Mom looked down at me and said something in a fierce whisper, pointing at one of the crying children, and it was at that point I realized a few of the younger kids and babies were hysterically panicking and freaking out, not just crying. I hadn't heard much from them outside this room, however, and my eyes widened in shock when I realized that their parents must have been forcefully keeping them quiet.

Then again, maybe I had just misunderstood the situation, and it wasn’t as bad as I thought.

Regardless, now that I thought about it, our entire group had been eerily quiet as we made our way through the dark streets of the village. Except for a few terse commands at key times, I didn't recall any of the adults (or kids) talking to each other.

I was suddenly VERY glad that I hadn't ended up yelling in surprise during the attack (I'd gasped a few times, but maybe nobody heard me). For once my bad habit of silently watching and listening (which I was still working to fix) had come in handy.

I looked around the room, still not entirely sure what we were doing there, or why the door had been locked from the inside - was the giant stone building not already safe enough? It felt like we had entered a safe room that was hidden in a fortified castle. If a force could break into the castle itself, what good would the safe room be...

Sleeping pallets and supplies were taken down from the shelves at the back of the room and distributed, with my mother holding me tightly as she watched. Before long, however, she turned to a group of men and women who were standing in a corner - none holding babies - and ‘yelled them’ into helping stack supplies next to the parents who were busy dealing with their children. It was both funny and scary at the same time.

Mom was clearly restless, constantly moving around and talking to people who were working while barking instructions at anyone (man or woman) who looked to be just standing around. I had a feeling that she was freaking out at the fact that Dad wasn’t with us. I was starting to get pretty worried too... although, between his terrifying maw of death and his crazy oversized frame, I’d lay money on Dad being able to take out a dozen of those wolves barehanded, if need be.

On top of that, his sword and shield had both been of epic proportions - to the point that I wondered if they were hollow inside. Either that, or he was even stronger than he looked, which was already pretty ridiculous, considering he was a blacksmith.

Things calmed down eventually, with most people having settled into a space alongside their individual bundle of supplies, which primarily consisted of food, water, and bedding. There was a corner of the room that had a wooden structure in it that resembled a shed, which seemed to be a lavatory of some kind. All in all, it seemed like this place wasn't just a storeroom; it was built for an extended stay - there were even metal grills, set high into the walls, that made me think of air ducts.

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Eventually, I heard a muffled knock on the door, followed by an equally muffled proclamation that I think translated to something like, ‘All clear!’ or maybe ‘All closed!’. The word that I thought of as 'clear' was a general negation word, which had many different connotations depending on the intonation used. As far as I could tell, 'clear', 'shut', 'nothing', 'empty', and 'closed' were all variations of the same word.

Crap like that was why I was having such a hard time picking up this damn language...

I had also learned my parents’ names over the last few months, between visitors at the house speaking with Mom and visits to the smithy with Dad. They called themselves by terms that I figured meant 'mother/wife' and 'father/husband' when they were at home. Originally I thought those were their actual names, but nobody else called them by those terms, which lead me to believe they might not be actual names.

Dad’s name sounded like 'Toly', and Mom’s like 'Isa', and I was pretty sure there was a last name (or family designation of some kind) that I hadn't quite picked up on yet. I had heard repeated sounds after both of their names, but infrequently enough that I didn't want to jump to conclusions.

And if the sounds were our last name, I wondered if there was a meaning attached like how blacksmiths were called 'smith', or if it was more based on historical figures and philosophy like typical Chinese last names. I could always ask once I get a bit older…. that is, assuming we survived this crazy wolf-monster attack.

Our entire village must have contained at least a thousand people or so, from what I had seen, and the fact that we had this pre-made structure made me wonder if this had happened in the past. In fact, the entire response had been surprisingly organized, as if it was something that all the adults of the village were familiar with.

The evacuation from our homes had been dangerous - as evidenced by the bodies I had seen on our way in - and frightening, yet both our group and the guards at the gates of the giant structure had all seemed to know their roles. Their bravery and competence had gone beyond what I would expect from routine drills or practice; it was clear that the majority of them had been through something similar in the past, and likely more than once.

I did another survey of the sixty or seventy people locked in here with us. There were quite a few single people with children, like Mom and me, but also a number of men and women who seemed unattached. Somewhere around half the adults of our evacuation group (around thirty adults and a dozen or so children) had entered this room with us, with the overall gender of those who stayed outside skewing slightly towards male (it was roughly a 60/40 split).

I wondered why these singles were in here with us, while my dad was outside with the other parents, presumably fighting the monsters...

Yet another mystery to be solved as soon as I figured out how to speak.