Shadow Hunters
She taps the base of her pen gently against her front teeth, lost in thought. The blank page sits
patiently before her, waiting for words, mistakes, cross-outs and smudges. The Marking
Schedule/Criteria and Assessment Outline for `A Poem Based on a True Experience' flutters gently to
the ground, riding a playful spring breeze that drifts through the open window. Snatches of
children's laughter can be heard, the sun is high. The day is hot, but she remembers that the night is
cold.
Laura had always felt akin to wolves, an empathy strange for humans. She had grown up near them,
in her mountainous hometown. Between her home and her biologist parents, Laura had grown up in
the midst of a wolf obsession, and had, naturally, caught it herself. She remembered the dark night of
a crisp plateau of snow and fir trees. The sound of wind singing in branches, and the smell of night.
She treasured the memory of powerful muscles and rippling pelts. Canis lupus. The animal of
perfection. Wolves could travel for days without tiring, a perfect example of stamina. Endurance.
Fearless hunters, who slayed with efficiency. The power in the eyes. Even werewolves were respected
for their power, and soul. Laura had a theory that humans hunted wolves from jealousy - wolves were
the embodiment of predator, and humans desperately wanted that perfection. No human could match
the enthralling eyes, the deep pits of soul.
The time she had met a wild wolf was ingrained in her memory. It had been on a nightime stakeout
with her biologist father, and Laura had been separated from him due to the sameness of the moonlit
forest. Frozen ground crunched under hiking boots. Every tree and rock was the same. Knowing she
was hopelessly lost, Laura had curled up under a frosted fur tree to endure the night, and wait for the
reassuring dawn. She remembered the cold. And she remembered the eyes. Yellow orbs glaring out
of the night. Laura had stared into them for an eternity, captivated by the power of pure predator.
The creature of the moon had let out a plaintive cry, full of pain for the bloody history of human-wolf
relations. Eerie and hair raising, the note pierced the sky forever. Then, the deep silence that comes
after noise at night. One blink later, it was gone.
Laura smiles a secretive smile, and puts pen to paper. She writes two words at the top of the page,
`Alpha Hunt', and begins her poem.
Freedom is...
running with the pack
under the moon,
delicate snow alights on fur,
breath misting,
the sweet torture of the hunt,
to bay,
together,
but alone.
If only...
Grey pelts, black noses, white snow.
Dark night.
Yellow eyes blend with
shadows,
swallowed by the black.
Eternity.
The superiority of the predator.
And the pack,
together,
but alone.
If only...
and the night...