A Lost Legend

We should never forget what has happened. If we do what is to stop us from doing the same thing again?

Far away from any and all humane civilisation, deep within the dense, dark woods howls can be heard all through the night, from the minute the sun sinks below the ground until the minute the rays lighten the dew drops on the leaves. 

It is to this dark and mysterious place that tiny, seven year old, Carlie and her father, Moheevan travelled all those many years ago. Their spirits still roam the lightless place, warning travellers of the dangers the trees hold during the depths of night.

The legends of Carlie and her father haunt the people the American continent even so many years after their sprouting and none dare to enter the dreaded, cold place.

Their legend is pounded into the heads of every young boy and girl and so the legend lives on, sprouting questions no one can answer. What actually lives in those woods?

What no one remembers are the tales that came before. They’ve forgotten the past and therefore know no answers.

The howling in those dark woods started a little before the beginning recorded time. They used to be soft howls, howls that everyone came to look forward to. They cherished those howls and protected those from whom they came.

One day a man and his friend came from far away to the small village that lived peacefully next to those huge trees. They heard the howls and the man believed that they were the owls of the possessed, of the evil. The villagers tried to convince the man that he was wrong but in his mind, those howls were a thing to fear and a thing to get rid of.

Late one night, deep in the depths of winter, the man set out his gun, leaving only a note explaining what he was doing for his friend, and walked deep into the woods, following the loud howls that echoed in the trees. The further the man walked the more convinced of the evil in those howls he became. 

When he found the origin of those howls he was astonished to see a small child. Nevertheless, he told himself that it was a trick of the devil, he was highly religious, and readied his rifle, pulling the trigger and letting the bullet fly.

Barely a second before the bullet entered the child’s heart the child transformed. Where a child once stood was now a small wolf with the child’s deep blue eyes.

The bullet entered the heart of the wolf just as the man’s own heart was ripped out by the rest of the wolves, the child’s family.

It was too late. The child was dead.

To this day the wolves’ howls are anguished howls. They howl for the loss of one of their kind and they howl for the man from whom they ripped a heart, they howl in upset and loss and they howl in remorse for deed once done. A loss that can never be replaced and a deed that can never be undone.

But the people don’t remember and they won’t. They’ve blocked the truth from their minds for too long and are now to set in their beliefs to believe that the howls could ever be anything other than pure evil.