Instinct

There is a story that has been handed down for generations within my family. My grandmother once told it to me, this story about the wolves. She told me of their curse and the curse that was bound to our village. We come from a village located in the heart of the Forest of Arden called Ardenwood. She told me the story of our curse many times because she wanted me to remember it. For a child, I was diligent in my listening. I knew the story was true because she told it to me the same each time.

She always began with a woman, young and beautiful. The woman appeared into the village without a trace. She seemed to be lost and homeless. The woman was brought to the Elder’s attention and the old man dealt with the unknown woman. He invited her into his home with his son and grandchildren. He and his family took care of the foreigner and soon a relationship had formed between the woman and the Elder’s oldest grandson. She told me that the grandson treated the woman terribly and abused the woman’s beauty. He took advantage of her and forced her to stay with him until the day he died. The woman was within the captivity of the man for so long, he soon discovered what she was when she retained her beauty and he only grew older. However, he was not afraid of her. He was afraid of the villagers and what they would do to her when they discovered what she was. The man locked her away but visited her nightly. The man grew older and older, but one day, after the man had been alive for one hundred years, the woman escaped. She appeared to her people beaten and sallow. Her mate, the alpha of her pack was dishonored by her impurity and vowed to avenge her.

That night, the pack appeared into the village and destroyed everyone within its bonds. The women were raped, men were mutilated, and the children were forced to sit and watch before being mutilated themselves. But the beautiful woman’s mate was the only one allowed to attack the Elder's Grandson, who had become the Elder himself. He dismembered the Elder’s body before eating the meat off his bones and swallowing his heart whole. However, while her mate was feeding on her captor, the woman had perished, being murdered by villager whom had escaped her attacks. Ever since that day, every hundred years the wolf pack would return to punish the people of Ardenwood for their mistreatment of the Alpha’s mate. The Alpha was filled with anger and sadness that he howled for days mourning her loss. He forced his pack members to do the same in her honor. My grandmother tells me this is why wolves howl at the moon. It is the Alpha and his pack mourning the loss of his beautiful and loving mate.

My village had always feared the wolves, but none knew of their true power. My grandmother felt it was right to hide the truth about the wolves from the rest of the village in fear that they would never trust human nor beast again. She refused to even tell my father, the leader of our village. I fear for our village everyday, wondering if it is the one that the curse will strike upon. My grandmother said she felt guilty for making me feel this way, but she told me it is an honorable burden to bear. I believe her. After knowing the truth for such a long time I began to wonder why it has never been written down on paper. I asked my grandmother why it had not and she had no answer for me. The two of us decided to document my grandmother’s story and hide it away for the next generation to find after the curse had inevitably struck ours.

I asked my grandmother why we don’t tell the villagers and prepare to ward of the wolves. She told me that the wolves are unlike any I have ever seen. They are larger than normal wolves and have powers and strengths beyond any mass of human ability. She called them master shape shifters and demons of deceit. She warned me never to be lured in by the beauty that they can project. I heeded her warning even after the day of her death.

The rest of my life I spent collecting data about these wolves. I tracked them, hunted them, and studied them. I had to stop the curse somehow. I had to break its bonds on Ardenwood. I wrote it all down, everything I had ever learned about the wolves and bound it in a book in hopes that someone would uncover the truth after I had fallen.

I was forty-two when the wolves struck again. I heard their howls in the distance and as they became slowly louder, I knew it was the day. I only had time to write the date on the last page of the book before I buried it in my garden and the wolves attacked.