Red

It was warm inside the wolf and the darkness around her was a comforting thing that held her in a soft embrace like a summer’s night. Here she could drift off if she allowed it, could lose herself in the warm, dark oblivion that whispered sweet promises of ease and forgotten troubles.

The wolf had swallowed her whole, his desire to consume her, to collect her, to own her, so great that he didn’t take the time to chew, merely took hold of her and forced her into himself as quick as a thought. Now she was surrounded by what remained of other women—arms and legs and bits of hair and pieces of what they used to be and never would be again.

The white cloak she’d worn cocooned her in the memory of home. She’d spent her day in ignorant bliss, picking wildflowers and singing songs and dreaming things that tinkled in the wind of her mind, whispered fantasies painted pastel with childhood happiness. The chance to sink once more into that remembered bliss was tempting as she gathered her white cloak tighter, making herself a chrysalis with the potential to be absorbed into memory or embrace the violence of transformation.

She had a choice to make—she could continue to lay there, helpless and hopeless, and wait for the wolf’s body to finally consume her as she slowly rotted and became just a shell of who she was, until nothing was left but arms and legs and bits of hair and the sad potential of what she could have been.

Or, she could fight.

For what the wolf didn’t know was that women, no matter their age, had claws and fangs of their own and in moments such as these they could choose to grow and become sharp, vicious things capable of tearing and rending that which sought to destroy them. Violent, raw, monstrous things were women, though they’d been taught to forget that part of themselves, to forget that creation required destruction and that they themselves contained the power of Brahma and Shiva caught in a perpetual dance. Monstrous indeed.

She felt her nails grow sharper and her teeth grow longer and she began to claw and bite her way out of the wolf, refusing to become a part of him, to allow him to consume her the way he had all those other women. She felt her cloak dragging her back but she refused to let even a small part of herself remain behind. So she fought harder, clawed deeper, and slowly, ever so slowly, freed herself from the wolf. As she pulled herself free she noticed that her cloak, once so white and pristine and pure, was now stained red with blood and gore.

She found she liked the color better.

She felt larger, as if she’d grown or the world had shrunk while she’d been inside the wolf. She was a woman now, no longer a girl after her baptism of blood and pain. Her movements had a weight they hadn’t before and her mind slid from thought to thought in a sinuous, slithering way. She stared at the body of the wolf, savaged and torn and so much less imposing than she’d remembered, and she dared it to come back to life, to try to make her feel small once more, dared the world to test her and see what would happen.

She made her way home and left the corpse of the wolf behind as a message—wolves may prey on women, but they should be wary because a woman can be a terrible creature when she remembers her potential.