The boulder sailed almost a full seven feet into the air before it crashed back down to the earth. William heaved as he forced his body to take in more oxygen. The exertion of his efforts had drained him, at least momentarily and he took several minutes to recover from what he had just done. All that anger, rage, and pain and all you were able to do was move it a few feet from where it had been. Some Destructor you turned out to be. He smiled at himself and shook his head. He couldn’t stop the laughter that came out of him against his will. He fell back on the ground and laughed. He gripped his side and looked at the boulder. I was beaten by a rock. It was a big rock. That just made him laugh harder.
The anger melted away in his own innocent laughter. He didn’t want to kill or destroy anything. He wanted some understanding. He wanted the world around him to make sense. People don’t make sense, what makes you think the world they build is going to be any different? He supposed that was a question that he would have to figure out for himself. He would either make peace with the world or his own hate, confusion, and frustration would eventually kill him.
I don’t want this anymore.
He knew that that was the truth even though he craved the way he felt when he was enveloped in his hate. His anger shrouded him in apathy, and he didn’t feel pain. But, oddly enough, the more hate he felt the more he knew that hate wasn’t the answer. Hate had never done anything for him, he had left civilization behind him once and even that wasn’t enough to protect him from the world.
He stood up and looked around his surroundings. He saw the chewed-up trail in the ground that he had left behind him. He sniffed at the air around him. He couldn’t detect anything. Apparently, his howl hadn’t alerted anybody to any danger, at least nothing worth caring about. He knew that that couldn’t be the whole truth behind why he wasn’t surrounded by werewolves ready to take the rabid animal down. He looked up at the cavern ceiling high overhead. Then he shook his head and started to make his way out of the forest.
The smells of this forest, even though it was underground, was clean and fresh. The green of the grass and the pine needles overhead. This place was just as alive as his valley had been, maybe more so. He could hear the soft sounds of the night echo around him. The faint sound of crickets and the gentle far-off sound of running water that he would not have been able to hear if he was in his human form.
The temperature of the place was comfortable, and he decided to walk around for a bit. Leaving his trail behind him, he turned back into the forest. The sound of water was lost to him entirely as he made his way deeper into the forest. He walked through the trees allowing himself to be lost in the fiction of this being his valley and he was once again waiting for his pack to find him.
He tripped over a root that was protruding from the soft forest floor. His foot ached then the pain dissipated, and he was once again lost to his mind and the thoughts of home. His pack would meet him on a night like this. He would rejoin them and take his place as there alpha, and they would run through the valley. They had been complete masters of their fate and their dominion over the place was unquestioned. He would take the lead and the old grey would hang back, allowing him the place of honor. The wolves would run forming a cloud of fur and teeth and claws that flowed over the valley floor, flew over the river, and surged up mountains.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
William walked for a long while and came upon a pyramid of stacked rocks and boulders. The sight looked like a child had taken a bunch of random building blocks and pushed them into a pile. There was no apparent reason for the irregular pyramid to be here. He looked over the pile and saw the wall of the massive cavern that he was in behind the stack.
Remembering the only reason for climbing a mountain, he started up the pile of rocks. The footing was too stable for the stack to have been caused by a random cave in. Not a single pebble moved from its place as he crawled up the relatively high rock formation. As he climbed, he noticed that the rocks themselves were not particularly rough, and there were no real sharp edges to the stones. If this had been natural there would be some more irregularities, if nothing else the stack of stones would have shifted or something from my added weight. The formation had to have been hand made just from how sturdy it was. He lifted himself onto the tabletop clear plateau that was the top of the formation.
He turned around and looked over the forest. His head came to about midway up the trunks of the nearby trees. This could have been his valley. The same trees grew here, and things looked very similar to him. He could see a copse of close-knit trees in the distance that could have been the border of the clearing that had served as his kitchen area.
The more he looked at the forest the more home sick he got. His valley had been ultimate freedom, freedom that he had had to work for and earn every day, but freedom. Here, he was a prisoner. He was a prisoner of the shape shifters and of himself. Ares had said that this ‘wasn’t exactly a volunteer thing’ or something like that. Giving over control of his body to some horrible instinctive monster wasn’t exactly a volunteer thing either. If he had known what would have happened, he would have fought these people with everything that was in him.
He stopped.
He would not let his anger get to him, not this time.
He had had to earn his freedom in his valley. He was comfortable with that reality. Maybe this was just an extension of that concept. Maybe he would have to earn his freedom from himself. He knew who he was and what was at stake if he failed. It was just like the time when he killed that coyote. Then, he had accepted where he was and what he needed to do to make a living for himself there. He knew what he was, and he understood what he had to do. He had to earn his freedom. Until then he would be a prisoner, but the shape shifters here had nothing to do with it.
As soon as he thought it, he knew that it was true.
Knowledge always comes with a price, but knowledge is never the death of innocence. What I do with it determines my place in the world. The shape shifters had opened his eyes and now that they were open it was up to him to assimilate that knowledge and use it to regain his freedom. Just the fact of him being here, like this covered in fur and wielding razor claws, was enough proof to him that he was in fact part of something much greater than himself. He always had been. In his valley he had been a child. Since then, he had been forced to grow up rather quickly. Now he was more like a teenager. Seeing his actions through that lens made him very disappointed in himself.
He sat down on the pile of rocks. He had been acting like a fool. He looked up at the stars, lights in the ceiling, and nodded to himself.
“I am William Setford, beta to Aceso. I am a shape shifter, not a monster, and I will master myself and serve my alpha and the rest of my pack as is expected of me.”
He took his right claw, extended the blade, and sliced deep into his left arm. He let the blood run down and drip onto the rocks. He didn’t even winch at the pain. A few drops of blood escaped. The rest were soaked up into his fur and then the wound was healed. He was always amazed at just how fast he healed when he was in his werewolf form. He lay back on the rocks looking up at the lights in the ceiling and, feeling lighter than he had in a very long time, he let his eyelids close and he slept.