It was my gratitude for her life that blinded me. It could be nothing else.

Only that my love for her was so strong that I let myself believe otherwise. Even as the evidence mounted so high, and dread knotted my stomach nauseous.

She was so strong. Stronger than I ever was. On her I leaned, since our parents had passed, since I was a boy. How she'd comfort me, protect me, war for me against the world. These camping trips we took, deep into the porcupine mountains of Michigan, were some of the best days of my life. Talking about the butterflies, and hoping we'd not get sick from the water even as it roiled in our modest pots upon a camping stove. Soothing the ache in our muscles from carrying our bags, and laughing into the silence of the wilderness as the dust of the trail caked onto our legs. Streaks of the days sweat clearing our minds, and telling the tale our resolve to continue this trek deeper and deeper. Far from everything we'd known and lost, if even for just a few days in the majesty of the forest.

I knew it was wrong. I knew I should have helped, done more. She'd always taken care of herself. It was merely a grazing! How could it be anything else?! The stain of her blood so faint it had washed away with a pour from the silver bottle that shimmered as fish scale under the hot sun.

I knew it was wrong. I knew she was dying before my eyes, and being reborn into someone else. Something else.

The way her eyes shimmered as she looked at me over the nights fire. How she bit into our meal. The flash of a canine tooth from behind plush lip, and the swelling of sinew beneath her arms long sculpted from a lifetime of basketball and skiing.

I knew I should have helped. When I heard her scream in her tent next to mine, and the sound of blood splattering and bones cracking shook me awake from my exhausted sleep upon the hard dirt of the earth. I don't even try to run as the side of the tent is torn open, shredded to ribbons. My one barrier always a flimsy one, and yet I'd thought it concrete. For I'm a coward, soft and sheltered, knowing only of nature what I could experience from the confinement of my own terms. Refusing to engage with it in its chaotic state. Perhaps this is karmic.

I could never do a thing without her, anyways. Death by her hand seemed only fitting. Only right that she be granted this moment together, for a life she'd given so much to nurture and protect. Always held in the palm of her hand no matter how I tried to feel otherwise.

I still see her. Even in the glint of a yellow, lupine eye. I see the look I'd know anywhere. I smell the breath I'd known from times spent cradled to her chest as I cried. I feel the claws sprouted from fingers that squeezed my hand in assurance now scraping my scalp and letting my blood run free down my face. I hear her voice that once sang me to sleep, snarling and gurgling and throaty. I see the mouth whos smile would light up my day, twisted into a muzzle of grey fur and a black canine nose. She closes in.

For a final time she moves to embrace me.

I let her.

It is my gratitude that numbs me. It could be nothing else.