As It Should Be

Ashleigh gasped as she woke in the car. Beside her, Caleb was looking through a set of binoculars. She looked around to find they had pulled over on a side road surrounded by overgrowth and tall trees.

“Did you have a good nap?” Caleb asked, still keeping his focus on whatever it was he saw through the binoculars.

“Informative, to say the least,” Ashleigh yawned. She stretched her back, pressing her shoulder blades together and rolling her neck. “What are you looking at?”

“Not sure,” Caleb replied, pulling the binoculars away from his eyes and handing them to her. “Up, above the fallen tree.”

Ashleigh looked where he directed.

She saw a wolf with an appearance like nothing she had ever seen. Its fur was colored in grey mud, perhaps even coated in it. There were leaves seemingly growing in small bunches all over its body, green, brown, red, and yellow.