N O
-
The Girl Who Cried Wolf
Once upon a time, a wolf ruled the forest.
The beast was horrid. It loomed 11ft tall when on all fours, its body large and scarred. The wolf had pitch black fur, matted and ghastly. It had death sharp teeth, almost like a soldier's blades, which could tear through your skin without trouble. And with glowing green eyes, it could spot the smallest rat in the middle of the night, and long spikes as claws which easily ripped through its prey.
The wolf simply lurked in its forest, however. Only eating those who dared enter his domain...
But soon enough, the beast became a character in the nearby villager's stories, told to their children during the night to spook them into behaving nicely. No one knew the truth, that the wolf in their stories was a true beast just next door.
They weren't just stories. A young child from the village orphanage understood that, very well. For she had the smarts of an owl and the wit of a fox, and knew that the howls at the middle of the night didn't come from any ordinary wolf. She stayed up late at nights, watching from the tiny square of her window as the massive beast moved like shadows behind the trees. She tried telling the villagers about the monster, she really did. But no one would listen to her. They all merely laughed at the deluded child, that sick one with insomnia and shellshock that no one would adopt. Perhaps if she just wasn't sick, like all the other children in the village, the people would listen to her. However, she still kept telling them. Every day, again and again. The same story, the only thing changing each day was the distance the wolf was from the village. Each night, the beast crept up closer to the forest borders, little by little. And she just knew, it was finally hungry.
So one day, she ventured out into the forest. No one stopped her. No one stepped in the way as she walked past all the villagers and exited the gates. They all watched.
The child walked slowly, cautiously, into the forest. But not in fear.
What she encountered in there, no one was sure. Because as she disappeared into the darkness of the beast's forest, disappearing from the villager's sights, she never came back out. At least, she never came back out the same.
From that day on, a new beast prowled the earth.
And her name is Carmine Hood.
