Black Wolf

A Story by Quartz

The story behind the black wolf. Please read White wolf to understand the missing parts.

Black Wolf

He was woken by the sound of his pack running around. They were nervous and scared, He didn’t care, He’d just eaten and was finally falling asleep. The best feeling was to fall asleep with a full belly, after suffering many a night without a meal, he enjoyed it whenever he could. They continued to make noise until finally he couldn’t stand it anymore. He stood up and walked into the rain.

Letting out a snarl he approached the group. They were from a small hunting group that had gone out to get more food for themselves. He demanded for the reason by staring at them with a dead glare. They responded by pointing at the forest and telling him of the attack, of the white wolf.

The white wolf, He remembered him. He was as large as he was and was the owner of this land before He had taken it from him. The fact that he was still alive angered Him more than it should. Why couldn’t he have died with the rest of his pathetic pack. He’d been on his toes ever since and could only relax when surrounded by His pack and that meant issues like this was common.

He ordered the whole pack to leave with him and hunt down the white wolf. He’d been a thorn in His side for too long. They walked through the forest, briefly stopping to drink from a stream. He saw his own reflection. He was big and black with bright red eyes shining like the sun. He’d used this coat of his to kill many a foe, hitting them in the dark when there was no moon.

As they walked he remembered the last encounter with the white wolf. It had been the day He’d taken over the forest, but before that He’d followed the white wolf through the forest. He could see that the white wolf was strong, so he needed to destroy him by taking everything from him, to prevent the chance of Him losing.

The march continued, He saw something troubling. It was one of his pack, they’d gotten larger, nearly as big as him. Springing forward he snapped his jaws around the neck of the potential rival and snapped it in an instant. The others stopped the march and stared briefly before continuing. They didn’t care, they tried not to, otherwise they’d end up the same. He dropped his kill and left it behind.

As He walked, He recalled the most difficult scenarios in his life. He remembered the old Alpha of His pack and how weak he had been. The old Alpha had refused to attack the pack of the forest, believing that it wasn’t worth fighting for. He’d argued, He and the rest of the pack were starving, some to the point where some had simply dropped dead from no food. Again, the old Alpha refused and said something ridiculous about maintaining order. He had challenged the old Alpha then and broke him in two. He still shuddered at the memory of those days of hardship and had refused to let that happen again. Eventually, they had found enough that were willing to join his pack and they grew large but in the early days there had been many large wolves like him that challenged for leadership. To stop it from happening again, He would kill any that got too large or was old enough to challenge Him.

He remembered the day of the attack. The white wolf lay on his side, watching his little cub struggle to stay on its feet and howl at the same time. He had been jealous from his view from the dense forest foliage. He had wanted a child but none would come near him, all the females refused him. So, he killed the females, He was Alpha, He was the leader, they do what He says, but still they refused Him. He had watched as the female wolf approach the white wolf and lay next to him and watch the cub. He waited for the white wolf to get up and leave, he usually went on a patrol in the afternoon. The plan was going well, now they waited for him to be away for enough time for them to kill the pack before the white wolf returned.

They had charged out of the foliage snarling and growling. The enemy pack had been surprised and as such nearly half were dead before they could fight back. The female wolf and the white wolf’s cub had been a distance away, and were now backed into the cave wall. The rest of the enemy pack had tried to protect her but were being overwhelmed. He didn’t care how many of His pack died, if they died, they were weak. He walked forward, only ones left were the white wolf’s female and the cub.

Finally, the white wolf came charging out of the forest killing several on his way, snarling and killing as he went. He attacked the female, killing her before She could react. She fell down dead, the cub prodded her dead corpse, clearly it was scared and confused and did not understand what was going on. He reached down and picked it up gently in His mouth. It howled and cried and tried to fight Him but it was a cub and too weak. He snapped his jaws down killing it. He turned to look at the white wolf to see it let loose a howl of anguish and pain. He dropped the dead cub and attacked the white wolf.

They fought for hours but neither could gain the upper hand. Then suddenly the white wolf charged knocking Him down. He fell and collapsed under the weight of the white wolf. He got caught on something and threw it in the air suddenly. It was a pile of dirt and guts from another wolf. The dirt and guts hit the white wolf in the face and he ran into the forest, blinded.

He arrived to where the white wolf was last seen he found the dead bodies of two of his pack. He sniffed the air and found the scent, he’d left recently. The march continued until they found the clearing. The clearing was large with a tree in the middle that was hollow. Inside the hollow was one of the animals that the old Alpha used to talk about, saying that it was them that drove them from a bountiful hunting ground.

The white wolf was there, he turned and watched him. At the same moment, they charged. The fought hard clawing and snapping at each other. He heard a snap as his leg broke and he fell before the white wolf. The white wolf grabbed his neck in his jaws and He let out a whine. The first and last time he had ever made that noise. The white wolf crunched and broke it and His world went black. He saw the rest of his pack charge and try and kill the white wolf.

*****

She finished typing her report into the computer. It was a great story and a beautiful message.

She had heard the story the day before about the missing girl in the forest, but had not expected this. Not only had they found the girl alive and well the day after she was reported missing, they had found wolves, or the bodies of wolves that had killed each other.

Some believed that they had killed each other over who would eat her. But that didn’t explain the other wolves and how they seemed to have tossed aside. The white wolf and lay down, it clearly hadn’t fallen, in front of the tree where the girl was hiding, almost like a guardian or a protector.

She had written about the lives of the typical wolf pack, and explained how the kingdom of humans was impacting on the animal’s way of life. Taking up hunting grounds and such. She hit the send button to her editor, probably get a phone call later asking why she was reporting on the wolves and not on the girl or why she was bothering about a missing persons case and should be chasing some cheap self obsessed celebrity that faked her own scandal. She sighed, if only there was more to life than publicity, there would be less pointless news.