She was crying before she was awake. The tears came first, then the golden forest, then the wolf, then the understanding that wherever she was, it was not a place the living were supposed to visit twice.
Her forehead was pressed to her knees, and the sound of her own sobs echoed off nothing because there was nothing here for it to reach.
She did not know how long she had been here.
A presence registered before a shape did. Something large. Close. Watching.
She lifted her head, wiping her eyes.
A black wolf stood ten feet from her. Massive, the size of a small horse, with fur so dark it ate the light around it. Its eyes were molten and steady.
She should have been afraid, but she wasn't.
"D-Do I know you?"
The wolf did not answer. It closed the distance between them in three unhurried strides, lowered its massive head, and nudged her cheek with its nose. The contact was gentle in a way that contradicted the size of the creature delivering it.
