Mirror Image

• Alexandra Rush, Grade 8, Moree Secondary College
• Short Story
• 2014

Excellence Award in the 'The Text Generation 2014' competition

Cool salty tears drop down my face one by one making their way to an undesirable fate. Like me, they have nothing, only the hard and lifeless floorboards on which they lay.
I cry for the family I never had and think about how I could've been so different had they still been alive. My soul is filled with nothing but secrets and that is the reason I can’t ever be close to anyone.
I stumble blindly down the cracked and rotting floorboards to where I know the cleared land meets the wild and untamed forest. Taking a deep breath, I absorb all the rich smells. The musty decaying leaves on the forest floor, fresh flowers giving off fragrant perfume, a woody aroma made by dead brittle bark, fresh green leaves and hazy smoke.
I must be mistaken, smelling the air again I come to the grim realisation that I am indeed correct. I can smell smoke.
My feet carry me without fail towards the smell. It burns my nose and my eyes start to water. I know I must be getting close. Slowly the trees lessen, getting further and further apart with every stride I take until there are only a sparse few. Slowing to a walk, I slink behind the few trees that remain, trying to see where the smoke is coming from. My
heart pounds so hard that I think it might explode out of my shaking chest.
Coming out from the safety of the trees my eyes scan the clearing but there is nothing to be seen only a small smouldering fire in the centre. Making my way over to the fire a familiar smell fills my nose. Before working out what it is I hear a twig snap. My eyes are drawn up. Towards the back of the clearing stands what might as well be a mirror image of me. Sapphire blue eyes stare at me reading my every thought. Silky grey fur blows in the soft cool breeze. I relax realising that the wolf means no harm. It is magnificent and the only one I have seen since I was attacked all that time ago.
The creature is totally unlike what I saw on the fateful night when my world was turned upside down. Apart from being an orphan, at that time I was a completely normal, planning my life but it can never be like that again. Now that I have changed; my
physical form has been taken over and my emotional world has erupted like a flowing volcano.
Today I am finally living free. I left the old broken house where it stood and came out here into the forest. I've found where my heart really belongs and that’s in the pack. I don’t cry anymore, only marvel at how different my life would have been if I hadn't followed that smell of smoke the day I wandered into the forest.