You look up from your DS screen and realize that you've been walking for much longer than you thought you had. You look around frantically to try and find your family and nothing. The only things you could hear in the dark of the night were the crickets, your DS making noises, chirps, and little melodies, and a nearby stream.
Panic began to set in as you whipped your head around, searching for any sign of anyone. It was way too dark for you to see so you took out your phone, flipped the flashlight on and started looking for tracks. There was a crack of a small twig that came from the direction of the stream. You wheeled around with your flashlight and you saw a pair of small eyes peering back at you from behind a tree.
It took you a moment for your eyes to adjust but when they did it looked like a puppy, a young, shaggy dog at first glance. When you moved forward it scurried off but something wasn't quite right. The pace of the creature wasn't natural, and it didn't seem healthy. The pup didn't get far before it yelped and rolled down closer to the stream. You follow it to check if it's okay. You approach and it begins to glare at you, bearing it's teeth silently. This wasn't a dog pup, this looked more like a wolf pup compared to anything you've seen before. You lower yourself to the ground to make yourself a lesser threat, and the pup calms down some. You reach out your hand to touch it and as your hand grazes it's grey timber fur, it snaps at you, drawing blood and sending a searing pain up your arm.
You bear through the pain and push your arm into his mouth, grab the back of his head and say to him with your intent clear "I'm here to help, you have to let go." His fur is wet and cold, matted down with some relatively fresh mud. After a moment of contemplating, the wolf pups eyes, that you noticed seemed to glow a dull yellow in the moonlight, go from a crazed state to calm and accepting. The pup cedes back onto the ground, looking you in the eyes and then pushing its snout towards it's rear right paw. You take a look at it and notice a cut on the lower quarter of his leg.
You felt something shift in the air and the wolf cub reached it's paw out to you. You slowly, hesitantly reached out and grabbed it. As soon as your hand made contact with it, the cubs hair began to recede and you could feel the bones in its hand shift and crack as it turned into a human little boy, stark naked and shivering in the night. He must have been 4 years old at best. He laid there, with the same eyes as before, except they were set in a thin, somewhat gaunt face. His skin was pale, and he seemed uncomfortable in it, he squirmed a little as he took a better look at the cut. The boy had sandy blonde hair that fell short on his head but was still able to cover his ears. He stretched out his body as if he had just woken up and you could see that he probably hadn't eaten a good meal in a day or so. "Oh shit, um..." You said as you moved your hands to block your eyes from looking at him, respecting his privacy. "Here, take this for a second." You took off the extra hoodie you had tied around your waste and draped it over his midsection, covering him up reasonably. The boy took it in his hand and rubbed it, rubbing the hood against his face, puzzled by the fabric.
You rummaged through your hiking bag and found a protein bar that you were saving for when you found the campsite. You waved it at him and said "here, take this, you look hungry."
He hesitantly looked at you, looked at the bar, looked back at you and gently took it, beginning to gnaw on the wrapper. After a second he figured out that he wasn't getting through it and bit the wrapper off, getting to the chocolate inside. You took out your first aid kit first, put a glove over the hand that he bit, then got the alcohol, antibiotic cream, and bandages out. "This is gonna sting for a second," you said as you opened up the alcohol. He looked you in the face and nodded gingerly. He winced and yelped as the alcohol poured over his cut. It was a small gash, thankfully he wouldn't need stitches because you wouldn't be able to help.
You finished wrapping his leg up as best you could, remembering what you learned from the first aid class your mom had you take. You wrapped up the bite with some antibiotic cream and bandages. As you were doing this, you saw the boy looked very guilty, shrimping up into your hoodie more. "It's going to be okay, where's your mommy?"
With those words, the whole situation came flooding back to you, you were lost, tired now, and it was getting lighter out for another few hours. You were having trouble catching your breath, you couldn't see straight, and then came the howl.
It echoed through the night, making every hair on your body stand up straight. A shiver went up your spine and you stood up straight, facing where the howl came from. For a moment it's as if you were paralyzed. After a few seconds you are able to calm down some. You look up at the mountain and the boy passes in front of you, grabbing your hand and pointing up to the top. He let go and imitated a howling sound and then pointed at himself, then the mountain again. He was trying to make gestures with his hands that looked like it might be sign language. He was mute. You didn't understand everything but you caught the general drift. He needs to go find whatever, or whoever was howling.
You looked around, trying to make the decision on whether to start heading back or to help the poor kid. You realized you couldn't find a trace of where you came from if you tried.
With a sigh, you resigned yourself to your new duty and said "right, let's get moving then."
And the two of you began walking towards the east, where the howl came from. He stopped after a few hundred feet and clapped his hands at you. You went over and asked what was wrong, and he gestured enough to say that he couldn't walk very well. A scoff and a very short one-sided argument later and you found yourself giving this kid a piggyback ride with your backpack now strapped to your front. He was light, and held onto you tightly as you crossed the rocky terrain.
You walked for as far you could, occasionally stopping to let your legs rest or get some water. It was almost impossible to find a way in the dark here, but your eyes were beginning to adjust and luckily the moon was almost full so you were able to find the creek and started to following it upstream and up the mountain.
You heard the howl occasionally, and each howl seemed more sad and desperate than the last. Every time the howl came, you could feel the kid squeeze tighter around your neck. Starting to get curious you say while making your way up a rocky slope, your legs beginning to ache and burn, "let's..." "Let's play a game, okay. You ever play twenty questions?" He took his hand up from your neck and gave you a thumbs up. "Okay, let's play then, give me one tap for yes, two taps for no."
The sun was beginning to rise over the mountaintop in front of you, the welcoming orange light of morning overtaking the dark blue sky of night. The boy seemed to get lighter as time went on and you needed to stop less, which was an odd but welcome surprise. You began to smell the forest much better and you could hear birds for miles. Leaves rustled up in the trees, it sounded like it was right above your head. Weird, the tree tops were dozens of feet above you.
"Do you have a name?"
One tap.
"Could you tell me it?"
One tap. And with that, he leaned back away from you and traced the name "Ash" in your back.
"Ash, that's a really cool name!"
One tap.
"I saw you change from that puppy into a little boy, so which one are you actually."
One tap.
"Fair enough, so are you just staying human because you're with me now?"
One tap.
"Could you change back any time if you wanted?"
One tap. A pause. Then two taps. Then a number of frantic little taps that turned into slaps on your shoulder and back.
"What does... What? WHAT?!?" you are able to get out when you hear a loud crack behind you. You had been so busy talking that you failed to notice the grizzly bear standing up a hundred or so feet from you. You dropped the bag and Ash frantically pushed away from you and turned back into that same tiny timber wolf as before, widening his stance and placing himself in front to protect you. The hulking brown grizzly stood, towering over you even at this distance. The grizzly dropped onto all fours and then into a dead sprint toward the two of you. Ash was fast now and ran directly at the bear, trying to scare the bear off. It was a smart move, but it didn't work, the bear got to him and stood on its hind legs, about to swipe and end the wolf-boys life.
Your instincts took over completely. The two of them were about 40 feet away and you were on them at lightning speed. You felt the adrenaline course through you and your bones crack and shift. When you got to him, you shoulder charged the bear and clocked him directly in the snout. The bear was weaker than you expected and smaller... No you were bigger, much bigger. You stood at the same 8 feet tall and your fist had turn into a hulking mass of muscle and bone. The bear slashed you across the neck and upper chest with it's razor sharp claws. The rage and power welled up in you. Your follow-up punch turned into an open-handed swipe that dug through the bears thick hide and into flesh, taking a chunk out of his neck and ruining his right eye. The bear dropped back to all fours and ran away, defeated for now. You catch your breath for a moment breathing heavy and fast, your heart racing from the fight. You look down at yourself and see you're covered in dark fur that roughly matched your own hair. You're acting on only your instincts now and they all tell you to do one thing. Roar.
You rear back and fill up your chest with air, turning your head to the sky and letting out a massive, cacophonous roar to the sky.
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