“Jasmine!” I heard a familiar voice call through the darkness. “Jasmine, you must wake up”, the voice whispered urgently even as hands jerked me awake, pulling me from the darkness. I opened my eyes to the face of my mother, a fear in her eyes that mirrored the urgency in her voice. “Mama?” I called out softly in confusion, still dazed from sleep. “Get up”, she urged. “Quickly!” Even as she spoke, she moved away from me to rummage through the bag she had sewn for me out of the animal skin father had skinned. “We do not have time”, she said, moving about the room and putting things into the bag before closing it. “Come”, she said and scooped me up from my bed and into her arms. She held onto the bag with one hand and hurried through our humble house and out the back door which led into the dark woods. There, my father stood. There was a dead wolf a small distance away from me that my mother turned my head away from seeing properly through the darkness. “Th
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