The Young Vargr

The world was covered in a silent blanket of delicate snow and the moon hung quietly in the sky, looking down with endless patience. The only thing to be seen for miles where the mountains, the trees and the lone wooden house with a gentle light streaming from its windows and smoke disappearing into the sky.

Inside the house sat glowing ashes smouldering contently in the fireplace and an elderly woman laying comfortably in her chair, her sun weathered skin stuck to her weedy frame and her forehead was scared by endless stress, even in sleep, yet this failed to hid the kind gentleness that hung around her like a mist, a young boy of only nine or ten stood over her quietly folding a blanket around her delicate frame. There were signs of the child and the woman around the house, old toys, books, knitting material and so on, evidently it was well live in.

The boy, now finished wrapping the old woman in the blanket, stood, admired his handiwork and snuck through a door further into the homely cottage. The room was as small as a large cupboard filled only by a single dresser, and a bed, the boy quickly lied down on the bed, without even taking off his shoes. He closed his eyes to sleep, gently listening to his own rhythmic breathing and the whistling winds outside. It was cold.

The world around the house, dyed white with the frosty flakes falling from the cloud's, sang with the callings of nature. The wolves howled in the night and the rabbits, mice and deer shivered in their cold wintery homes. A heavy wind beat against the trees and the house, the windows rattled against their latches and the doors creaked and groaned.

Again. He was surrounded by darkness, a heavy darkness weighing him down like a wet sheet, it was cold, so cold that it burnt to the touch, the icy darkness was circling him, surrounding him, swallowing him. And then the it was gone.

The boy was lied on a bed of moss, leaves and snow, that failed to be cold, with the sky open apart from the whistling trees and whispering night birds. He was here again. The boy stood up and looked around him, all of it he had seen a million times, the trees or the rocks or the river, it was all the same.

The boy groaned and looked down at his clothing, a simple cotton shirt, trousers and leather boots, the same as what he had been wearing as he laid down on his bed. The boy stood carefully in the comforting yet intimidating forest, gazing up at the clear glistening moon, he would go further today.

The first time the boy had found himself in this mysterious place he must have only been four or five, unable to move until he opened his eyes again in the morning, and in the next night, when the same thing happened again, he was able to stand up, then step forward, again and again but never leaving the clearing.

Until it all changed.

The winding, whistling trees blocked his path, warning him of the dangers ahead, but he simply stepped around their twisted roots and stepped into the deep undergrowth. Because he had too. Eventually the boy tested himself nightly in this moon lit maze, going further and further every night.

And today the boy would go further. Further into the darkness that surrounds this lonely forest, empty of all life but the trees and birds above his head, weeds and rats beneath his feet. Further into the night. One step after the other the boy walked further, the constant fear did not diminish, it only grew along with the tangling undergrowth that seemed to expand with every step he took. Strangling his feet in a vein attempt to stop him, to slow him, to stall him, but the boys mind was set, he would go on until there was no further to go and nothing was stopping him this time.

He walked further into the darkness, there was so much that he could not see, the roots wrestled with his feet, legs and arms, it was almost impossible to keep going, but the boy did. He ripped through the natural barrier, which fell around him like tears, he had to move forward.

The weeds and branches that ripped at his cloths and choked his legs where ripped out of the ground, roots and all, he moved forward.

The darkness laughed at him, taunted him, mocked him, filled him with anger and dread and hate and grief, all of these emotions swirled into one, powerful force that set him forward, one single goal. To move forward.

And he was out.

There he was, in an unnatural clearing of empty, flat, cold, unmoving stone, no trees to reach in and pull him back into their safe embrace nor weeds to slow his steps forward. All that remained was fear. All comfort had left the mysterious dream world and all that remained was massive primitive fear, one that crashed through his body like a tidal wave only to settle within his chest. The shadowy darkness that blinded him set up in a high speed current of thunderous winds and endless gale's, forming into one invisible being of fang, muscle and claw.

Though the boy could not see it, the boy could feel all of its massive body, from its grizzly fur and heavily muscled form to sharp, pointed teeth that cut even the air that passed through them with its deep intakes of breath. The boy had made it to the end of his nightmare and all that awaited him was death, because that was all that he could see. The looming, monstrous figure of death that would rip his soul from his body and tear it to pieces.

His body, frozen in place, could not even perceive the jolting impact as his knees struck the ground, nor the putrid stench of urine filling the air and wetness running down his legs. All he felt was fear, and that engulfed him in a smothering sense of defeat that same defeat that accompanied him ever since his parents died. This was not the reason he wished to escape the Forest, it was not the way he wished to die, especially after going so far already.

He stood on quivering legs, powered only by his will. He ran, every footfall echoed throughout the stone tomb, filling him with more confidence, he could escape. He fell, his legs no longer shaking, yet the worlds weight still rested on his shoulders. He stood again. And again and again he pushed against the nightmare that invaded his dream, ran back towards the comforting forest that would welcome him with open arms. But it didn't. The closer he ran the further it sunk away and the closer the shadow grew. Bigger and bigger, it was now the size of the mountain that he calls his home. Those eyes, those inky, black, terrible eyes, that bled the monsters ghostly will. And what it said to the boy was as clear as the darkness that embraces him.

"Stop" it said, and he did, almost as if his body wanted to except the devils deal that his mind did not, so quickly did his legs obey that the world kept pushing him forward only to land him on his face. Its voice, so calm, so human like that he would not have expected it to have came out of the beast in front of him.

"as soon as you left the embrace of that forest, you lost the right to to walk amongst the living as a man, along with any love they may share with you…", light fell onto the shadow only to pronounce its monstrous form, it did not pull back from the light, nor did it disperse like the shadows around it, the darkness swallowed the light like a black hole, hunting it, feeding from it. Its ghastly fur stretch out into the light like a vengeful spirit seeking destruction, its body was littered with scars from tooth to claw, too large to hide and too gruesome to boast yet the trauma's only exhibited the monstrosities experience and strength.

He looked up to it, with its snout elongated into a hideous grin, its ears stood proud, only outdone in sharpness by its own teeth, its eyes, filled with the blinding darkness that swallowed in the world around them, each sphere locked onto the whimpering boy-no-longer, it would not kill him.

"…So now you will take your mantle of Fenrir…the monstrous wolf."

And Fenrir woke up.