Chapter 1: Part 4

Autumn

A young cub thrashes in the leaves. The world is cool and everything is moving slowly. The world is new for this little one. In his eyes he sees the colors of a new world he has not seen before. Orange and red are so similar, but each is distinct and original. Green has faded out of existence and the cub’s own fur is changing in shade, a process that the young wolf finds puzzlingly beautiful. Any thing that moves is prey for the untamed teeth of this new life. Whenever the wind blows those knives bite down on one of the leaves he finds beautiful. No rabbit escapes his maw. The sight of red blood on dusty brown fur only makes the cub wilder and stronger. The shade of red is brighter than any leaf, a site that the canines hunger for. Soon enough that sight is revisited, this time with a deer. Only a faun, it was young like the wolf. Denied is its chance to see beauty, just so that the cub can see the wonder that makes it happy. The cub also eats the carcass. The fawn's death is simply meant to keep life functioning properly, but the wolf can’t see it as such. The beauty it sees in everything has tainted the world with a different glow. No longer are the leaves snatched from the wind, they are instead left fluttering in mid-air. The fauns are left alive, but now the wolf gnaws at the trees. No longer a cub, its teeth are too long and its hunger too great. The wolf's jaws have grown over time and now are capable a great amount of damage. The tree loses its bark and dies, producing no new leaves for next season.

Choke on dirt and die.