Chapter 3

She experienced vivid dreams of running with giant wolves through a deep old-growth forest that night and woke up covered in sweat. Her blonde locks hung heavily down her back as she walked to the bathroom.

The bite on her hand was practically gone; two small bruised dots were the only reminder of last night's attack. She decided to take a long hot shower to wash away the awful experience.

"I am never dating again", She muttered to herself under the flowing stream of water.

When the shower didn't help, Nueva got dressed in shorts, a singlet, and her favourite runners. She ran down the stairs and into the white timber hallway, making her way towards the front door, hoping her mum wouldn't have time to catch her and ask about her date.

"Good morning darling, how was your big night?" her mum called out from the kitchen.

"Damn" She had been so close to slipping past her mum's curious questions.

"It was fine, mum. I'm just about to head out for a run, OK."

"Just fine", Miranda wondered from inside the kitchen.

"I'll tell you all about it after", she called out desperate and closed the door quickly behind her.

With long steps, she hurried down to the start of the forest hill track. That was the only track she felt would remove her uneasy feelings. Nueva started her sport watch and took off down the path. Her legs felt fresh and light, and she felt a strong urge to pick up the paste. Before she knew it, she practically sprinted up and down the dirt path in the shade under the lush canopies. Finally, after fifteen kilometres, she crossed over the finish line, barely out of breath.  

"Wow, that was amazing", She shouted out as the rush of endorphins spread through her body.

The sport watch beeped on her arm, and she glanced down at the digital dial. The numbers recorded from her run showed an improvement by 17 minutes from her last personal best.

"What the hell, that can't be right? I guess being angry is good for something" she chuckled, confused.

Nueva wiped the sweat from her forehead and sat down on the grass under the crown of a sizeable luminous tree. She rested her back up against the old tree trunk and closed her eyes for a moment. The rich earthy scent of moss and pine needles filled her nostrils.

Around her, she could hear the branches creaking up above, squirrels chattering, leaves rustling, the wind whistling around her. There was also the humming of insects and birds singing. All the sounds surrounding her filled her and awoke her soul.  

When Nueva opened her eyes, she felt like she could see clearer and noticed every tiny detail in the forest, and her senses seemed to be buzzing with a new form of energy that she couldn't explain.  

The following weeks leading up to the summer break went by pretty much uneventful. It was like Ryan had vanished and wasn't seen at school or anywhere else. Nueva lied to her mum about the date, telling her the night had been OK, but Ryan wasn't her type. Miranda stopped asking questions about it after that. Instead, she told Mira and Evie the truth. That night had been too strange and needed them to talk too about it all. Ever since kindergarten, the three of them had been best friends, and she knew they would keep her secret.

Mira had done some digging and found out that Ryan had moved back to his parent's place to help with the family business. Nueva remembered Ryan's reluctance to talk about his family.  Evie had checked every social media she could think of to find out anything about the pretty girl Ryan had left with at the party. But, she had come up empty-handed. Nueva herself had looked into reports of missing animals and strange animal attacks. But, other than a few missing dogs, there hadn't been anything suspicious happening in the area.

The uneasy feeling about that night's attack had grown into a fascination about finding out more about the animal responsible for it.

She had driven up to Lucinda's parent's lake house late afternoon two days after the attack. Her map-reading skills had come in handy when she had looked for another way to get to the spot with the old tree trunk. There was no way she was going anywhere near the lake house where she could run into Lucinda.

She found a small clearing next to the road where she parked her mum's white two-door Audi. From there, she made her way to the beach down a narrow path through medium-sized wood plants, bushes and beautiful light blue Perennial flowers.

On the other side of the shrubs, the beach stretched out like a band of silver around the lake's calm black waters. Nueva enjoyed filling her lungs with the fresh spicy lake air. Strangely enough, she could make out the scent of cucumber, algae and violet in the breeze. The wind tugged at her ponytail as her feet sank into the silky sand with every step.

There had been no rain during the days after her date with Ryan, so the ground around the fallen tree trunk had remained practically undisturbed. Nueva wasn't sure what she was hoping to find, but her gut told her to come here to look.

As she stood in front of the old tree trunk, she could see the pile of black remains from the bonfire on one side and the rugged beach of the lake disappearing into the distance on the other. There wasn't a single soul around, just her alone in this magnificent piece of landscape.

She sighed and started to search the ground directly around the tree trunk. After a few minutes, she discovered a small piece of brown fur tangled to a branch in the shrub behind the log, and underneath was an imprint in the sand. Nueva drew her breath when she realised it was a paw print, twice the size of her hand. She collected the piece of fur and took a photo with her mobile phone of her hand next to the paw print.

"No one will believe me otherwise. Heck, I don't even believe it," she mumbled in stunned amazement.

Nueva hurried back up the beach to the small pathway. Twigs snagged her hair and scratched her face as she squeezed her way back through the shrub. The gateway into the clearing opened up in front of her and she walked straight into a circular spider web tickling the skin as it covered her in its sticky silk strings. She stumbled out, spitting and swearing while attempting to remove the stubborn cobweb from her face.

"How the hell did I miss that?" she grunted, annoyed.

A sound in the distance made her raise her gaze and listen. Soon two headlights lit up the clearing as a car sped past the bend. That's when it hit her that it was dark. She looked around, and she could see things clearly for some reason. Everything had a green tinge, but she could see them better than usual in the night.

"Strange?" she mumbled before getting into the small Audi and driving straight to Evie's house.

She called Mira on the way and told her to meet her there. Nueva parked the car in the driveway outside Evie's parent's house. The grey and white house was small and had a quaint and picturesque style, with a wooden deck running alongside the front and down one side of the house.

Mira turned up just as Nueva got out of the car. She jumped out of the vehicle wearing moss green flannel pyjamas and slippers. Her wild spiral-shaped curls bopped as she walked over, framing her pale, freckled face in a fiery red glow.

"Hey, girl. What's so important that I had to rush out in the middle of my favourite tv show?" Mira laughed and hugged her best friend, embedding them both in the spicy scent of gingerbread cookies.

"Let's get inside, and I'll show you." Nueva squeaked and tried to loosen the grip of Mira's bear hug.

They hurried up the porch stairs and walked through the bright yellow front door without ringing the doorbell.  

Evie stood at the top of the stairs. Also, in pyjamas, except hers was in stark contrast to Mira's comfortable style.

Evie liked to wear brand clothing, and tonight, she was rocking a rose gold luxe silky set that hugged her tall, slender body. Her glossy black hair draped perfectly over her petite shoulders as she waved happily to her best friends.

"Come on; I got popcorn waiting in my room," she informed, smiling, revealing a row of perfectly aligned teeth.

Mira and Evie jumped on the soft double bed located in the corner of the room. Nueva sat down on a pink desk chair and rolled it over, using her feet to get closer to her friends sitting on the bed.

"So, I asked you here to show you something I found this afternoon. I went over to the lake where I got attacked by the dog. Or at least I think it was a dog?" Nueva mumbled out the last bit more to herself than to her friends.

Mira shoved a handful of popcorn into her mouth and stared at her with wide dramatic eyes waiting for the big reveal.

"And I found this" Nueva held up the piece of fur.

The brown fur was wiry, long and dense, with a reddish fluffy undercoat.

"You called me over here because of a piece of fluff?" Mira grunted, unimpressed over why she missed out on an episode of The Witcher.

Oh, Nueva," Evie giggled, rolling her eyes.

"Well, yes and this", Nueva continued in a less confident tone.

She handed over her mobile phone displaying the photograph of the enormous pawprint.

"What the hell is that?" Mira and Evie spoke in unison.

"Is that from the dog that bit you? Mira practically yelled in disbelief.

"Yes, I believe so?"

"How do you even have your hand left if something this sized bit you? Evie added in a shocked tone of voice. 

So, I am not being silly then? Nueva wondered sincerely. "It's not a typical size paw print?

Evie and Mira looked at each other and then turned to Nueva and spoke in one voice.

 "God no, that's a monster!"