The Child and the Wolf

A Story by MajesticGust

The famous "Little Red Riding Hood" and what twisted events that could have happened.

Once upon a time there lived in a certain village a little country girl, the prettiest creature who was ever seen. Everyone who saw her liked her, but most of all, her grandmother, who did not know what to give the child next.

One day her mother, having made some cakes, said to her, "Go, my dear, and see how your grandmother is doing, for I hear she has been very ill. Take her a cake, and this little pot of butter. Mind your manners and give her my greetings.”

“Behave yourself on the way, and do not leave the path."

Not too long after she left the house, the girl saw a garden of beautiful wildflowers blooming in the distance and wandered off the path to reach them, heedless of her mother’s warnings. Only when she picked enough flowers to make a bouquet, she remembered her mother’s words.

“Behave yourself on the way, and do not leave the path.”

“Well, it was only for a little while,” the girl thought to herself with a shrug. “I’m sure mama will forgive me.”

She took off her white cloak and placed the flowers in it. After wrapping the cloak and its contents around her, she returned to the forest path and resumed walking to her grandmother’s house.

The birds were singing from the tops of the trees, and the girl hummed along with the melodies. Her steps turned to skips, and her mother’s warning was again all but forgotten. When the birds flew around and chased each other into the woods, she ran right with them.

By the time she remembered her mother’s words, she was deep into the woods; needless to say, she was no longer on the path. She was not scared, but very lost regardless.

“Behave yourself on the way, and do not leave the path.”

“Mama might really be mad this time,” she thought to herself. “I must hurry to grandmother’s house. If I turn around and walk straight, I should return to the path.”

As she was going through the wood, she met with a wolf. He asked her where she was going. The poor child, who did not know that it was dangerous to stay and talk to a wolf, said to him, "I am going to see my grandmother and carry her a cake and a little pot of butter from my mother."

"Well," said the wolf, "and I'll go and see her too. We shall see who will be there first."

The wolf ran straight to the grandmother's house. He stepped inside, went straight to the grandmother's bed, and ate her up. Then he took her clothes, put them on, and put her cap on his head.

Unlike the wolf, who headed directly to the grandmother’s house, the girl continued to walk with leisure. Luckily by retracing her steps, she found herself back on the path. And not long after, she arrived at her grandmother’s house.

She knocked on the door and waited. When no one answered, she knocked again.

“Strange,” she thought to herself. “Grandmother usually opens the door right away. Mama did say she was sick, so perhaps she is resting in bed.”

She pushed the door and was surprised to find it unlocked. But not thinking too deeply about it, she rushed to her grandmother’s room. There was someone on the bed wearing nightclothes.

“Grandmother, I’m here! Mama said you were sick, so I brought some cake for you.”

She approached the figure on the bed.

She was greatly amazed to see how her grandmother looked in her nightclothes, and said to her, "Grandmother, what big arms you have!"

"All the better to hug you with, my dear."

"Grandmother, what big legs you have!"

"All the better to run with, my child."

"Grandmother, what big ears you have!"

"All the better to hear with, my child."

"Grandmother, what big eyes you have!"

"All the better to see with, my child."

"Grandmother, what big teeth you have got!"

"All the better to eat you up with."

And, saying these words, this wicked wolf fell upon the girl, and ate her all up. As soon as the wolf had finished this tasty bite, he climbed back into bed, fell asleep, and began to snore.

…

Now, the wolf was very big and the girl was very small. Enough so that the famished wolf could swallow the poor child whole. So though the wolf did indeed eat her, she was still alive.

However the same could not be said about the grandmother, who was bigger than the girl, for the wolf had to chew her to pieces in order to swallow her. And it was in this state that the grandmother reunited with her granddaughter.

There was not a speck of light inside the wolf’s stomach, luckily, so the young girl was blind to the horror that was once her grandmother, around her. But she did feel the oozing warmth from both the blood of her relative and the beast’s stomach fluid.

Despite all this, the girl was calm. Perhaps it was the lack of oxygen delaying her bodily responses. Or perhaps it was because she knew of her impending death and already gave up.

“Am I going to die..?”

For a long while, the child fell in and out of consciousness. Almost suffocating to the point where she couldn’t even let out a cough, she inhaled and exhaled the gaseous waste from her exhales and the acid. Her limbs were long past numb. Her outer flesh was slowly melted away, leaving her muscles and nerves vulnerable to the environment.

Pain. Constant pain. When she thought she would faint from lack of air, the pain in her body would bring her back. Back to the painful reality.

At this point, her mind was no longer properly functioning. Words and images floated around in her head, not making any coherent sense anymore.

“Behave yourself on the way, and do not leave the path.”

“Ah,” she thought to herself. “I should have listened to mama.”

But wait. Who is that again? What did it mean?

It was no use. She could no longer think properly.

She let out what little breath she had remaining as a sigh. An unnoticeable drop fell from her eye.

“I don’t want to die.”

Those words sparked something from inside of her. Her half-melted fingers moved. Slowly at first. Then her hand. Then her arm. Both arms. Shoulders.

She reached upwards. For something to hold on to. A lifeline.

She tried to sit up.

The wolf, naturally, felt this sudden movement. The sudden stomach pain woke him up abruptly.

“It must be indigestion,” the wolf said to himself. “I should have chewed properly before my meal.”

The pain continued. No, it grew. It felt to him like something was grabbing the insides of his stomach. And painfully at that. The movement grew. He tried throwing up whatever it was, but something long got caught in his throat instead.

The wolf couldn’t breathe. It gagged, making snorting sounds. It sounded almost like he was snoring, only louder. It couldn’t cough up the blockage. It flailed on the ground, helpless, and then grew lifeless.

Night finally fell. Someone was walking by, returning home with a bow in hand.

The huntsman was just passing by. He thought it strange that the old woman was snoring so loudly, so he decided to take a look. He stepped inside, and there lay the wolf that he had been hunting for such a long time.

"He has eaten the grandmother, but perhaps she still can be saved," thought the huntsman. So he took a pair of scissors and cut open his belly.

And when he did, out came a hand. Not a normal one, but one with melted flesh. Several of the fingernails were missing, and the remaining skin was almost green.

The huntsman jumped back and fell on his rear. He quivered in fear as he watched the rest of the body emerge. Like a larva hatching from an egg, the body dragged itself out further and further from the carcass.

When the head of the creature finally appeared, the huntsman gulped.

The eyes were lifeless, sunken deeply into the skull. Patches of long hair were missing in several places of the scalp. And on the grotesque face, he could see where the melted flesh revealed the skull underneath. The eyes were staring at him, glowing dimly in the moonlight.

The creature croaked something.

“I-I will-"”

The huntsman ran away as fast as he could without bothering to hear what the creature had left to say. The huntsman wasn’t especially a coward; anyone would have ran away from that thing.

The creature, no, the girl finally got her legs out of the wolf’s carcass. Because of the missing muscles and lack of strength, she couldn’t stand upright. She dragged herself further from the body using just her arms.

“I-I will live,” she said, as if those words were the only thing keeping her going.

Midnight was soon approaching, and the air was chilly. What little remained of the girl’s nerves were exposed, so the cold night air literally chillled her down to the bone. She looked around for something to cover herself with.

There, inside the wolf’s corpse, was a cloak. It was dyed red and half-eaten away by the same acid that ate through her body. But it was better than nothing. She reached for it with her hand.

Something fell from the cloak. It smelled like grass that was chewed and spit out. Perhaps they were of a variety of colors at one point, but now they were all red. She ignored them.

She wrapped the cloak around her; it was warm, perhaps from the warmth of blood insulated by the wolf’s guts.

She took in a deep breath of fresh night air.

“Alive.”