The Wolf's transformation was like the tale of Cinderella. At the clock's strike of midnight, when all the American dreams of Paradise turned off their bright lights and closed their curtains, when the dogs stopped barking, when the minivans and SUVs were all parked safely in their driveways, when children slept soundlessly in bed, The Wolf transformed.

But the clock hadn't struck twelve yet. It was ten-thirty on the dot and not all of Paradise had fallen asleep. The orcs litter the street along with conservative Christians, rowdy high schoolers, and noisy children on their bicycles because across the street, at the cheerful Burnsbys, was two police cars and an ambulance.

The police lights flash in my window like a distressed signal, casting colorful, dancing shadows in my room. I watch them dance across the bare ceiling, laying flat on my back over the covers, before deciding I'd draw them. Or maybe to be more exact, I mechanically decide I should draw because my will to pretend was drifting somewhere out in the ocean near Leo Carrillo Beach and drawing seemed like something I should do.

I feel an odd prickle as I sit up and dig through my backpack; a light honey-brown bag, bare, and tattered from all the times the orc had yanked me by loose strings and zippers. Inside is everything from school last semester, foreign, cold, and full of memories I was pretty sure I didn't want to remember. School is a blur and every time something brings it into focus, I get this huge wave of nausea and the monsters rear their heads with knives and I have to fight them with a sword.

Underneath the memories of school is a simple black sketchbook; the cover mesmerizing underneath the police lights like a rainbow shedding across the darkness, valiantly destroying it with a spreading curve.

Inside the familiar black sketchbook is Paradise, the very essence of it.

Paradise isn't exactly rainbows and sunshine, although it started off as one. When I first stepped foot on lawn of the beautiful, teal house, The Wolf kindly emerging from the porch with a bright lie of a smile, twelve-year old me had decided this was Paradise. It was the nicest place I'd ever been relocated and The Wolf hadn't been a wolf then. He'd been the kind new Foster parent with a weird mustache and a painfully bad sense of humor. He was cheesy, sometimes stealing his jokes right from the depths of Tumblr memes, and made chocolate chip cookies every Sunday for church.

The first pages of the sketchbook are bright and colorful (and kind of shitty because I hadn't learned about the importance of precision yet). Twelve-year old Lucky Grant had drawn the beautiful, teal house, making sure to catch the flecks of sunlight that painted the tudor roof and glossy wooden steps of the porch. He'd drawn the Leo Carillo beach where The Wolf had taken him for his very first birthday in Rolling Hills, dotting the sandy shores with the blindingly red crabs that were brought in by wild, unforgiving waves. He'd even drawn The Wolf, a portrait that detailed the lines of his face and warm smile. The portrait lay unfinished, his balding hair incomplete.

The next few pages are dark and Paradise becomes something different, something I recognized.

I can still feel the pain that had bled from the pencil as it pressed harshly on the paper, violently sketching the coat of fur that glistened in blood as The Wolf raised his snout to the air at exactly midnight, howling for me.

I feel the monsters rearing their heads then as I stare at The Wolf's eyes, drawn hollow and piercing white. The Wolf had no soul, not underneath his navy sweaters and khaki pants. He was one of them, living in the state I had just tried to escape. A shitload of something had taken him a long time ago and now he was dead, clinging to the wasteland of Paradise with his bare claws.

Or maybe he was always dead, simply here to be exactly what he was; The Wolf.

I have to skip a few pages then. I skip past drawings of the Orc, drawings of people I wanted to know, creatures I wish I could forget, years I wanted to erase, until I was on a page untouched by Paradise. A blank page.

By now, the police lights no longer cast beautiful lights across my bare room but I started to draw anyway.

Drawing felt like running.

I was running away as pencil met paper, filling myself up with something different, something I hadn't tried in weeks.

It wasn't hope though, it was something unfamiliar, something that didn't seem to linger in Paradise, or someone to be exact.

I blow on the finished sketch even though I hadn't used any pastels or wet paint. The sketch was a quick portrait, one that mirrored the sun that hung in the sky, glaring, burning, and shining brightly from above.

I had drawn the sun girl, 'Feel The Bern,' t-shirt and all, wielding a laser pointed at me.

I decide it's the best work I've done all week.

At that moment, the clock strikes midnight and I hear The Wolf turn off the TV spewing tragedies downstairs, close his bible, yawn loudly, and retreat to the den. Paradise had finally fallen asleep, the police cars having deserted, leaving yellow tape around the Burnsby house in their flee. Now Paradise was as dead silent as the aftermath of my soul and I lay back on the bed, sketchbook hanging off the tip of my nose, and wait.

There's no use in going to bed. The Wolf is a monster, storming into bedrooms and ripping girls and boys from their cots, whisking them away back to his lair. The den. When I'd fled with his gun earlier, I had been so sure I wouldn't be seeing the den again but someone in the universe hates me and so The Wolf ascends the stairs only moments after retreating, no longer wearing his pair of maple brown penny loafers.

The sound of his socks hitting wood almost mimics the heartbeat in my ears but I lay still, keep my eyes glued to the ceiling, and concentrate on balancing the open sketchbook on the tip of my nose.

Time stops, and for a moment, I don't breathe, The Wolf hesitating in his angry ascension.

Then he storms into the room as he had done before, as he had done the night life took me by the throat and twisted.

The Wolf pants heavily in the doorway and before my eyes, he transforms. His chest is bare, no longer adorned by fleece Old Navy sweaters with charming patterns. His khaki pants are rumpled and his belt hangs unbuckled and loose at his side. The Wolf's friendly posture changes as he transforms, growing taller, bigger, more menacing. His gleaming, pearly white teeth turn into sharp, canine fangs that reflect my own reflection.

Pulling his fangs back, he growls. "Where is my gun?"

A vision of throwing his beloved weapon in the ocean flashes by like a passing gust of wind. I swallow hard, sit up, and say, "I don't know."

I thought only dead silence lived within me now but fear stirs in the pit of my stomach. It is a controlled kind of fear, one that you had to accept. I don't scream but I know he smells the fear, sees it in my eyes. He sees through my lie too, his piercing eyes that were warm and brown in the face of Paradise now a frightening crimson.

"Don't lie to me, Lucky," He barks. "I'll ask one more time; WHERE. IS. MY. GUN?"

The truth slips out like a muffled cry, not the entire truth, just the one single detail that was about to be the death of me. I hate myself for cracking, breaking down like the cracking of a mere Autumn twig underneath a shoe. "I took it and...threw it away." I answer shakily.

It happens fast. With a swift yank, his claws are digging into skin and I am whisked down the hall, down the stairs, past the living room where bible study had just been held, and into the den.

--------------------------

The first time I entered The Wolf's den was three years ago and when I say enter, I mean, really entered it and seen it for what it was; a pretty lie like the teal house it was secured in. The Wolf's den used to be the second garage before I was located here in Rolling Hills, transformed into a hip hangout area to cater to teenagers like me. Or so it had been when I first arrived.

Now it catered to The Wolf, safe and comforting until the clock struck twelve.

The walls were painted a bright, summer blue and then repainted to a wooden-bordered grey. There was a matching grey couch from IKEA, faded red blankets draped on the armchair, and a flat screen TV hanging from the wall purchased from a Black Friday sale. Christmas ornaments recycled year to year decorated the oak coffee table and school pictures I hated in intricate frames.

Then there was the pool table near the back of the den, looming next to the tall liqour cabinet...

I used to attempt to play pool, unaware that that was it. That was where I would start to die, that three years from now, I'd be near death, a gun to my temple at a beach.

Tonight is the third time - no, fourth - or maybe fifth and this time it is slow. Not painful. Just slow. So slow that I could swear I went somewhere else, soul departing from flesh and drifting over Paradise from the view of an eagle.

I soar over the abandoned Burnsby house, over the Leo Carillo Beach, through the wooded depths of terror that the orc roamed, even up into the sky where the sun girl must have come from.

Then I go back and instead of grabbing for something, anything, to take back the choice I had on the beach, I go to my room. I go to my room, pack up my backpack, and I storm out of the beautiful, teal house, my last salute a middle finger as I run into the middle of the street.

The idea is weird because until now, a bullet seemed to be the only way.

But I quickly realize it'd never work. I was chained here, here in The Wolf's den, attached to the pool balls as they rolled across the table in the haste.

Even when it's over, when my punishment is over and The Wolf unhooks his claws that had dug so deep into my skin I had new scars to grow used to, I don't try this idea; the idea of just running away, getting help, getting out of here.

Instead I watch as The Wolf, still roaring to the top of his lungs, claws his way through the liqour cabinet until the entire shelf crashes to the wooden floor.

Champagne spills, mixing with the blood on the carpet and The Wolf curls into a ball, cursing profusely, and starts to cry.

He cries tiredly, pouting like a puppy being denied affection and the truth dawns on me as it always does.

This truth wasn't one of hope though, just a reminder that there was no escaping Paradise. Not even death. I was meant to be one of them; the ones already dying, waiting for a funeral that'd never come. The Wolf and I were meant to be one of them, both stuck here until a bulldozer crashed through this beautiful, teal house one day.

So I don't try this new idea, it was like the light in the open ocean, like the bright lights that lit up the house in the night.

It was a lie.

Fear wells up inside of me, filling me up and up and up and then I realize it's blood and throws up.

This captures The Wolf's attention and he stands up, offers me one of the blankets draped on the IKEA sofa, and puts an arm around my shoulder. "How about you clean up and go to bed? I'll just have to get another gun this week." He says, exhaustion in his soft voice.

The clock strikes two a.m. and The Wolf transforms once again.