Wolfguy (working title)
Day 4 (end)
Day 4 – Morning
He feels crushed and doesn’t feel like he can turn to his friends.
Late afternoon
He brings his alarm-radio to a remote place to try to get better reception (he sees a power line structure), he’s trying to cheer himself up. But the radio seems to be malfunctioning and switching to a Christmas radio station (it’s late November) and a deployed soldier’s message to his family plays. This is the first time in a long while that Wolfguy has thought about his family and what his disappearance must have done to them. He’s confused by his emotions and breaks the alarm. It turns out the Ghost was haunting it to try to persuade him to look for the Druid.
Wolfguy is angry at the Ghost but breaks down, telling the Ghost he would have graduated from college by now if he hadn’t been bitten the previous year.
Ghost tells him to go into the woods and look for the Druid, so he wanders in with no idea what to do.
He actively avoids the streams and noisy, threatening rivers (because of water fear). He knows his purpose is to find the pool with the tree but can’t bring himself to confront his fear yet.
He comes to a power line clearing. He follows this uphill. The unusually clear sky is his main means of direction, with the power lines and bordering trees highlighting the sky.
Eventually the power lines end at a plant. He feels dumb for having followed them, but he notices a quiet stream going down the other side of the hill and relents to see where it goes.
Suddenly, because he can barely see, he comes to the edge of a lake. He can see little fish and creatures in the water (it’s very clear water) and the moon now appears brightly and gives him better visibility. He notices the apple tree on a small island, but his fear of the water torments him and he almost turns back, but is confronted for the first time by Mums the fairy.
Mums tries to help him come up with other ways to solve his problem. She mentions her theory that heated silver could work, since silver bullets are heated when fired, and when else has a werewolf ever touched heated silver? Wolfguy admits he never learned how to swim, so even if he could get over his fear he still wouldn’t be able to get to the tree.
Ultimately Wolfguy decides he needs to try. He figures that a plan of action would be to jump from a tree into the center of the gap between the shore and the island, taking off his shirt as he falls and turning him into a dog by the time he hits the water. He’s betting that his dog form will instinctively figure out how to swim, and by landing in the middle he has a 50/50 chance that the dog-brain will swim to the island. Then Mums can fly and pick his shirt out of the water and give it to the dog, which has shown in the past that it will put on its own clothes.
He climbs a tree and jumps. He takes off his shirt as he jumps and transforms into a dog, but for some reason when he lands in the water he transforms back into human form. He didn’t plan for this and starts to panic as he sinks.
He sinks to the very bottom but the water is magically floating about 20 feet from the bottom of the lake, which he lands on. Light isn’t able to penetrate down this far, and the landscape is entirely made up of boulders. He can see the fish and creatures in the water above him. He climbs and jumps across the boulders toward the incline of the island, and finds a door. It leads up and out of the tree, and he finds Mums absolutely overjoyed to see him alive.
No one appears to be on the island. In a small hut on the other side of the tree he finds a table with a note and a poured cup of cider. The note says “Enjoy the cup, Wolfguy. Be back soon.”
He picks up the cup and can faintly see some words written at the bottom. He drinks just enough to read them, it says “P.S. Mums was right.” They notice that the handle and the rim of the cup are silver.
The Druid walks in. The Ghost was a nonphysical form of the Druid the whole time. As Wolfguy and Mums realize this, the Druid says, “Oh boy, isn’t this exciting?
-END-
The purpose of the story is to show a character who has a problem, tries to fix it on his own, fails, seeks out a real, final solution to his problem, and finds it but is afraid to take the leap required. The reader should be internally yelling at the character to take the leap, as an outer perspective makes it look so simple, but the character is too afraid to give up control since he can’t see what the outcome will be. This should make the reader wonder “What problem am I too afraid to fix?”
Wolfguy’s state isn’t his problem, his fear (of the possible outcomes of his attempts to improve his state) is his problem.
He feels crushed and doesn’t feel like he can turn to his friends.
Late afternoon
He brings his alarm-radio to a remote place to try to get better reception (he sees a power line structure), he’s trying to cheer himself up. But the radio seems to be malfunctioning and switching to a Christmas radio station (it’s late November) and a deployed soldier’s message to his family plays. This is the first time in a long while that Wolfguy has thought about his family and what his disappearance must have done to them. He’s confused by his emotions and breaks the alarm. It turns out the Ghost was haunting it to try to persuade him to look for the Druid.
Wolfguy is angry at the Ghost but breaks down, telling the Ghost he would have graduated from college by now if he hadn’t been bitten the previous year.
Ghost tells him to go into the woods and look for the Druid, so he wanders in with no idea what to do.
He actively avoids the streams and noisy, threatening rivers (because of water fear). He knows his purpose is to find the pool with the tree but can’t bring himself to confront his fear yet.
He comes to a power line clearing. He follows this uphill. The unusually clear sky is his main means of direction, with the power lines and bordering trees highlighting the sky.
Eventually the power lines end at a plant. He feels dumb for having followed them, but he notices a quiet stream going down the other side of the hill and relents to see where it goes.
Suddenly, because he can barely see, he comes to the edge of a lake. He can see little fish and creatures in the water (it’s very clear water) and the moon now appears brightly and gives him better visibility. He notices the apple tree on a small island, but his fear of the water torments him and he almost turns back, but is confronted for the first time by Mums the fairy.
Mums tries to help him come up with other ways to solve his problem. She mentions her theory that heated silver could work, since silver bullets are heated when fired, and when else has a werewolf ever touched heated silver? Wolfguy admits he never learned how to swim, so even if he could get over his fear he still wouldn’t be able to get to the tree.
Ultimately Wolfguy decides he needs to try. He figures that a plan of action would be to jump from a tree into the center of the gap between the shore and the island, taking off his shirt as he falls and turning him into a dog by the time he hits the water. He’s betting that his dog form will instinctively figure out how to swim, and by landing in the middle he has a 50/50 chance that the dog-brain will swim to the island. Then Mums can fly and pick his shirt out of the water and give it to the dog, which has shown in the past that it will put on its own clothes.
He climbs a tree and jumps. He takes off his shirt as he jumps and transforms into a dog, but for some reason when he lands in the water he transforms back into human form. He didn’t plan for this and starts to panic as he sinks.
He sinks to the very bottom but the water is magically floating about 20 feet from the bottom of the lake, which he lands on. Light isn’t able to penetrate down this far, and the landscape is entirely made up of boulders. He can see the fish and creatures in the water above him. He climbs and jumps across the boulders toward the incline of the island, and finds a door. It leads up and out of the tree, and he finds Mums absolutely overjoyed to see him alive.
No one appears to be on the island. In a small hut on the other side of the tree he finds a table with a note and a poured cup of cider. The note says “Enjoy the cup, Wolfguy. Be back soon.”
He picks up the cup and can faintly see some words written at the bottom. He drinks just enough to read them, it says “P.S. Mums was right.” They notice that the handle and the rim of the cup are silver.
The Druid walks in. The Ghost was a nonphysical form of the Druid the whole time. As Wolfguy and Mums realize this, the Druid says, “Oh boy, isn’t this exciting?
-END-
The purpose of the story is to show a character who has a problem, tries to fix it on his own, fails, seeks out a real, final solution to his problem, and finds it but is afraid to take the leap required. The reader should be internally yelling at the character to take the leap, as an outer perspective makes it look so simple, but the character is too afraid to give up control since he can’t see what the outcome will be. This should make the reader wonder “What problem am I too afraid to fix?”
Wolfguy’s state isn’t his problem, his fear (of the possible outcomes of his attempts to improve his state) is his problem.