Torn Between Destinies

I didn’t sleep that night. Not really.

The train yard groaned and creaked with every passing wind, and somewhere nearby, a dog barked into the night like it sensed something coming. Maybe it sensed me. Maybe it knew what I was becoming. Or losing.

The others snored or stirred in their sleep. Even Mason seemed at peace in a restless world. But I lay awake, my hand pressed to my chest, where the space once claimed by my wolf now felt cold. Hollow.

I shut my eyes, just to rest them. Just to pretend I was somewhere else.

And that’s when the dream came again.

But this time, it wasn’t just sound. It was sight. Color. Pain.

I’m standing in a small kitchen, the air thick with grease and disappointment. A cast-iron skillet sizzles on the stove, and somewhere in the background, a radio plays a broken country song about dead dreams and missing home.

There’s a woman—thin, too thin—with dull brown hair pulled into a tired braid. Her hands move quickly over the stove, flipping something with practiced urgency. She limps slightly when she steps to the counter, her left side tender.

Her name crashes into me like a wave.

Aira.

My mother.