Sunrise

• Eva Zreika, Grade 5
• Short Story
• 2022

“Claw! Come quick! Meet the wolf pup born to lead our pack in the future; Sunrise…” howled Skye, my mother.
The very first words I heard all those years ago, when I was born…
I’m Sunrise, daughter of the alpha wolves, Skye and Claw. I’m a curious and intelligent wolf pup but I’m...different. Everything about me is different. My coat is a majestic yellowish orange colour of the sun at daybreak, instead of that grey-white colour all the other wolves are, or that’s what my parents say. My eyes are an emerald green, that sparkle in the light, and I’ve black triangular markings on both sides of my face. I grew up never knowing what friends were. The only true friend I had, was my mother. But little did I know what was coming my way…
I snuggled up with my mother in the den that night, shielding us against the cold. But I didn’t notice that the warmth of my mother slipped away, almost instantly.
I woke up to a mysterious stench of other wolves around me. ‘Strangers,’ I thought. Also, it was tight and dark, as if I was caught in something. No moonlight loomed in, showing the entrance to our den. But I was too tired to stress about it.
Then everything went black…
I woke up, my vision still blurry from sleeping. I was wrapped in something black, warm and fuzzy; I wasn’t in the forest, and there was a shelter high up above me. But my paw was hurt. It ached badly but it wasn’t worth the risk of howling here, so I sat, holding in the excruciating pain.
But then; “Human,” I scowled.
Mother had told me about them. A tall and sturdy figure walked into the room. He muttered some words to me, but I couldn’t hear him over the howling echoing in my mind.
All I heard was: “Potential.”
I perked my head up at him, silent, curious. Then he offered something to me, that I snatched and gobbled up quickly.
“Yum! Anymore?” I barked. Could he be someone I can trust? He wrapped my injured paw in a white, comfy and firm mesh. But by then, I was asleep.
A few days later, I had healed, and the human took me out to his ‘mini forest’. It’s mostly plain, but it had little dens in a corner. A wolf emerged out of each one, except for the den on the edge, which was mine. They stood as one, staring, not communicating. I wagged my tail with excitement and barked: “Hi! I’m Sunrise!”
They growled with anger, “If you wish to join, you must always please master.”
I slowly trudged into my new den, shocked, sad, but not losing hope. Why were those wolves so mean to me? What has the human done to them? I immediately realised that if I stayed any longer, I’d be like them. No time for sleeping, when I need to plan an escape…
To be continued…