Chapter 4

Louise discovers her darker nature.

     I'd been with the Wolf People for some time but I could not really tell for how long.  Time did not pass the same here as it does in the other world, the human world from which I had come.

 

   Here there are no clocks or any sort of timepiece.  There are no calendars either. Days do not last long; nights do last very long. No 24-hour cycle or anything I could measure the passing of time, as I knew it.

 

    Eventually I gave up trying to tell how much time had passed. Even my body's natural rhythm was off, not functioning the way it usually did. I didn't wonder too much about that yet. Later I would!

 

    I enjoyed being one of the Wolf People, being able to change so easily into a Wolf. Being a werewolf was fantastic!

 

    I had friends here in this village. I was being accepted as a member of the Pack. This was a beautiful place to live. Long soothing nights with a silver moon and so many billions of stars shining radiantly overhead in the night sky. It was always warm and the moon and star shadows create a magical and enchanting landscape upon which to play.

 

    This night I sat in the kitchen with Mr. Black in our home. We ate from the same wooden bowl, enjoying cubes of raw meat. I liked freshly killed meat better, still with life pulsing in it, still filled with warm blood but this was yummy.

 

    Mr. Black sat across the table watching me eat. He was always watching me, as if utterly fascinated by every move I made.

 

    I'd thought by now I wouldn't be so interesting to him, that he'd be use to me being around, that my presence in his life wouldn't be such a novelty any longer.

 

    Mr. Black's luminous off white eyes, which lacked pupils, seemed to be always watching me, as they were now.

 

    I looked back. He was a tall man, slightly over six feet. His hair was dark and tangly.

 

    I smiled. "I'm glad you like what you see!" I popped a cube of raw meat into my mouth and chewed, watching him the whole time.

 

   He smiled back, showing his canine teeth. "Oh, I do Louise. Believe me, I do!" He drank from his glass of water.

 

   I swallowed my meat. "Good. I'm glad." I said.

 

   "We're going on a little trip, my sweet."

 

   "Oh?"  I said, very interested. "Some place I've never been?"

 

    "No. No. Some place you have been." Mr. Black said.

 

    "Where? Where?" I asked, feeling suddenly like an excited child.

 

    "Finish your meal. Then dress in jeans, T-shirt and jacket. Wear your sunglasses or at least keep them handy. You'll need them where we're going." Mr. Black instructed me then finished his meal.

 

     I was too excited to eat now but with him urging me to, saying we wouldn't leave for our trip until I did, I finally relented and ate quickly.

 

    "Now dress as I told you."

 

   "I will!"

 

   I rushed to our bedroom and as fast as I could I dressed in jeans, T-shirt, tennie runners and put my sunglasses in a little cloth bag I had taken to carrying around with me.

 

    Once dressed I rushed out of the bedroom and found Mr. Black waiting for me in the dining room.

 

    "Do I look okay?" I asked, a little breathless.

 

    "You do, Louise." He said. He took me by the hand. "Come along."

 

    We left our home and walked to the edge of the Douglas Fir and Broadleaf Maple forest.

 

    I saw other Wolf People out and about in the village. Some in their Wolf forms, some in their human forms. This place had become home to me and I had grown quite fond of it. I did not think of my human life much anymore.

 

    We entered the forest. It was dappled with moon and star shadows and whispered softly with a voice all of its own.

 

    It was alive with living creatures as well. I could smell their living bodies, hear their heartbeats and hear them as they moved through the forest. Animals on the ground, in the trees and in the air.

 

    It was so exciting, being a werewolf. But I was excited too as to where we were going.

 

    And it bugged me Mr. Black was keeping it a secret.

 

    "Come on." I said, walking beside Mr. Black as much as I could. Most of the time I was behind him as we followed a path to somewhere through the forest. "Tell me where we're going!"

 

    "It's a surprise."

 

    "It's been a surprise long enough. I want to know now!"

 

    Mr. Black laughed at my childish impatience. We kept walking. I could easily sense no other Wolf People around us.

 

    A little while later I noticed the forest was growing damp and chilly. I noticed mist creeping about just above the forest floor.

 

    Odd, I thought.

 

    A little ways further I started hearing a pat pat pat sound as moisture dripped from the canopy above us and the foliage around us.

 

    I felt my heartbeat quicken. Could it be? I didn't know if I was terrified or excited.

 

    We were going back to my former world! I just knew it!

 

    "Mr. Black!" I cried my question and statement.

 

   "That's right Louise." He said on the path ahead of me.

 

    The mists grew thicker, more greyish now. I could hear the hissing breathing sound all around me. Once I had thought that sound Wolf People, now I wasn't so sure. What was it?

 

    Mr. Black came to a stop and reached behind him and easily found my hand without looking. He took it and pulled me up beside him.

 

    "Put on your sunglasses. You don't want any humans seeing your eyes."

 

   I did as he said. He already had his on.

 

    We went forward then, hand in hand through the dense greyish mist. We walked through it and came out on the other side.

 

    I looked around startled. I blinked my eyes hidden behind my sunglasses a few times.

 

   Yes, we really were here, at the outdoor cafe where I had first seen Mr. Black, how long ago I wasn't at all that certain.

 

    "My world!" I breathed. A strange exhilaration filled me.

 

    It was evening. Music played softly, a cool breeze ruffled my hair, Mr. Black's dark tangly hair and the small groups of people sitting at the tables. It tugged and pulled at the umbrellas over the tables, causing the material to make a soft flapping sound. The humans were drinking, talking, laughing and just living.

 

    I looked around. Humans.  All humans. My excitement changed.

 

    Mr. Black came up beside me, putting his arm around my waist.

 

    I looked up at him. He was gazing off into the distance. Waiting.

 

    It seemed as if he was waiting.

 

    None of the humans at the tables or lingering nearby paid us much attention. Two waitresses were moving amongst the tables serving drinks from the small cafe building near the tables.

 

    I looked around. My happiness at being here was fading. I felt the light inside me being replaced with a darkness.

 

    Something that felt wild,  savage, very primitive.

 

    Mr. Black's arm tightened around my waist.

 

    "Can you feel it Louise? Can you feel it in you...growing?"

 

    "Yes." I said. "What is it?"

 

    "The Wolf."

 

    I looked up at him again. He had removed his sunglasses. His off white luminous eyes were crimson now.

 

   "The Beast." Mr. Black said. "To these humans we are the Beast. A savage beast that hunts them and kills them!" His smile, all fangs now, proved the truth to his words.

 

    I wanted to laugh, to howl, to...hunt! I looked wildly around. The humans were all busy in their own little worlds. Mr. Black, I noticed, had put his sunglasses back on.

 

    "You are not of this world anymore Louise. I took you from it. You are now the Predator; these are your prey. The Wolf People's prey."

 

    "But I thought...we did not hunt humans." I said.

 

    "You were not ready to know the full truth of your new nature. But now you are. Now you are ready to start learning what it means to be one of the Wolf People. This is one of the many lessons you must learn, are learning." Mr. Black said. "Does the thought of hunting them trouble you so?"

 

    I looked around at the humans talking, drinking and laughing at their tables. And I knew the truth in my heart and soul.

 

    "No, Mr. Black, it does not trouble me. I do not feel a part of this anymore."

 

    Mr. Black guided me away from the outdoor cafe. The thick grey mist swirled up before us.

 

    "You are no longer part of the human world. Yet you are too young in your Wolf nature to hunt this prey now. In the future, when you are ready."

 

    I glanced back behind me just before I stepped into the swirling grey mist that separated these two worlds. I remembered hearing in movies and reading in fiction books that humans were the ultimate prey.

 

    I smiled, showing my canine teeth. I looked forward to this challenge.

 

    Then I stepped into the grey mists with Mr. Black, his arm still around my waist.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reviews

[deeps]

"You were not ready to know the full truth of your new nature. But now you are. Now you are ready to start learning what it means to be one of the Wolf People. This is one of the many lessons you must learn, are learning." Mr. Black said. "Does the thought of hunting them trouble you so?"

Sorry to highlight this in your area but I found truth in this as it could be implied to our daily life
as well. About lessons and learning. This is one amazing chapter here. I throughly enjoyed this
chapter alot. very well written.

[R J Askew]

This might make a good ebook. The chapters are easy to read and, pun intended, bite size. The language is accessible. If you get your targetting right you wlll find readers. I guess they will be women aged 14-34 with a fantatic outlook on life and romance. They may be disaffected from mainstream matters. This means there are millions of them. But how to get your stuff before their eyes is the question.

Ch 4
There is an almost childish delight and innocence in graph 5. I smiled when you actually wrote a few lines on '...feeling suddenly like an excited child.'

This innocence sort of masks what the wolf village is actually about, the bestlal nature underlying their existance. It is a sort of Jekyl and Hyde split. Yet, Louise seems soooo sweet, surely she can't be a dangerous monster, too, can she? Yes.

Meanwhile, she just hoovers up Mr.B's attentiveness like any normal attention hungry woman.

The bit about the forest having a voice of its own shows Nature as a background character to your story. The Wolf folk are closer to it than the humans in your story. This makes the Wolf folk purer in some way. Perhaps they are Nature's way of revenging itself on those forgetful human beings in their cities beyond the grey mists.

We know this is not an innocent story of course. It's about warewolves. But this is underscored when you first refer to us as THE HUMANS, something different, over there, prey.

So, too, L is changing and no longer entirely happy in the village as she gets darker. Your readers will love this growing darkness in her. It is as if even the village is too limiting for her. But then she hasn't had her first taste of the good blood she craves yet, though she does't fully realise where she is headed in her abandonment.

'No. Mr.Black. It does not trouble me.' This will really turn on your readers as they will be living Louise's experiences and they, too, will want to abandon themselves to the darkness in them. That's what this is all about. Abandonment and the exhilaration of being apart from normality and then doing the undoable. So many people crave such experiences that they are more or less a normal part of our psychological spectrum. Mostly innocent but not always.

The graph about movies and books is very clever because your readers -- being into the genre -- will also have seen those films and read those books. But the way you phrase this graphs makes it feel as if this IS real is NOT a book. Anyone into WWs wld have to read on!

[Black Cat Fever]

Cool how Louise is becoming more and more a Wolf Person werewolf and is now looking forward to her chance to kill a human. Deliciously dark!

[Sseoni]

I find it interesting how Louise looks forward to hunting humans although she used to be one of them! It shows how she has fully embraced her wolf-ness! Another wonderful chapter! :D

[Star Wolf]

Nice. Louise is discovering she might just like being a werewolf. This is a captivating story, I'm getting hooked!

[Theresa]

I like the last few paragraphs especially where she thought: "And I knew the truth in my heart and soul." It kind of makes you think that she still has human instincts left and she hasn't completely forgot about her past. Looking forward to what will come next.

[steelhivefrenzy]

cool but short but cool