Door is already open and the people inside stare at something.

A dark room glitters with a shaft of light, no, a waft, no, a hiss and... and a scream!

Only opening and closing their eyes they don't respond this time either.

"150 years of boredom"

 

"Jim?"

 

Waking in the den he sees the shaman is recording his umbra-still body. Calmly she raises her paw, twisting her long fingers into a mudra to ward the Wyrm and they are both pulled back from the spirit realm.

 

"Let go of it."

She is here and she nuzzles along his side. A heady musk.

 

"I can't. I should. They must be saved. The city is killing us."

"But still I must greet the changing of the tides. It's time to...run. Howl."

Flesh becomes coarse, hands are talons, paws jaunting and he's gone.

__________________________________________________________________

 

Where the wild things are.