Beside the woman stood a child, a tiny frail thing with snow white skin and tangled gold locks that hung in curls around her face while she was clad in a red hood over a red and white dress. The child had the brightest blue eyes as she looked up to the woman who returned a loving glance with her own blinding green orbs. Anika stood, watching the two and her chest hurt. “M-mom?” She called out but it was clear that she was nothing more than a bystander in this place.  

“Momma, can I go play with the others?” The child asked hopefully, handing the woman beside her a sheet. “I suppose, but be careful, all right? Don’t ruin your cloak. I already had to stich it three times.” “I won’t momma!” The child beamed, hugging the woman tightly before scampering off. Anika followed her as she skipped along the path from the hut into the small town, those tangled curls bouncing as she did so.  

As the child passes a few homes, and shops, she was greeted with smiles from some and whispers from others but she didn’t seem to notice, or at least she pretended to. Anika remembered some of the faces, matching the scents from before to them, older families who loved gossip yet were still younger than a few other scents the wolf hadn’t placed yet. She even thought she faintly heard the mention of her father through the whispers while following her younger self to the center of the square.  

There was a large building with several woman and men, all deep wrinkles on their faces under gray hair that emerged from their hoods. Anika recognized them as the elders of her village, wise and absolute in their ways. The child bowed her head to them as she passed, remembering her mother’s constant reminders to show them respect having it etched into her upbringing. She didn’t often make contact with them, but there was a woman with feathers in her darker gray hair, small braids adorning them and a large walking stick in her hand that gave the child a warm smile who Anika remembered as the healer, a woman who had always shown her kindness. The child form giggled and waved to her in secret so the elders wouldn’t see before ducking under a fence and making her way towards an empty clearing where the grass was overgrown up to the child’s knees. 

From there Anika could smell the scent of pups, and the decay from before followed it as her eyes moved to a dark wood in the distance. She felt a sense of dread overcome her as she looked to the black wood of the trees and saw the light die before reaching the large forest, further proving that no life would be tolerated within it. She remembered hiding behind a hut one night and watching the elders and the hunters of her pack carrying half of their hunt to the mouth of the ominous wood and seeing a large wolf, larger than any in her pack emerge from it to take the prize, dragging it by its throat into the darkness. She was pulled from her thoughts when she heard a boy call out. 

“Hey RED! Bout time you got here!” 

“Come on RED let’s play tag! Runts it!” Another girl called. 

The child form pouted and huffed, stomping her feet. “I’m not a runt! And I’m always it! H-HEY! Wait for me!” 

She took off after the other children, making out five in total. Anika watched as her child self tried to capture them to no avail before recalling why they called her what they did. Runt. Anika was much smaller than the other children. Funny to her now being her wolf form was a dire wolf and much bigger then the gray wolves she grew up with. After several failed attempts to capture the others, the child huffed and stormed off to sit on a large log, not far off from the dark wood they shouldn’t have been so close to. 

“Aw, come one Red, you can’t give up!” 

“Shut up Niko! I’m tired of always being it! And you know I hate that name…. stupid story….” She pouted again. 

Niko laughed and shoved her shoulder. “But it fits you so well Anika. Big bad wolf! Besides, you look good in red. Come on, we’re gonna go into the woods.” 

He turned and walked towards the place that radiated death and darkness. 

“W-we’re not supposed to go in there Niko! The Elders said- “ 

“Aw! Hey guys Anika is scared!” The children laughed at her. 

“N-No I’m not!” She whined and stood, stomping her foot. 

Niko smirked and crossed his arms over his chest. “Oh yeah? Then you go in first.” 

Anika looked to her smaller form and shook her head. “N-no! Bad idea!” But her words fell flat as the child narrowed her eyes and growled lightly. “FINE!” 

The pale skinned girl stormed her way up to the edge of the wood, smelling the decay coming from it as well as something else she couldn’t place. Anika remembered that smell. And she panicked as she tried to pull the child away only to have her hand fall through her and became the child now, looking through her eyes. “N-no! H-he’s in there!” But the child pushed through the threshold, bending, and snapping branches out of her way as she ventured further in.  

She turned triumphantly and poked her tongue out to the other children who soon followed her path and ended up beside her. Niko looked around and started to walk deeper into the forsaken forest, waving them to follow. At first, she looked back to the clearing and the village before following after the others, not wanting them to think she was scared when she was. The elders never ventured into the woods nor did the hunters of the pack and if that wasn’t warning enough, there was always the smell. 

“N-Niko maybe we should go back. Come on guys it stinks here and if our parents find out we will be in BIG trouble.” She whined a bit again while rubbing her arm uneasy. One of the two other girls laughed as the other whispered something in her ear and the boys shook the heads and made eerie noises at Anika.  

“Knock it off guys, Anika we’ll go back in a minute ok? Come on don’t you wanna at least look around?” But they weren’t near the edge anymore, they were far into the woods and unaware that something else had started following them the moment they entered. Anika walked behind the others when she heard the snap of a stick behind her and spun around to see what it was.   

It only took but that one split second for Anika to be separated from the other children and the massive feral Alpha of the wood to bound from his shadows, his jaws locking around the waist of one of the girls, clamping down with a spray of blood before shaking his head violently which only caused his massive teeth to rip further into the child’s flesh, tearing her in two. Anika watched in horror while the others screamed and scattered. 

Niko was running towards Anika while the second girl had been knocked down when the Alpha attacked her friend, her grip on her hand being the culprit to her fall when the girl was snatched up. The Alpha didn’t even have to move far for his front right paw to land on the girl’s head, crushing it like a grape which plastered Anika in brain matter and skull fragments, the warm sticky, crimson liquid bursting from the mess all over the front of the child’s clothing. 

Anika was yanked to the side when Niko grabbed her to run back the way they came and all Anika could hear was the gurgled screams of the three boys and the snapping of bones followed by a deep rumbling growl that shook the ground, the scent of blood leaving a stinging stench in her nostrils. Niko was dragging Anika practically, her face getting scratched by the branches as she tried to keep up with Niko. 

She looked back to see where the massive wolf was behind them, only to feel Niko stop. She panted and tried to catch her breath, turning to face him again. “N-Niko, I think we lo- “Anika’s eyes widened when she caught sight of the feral Alphas orange eyes, staring at her over the gushing stump with scattered with the tangled strings of veins, tendons and bone that came from the boy’s torso. Anika let out a blood curdling scream, as she stumbled back and the large wolf brought its paw up only to knock the body of the boy off to the side. 

His lips curled around his canines and he snarled as he stepped toward her. Anika crawled backwards, whimpering as tears poured down her cheeks and the wolf with coarse fur standing almost in spikes along his body. His mouth drenched in the blood of the children she grew up with. The feral alpha growled again and she felt the ground shake under her hands. He was inches from the child’s face as she turned away from him, eyes squeezed shut as she waited to suffer the same fate as the others. 

Instead the feral stopped and sniffed the child. His eyes sparked as he inhaled her scent, the orange hues an eerie shade as though he was looking right into her soul. “This one is different….” His voice echoed in her head, possessing it. “You have old blood in you.......primitive….slumbering deep where it may never reach its potential….How did you get such a thing? Something as old as that, as old as me and as wild, feral, should not be squandered… Your pack is weak….Nothing more than grays with diluted bloodlines….Nothing more than tamed dogs…….You don’t belong there Anika……Come with me…..” 

Anika had crawled away from him slowly as his voice took over her thoughts before her hand fell upon a large branch. The tiny wolf was no longer scared but angry at the insults he spat towards her pack. She growled lowly and gripped the branch, yanking it from its spot and swung it as hard as she could at the massive wolfs head. It cracked against his skull and splintered on impact, the alpha shaking his head hard with a snarl as Anika got to her feet and ran towards the edge towards the clearing near the village she saw through the net of branches in front of her.  

“I’m not going anywhere with you!” She shouted but the large wolf was already behind her as she broke through the branches, tearing her red cloak while she felt a rush of safety in the sun. That safety was quickly shattered when a searing pain shot through her back where the feral alphas claws tore into her flesh leaving six inch gashes across her back in four massive cuts that frayed the skin and caused her blood to drench her entire back. The child cried out in agony as she fell forward, little did the small child know that within those claws the alpha let his own blood flow from them into the wounds, infecting her with his feral curse that he gained full control of within himself. 

Instead a dark laugh echoed in her head as those glowing orange eyes were the last thing Anika saw retreating into the darkness. “Let us unleash that primitive nature……you WILL come to me…that is….if you are as strong as you seem…..Weak wolves don′t have a place in a strong pack. Are you a weak wolf Anika?” The alpha vanished from sight within the dark wood and Anika laid in a pool of her own blood, whimpering, and crying out until one of the elders heard her and the hunters accompanied by her mother found her at the edge. 

It hadn’t been long, maybe several minutes but already the gashes on the child’s back had turned red, inflaming the skin and a fever took hold of her. She lost a significant amount of blood that left her already pale skin bone white while her lips became pale as well and cracked. Her body was drenched in sweat, the wounds kept the infection running rampant, and she kept slipping in and out of consciousness while muttering and trying to get up to leave for the dark wood again. The packs healer did everything she could think of to help the child but nothing worked.  

Meanwhile the hunters of the pack went into the dark forest to look for retribution against the alpha they had maintained a peace with for years for the children he had massacred when they entered his territory. As they carefully scanned the wood, the alphas scent was gone and they could not find him. They brought back the children, or at least what they could find of them to begin a proper ceremony for the families. 

The healer had pulled Anika’s mother aside as the child laid in a bed with a cloth on her forehead. “This is beyond anything I have ever come across. I don’t know what was passed on to her but if we do not seek aid from another pack, she may die. I know of a pack that may have better resources then us. I shall send one of our hunters to send word to this pack, in the meantime we need to keep her fever at bay.” The healer returned to Anika’s side and continued to apply herbs to the wounds on her back while the small wolf mumbled while tossing and turning. 

It didn’t take long for the alpha of the pack known as the Wolves of Shadow to arrive to the village with several other wolves in tow, maybe a day, and when he was shown to the girl her fever had increased and instead of growing weaker, she had become more violent. Her desire to return to the black forest became more prevalent and she kept speaking of the alpha that infected her, his voice still in her mind. “He wants me to go with him! I need to go!” 

Darian hadn’t seen anything like this infection before and his concern grew for the child. He pulled the healer aside while the hunters kept Anika in bed, through her thrashing and growling. “This is something unknown to me. You have said she was attacked by another wolf? Something that you have lived in fear of? I will need to call upon the Grand Sorceress of the Lands, she may know what is needed to save the child.” Darian made his way back to Anika and placed his hands on either side of her face. He looked her in the eyes as they fluttered between being open and shut.  

“You are strong little one. You can fight this. Do not let it win. I will return.” Anika whimpered and slipped into a moment of clarity, her eyes dull in shade as she looked back to him. “H-Hurry.” Darian gave the child a nod and shifted into his wolf form, a large black wolf with silver and took off from the hut to retrieve the Grand Sorceress on his own. 

Three days had passed without any word from the alpha, and just as it seemed the small wolf was out of hope, he appeared almost out of thin air with a woman with dark ebony hair and white eyes. The elders welcomed the Alpha back as well as the Grand Sorceress and the healer explained further what had happened. 

Anika laid in bed still, sheets drenched in sweat as her breathing became shallow and her body seemed to be giving up on her. The Grand Sorceress made her way to the child, carefully turning her onto her stomach from her side and removed the herbs places over the wounds. The deep gashes were now a dark shade of reddish purple and simply running her hand over it caused the small wolf to whine and wince in pain. She could feel the wolfs heart beat fading and began to work quickly on stabilizing her.  

Magic was a wonderful thing for these circumstances but it was going to get much more unpleasant for the child. Sifting through the information she was given, the Sorceress turned to Anika's mother. "Something is unlocking inside of her something ancient and dark. I do not know of this Alpha you all speak of but something like this is passed like a disease. It is testing her to see if she has the strength to survive its a miracle she has."

Anika spoke in her dazed state, “I-I have to get back……He wants me to get back…” Anika winced and her hands found their way to the sides of her head while the Feral Alpha’s voice echoed again. 

The healer of her pack shook her head and placed her hands over Anika’s. “Shhh….You need to stay here. It’s not safe for you.” Anika could feel a warmth of the healers hands as she chanted something in an old tonge and soon the voice was quieted. Anika could think clearly now without the  voice coaxing her to return to the dark wood.

Anika could hear her mother speaking to the Sorceress about Anika being born as a runt, and the teasing she always got from it. Anika looked to the healer as she stood to leave when the Sorceress motioned for everyone to follow her outside. "One day I’ll be a big wolf! I won’t be called a runt anymore.” she stated as she was becoming less dazed but then her eyes fell shut and she tensed as a small jolt of pain shot through her back.

The Sorceress returned with Dairan and the healer of the pack and sat down beside Anika, the child’s thick blonde locks sticking to her face where the sweat dripped. “Well welcome back little one. Cutting it a bit close there huh? I am glad you are such a good fighter. You held on just long enough and did well. I am glad you aren’t trying to get away. I need to know a bit more about this wolf that attacked you and I think the answer may lie in the wound he gave you. It seems he could have killed you like the others but didn’t. I am going to need to siphon what I can from your wounds but I will have to put you to sleep for a time. It will hurt immensely when I do what I have to and I don’t want you to suffer through it.” 

Anika looked up at the woman and then to the healer and her mother who stood in the doorway. Her mother nodded to her and Anika looked to The Sorceress and the other Alpha from a sister pack. “W-will I wake up?” The woman nodded and stroked the childs head. “Of course dear, it is only until I can find out how to stop this.” Anika frowned and nodded.

The wolf was uneasy but agreed and the Sorceress went to work to put her in a coma like state so she could begin to find the root cause of the infection and a way to help the girl. Anika didn’t remember much but she did faintly hear voices in her dreams about ancient wolves from the old world, almost gods who ruled over packs and humans until they fought back and their numbers fell and the source of the infection. Well more like what the infection had done. Anika had a primitive nature already within her and it seemed that the Alpha that attacked her had infected her with a feral curse it was like a venom that only other ferals could have a reaction to and survive while it killed any normal wolves who may have been attacked with it within hours. 

This curse only brought out the feral side within the small wolf, unlocking it all at once which her body was unable to accompany at her young age. It was making her violent and rabid while overheating her body which was killing her cells, being only a pup Anika wasn’t able to shift like the curse wanted her to. The Sorceress was able to concoct a spell that caged this feral beast inside the child and once that was accomplished, her body began to cool, the fever breaking. 

Next was to create a medicine for the massive wounds on the child’s back which helped aid in her natural healing but because of her age, the wounds would heal into thick scars on her skin. It took three nights before the child was at a state she could be awakened. When Anika woke, the color had returned to her lips and her pale skin and she wasn’t drenched in sweat. Soft blue hues regained their light as they fell upon her mother beside her.  

“mmmmm-Morning.” The small wolf mumbled.

Anika’s mother smiled in relief as Anika was hugged tight by her mother and noticed the Sorceress behind her. “Oh thank you! Anika, how do you feel? Are you alright? Are you in any pain?” Anika squeaked and whined, being a stubborn wolf as she squirmed a bit in her mother’s arms. “Ack! Mom! You’re crushing me! I’m fine! I’m fine!” 

The Sorceress looked to Darian as he entered, he too a bit relieved. “Well it seems for now that side is locked away. But when she gets older she will need to know how to use it and keep in control of it. That is why I recommend sending her to another pack that deals in the old ways, they are widely respected and would be great role models for a young wolf to learn the old ways.” the Sorceress spoke to both Anika and her mother. 

Anika and her mother agreed and the young wolf gave her thanks to both the Alpha and the Grand Sorceress. Darian and his wolves left the young wolf and her pack now that she was saved, “Until we meet again little wolf.” Darian gave her a small smile before shifting and leaving. 

Anika’s mother insisted on serving the Grand Sorceress  a meal for her aid and Anika was roped into helping by gathering herbs and vegetables for the dinner. Anika, having been under lockdown for over a week was feeling the need to run about. She looked to the field and remembered her friends and what happened to them, frowning as she felt she was to blame. Their families didn't place blame on her but the lingering question on why was she the only to survive was always in their eyes.

Anika shook her head and she took off running through the overgrown grass far away from the blackened forest. She breathed the fresh air, she felt the earth beneath her feet and she felt free and herself again after an hour or so as the sun soon would set she gathered the herbs and vegetables she was asked to pick from the community garden and headed back home to her mother and the Sorceress for dinner. Rabbit stew was one of her favorites.

The next few days as her wounds healed more on her back, Anika spent being checked on by the woman to ensure she was healing properly. She learned a bit about the sorceress and they shared stories with one another, Anika even telling her about her father who went on a hunt one day never to return. The other wolves in the village talked about him running away with a new mate, others blamed the small child that was born to him and his wife. The “runt” as she was called. After three more days she was fully healed and the Sorceress left wishing well the village and the girl and her mother. "Stay out of trouble now." She gave a small wink and suddenly a wind danced around her and she vanished.

The Feral that poisoned Anika to unlock her primal nature lingered in the forest smelling the air and could sense that she had healed now being connected to her in a way. Year after year her pack faithfully gave the feral half their hunts and when the young wolf turned 16 that was the day she would never forget. The feral left his woods and stalked to the village that night and Anika woke to the smell of blood, smoke, decay, death, and a rot that she knew from the dark wood.

Her mother had snatched her out of bed and they made a run for the fields as she passed blood soaked dirt paths and body parts as well as innards and corpses half eaten. There was screaming and before they could reach the field her mother knelt down before her with tears in her eyes. "Its you. I believe he wants you. I will distract him. Shift Anika and run like you never have before to the next village and tell their pack of what happened here."

She handed Anika her red cloak and Anika was sobbing. "I don't want to leave you. I love you momma." Her mother hugged her tight. "I will always be beside you. I love you so much. Now RUN." And that was the last Anika saw of her pack and her mother.