Dreams and the confusion of

             A huge wolf slid out of the sparse shrubbery. It curled its lip up at me. Yellow fangs glinted into the sunset. Coarse silver-red fur rippled as the wolf tensed. Its tail swished in the air.

            It opened its jaws…

            “Crystal! Why are you still sleeping?”

            My eyes snapped open. Above me, Shadow had his hands on his knees. I muttered a sorry and sat up. Cougar wasn’t anywhere to be seen, but Elocin was standing to my left in her usual dark manor. I returned her stare and stood up.

            “Is Cougar hunting?” I asked, not bothering to use the usual secrecy of our dreams around Elocin. She knitted her brows.

            “How did you know that if you were sleeping this entire time?” Her voice sounded strange, and I was hit with the fact that it was the first time that I have ever heard her speak. I looked at Shadow.

            “Yes, no?” I inquired, asking him if I should tell her or not. He nodded.

            “It’s like this,” I started, launching to an explanation. As I continued, Elocin seemed to be getting more and more irked.

            “So all this time, you guys have meetings in your mind…without me?” It sounded like she was jealous. Which was an odd concept for me…and then my brain did a little math.

            Elocin was jealous of me. I could spend alone time with Shadow and Cougar. Thus, either she was jealous of me having that time with Shadow, or Cougar. For both options, I recoiled. As if she could track my thoughts, Elocin glared at me.

            At that moment, Cougar returned. Trotting gracefully, he smiled at me. I recalled the time when he attacked for being an ‘E’ experiment. He seemed so different now. More…likable.

            “Okay, let’s head out,” Shadow turned northward. Automatically, Elocin followed him closely like a dog to its master. Cougar fell in step with me.

            “How did you sleep last night,” he asked lightly.

            “Great, only I got a cryptic message,” I replied in the same tone, so that neither Shadow nor Elocin would suspect me, “maybe you can help me. It said something like, ‘I’m glad we aren’t family’, or something like that.”

            Shadow cast us an alarmed glance. Cougar only purred slightly.

            “Hmm, no, I don’t see an explanation for that one,” he lied smoothly. I scowled. He saw me, and then hissed under his breath. “Later, Crystal.” I gave the slightest of nods.

            “Okay, what about another one, ‘sunset and city do we speak, near the shadows doth we behold?’” I hoped that Shadow would understand this one. I mainly meant this to say that we’ll speak about this in our dream tonight. Shadow let out a breath, and I took that as a yes. Cougar frowned.

            “Er, not really,” he turned away from me, picking up his pace so that he was jogging to the head of our small group. Shadow dropped back moments later.

            “Now don’t I feel special,” I growled softly. His mouth quirked. “Oops,” I whispered, “I think I made you smile.”

            “Oh, stop it,” Shadow rolled his eyes and dropped his voice, “What were you talking about back there?”

            “That we’ll discuss this tonight,” I murmured. Just then I spotted something in the distance. It looked old, dusty, and under the grime I could see that there was white. It was very large, and had windows.

            The institute.

            And Spark lay inside.