Prologue 1
Arisarie stepped out of her hut into the feeble light of the rising sun peaking through the canopy of the Peppari Woods and took a deep breath of the fresh outside air, not that it was much different than the air inside the hut. She could never get enough of the earth and flora aromas of her various gardens and plants decorating the small area of the woods she called home.
“Time to get to work.” she sighed happily, always excited to work in her gardens.
She grabbed her shoulder pole and set off to gather water from the creek near her home with the empty buckets swinging from the pole, taking the same path she did almost every morning. It hadn’t rained lately so she found herself making the trip more often than she normally did, not that she minded because the trail to the creek was quite beautiful with its myriad of plants and animals she could see during her morning walks to the water source nearest her home. She smiled again as she looked around at the by now familiar flowers and bushes as she walked, though it wavered slightly at the lack of the usual wildlife and less vibrant fuana she normally saw while strolling the woods.
“It is a bit colder out than usual this morning.” she thought to herself making unneeded excuses at not seeing the critters of the woods.
A few minutes later Arisarie was kneeling at the bank of the flowing creek filling up the first of her pails and pulling it up to take a few mouthfuls of the cool creek water. A loud snap of sticks breaking behind her cause her to jump and spin around to face the source of the sound.
The sound turned out to be a large, grey slightly mangy looking wolf.
“Roald!” she shouted at the wolf, “How dare you scare me like that, you arent usually here this early in the day”
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
The wolf emitted a soft whimpering at her words and started walking in small circles looking back at Arisarie with his bright green eyes every few seconds almost like he wanted something from her.
“Is everything alright Roald?” she asked the wolf
The wolf walked up to her and started nuzzling her away from the river and away from her home. Realizing something was clearly wrong with Roald she allowed herself to be led deeper into the forest.
As she moved deeper into the woods she was able to clearly tell that something was wrong. Trees that were Strong and healthy just days ago were rotting through and Shrubbery and vines were wilting away. The normally Vibrant green plants all seemed to have a tinge of red in them which only got more pronounced the further into the woods they traveled.
About an hour after they had left the bank of the creek they stumbled upon the reason for Roalds odd behaviour, a smaller, thinner and very unhealthy wolf was lying on the ground nearby.
“Ellise?” Arisarie asked, shocked at the sight of this wolf that was healthy just days ago but was now clearly barely hanging onto life.
Ellise whimpered quietly and looked at Arisarie with big red eyes, Shuddered violently for just a few seconds then laid completely still.
Arisarie gasped, immediately running up to Ellise. She started checking for the slow rise and fall of her chest, there wasn’t one. Whatever is causing the plants and trees of the forest to wither and die has also reached the Wildlife.
With tears in her eyes she turned back to Roald, “I am so sorry little one, there is nothing i can do to help her. I don’t know what has caused this to her and to the rest of the woods, but i intend to find out.”
In return Roald started growling and backing away, clear fear in his eyes. Arisarie barely had time to turn around before Ellise was on her, biting and clawing through her makeshift outfit and then flesh. She screamed as the wolf, her friend for years, who moments earlier was obviously dead, snapped her jaws around her neck.
Arisarie did all she could to fight back, she swung wildly and tried to push the wolf off of her, but the wolf's skin and fur just shed away, revealing the ribs and organs underneath. Ellise released her and as she was laying there dying, she looked away from the decaying previously dead wolf towards the wolf's mate and gurgled a quiet “run, Roald” before fading away into oblivion.