Legends of the Family of Wolf Humans

A girl finds herself walking in to a dangerous forest.

Prologue:

All they ever did was stare at me.

Their piercing gazes were like a million knives through my heart and it pained me too see them disappearing each day. They used to be a full pack, a full family, a forest filled with wolves but now their numbers are dwindling. Each day a set of familiar eyes would disappear, never to be seen again. I knew my false hope wouldn’t keep them alive but I still prayed that they would still be there the next day. It never worked.

My whole life the wolves had been there, one I had seen since he was a cub. He was the one I had hoped for most and he was still lasting. For the time being.
Their eyes begged me, if they could talk they would scream help. They howled in terror each night because we all knew that one of them wouldn’t come back but I didn’t know why. But I’m sure they did.

He was the first wolf I looked for when they came to the woods each night and he was always there, first, in front of the whole pack. Or, what was left of it.
I kept telling myself not to cry, you can’t help it, don’t let them see you cry. I knew they were crying on the inside and that’s exactly what I had to do, not show them my fear for their lives. Show them strength and hope but that faith grew weaker as the days past.
I knew they wouldn’t last forever but I didn’t realize how much I would hate it when he was next.
When he disappeared.
When he left the forest.

Chapter 1:

The crisp leaves ripped and crunched under my feet while I fast walked my way home. It was getting late, probably around nine thirty. The street lights had flickered on and off several times before I even turned on to Surro Road, a sign that darkness had been found in Laville, and for all the girls and boys to be inside their homes before night.
Me though, who had maybe been at my best friend Brenda’s house a little too late, was panicked and rushed to get home before my mother would notice. I was always showered and ready for bed at this time, and still wandering the dark roads of Laville, I knew, was not what my mother would approve of.
The last street light had flickered and then turned into a bright flash, permanently staying on.
“Uh,” I mumbled to myself picking up the pace. I turned onto the dirt road that leads to my small cabin shaped house. The front porch lights were on, and from a distance I could see my sister Erla sitting outside reading. I, who was now up to a light jog, glanced briefly into the spooky forests that surrounded me on either side of the road. Whenever passing these woods, I was told never to look at them, not to think about them, or even acknowledge their presence. The stories of the Laville forests are never to be told, but I have never spent one day not thinking about them, even when I knew I wasn’t supposed too, wondering how spooky they would be. I had once heard of a girl that could turn in to a wolf.
I caught myself and turned away from the eerie trees that stood tall at the edge of the dirt road. But then I saw something from the edge of my eye. I cocked my head to the side and turned around. I saw a dark figure standing up on to hind legs, with two hands out to the side. It was snarling. But it had long hair. I could not see any details just the shadow of something. I could feel the adrenaline rushing up and down my body. I felt the blood pulsing fast. I turned away trying to imagine it was not real. Never to think about them, I reminded myself, and continued to scamper through the darkness.
“There you are!” a voice shouted from behind me. I whipped around in shock, my strawberry blonde hair swinging to hit my cheek, to see a flash light blinding my eyes, and my mother’s face creeping towards the light behind it. My mother was still wearing her cooking apron, the one I had made for her in the first grade at Laville School.
“I’m sorry mum,” I began, catching my breath from shock, “I know I was supposed to be home, but-
“Oh no, don’t even get started with excuses Per. You know that being out here at night is dangerous.”
“Actually I don’t. No one ever tells me anything around here.” I snapped back before my mother could finish her lecture.
My mother stood tall and put her hands on her hips. “There is no need for this back talk Perael Ruwelivilisiq. I was worried sick about you, anything could have happened. Laville is not a nice place during the dark hours. No need for explanation.”
I felt my stomach turn into a knot of frustration. My strawberry blonde hair was falling out of my once pulled back pony tail, I was sore from my brisk journey home, and dirt stung my eyes from storming down the dirt road, I was a mess.
“Now come on,” my mother began, “no more time out here. Let’s get inside.”

***


That night, it had started to rain. I had heard rumors about the storm coming earlier that day at school, but never thought they were true. There had never been a storm in Laville. The weather was always nice and warm, with the occasional rainfall, but nothing worse than that. I lay flat on my bed and listened to the rain falling on my thin roof above my head.
I turned and shifted my position so I was on my side and looked at my alarm clock. It was just after two, and my eyes were heavy and sore from being awake for so long, just lying in the darkness. But just as I was closing my eyes, there was a loud crash outside my window. I quickly sat up in bed and looked out my bedroom window, which was hard because it was covered in rain, leaves and dirt that were splashed on my window because of the storm.
Sliding on my fuzzy cat slippers, I made my way out of my room and down the hallway trying not to make any noise that would wake up my family. Once I reached the front door, that’s when I heard another crash, this time with a bright flash along with it.
“What are you doing up!?” a voice whispered behind me. I turned around to find my sister Erla sitting at my kitchen table, still dressed from the night before and leaning over a cup of hot chocolate.
I backed away from the door and sat down with my sister. “I could ask you the same question! It doesn’t even look like you have gone to bed yet.” I snapped back in a loud whisper.
“Well, I heard the storm was coming today at school, so I figured there would be no point of going to sleep. I would just lay there bored and tired, because of the rain that would keep me up!” Erla replied, grasping her mug of hot chocolate and taking a tiny sip.
Another loud crash rumbled the house, along with a few more flashes of light.

Anyways after that it stopped and we went to bed, finally finding the sleep we were seeking for.

The next day I woke up finding the sun light shining. Outside of my window was clear. Vivid. The weather would vary from day to day even though there had never really been a storm especially one that would hurt some of the city, but the prior storm had annihilated some of the city. I lifted myself up from my bed and I tugged off my pijamas and watched them float down on to the ground as I let go of them. This was not the time to think about being clean. I walked to my cupboard and I culled a piece of clothing, straightened it and tugged it on. Then I pulled out a pair of ripped jeans to match my pink fluffy top and put them on. I was ready. Today I had to go to the library and read anything I could find on The Laville Forests or The Wolf Girl.  So I skidded down the cold hallway and plodded down the stairs to find my sister Erla sitting in the very same chair she sat yesterday but drinking milk this time. Her position was the same as yesterday. Legs leaning to the side, and blinking rapidly, while sipping her milk like a queen, her mug in her right hand.
“What are you doing up so early? You usually wake up a few hours after mom and dad leaving not at the same time,” she giggled probably finding the fact that I was in a rush to go somewhere early, amusing. I heard the door slam shut. That was probably my parents. I was leaving too. I tried to ignore her and put on my shoes. I opened the door and then shut it as I walked out. I had some money in my pocket, I had taken some from my dad’s bed side table a few days ago, not something my parents would approve of. I walked in a rush to the library. This time I took a took a different road than the forest road, but when I was coming back I was going to have to take that road.

When I finally got to the huge entrance doors of the library I saw a line waiting to get in to the library. What was that? I tried to squish my way through until a woman nudged my shoulder saying,

“Hey, who let you through?”
“Oh, I don’t know. My parents are inside there,” I lied.

“Oh ok,” she said smiling. When I got to the doors I asked the police man,

“What is all this?”

“Oh apparently in the news it said that there was a girl in the woods who disappeared before anybody could see her. They found a lock of red hair that detectives reported turned black when they closed the light. But according to the detectives and sleuths they couldn’t identify it even with the DNA.”

Before anyone said another word I rushed inside and found the section with The Laville Forest books. I pulled out all the ones I needed. I ended up with like three books. “The Laville Forest” By Anonymous, “The Wolf Girl” By Anonymous and surprisingly, “The mysteries of The Laville Forest and the Red Haired Wolf Girl” By Anonymous. Were all these books written by the same author, or were there many authors wanting their names to not be known? First I picked out the one only about The Laville Forest.

I opened it to the first page and flipped through the whole book until my eyes were sore due to the skimming. The page I stopped on was the page I needed.

“The wolf girl of the woods”

I read:
It is believed that long ago a girl was wondering in the woods and was abducted by wolves. That was the only theory people could think of because she went in to the woods but never came out. 300 years later hunters found a body in the forest. Dead. But no one was able to identify the cause of her death. The hunters returned back to the village with information but not the girl. People asked him why they hadn’t taken the girl, and they replied that her eyes glowed red when he got close to her. The next day most of the village and more hunters along with the previous ones went back to the place the hunter had said they had found her but she wasn’t there. The next day a brave detective went in to the woods. He found a red haired girl with brown eyes who was hiding in the deep folds of the forest. But he never returned to the village. Only three days later did he send a note saying that he needed help and that he had found a girl who could turn in to a scary monster, and that she had many wolf companions. However, it is also said that he returned home but never told anybody to scare everybody. But he was never heard of again. Now it is believed people try to reawaken the scene and normal people wander the streets of Laville and try to make a rise in crime, so they could tell the forest survivors that they are with them. But there has not been one proof that the girl was bad.

I closed the book when a women came over and grabbed all of the books in my hand. I didn’t care. I wanted to leave. I wanted to find out more about these stories… about the forest… about the girls… about the wolves. I looked at a few other books but they didn’t help at all just like the first one. I would research more tomorrow. Everyone was now crowded around that bookshelf pushing and nudging to get to the books. I walked away from there and looked at other books. The ones I really enjoyed to read day and night.

It was 6:30. The cold air whimpered and I could feel the wind beckoning me to my home, while walking back from the library, but curiosity took over me and I walked towards the trees which danced at the sight of me. Their swaying made a swooshing noise, the rain patting gently on the branches and the stars twinkled like chimes… It was an orchestra. It was so different from the forest I had seen yesterday, but I knew it was the same one. I wanted to go in there. And anyway it wasn’t really late. I would be back before my parents even knew I was gone. My feet just couldn’t stop themselves and then the next thing I know I was standing in the middle of the forest listening to their beautiful melodies.
I thought it was amazing; the golden moon beaming through the trees, reflected in the rain which poured. The moonlight filtering through the top branches of the trees… It was magical; the environment around me was literally glowing! But then I noticed something… In the distance I could see a girl swaying around to the forest’s music. She was so beautiful, her perfect face: her eyes green like the leaves on the trees, her hair red like the roses surrounding her, her skin, impossibly pale. They were white but in a sort of pretty way which I envied.
The mysterious girl swept her hair from side to side as she moved but then she stopped. Everything went silent as if they had been muted by her still figure. She glared at me in a confused way like I was something she had never seen before. I felt compelled to go back home but her beauty was fascinating me- how is it that a girl can actually be so hypnotic? As she came closer her expression seemed more loving and caring. I didn’t move even though I knew I should run when I could.
She raised her hands and signaled ‘stop’ to the forest around her. Then at that moment the trees became very dark and the moon turned a kind of dark purple color which coated the forest in a scary way… The amazing forest which I first saw had transformed itself into something hideous and something that made me feel like running away! And then I turned to the girl…
I shrieked at the sight of her! Her eyes had turned black. Those eyes stared at me whilst I was trying to escape them… Her divine hair, once bright red had changed into a much darker tone like the contrast between a rotten red apple and dried blood. It was messy and spiky! Her perfect white skin had turned a very pale blue. I could see her veins burgeoning as she was growing skinnier! The sight of her made my blood curdle and my heart pound rapidly! I couldn’t move, I was just paralyzed by the sight of her! I wasn’t even sure if she was a ‘she’or an ‘it’. They had never mentioned this in the book, but the police man had said that detectives had said that her hair change color when there was a cut in light. She walked to me. Suddenly, the beautiful girl who was miles away from me, changed in to the hideous girl in charge of the whole forest, who was now inches from me and only in an instance, the blink of an eye. I looked around. I saw several wolves clustered around us. They had trapped me. But in one of the books I had read, it had said there were 15 wolves. Here there were only 5. But now was not the time to think about that. I was in a circle of death, or so it felt.
“Akuji Braeden…” She whispered something in to my face, her breath hitting my face and traveling up my nose. It didn’t smell like anything just normal air.

She placed her hands on my cheeks; they were freezing, as cold as a morning frost. I almost felt pity, her eyes full of sadness and loneliness. But, then her fingers split into two, opening and allowing two sharp, long nails to dig into my face. Blood and tears were streaming down my cheeks and I screamed but she kept on with that blank expression on her face. She was unused to reality. She dug down into my face tearing and ripping my skin until my face was skinless, blood covering her hands which finally released themselves me and then I cried my last cry. I fell to the ground, covered in blood; leaves swam in the crimson puddle, bugs biting my remaining flesh of my body.
My motionless body was then joined by the girl, her hands wrapped around me warm and gentle. She and the forest became the beauty I first saw. The light was back but the trees weren’t singing and there was no orchestra.  

She hugged me tight.

“You’re back! You are one of us again. The Braeden family,” she talked real words for the first time.

“What does that mean?” I blurt out.

“Akuji is your name. It means… The dead and awake, you are dead. You always have been. When that man first found you, in the forest, alone, and when he took you to the outside… to the city,” she paused shuddering and shaking herself like she had just thought of something hideous.  Tears were now dropping down her face.

“You became one of them. Your face changed. You changed. They took you away, and you hit the news.” She pulled out a crumpled up, torn from age, newspaper out of her left pocket. What was happening? Was I dreaming this? I was just frozen standing there listening to every unimaginable thing she was saying. When I was walking in to the forest, would I have imagined all this?

She showed me the newspaper. The writing had faded and so had the picture but the title was as clear as water; The Girl in the Dark Woods of Laville.

“They thought you were me, they were happy to find you but then I left another clue for them so they would leave you alone. So they would know I was still out here. Because if I had not done that you would be a legend and you would have always been interviewed, you wold easily open up and remember the secrets of the Braeden wolf family. And you wouldn’t be here today. I knew you would come. Oh and by the way, I am Lillith. That means spirit of the night. Yes, that’s me. That’s why I change like that when there is no light. I hope I didn’t scare you too much. And yes, the stories told about me are true, well for the most part of it. I was not exactly abducted by wolves. I just became one of them when I learned my real parents were wolves, and well you know you were with me. Two magical wolves would make human babies who would be the meaning of their name and was born a wolf. But you were born human. You could talk even the moment you were born. We used to come to this specific spot in this forest and you were always there, you were always looking at me.”

When she said that something hit me. I remembered crying on the inside so that wolf… Lillith, would not disappear. But they weren’t disappearing, they were just turning in to the meaning of their names.

“After I became the spirit of the night no one could find you where you always were. Then we saw a man carrying you in to the city. All these wolves are your new born brothers and sisters. Your other ones are wandering the place now,” She finished off pointing at the wolves surrounding us, that I had totally and completely forgotten about.

“You are the Dead and Awake. You can die and live again anytime, and make other people live again too. We are sisters. ”

 

 

Then I realized that the girl wanted to love something, something which she could keep forever. Her sister… She would never be lonely. My soul now remains here in her forest. My story is how the saying goes: “Looks can be deceiving.”

I was now part of the forest. I was now part of the family or the pack of wolves.

That night I dreamed of the day my dad had found me:

Unconscious. Not alone. In the middle of the forest. 

"Awoooooooo," A wolf cries in the deep, dark depths of the forest. The sun is nowhere to be seen, hiding somewhere far away. The light of the moon is filtering through the top branches of the trees whilst they dance in the mist and it is hard to see the trees because of the fog. The stars stay still in the serene night sky in the foggy night. 

 

A girl is unconscious. She is not alone. And she is in the middle of a forest. 

I wake up gasping for air. I lift myself up from the ground, and I sweep off the dust on my behind. I get a chilly feeling inside me. I feel shivers sweep up my body... I feel like somebody is watching me. I look around, no one. A sound in the bushes faintly attacks my ear. The sound is like no other. It fills my ear and sounds like the murmuring of suspicious human... blood-curdling. I jump back in alarm. As I calm down I start to walk the other way. The sound of crackling branches as I walk through echo in my ear. I don't know where are I am, nor do I know what I am doing, and I have no idea how I got here. As I walk further in to the forest it becomes more of a reality that I am alone. As I keep walking trees form narrow walls around me. And then, abruptly, a wall of trees appear in front of me. Inconceivable. Dead end. The wolf has stopped howling. The trees have stopped shaking. The sound in the bushes is a whole lot closer. 

 

"Hello?" I murmur hoping the thing in the bushes is kind. No answer. 

"Is anyone there?" I blurt out. No answer. The sound is suddenly right behind me. The crackling of footsteps on sand get nearer and nearer. I turn around slowly. My heart racing to catch up with my thoughts. I could feel the adrenaline. Blood pounding up and down my body. 

 

The picture is faint. I look deep in to the eyes of a faint guy who has a larger size than me. He looks disturbingly familiar, yet possibly a stranger. I examine him. 

The person looks even deeper in to me. I feel like he is seeing right through me. Like I am invisible.
”Hello, don’t worry, I am a hunter. Are you alone?” He asked.

“Yes,” I answered.

“Ok, well you can come to the city with us. You can live with us.”
I was so surprised. Was this true? Would I finally get to see what the city was like?

So I went with him to the city. And I lived there.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Epilogue:

“I guess she returned home,” Caroline, Perael’s mom or Ajuki’s foster mom whimpered. Her eyes were tearing and she was hugging her husband, resting her head on his right shoulder.

“Yes. To her real family,” her dad gasped.

“We should of told her about it, warned her about it,” Erla joined in crying.

“They wanted their family back. She was probably part of the Braeden family,” Caroline continued her tears now up to her cheek.

“How would you know the name?” Erla asked huffing.

“I heard her whisper Akuji Braeden in her dream, once,” her whimpers grew louder and louder until they were sobs. Everyone sobbed.

They decided they needed to find the meaning of Akuji and Braeden.
They found a book and read off it.

“Akuji, The dead and the awake. Braeden, From the dark valley or forest.”

 

Author's Note

This is fiction.