Just as forewarning, this is something I did in one sitting. I rarely write, but I think about stories I would enjoy all the time, and this is just kind of a new effort for me. (Read: I have never written a story before. Ever.) I really don't like this first chapter, but I would love critique.

Also, this will probably never be finished, and I know there are mistakes. I have a whole story idea, but I just don't sit down and write stuff. I have to devote a block of time that never seems to get devoted, but this has been sitting on my comp since the summer, and I just wanted to post it for attention, so there are a lot of things that are mentioned and not explained because I only have 3 chapters at this point, and they're short. Not like I've posted anything in forever anyways, and it may go to scraps eventually Maybe you'll like it, maybe I'll write more. We'll see.

Also, it has no title. This is chapter one. I hope the copy/paste here works right. Ignore the file. Just read this.The water in the small pool was filthy enough for words, but the young man didn’t feel like speaking. Why should he? There wasn’t anyone around to hear it anyway, so with a scowl and a grunt of disapproval, he slung the makeshift bag off his shoulders and emptied its contents on the ground. The clatter of a few random items hung eerily in the silence, but he wasn’t taking any real precautions to keep quiet. Instead, taking cue from the noise of everything tumbling out of the bag, he decided to give up and accompany the sound.

“Guess I should refill here.”

The small sentence came out slowly and with precision: each word was said carefully and cherished to a certain degree. At the moment, speaking wasn’t necessary, but it felt good, and at least it wasn’t as lonely as silence. In fact, what was even more important to the young man was that it wasn’t as disturbing as the total lack of sound he’d had to wade through for the past day. Giving up on the small, empty village, he’d taken to the woods, but the only thing they ended up offering was much of the same. Every single crunch of a leaf or snap of a twig only heightened the sense of a void, and the area surrounding the small, lackluster puddle of water was full of the unnatural nothingness that had enveloped the young man since he’d been awake. Any respite from its oppression was welcome.

He stopped himself from thinking too much about his current predicament and removed a bowl and a water flask from the pile made during his bag’s hasty evacuation. Using the bowl to scoop, he filled the flask with the murky stuff until it hit something hard under the surface of the water. As soon as contact was made a small animal came floating up, half of its body bloated, and half of it missing.

“…Aw, hell.”

Another scowl and grunt of disapproval accompanied the emptying of his flask before he let loose a slew of curses on the situation, the pool of water, and the unfortunate creature that lay dead and defenseless to the verbal assault.

“Something just had to throw you in there when it was done, didn’t it,” he grumbled. “How thoughtful.”

Continuing to throw menacing glances at the murky puddle, he returned to his bag to find that his small stash of berries he’d been collecting throughout the day had landed on an anthill. The six-legged poachers were feasting triumphantly.

“If it’s not one thing, it’s another!” he fumed.

The young man directed every word at himself, given the deceased state of his disemboweled new acquaintance, and was fully engrossed in his plot to destroy the efforts of every last one of the ants when there was a tug on the side of his right arm.

He sucked in a quick breath and spun around completely, stunned by the sudden feeling of contact, and much to his dismay there was no one there and nothing holding on to him. Instead, there seemed to be a kind of tingle, like someone had chucked a small pebble at him. Grabbing his arm, he began to examine it, but a quick search revealed no marks, so the boy lifted his gaze and froze in place, unable to return to his sulking.

“Well it seems I ‘ent quiet as I reckoned I was,” mumbled a voice that was, despite its distance, much too close for comfort.

The young man took another short, uneven breath as his sudden relief slowly melted away into apprehension. Company was what he had been longing for, but his approaching panic attack was trying to tell him otherwise. He could certainly tell there was something in the bushes, but he couldn’t tell what, and there had been something inherently wrong with the words that had been spoken not two seconds ago. When the brush rustled about twenty yards away, he felt the same tugging that had spun him around earlier. This time he could feel a pressure on his back, pulling him in the opposite direction, away from whatever seemed ready to step out into view.

“This here certainly is a sight t’see.”

The figure still hadn’t emerged from the bushes, but it was obviously big, and the uneasy feeling that had been sparked by the first gravely words the young man had heard only began to grow tighter in his chest.

“I been told there wern’t any pure ones left. It is most fortunate you gone an run inta me and not some sniveling Other.”

A set of yellowed, grotesque looking teeth led a long snout, then a soot black, gigantic fur-covered body out of the bushes. It smiled.

Any thought of staying put was erased from his mind.

“Be so kind to tell me your name ‘fore we commence with dinner, wouldye?”
“B-Bear…” he stammered, taking an uneasy step back.

The large beast in front of him was no such creature, but that happened to be the first thing that came to his mind, given the circumstances. What towered over him was actually larger in size and stature than a bear, and seeing the dense black form sparked some hazy memories from his childhood. The bears he could remember would wander into his village looking for food, and they could be shooed away with torches and sticks. Unfortunately what was now speaking to him about dinner more closely resembled a man, and it certainly spoke like one, despite a not-so-subtle growl that accompanied the malicious words. He quickly shoved away a nagging thought in the back of his head that a stick wouldn’t be too helpful.

“Bear?” it said.

What could pass as a quizzical, though incredibly uncaring expression, passed across the face of the speaker as he began to creep forward.

“That’s a mighty intriguing name for one such as yourself, though I reckon you won’t taste like no bears I’ve ‘ad before…”

The beast continued speaking, but the sound of his voice was immediately replaced by the rush of wind in the young man’s ears as he went head over heels and took off running in the direction of his helpful, albeit slightly ill-timed tug.

….

“Oh shit, oh shit…”

The young man powered as fast as he could through the trees and the brush, never pausing to glance back at his abandoned bag and unfriendly acquaintance. No sooner than he had bolted than he came to three realizations: the eerily silent village he had been so eager to leave was behind him and completely opposite to the direction he was running, the knife he had found and packed for any number of uses was sitting in the bottom of the aforementioned bag, and he had absolutely no idea where he was heading.

“Help! Someone help!” he cried in a futile effort. Of course there wasn’t anyone else around.

His breathing sped up, but his feet grew slower as he scrambled over the uneven terrain. His mind drifted to the any number of things that would be helpful right now, like a weapon, a horse, or, hell, even just some clean, uncontaminated water, but wishful thinking was only distracting at this point. He dropped the thought in an effort to maneuver his way through the trees when suddenly there was a voice directly behind him.

A warm puff of air hit the back of his neck and he faltered.

“I’m sorry, Bear, but one’s gotta count themselves lucky to find easy pickins these days. Ain’t nothing personal.”

With that, “Bear’s” feet were yanked out from underneath him and his shoulder struck a tree which, under any normal circumstances, would never have gotten in anyone’s way. The second he hit, everything in his lungs vanished in a quick exhale that left him laying on a carpet of sticks and leaves and gasping for air. Trying to roll over revealed that he could put absolutely no weight on his now dislocated shoulder.

“Oh, now that don’t look too comfortable.” laughed the voice. “Like I said, I ‘ent got no grudge against ya, so why don’t we get this over with quickly?”

Much to his horror, the beast’s smile returned and it grasped his already aching throat with a clawed hand that looked like it could snap apart a wooden log. Given the unwanted close up, the boy could see that the features weren’t that of a bear but of a wolf, and realization dawned on him.

“Youf gotte be kitten meh,” he rasped out of his strangled throat.
The yellow-toothed and foul-breathed monster’s ears swiveled forward and he paused.

“Come again?” it growled.

Its grip slightly loosened and the young man sucked in a gigantic breath of air before blowing it out with one word: “Werewolf.”