🌕🔥 The Wolf That Dreamed in Fire
Episode 1: The First Spark
Chapter One: The First Fire
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They said the house caught fire in her sleep.
But when Nyra Ashen opened her eyes, everything looked normal. The cracked ceiling above her bed. The pale morning light pressing through the window. The same old scent of mildew, winter air… and something else.
Ash.
Not strong, but sharp—just enough to sting the back of her throat.
She sat up slowly, heart already racing, limbs heavy with the kind of exhaustion that sleep never cured. Her blankets were tangled around her legs, damp with sweat. She kicked them off, and that's when she saw it:
A burn mark. Charred into the foot of the blanket, blackened in a strange crescent shape.
Her stomach dropped.
Again.
It was the third time this month. She reached for the end of the fabric with trembling fingers. The edges crumbled at her touch, still warm. And on her palms—soot. Faint, dark smears in the creases of her skin.
She stood and backed away, staring at her hands like they belonged to someone else.
---
Ashvale was a place no one came to—and no one ever left.
The town sat buried in the arms of the mountains, shadowed by thick forest and fog. Its streets cracked. Its houses leaned inward like secrets being whispered. No internet. No cell towers. Just silence.
And dreams.
Dreams that burned people alive.
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"Nyra!" a voice called from downstairs.
She flinched.
Elza. Her foster mother.
"There's been another fire!"
Nyra pulled on her hoodie, the black one with the ragged sleeves she wore too often, and went downstairs without a word. Elza stood in the kitchen, arms crossed, the old television flickering behind her.
"Redwood Street this time," Elza said. "Third one this month. Girl your age."
Nyra's mouth went dry. "Did she—"
"Burned in her bed," Elza interrupted. "Like the others. No smoke. No external damage. Just… gone."
Nyra turned toward the screen. The news anchor was talking, but she barely heard the words. She could only stare at the photo: a single room, walls untouched, a shadow burned into the sheets.
Her throat tightened.
"You've been sleeping fine?" Elza asked suddenly.
Nyra blinked. "Yeah. I guess."
"No dreams?"
Nyra hesitated. "Nothing I remember."
Elza nodded once, slowly. "Good. Keep it that way."
---
But that night, Nyra didn't take the sleeping pills Elza left on her dresser.
Instead, she lay in bed fully dressed, eyes wide open, watching the ceiling. Her fingers rested near a glass of water and a dull knife tucked under her pillow—just in case.
Sleep took her anyway.
It always did.
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She opened her eyes in a forest of red.
The trees bled color, their bark cracked and glowing faintly from within. The sky was dark but pulsing like a heartbeat. The ground steamed. And when Nyra looked down—she was no longer human.
Her arms were gone. Legs replaced by paws, claws scraping earth. Fur licked with fire.
She tried to scream, but what came out was a howl—pure flame roaring from her throat, splitting the forest.
Somewhere in the distance, something answered her.
A shape moved in the fog—tall, lupine, and burning.
It turned toward her.
It had her eyes.
---
Nyra jerked awake, gasping.
Sweat slicked her skin. Her pillow was wet. Her fingers trembled.
And on the sheets around her, ash.
More than before. Scattered like snow. Burn marks along the edges of her mattress.
A sharp knock hit the window.
She froze.
It came again—three times.
Nyra got up slowly, walked to the window, and peeled the curtain aside.
A boy stood in the fog just beyond the glass. Black hoodie. Pale eyes. Still. Watching her.
He raised a hand—and then walked away into the mist.
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The next day, she found him again.
Not at school. Not in town. But outside the burned house on Redwood Street.
The air still smelled scorched. Yellow tape sagged across the porch. People walked by without looking. No one wanted to remember.
Except him.
He stood on the opposite side of the street, staring at the wreckage. When she approached, he didn't turn.
"You visit all the places you burn?" he asked.
Nyra bristled. "Excuse me?"
He finally looked at her.
"You were there last night," he said. "Weren't you?"
Nyra's breath caught.
"Your eyes were glowing. In the dream."
She took a step back.
"Don't be scared," he said. "I'm
not here to hurt you."
She narrowed her eyes. "Then why are you following me?"
"Because you're waking up," he said. "And you're not the only one."
The boy had a name, though he didn't offer it right away.
He waited until they were both out of sight—behind the school gym, where the broken windows were covered in cardboard and ivy climbed the walls like veins.
"Riven," he finally said.
Nyra leaned against the graffiti-scratched brick, arms crossed. "That's not a normal name."
"I'm not a normal person."
No smile. No sarcasm. Just truth, laid out like a knife.
Nyra narrowed her eyes. "You saw me last night. How?"
"I don't sleep," he said simply.
She blinked. "What?"
"I'm a Waker."
It sounded like a job. Or a title. But not one that came with a salary or an office. His tone was quiet, steady, like he was used to people not believing him.
"I used to think Dreamwolves were extinct," he continued. "Then you lit half your room on fire."
"I didn't—" Nyra started, then stopped.
She couldn't lie. Not to herself. Not anymore.
"You didn't wake up when the first fire happened, did you?" he asked. "Or the second. Or the third."
She shook her head slowly. "No."
Riven tilted his head. "You ever seen your reflection in the Dream Wild?"
Nyra hesitated. "I don't think so."
He looked at her carefully. "You'll know when you do. It won't look like you anymore."
---
They sat in silence for a long minute.
Nyra could still feel the burn from last night's dream—deep in her bones, like a fever that hadn't broken. Her hands twitched against the frayed sleeves of her hoodie. She had questions, a hundred of them, but she didn't even know where to start.
Riven spoke first.
"You're not the only one with fire."
Nyra looked up.
"There's another Dreamwalker," he said. "Her name's Veyra. She started burning people weeks before you woke up. We thought she was the only one. We were wrong."
Nyra's breath caught. "Is she… like me?"
"Worse," Riven said. "She enjoys it."
That made something cold settle in Nyra's chest.
"What do you mean by 'we'?" she asked.
He paused.
"The Wakers," he said finally. "We don't dream. We're trained to stop those who do. Dreamwolves like you. We're supposed to eliminate threats before they wake fully. Before they burn the real world."
"So you're here to kill me?"
"If I wanted to kill you," Riven said, "I would've done it already."
A long pause stretched between them.
"Why didn't you?" she asked quietly.
His voice dropped. "Because I think you can fight it. You still flinch. Still feel. That means something."
---
At school, people had already started whispering again.
Nyra walked through the halls like she didn't notice, but she saw the way heads turned. Saw the way Mina—her only real friend—looked at her with a question she didn't dare ask.
People said Nyra brought bad luck. That fire followed her. That her eyes looked strange when she was angry—like something in them was burning.
She sat through classes without hearing a word.
She sketched flames in the margins of her notes. Half-wolves. Half-faces. Forests full of eyes.
And always, a crescent mark somewhere in the corner—her scar.
---
That evening, Nyra met Riven again.
This time, in the woods behind Elza's house.
She found him leaning against a tree, arms folded, like he'd been waiting.
"You said I'm waking up," Nyra said. "How do I stop it?"
"You don't," he said. "But you can learn to control it."
He pulled something from his coat pocket and tossed it to her.
A small stone. Rough. Blackened.
"Anchor stone," he explained. "Hold it while you sleep. If you feel yourself starting to shift, focus on the stone. Keep your mind in your body."
Nyra turned it over in her palm. "That's it?"
"For now."
She raised an eyebrow. "What if it doesn't work?"
He met her gaze. "Then someone burns."
---
That night, Nyra clutched the anchor stone like it was a lifeline.
She wrapped it in her palm, curled around it beneath the covers. Focused on the texture. The heat it seemed to hold. Her breathing slowed.
The world blurred.
And she fell.
---
The forest was there again—red trees, black soil, air that shimmered with memory.
But this time, she wasn't running.
She stood in the center of the woods, human. A fire pulsed beneath her skin, but her hands were her own.
And across from her stood a girl. Pale. Hair like smoke. Eye
s glowing red.
"Nyra," the girl said with a grin. "I was hoping you'd find me."
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To be continued in Episode 2: "Ashvale Doesn't Sleep"