting the first few miles clear of the Santo lands, I didn't see a need to run anymore. With enough distance between us, and no chance they picked up my scent to track me, because quite

as I think I am. It just seems so much further because I took so long to get here. I'm

this adventure of mine. Just when I didn't think it could get any harder mentally, my heart already breaking with the need to see another person, or hear another voice, I was side swiped by

in its way. I crumbled to the ground, gasping

and wailing like a wounded animal, as tears flooded my vision and my brain near shattered. It was the single most terrifying moment I have experienced, beyond the night the

it to was Colton. The only logical answer to something so all-consuming, and yet for no obvious reason to its sudden happening. He must

could really hurt your imprinted like that, especially from so many miles apart. Severing the bond, which he couldn't have, because I would

with Carmen and marking

down into a crumbling mess and sobbing all over again. It felt like he had taken a knife himself, cut me open wide, and ripped everything out before setting it alight. The emotional devastation

him and what he had to do. To try and not let it get to me, to distance myself from the pain and leave him to walk his own path without me. And yet the fates they delivered a blow that almost stopped me in my tracks completely, killing my will to find my future at all. They left me with the heavy sadness

through the motions now, without really engaging any kind of effort under this black cloud, my new constant companion. I walk, I find something to hunt and eat, I wash in rivers, I find shelter,

noises, the movement of nature all should bring me peace as a natural wolf, but it just serves to remind me how very alone I am, and that a wolf, is a pack animal. We don't thrive alone, and it's beginning to wear me down slowly. I can't seem to ever really get any clear indication in my life about where I belong, or what I'm meant to do. Just that discarded worthless kid who