Cold to the Touch

Prologue

Green eyes pierced the darkness, wide, alert and curious. He didn't know where he was or how he had gotten there but a strange sensation clawed through his stomach, his skin began to burn from the pain. He groaned quietly and stood on four powerful legs, he was disoriented for a moment, by the massive furred paws he stood on but he was content with even the faintest comfort in them and slowly took a step forward. The paw sank easily into the mud beneath it, turning the black fur dark brown. An animal scurried away to his right and his head shot up, watching, with surprising detail, as the mouse fled into a small hole under a tree.

He could see the small prints in the ground where the mouse had ran and he walked over and sniffed at them curiously, feeling the stabbing pain in his stomach again as he caught the enticing scents of the rodent. He could hear the small heartbeat hammering in the animals chest underneath the ground, the sound hardly muffled. He sniffed closer to the hole, the heart thudding faster, faster, faster until his nose gently nudged at the entrance and it skipped a beat then stopped. He stood motionless for a few moments, clearly surprised by the sudden silence, before he whined quietly and walked away.

His ears stayed perked as he wandered, the forest stayed eerily quiet and still. He could clearly see the leaves on the bushes despite the darkness. There was no moon tonight and he knew that he shouldn't be able to see a thing but he could see in amazing detail. He watched quizzically as animals and bugs quickly fled from his direction, one deer even failed to notice him completely until the breeze blew in from behind him and the deer turned to flee so quickly that it tripped and stumbled over it's hooves once before bounding away hastily. He heard a river running in the distance and hurried towards it, the pain in his stomach threatening to consume him. He couldn't understand what the scraping pain was. It felt familiar and foreign, right and not. What is it? What is it? The pain scraped again and he remembered how it had flared at the scent of the mouse. Hunger. It had felt like a million years since he felt hunger but now that he remembered it, it was all he could think about.

He emerged from the dark trees ready to pounce on the animal he had sensed there but it was already bounding halfway down the river in the opposite direction. He let out a sigh and walked to the river's edge, bending his head to drink the cool water, hoping that it would dispel the heat that grew on his skin as his hunger increased. He jumped back in surprise as he saw his reflection, the black paws suddenly making sense. He cautiously crept back forward and as he did the reflection reappeared; the huge bright green eyes curious and frightened just as he imagined his would be and when he opened his sharp toothed mouth to drink the wolf in his reflection did the same. As he stared at the huge creature in the river he could feel the strength coursing through his veins, the way each muscle flexed and tensed at his command. When he finished drinking he backed away and was caught off guard; his paws were silent on the soft dirt ground, like cotton on stone. He couldn't help a laugh of joy pierce his lips as he realized what this meant, he felt a strange sound rumble deep in his chest and emit from his mouth. The growl was deep and pleasured. The wolf stalked away from the river with a new feeling of superiority, of power and strength.

He listened with purpose now, to every sound and he found he could differentiate them with great precision, the sound of a mouse darting for cover from an owl was short, hurried and just on the cusp of being silent, but the sound of a buck settling down for the night was loud and obnoxious. He seemed to plop down on dead leaves and sticks with no concern for the pack of wolves only a mile away, the sound was ungraceful and the wolf picked his target easily. He headed toward the sleeping buck with the grace and danger only a predator can produce, the action of hunting came much more naturally to him now that he knew what he was. As he approached the area where the buck slept he was hit with a foreign smell, it didn't match the balanced damp and earthy smell of the woods. It was harsher and had a twinge of salt; the strange combination made his stomach twist in pain. Though it confused him he continued his hunt, whatever the smell was it was close and would run from him when he approached, but the closer he came to it the hungrier he became and the odd scent seemed that much more appetizing.

He could see the buck now, he was lying limply on the ground breathing in even, calm breaths. The appealing scent came from the buck and seeing the helpless shape of it was too much of an opportunity to pass over. The wolf leapt from the darkness, landing on the buck with his full weight and using his massive jaws to cut off the strange scream that seemed to come from it. The bucks breathing halted and the wolf dropped the carcass with a satisfied howl, he was cut short as he heard a thump just a split second before the bucks head hit the floor. The wolf tilted his head and got off of the deer, sniffing it and smelling the same balanced scent of the forest, confusion wracked his brain as he tried to find where the enticing smell he had noticed before came from. He found it quickly under the deer and shoved it away with his nose. The deer's body rolled to the side to reveal a man with wide clouded eyes, the look of fear and shock still clear on his bearded face. The wolf felt the pit of his stomach drop at the sight of the man; his neck set in an unnaturally crooked manner and blood oozing from the puncture wounds where the wolf had bit down. The blood pooled around him on the ground, soaking into the thin brown cotton clothing the man wore.

The wolf sniffed at the man again, instantly regretting it as he felt his instincts take over and he ripped into the man with a slight tearing sound. The whole ordeal sickened yet satisfied the wolf's hunger. When he finished and left nothing but the brown blood soaked cotton clothes he walked away, leaving the dead buck, which he could now see had a deep gash across on the neck from where the hunter had slit its throat to be sure it was dead. The wolf regretted killing the man with every fiber of his humanity but he craved more, his stomach still growled with strong hunger and he began his hunt again, this time following the salty unbalanced smell of the humans. The monster was awake.