By Michael B.

In a quiet village surrounded by meadow lived a peaceful community. Uninterrupted by chaos and untouched by war. On all sides there was the fence which was a sign that something dangerous was out there. Nobody ever went past the fence as everything they really needed was in the village. They had farms and animals, and there was even a small stream that ran through the center of the town. Everybody went about their lives, harvesting, growing, tending to livestock, and looking after the children. Among the children was Ceil. She was bright and energetic. She always wore a necklace with a bell on it to ward off misfortune and she thought it worked well.

Ceil was always drawn to the fence at the edge of the village and would wonder what was beyond it. The fence marked the end of her world, though she could see the meadow and the mountains beyond it.

“Ceil, stay close to the village.” That’s what her mother always warned her. Ceil didn’t think it could be that dangerous.” After all, the only barriers were a small wooden fence and the people who told her not to go.

Ceil would tilt her head out of curiosity whenever her mother said this. “What’s out there?” That was always the question that followed. Such a beautiful place couldn’t be that dangerous. Ceil only remembered her mother answering once, and what she said scared Ceil. Her mother said The Wolf lived out there. That’s all she ever said. It was mostly the bleakness of her mothers words that scared her. And if her mother was scared Ceil also had to be scared.

Ceil’s mother never talked about it again. She went on with her life as if there had never been any mention of this wolf that only the adults knew about, but curiosity was torturing Ceil. What was beyond the fence? Who was The Wolf? She would learn the answer all too soon.

It was getting cold in the village and there was an obvious storm coming. Ceil and her mother were trying to sleep but the cold cut through their blankets and made it impossible to get comfortable. Then they heard something, a growl. Coming from outside they heard the whines of a monster and the screams of the villagers. Ceil and her mother quickly got out of bed. Ceil wanted to go see what it was with her mother but she was frozen from fear. “Stay here I’ll be back soon,” her mother said and then left. This would be Ceil’s last time seeing her mother.

She heard a scream but nothing more. The wind was too loud. Ceil stayed up all night waiting for her mother to come back, but when morning came and the storm was over she got up and went out. The entire village was wrecked and destroyed. There were people gathering bodies everywhere. The storm had obviously taken a toll on the village but it didn’t seem like enough to kill people. 

Ceil then saw all the large scratch marks on the wooden planks of the massacred houses. They were long and deep. Ceil went to go look for her mother behind the house and that’s when she saw her. She was lying on the ground motionless with a gash on her back. The same claw marks from the buildings were on her own mother. Ceil looked at her mother’s body and couldn’t breathe. After that she passed out. 

She woke up later inside the village hospital, which was really just a bigger house. Beside her were rows of beds. Every bed was filled up with injured people. Some of them had scratches that looked the same as her mothers and Ceil couldn’t bear it. Why had these people lived but not her mother? When the nurse came in and saw she was awake she asked how Ceil felt. “Okay,” Ceil said. She was too stressed and traumatised to say anything else. Ceil wanted to ask what happened but she felt like it was obvious. The Wolf that her mother had warned her about had come to the village.

After a couple days Ceil came to the conclusion that she was not sad or angry. She was nothing at all. The Wolf had taken her home and her mother and she had nothing left, nothing else to do, so she did what she could and decided to follow The Wolf. She left the village at night. It took determination to climb over the wooden fence but she did it. Ceil made her way through the meadow. After three days of walking and only resting at small creaks to eat fruit and drink water, she reached the mountains. 

She had heard that the tallest mountain was where The Wolf lived and started to walk up. She walked for hours and hours until she came to a plateau of stone. It came outwards like a spike and if you followed it led into a cave. Ceil could see the inside very faintly and could make out bones. Spikes came out from the top and bottom making an intimidating entry that looked more like a jail cell. The bones looked like they were locked up, trying to escape, but to no avail. 

She heard a deep growl, the same growl she heard the night her mother was killed. It frightened her, but she thought about how she had nothing else to do and she didn’t care if she lived or died. She first saw the glowing eyes, then the outline, and finally the full figure emerged from its cage. It was bigger than Ceil ever imagined. Claws bigger than her head and teeth larger than kitchen knives. She could still see dried blood on the claws. 

The deep scratchy voice spoke, “Why are you here?”

Ceil was frightened at first but then said “I’m here to learn how to be like you, because if I were like you my mother wouldn’t be dead.”

The Wolf laughed at first but then nodded. Ceil was surprised it was that easy. The Wolf then said “I will teach you, but it will come with a price. You’ll have to be like me.” Ceil didn’t care what the price was, she would pay it. 

After months of being with The Wolf, she no longer counted the days, but knew it had been a long time. Everyday she would be put in horrible conditions by The Wolf to build her tolerance and endurance. She ran up mountains. She lived on the mountain. Ceil didn’t mind it, she just wanted to be strong. She learned to bite, to scratch and to kill. Her golden bell no longer warded off bad fortune but became the marker of it. Ceil became what she called strong. She had taken part in killing now and was good at it. 

After her training was finished, her chance came. One night just like the night her mother was killed. Ceil snuck into The Wolf’s chamber. It was cold, damp, and dark, but she could still make out the figure of the huge Wolf. She grabbed a stone and smashed in The Wolf’s head. The Wolf woke up and howled and hit Ceil off of him. She got back up and threw the rock at The Wolf’s stomach, hitting him directly. He fell and then seemingly stopped moving. Ceil guessed he was dead from shock but then she got a closer look. The Wolf had fallen into the sharp bones at the entrance of the cave. The same creature that he had killed, killed him. Ceil was happy with the outcome but maybe not with what she had done. She had done the same thing The Wolf had done, but it was deserved right? Ceil wanted to be different from The Wolf. She would be. Instead of killing for fun she would now kill for the sake of others who were less fortunate. Her golden bell went back to being a symbol of good fortune.