The Wolf Within

Wolf/Remus

I stir slightly from my long slumber. I feel the need to stretch but it is as if I am stuck in a balloon, where space is limited. I do stretch though, I need to do this but it's not easy. I can only stretch so far before I feel the edge of the resistance. I hate this feeling of contraption. It is like being in a cage, a very small cage and I hate it. I loath it.

I growl at him, the one that I am force to share this abnormal space. I do this through his mind, warning him to back off so I can reach outside my prison walls, but he does not listen to me. With his mind, he pushes me back into the darkness. He hates me. He loathes me.

I do not fully understand our relationship, it confuses me but I do know that he has always been there since the time of my waken. He is the ringleader with a whip that slashes at me when I first stir. I feel his thoughts of anger stinging against my mind that sends me whimpering back into the darkness. What is my crime but the life of being existence? How he hates me for this and I for his own existence. With out him I could be free to do as I please. To have the nights to live and the day to sleep. He is greedy and saviors all the chimes of hours.

I cannot do anything but wait and toy with this human. For now, he is stronger then I am but it will not last. When the battle of space comes to be then I shall win. I always do and yet knowing this he continues to fight to the very end. I hate him for that. Why does he not grasp that I only want to live as he does from day to day. Yet I am only allowed this one night to feel life. It hurts; his rejection of me does pain me. Why can't I have the time to roam? I want to feel the night against my skin and the moon at its glory as she stares down at me. I am her child after all. Her full devotion sets me free from him time after time. She is his curse but my blessing. My savior. I am forever devoted to her as she gives me what he wishes to shed away from me. Life.

As I dull in and out of my slumber, I hear voices that speak to him. Different voices fade in and out of my hearing but I found that through his reaction to the voices, I know how he feels to them. I cannot see all the faces of all the voices but some I do see.

Like her. She is a pleasant one of soft words and the tenderness as she touches his skin. He loves her and I adore her as well. She was the first voice I ever heard when I woke for the very first time. I did not know what she looked like at first but I could sense her behind a thick door. She sang to him before we started to trade places and she cried for him when I made my appearance. She said repeatedly that she loved him but never once did she say that to me. Even through the door, she was afraid of me but for him she stayed near. I do not understand. Why couldn't she love me? I wanted to be loved by her as well. Why was I so different? The frustration and being trapped enraged me and I did what I felt I had to do. I charged at the door. Time and time again. Hot scorching pain threaded through my limps and she cried louder for him. Always for him but not for my pain. She calls the boy her baby.

A deep voice would come through the door next. I could sense his pain of sorrow and I felt guilt through him. He also voiced his love and he wished things were different. He wishes that he could turn back the hands of time and change the past for the boy within. That he could make the situation reverse where it was he at the mercy of my being alive or better yet, that he spoke not a word to the gray back. He blames himself for my existence and hates himself for it. That angers me as well. He wishes that I am dead, that I never was brought out of the shadows. I done nothing to him and yet in my presence he wishes that I would banish! He calls the boy his son.

I had circled the first room I woke up in with disgust. I know now that it was they that kept me here, locked up behind these walls. I wanted to lash out at them. To sink my fangs into their flesh and taste their pain that would surely match my own. When I think of hurting them, the boy within struggles for freedom but he is weak and fears me. He is my only company and he hates it but he is all I have. I turn my fangs into my flesh knowing he will feel the pain as I do. I hear in my mind his screams and for a little while, it brings me peace. Maybe he will understand that I hurt as well. I am his curse but he is mine.

I start to see them, their faces on the first of my stirring. The day of the night I am to be free from the boy. I see them through his eyes. I smell their scent. For the first time in my life, I see what love looks like through their eyes, this mother and father. I want it but I know they will never give it to me. It's only for the boy that I am changed to.

For a long time, they are the only faces that I see and the only voices besides the boy's, which I hear. Then one day I woke in the early day and I see new faces. The head pain makes things fogs my eyes but three faces shine out among many others. Two with dark hair and one with light. I used caution around them as well at the boy at first. The boy, he grew to be just untrusting as I have become. At times, it was as we were one. The pain we felt were the same. For a short time, we shared memories.

After a time, when I open my eyes to see through the boy's own, I expected them to be there. To be smiling at him. I felt the joy they brought to the boy and he ignored me far too easily. He does not understand that he is all I have. He hates the fact that he shares life with me but he has so much more then I have and yet, he keeps pushing me away. Wanting to silence what he calls the beast inside of him forever.

In some ways, I cannot blame him. For just as the moon slips behind the mountain slopes, I wish that he was dead as well. With out him, maybe I have a chance at living. I would like that.

Then something odd happen. I woke up, fully awaken from my sleep. I looked around, recognizing the sign of the celled, dusty prison. Evidence of my past failed escapes marked the walls near the windows and the door. The marks remind me that though I am free from the boy, I would never truly be free.

From the corner of my eyes on that strange night, I saw a small movement near the wall. I blinked my eyes, not the boy's eyes but my own amber ones, to focus more clearly. It was small and fuzzy all over. Fast too and it made many squeaky sounds. I stood up slowly, slightly sore from the battle with the boy, and I approached the small scurry creature with a tilt of my head.

It froze on the stop. I could sense its fear but also something else. Another scent that was something of comfort to me. I pawed at the creature curiously. It gave a loud squeak and raced under a broken sofa. I trotted after it but half way there, I notice something else in the room. A black dog. Instantly I felt the fur on my back raise and I lower my head. The dog whimpered and lay down on the dusty floor. I bared my teeth and gave a threatening growl at the other canine.

I have not known many places but this dusty old shack is the closet I have to a den and I did not want to let some mangy domestic mutt come to take over my territory. The black coated canine just rolled over for a moment then quickly scrambled up with its tail in the air. Did it actually think that I would want to play? Me? I never played. I am not sure how. I only ever felt hatred from others. I only had seen love for the boy. Never once have I ever witness the playfulness feeling that came over me. Not only that, it was not just me. It was the boy within as well. He recognized the delight in this new feeling.

That is when I remembered the scent. It was their scent. The ones the boy had called friends. Something the boy never would have thought he would ever have, something I thought I would never have as well. Now, not only are these two the boy's friend but maybe my friends as well. Could that be possible? On the other hand, maybe it is a trick.

I folded my ears down over my head and gave another growl at the dog. I will not be fooled. He barked and pawed the air before him. As a mongrel, this friend is not very clever. Here I am a full-grown wolf able to knock him across the room and he wants to play chase. I titled my head again in confusion and the dog ran in a circle two times before sitting down to continue his staring.

The little mouse took this time to scurry out from the sofa and down a little hole that lead to a tunnel. I could not get through the door though. I had tried when I first woke up in this strange place. I pawed at the trap door. I dug at it. I bit near the edges but I could never open it. The mouse came back through the hole with a drawl string that was attached to the other side of the door in its mouth. It pulled, its little feet sliding against the dusty floor. The door started to open slightly against the small rope.

The boy within shouted 'no' but I was excited. I knew this was my one shot of truly being free and I started to pace in front of the trap door as it slowly open. The black dog grew inpatient and as soon as the door cracked up, he nuzzled it open the rest of the way.

I wasted no time. I slipped gracefully through the door landing in the soft soil. Always I have been trapped inside a room or like this shack. Never once have I known what the earth felt like or the smell of trees as I do now. For the first time of my being, I was alive. I was living.

Behind me, the dog barked and scurried down the tunnel after me but I was faster then him. I felt him desperately snapping at my paws but I was not going back. Freedom was near. The mouse I am sure was still in the shack stun stone at the realization of the situation he let lose.

I would smell the night air. I could feel the fresh breeze even before I scrambled out of the hole under the tree. Oh and the moon, my beautiful moon shined down upon me with such coolness. I arched me neck and my muzzle into the air and gave a deep, low howl. It felt so good to be free!

I looked around, seeing fireflies sparkle like stars in the sky. The woods, which was where I started to head towards, it felt natural to go there. To hide in the shadows of the forest. To hunt.

Hunt. I felt my stomach growl as the scent of humans ran through my nose. I quickly turned my head towards a massive building that reeked of humans scents. I slowly crouched towards the castle, my mouth watering. Suddenly that silly dog was before me, barking and prancing around me. I growled at him in warning which he ignored. This some how did not surprise me. I was not in a playful mood right now. I was hungry and my prey waited in those walls. My thirst for their taste grew every time I took a breath.

The dog lunged at me, nipping me in cheek. I backed up slightly. It annoyed me and angered me that this mutt would do that to me. I growled and leaped at the dog, my teeth slashing into the back of his neck. I shook him with my teeth then set him flying towards my left. I heard his whimper and the boy within whimpered as well. I blocked both of them out and continued on my way towards the castle.

A stab from my right sent me flying to the ground near the dog. I glanced up to see a tall stag stomping its hooves at me. His enormous antlers lowered and driving me back towards the woods. I recognized his scent as well, the boy with the goofy smile.

The dog scrambled back on his paws and with the stag, they pushed me into the forest. They pushed me deeper and deeper until the scent of the humans faded almost completely.

The dog bounded forward then, his fear for me was still present but his courage was stronger. He pawed at my nose and took off in a quick speed jumping over falling tree and scampering under bushes. Playtime had just begun. I went after him, howling with my own delight.

The stag took off too and disappear in the blink of an eye but I could still smell him near. I chased both of them for a long time and of they in turned hunted me out as well. For the first time, I had someone else other then the boy. I had friends. His friends and mine. Different forms but still, they were the same friends.

That night, I did not feel the need to lash out on the boy within. I did not want to make him hurt for I had no pain that night. I was happy but even a wolf knows that happiness does not last forever.

I felt tired and the boy within started to stir from his place in the darkness. My stomach turned knowing that I would be pushed once more into the darkness while this boy comes forward. I will sleep a long time while he gets freedom. I hate him. I loath him. I envy him.