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Chapter 1

It was inevitable.

One day bloodthirsty, feeding off flesh and planting fear into all that lived and knew of such a monster. Hunting, anticipation, feeding, short lasting satisfaction and more hunger, but seldom the hunger one needed to survive. His hunger consumed his life, his thoughts shrinking his heart and soul. He did not play, if ever, but his pack forgave their food acquiring treasure for its heavy conduct.

He was the best hunter ever to be encountered beneath the trees. He was keener than any other wild wolf. Nothing of him was similar to any other creature in the gnarly old woods he nocuously stalked; even his brothers did not understand the simple destructive impulses so purely lived by their infamous kin. He was different, in every way, from embryo to oblivion. Born shimmering red, a light of pure love and insatiable energy, the latter being his mind’s administrator. The wolf pup was monstrously beautiful: It bore front paws with longer, spaced, flexible toes; back paws larger like the hind feet of a rabbit; fur so thick, yet close-cropped, tightly curled around its whole body; a snout shorter than any other wolf; and eyes so dark and narrow they plunged icicles wherever they laid their glance. The baby was a godsend and a monster. Even the unearthly subject quickly grasped this fact, and the sum knew that his life on earth would leave a vile stain.  

One night, during the victory feast of a bloody hunt, the Werewolf was deserted by its kin. The feast was a bear, a colossal angry one that was, at sight, the image of death, but, that day, the greatness of the beastly bear blurred with the darkice eyes of a second beautiful monster. There were sounds everywhere, wolves scurrying in the brush around the behemoth. The dire bear felt an unusual twinge of panic. Its head menacingly rumbling in the air, bearing all its jagged overused teeth. In an intimidating manner of instinct and rise of power over its domain it stood on its hind legs and bellowed a birdscreeching bellow 11 feet above the ferns. The world stopped, all froze under the mountainous titan of flesh and fur that just shook even the trees to their core. All stopped. A moment stillness after the rocking display. All the blood and sap iced, in the sound span of the roar. All save for one, the one who knew that ice in its essence and fed its nostalgic craving just as it did the greatest beast in front of it. Pain struck behind the mastodon’s neck. The mammoth had seen a flash of movement in the moment of stillness, then lost sight of its chilling predator. If it weren’t for the pain behind its neck, the giant wouldn’t have known exactly where the fatal beauty was hiding. With a tortured growl the bear shot itself backwards on the ground. The fierce creature had two seconds to get out of a crushing death, but this is not what it was thinking. With the familiar taste of blood and life lingering to survive in an other, the wolf creature swung its body above the shoulder of its prey by pulling its chest with his dexterous claws to get out from under the falling mastodon. A resounding fall, one last breathtaking growl which was cut short in a gurgling of its own juices, the faint sound of fangs slipping into flesh, then the gruesome ripping that brings out what was in for eternal peace or looping descent. All around;      Silence.                  Fear.                         stillness.            Even the bear had not the time to take two breaths before its throat was ripped off. Still silence, as the blood drenched killer savoured its first delectable piece of a well-earned meal, then plunged without a chew, again plunging into the throat of its kill, pushing its killing blow deeper and deeper as the pleasure of domination was simply uncontained, and a devouring ecstasy filling the abdomen of the butchering creature. No thought, just satiation and debauchery. The Werewolf did not eat, it tasted and felt. His brothers had started to leave after the third frenzied plunge of their great hunting asset, partly because it had single headedly brought down the biggest beast they had ever encountered, and largely because they couldn’t stand fearing a brother so much one that shared their space day and night, no matter how similar, different or effective he was in comparison to any of them. Mostly by fear, they deserted their kin.

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Chapter 2

 

The solitary wolf lay, unhungry, next to the beast 10 times his size. He had brought it down a day ago. He had never felt this way before; abandoned, alone… empty. His short snout resting on his handlike paw, waiting for his kin to come back, knowing they had left him without a hint for return. And so he waited. He thought. He had never had the chance to think, his mind always occupied with the next hunt. The wolflike creature had no knowledge of words like you and I, so when he thought, it was with images and feel, like the feeling of curiosity with the image of a bird or with the feeling of abandonment. Another night passed. He did not stand, did not eat and did not cry. He only sometime shifted his laying body, waking a flutter of wings form the black birds eating away at the carcass of the monumental kill of some days past. The slumped predator was so still he could hear the maggots squirming inside the bear, which smaller birds came to feed on. The odd wolf did not have one bite since he realized his brothers would not come out to share the feast, nor had he had the desire to chew or spit out what was left in his mouth. Only now did he realize he had lived joy, for it was now that he had no joy, and felt sadness for the first time. And so he waited, listening and observing the forest with unfamiliar motives, thoughtless and motiveless. He was uninterested in hunting. With kill out his mind, he did not know how to occupy this mind, so he observed, looking for a drive to life on the other side of his eyes. While time passed ever so slowly and ever so much, he wondered about what he saw, with images brought behind light perceiving eyes and the notions of what he felt.

Why do birds come and eat what’s left? … They must enjoy something else than kill! … What? …

How many creatures exist? … Why do the small ones hide in the earth? … How do they know? … It must be for them what kill is for me!? …

How do creatures fly? … I …

I… would like to fly!

The Werewolf understood that all was different, each animal was its own, he was… HIM!

Nothing is like me! … Can another creature be like me?

I ! ME !

Him, they!

So much difference, we are all something different! … We all do different stuff! … Birds. Birds fly! I want to fly! … I want to do like them!

The creature got up, stumbling on numb legs; the birds shot their head up, but did not fly away, rather cocking their heads at the bigger creature. The werewolf felt like he found his pack again and took a big bite of the feast like he would with his family, so did the birds a little hesitantly. It tasted odd, not like fresh kill. The birds panicked and flew into the sky. The ground creature wanted so bad to fly up with them; his pack, but couldn’t.

What are the birds going to do now? … I would like to follow them! … I am not like them, but I am not even like my first brothers… Yet we both ate together and felt as kins…

He staggered away a bit slowly chewing the odd meat. Slowly the birds came back down and perched on the mound of decaying bear. He observed and thought. The world had never seemed so big and diverse in his last couple days of contemplation, yet he did not move from that place he was left alone. Alone. He tumbled back to the ground. He had never felt loneliness before, so he felt and lived the feeling, wondering why there was such a feeling. He realized he needed companions, turning his head back to the birds. Kin for joy, to share and learn.

… Yes! I want to live with all these creatures! … See what they do … and do it with them!…

Not just the flying creature, all creatures! … Maybe someday I will fly … Maybe I will eat other things than other creatures …

In that moment he found a new kind of joy, one that lingered, different from the more intense high he got from kill, one that lasted as long as he lived it! There was so much to do, a different kind of way to live; one less intense; a life of constant searching. The awareness in the werewolf wondered if he could keep on wondering for the rest of his life.

To first find some kin is vital to this new joy…

He felt a bond with the birds again, then turned around and saw a rabbit looking back at him. He felt love. Then hunger as his belly growled likethen his throat. The rabbit scurried off toin his tunnel.

… Will I return to the joy of kill? … I wanted to be with that creature … I do! … more than being alone … like I was with my fellow hunters … I thought only of kill with my old kin … They did not love me … they held me … they … feared me, like the rabbit …

I do not want to be feared … I want to be … Loved! … and live love! … like with the rabbit in that moment  … I want to live life! Live like all creatures do! … Be it fly … be it tunnel hiding! … or eating old meat!

His whereabouts were unknown, so were the whereabouts of his mind with its dual compulsions. None really enjoyed his presence, nothing to do with the danger of it, but rather the feeling of his eyes, staring with the thirst of life, which none understood, even in moments of returned loving admiration.

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