To Beat Or Be Eaten

"Trauma sends you a letter, without warning, for the rest of your life, usually disguised as something else."

***

Gazelle had gotten so used to living in the woods that she could wander through it at night even when Raven wasn't with her. Gazelle had noticed something strange lately. Whenever she walked alone in the forest at night, she had a few animals with her. They were walking with her.

It was one of those nights again, Raven had gone without telling where he was going, and Gazelle was walking alone in the woods. Sometimes she thought the forest was cooperating with her because the paths she walked were never pitch black.

She smiled at first when she noticed the animal walking toward her from ahead because she thought it was a dog, but this time the animal she encountered was not domesticated. A black wolf stood before her. Gazelle had never looked so closely at a wolf before.

"Hey..." she said quietly. "Hello." What was she doing? It was unwise to look into the wolf's eyes as if it was a friend.

Gazelle swallowed hard as the black wolf approached her with its huge body and she started to step back. She was afraid now. "No…" she said, raising her hands in the air. "I'm really sorry. I wouldn't want to be here either." Gazelle was about to turn and run when she was walking backward when she tripped on a stone and fell on her back. "Ah!"

Gazelle covered her face with her hands in fear as the black wolf jumped at her from where it was at that moment. She thought she was going to die here, she would be prey to a wolf. Everything had come to an end now, the life she could not live was about to come to an end.

But suddenly, she felt a warm wetness on her palms. As she slowly opened her eyes and removed her hands from her face, the wolf approached her face and licked her nose once, its huge tail wagging from side to side. The black wolf got even more excited when Gazelle couldn't help but laugh, and it couldn't pull back its tongue on her face anymore.

Her laughs had faded, and she still felt confused. She stood up, cleaned herself, and gently stroked the black wolf's head. "You're not as scary as you seem," she whispered. She looked in the direction of the hut. "Maybe Raven is back with new clothes, what do you think?" She looked at them and frowned. "I'm tired of wearing these."

As she started to head towards the hut, the black wolf started to move forward with her. Gazelle looked at it and then at the road in front of her. Then she smiled. The two of them walked calmly together. The black wolf did not take its eyes off Gazelle for a moment as it walked.

When they arrived in front of the hut, Gazelle saw that they had new guests at the door. A roe and a raven on its back. She looked first at the black wolf and then at them. She took a deep sigh. "It's time for you to go home," she said, kneeling down. The black wolf closed its black eyes and rubbed its nose on hers and licked her nose once. Gazelle feared that the love she felt in her heart could not be true. She thought that these feelings could not be more than an illusion since she was not in her own world, and she rubbed her aching heart with her other hand. "My heart, which has not been exposed to everything in reality, is too weak to handle the feelings it has tasted in dreams," she whispered.

The black wolf placed its large claw on Gazelle's heart and blinked slowly, before reentering the forest. At that moment, Gazelle could have sworn, there was a huge world in that animal's eyes.

As it ran away from her, she stood up slowly and looked at the door of the hut. The roe and the raven were still standing there as if they were visiting her. Her heartache lessened as she walked towards them. She hadn't used her medication for a long time.

She had taken a few steps when the roe quickly fled because of a sound from the forest, and the raven on its back soared into the sky. "Raven…" she said absently. She looked through the windows of the hut. "Why haven't you come yet?" she whispered. Raven had told her never to leave the forest while he was away, but Gazelle was now worried about her only helper in this world.

She entered the hut, put on one of Raven's hoodies, and set off without thinking. If something had happened to him, she had a right to know.

She remembered that Raven had told her that he was working in the circus when she had landed in town. She remembered the place of the circus. She walked slowly and surely through the city. There were so many diverse people in the city that Gazelle, though frightened, carefully studied them.

While passing by a bus stop, the couple on the other side was kissing, while the girl on the other side was trying to read in the windy and cold weather. This scene reminded her of her experiences while waiting for the bus in her home city. "Weird…" she whispered, frowning.

In an alley, a smoking girl in shorts and a leather jacket stood leaning against her motorcycle. There were many men around her, but none of them stood close to her. Could she be the leader of a gang?

As she was walking down the street, a car passed her and stopped at the red light. While the people in the car were singing along to the song playing on the radio, they were dancing with their happy faces. Gazelle stood by the traffic light, actually supposed to cross, but could not. The happy faces in the car, and the songs and dances that were playing reminded her of the car trips she took with her family on vacation as a child. "It's like a joke..." she was enraged and crossed with the sound of horns even though the green light for the cars was on.

When a girl pointed to the bright star with her finger into the sky and her father grabbed her by the arm and dragged her to the ground. One eye of the little girl was covered with a bandage. She was bruised all over because she was beaten up every day by her father. Gazelle wanted to help her, but she wasn't strong enough, she was in danger. Sniffing at the cold, she turned her face to the sky and looked at the bright star that the girl was pointing to. The last time she looked at the girl, she was smiling at Gazelle, even though her father was holding her arm tightly.

A bus passed by. The man and woman sitting on the man's lap in the back seats hugged each other tightly. Gazelle finally started running. She was going crazy, she didn't know anymore whether she was sniffing because of the cold or because she was crying.

Seeing the circus full of lights ahead, she ran, ran, ran. When she got to the entrance of the circus, what she saw was so hard that it broke her heart.

Ariel, the mermaid. She stared out of breath at the mermaid, who was locked in a water-filled glass cage. On the other hand, the mermaid had been staring at her with her hands glued to the glass since she saw her.

"When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a mermaid." she smiled sadly. "My father used to say, 'Everything in the sea is either eaten or exhibited. You have to dream that people won't slaughter you or put you aside as ornaments.'" She hesitated, unable to look Ariel in the eyes.

"That's why I became a writer. But still, my words were savagely eaten, and my books adorned homes as decorations. Book covers became my cage, and I..." She heard Ariel tapping against the glass as she continued to walk through the circus. She didn't look back.

"I realized that I knew this world I thought I didn't know more than anything else."