Far From Home: Prologue
People fear what is strange and unusual. That which is deemed "supernatural", is often mistaken for evil. It is this belief that lead hunters to a small cottage somewhere in the mountains. This was home to Narysia and her parents. She was only eight years of age and yet it was she the hunters were after. Why? What had she done? Narysia held a dark secret told only by a scar upon her neck.
When she was five, she had wandered too far into the woods one night and happened upon a creature that would change her destiny forever. The moon was full, the forest brightly light with it's pale light. Out of the shadows, shift as the wind, the young girl was attacked, the form in the darkness unrecognizable. She never got a clear look at it. It was a black blur in the shadows of the night that knocked her flying off her feet and carried her a short distance in the inertia. She finally had the chance to scream as her little body was scratched.
Somewhere in the distance, her father heard the scream and leaped up his chair at once in pursuit of the sound. Narysia hadn't gotten too far away and her father knew that scream was his precious daughter. Rifle in hand, the man tore out into the night with speed and purpose only another parent could match. He arrived in time to witness the creature above his daughter, scratching her, biting her neck. He aimed his shot without delay, without thought, only the protective instinct for his beloved daughter. His shot rang out in the night, the force of the rifle smashing against the beast's side knocking him flying off Narysia where it tore off into the seclusion of the shadows. Not willing to leave to chance as to whether the creature was dead or would return, he carefully scooped his little girl up and ran back to their home.
It was a few days before Narysia awoke. At least that's what she was told. She didn't believe it. When she woke it felt as if she had been simply sleeping. And there was no trace of the scratches she sustain. None. No scars or scabbed over cuts, not even bandages. Only one scar shown upon the side of her neck. How could it have only been days when she had clearly healed a month's worth or more?
The truth was never revealed to Narysia's innocent mind, but I'll tell you, dear reader. Her attacker was not a normal woodland predator. This creature walks as a man most of the time, but upon the rise of a full moon, his body contorts and changes. Muscles bulge, bones reshape, the whole body changes, senses are heightened, mentality is dulled, thirst shall drive him. Where once stood a man, crouched something completely different. An immortal hunter of the night with no equal. Lycan. Werewolf.
You can imagine, then, that Narysia was caught unawares when the next full moon rose outside her window. It might have been kinder to tell her from the start. Her first metamorphosis was a scary ordeal. Her body stretching and bending, her garments ripping in a few places, until where once stood a little girl, now stood a small werewolf pup, a feral quadruped ever thirsting as the creature that had once attacked her.
By dawn, she remembered nothing, but something felt drastically wrong. She raised a hand to her head as if she had a headache and her eyes flew wide at what she saw. Her hand was covered in fur. So was her arm, her shoulder, her belly, her legs. She sat up, staring at her disrobed body. It had grown fur all over. Fur as white as new-fallen snow. Quickly she dashed to her mirror and couldn't believe what she saw. A tail, digitigrade legs, clawed paws, and a wolf's head. It seemed she never fully changed back to the way she should be. While bipedal once again, she retained her wolf-like features. Lycanthropy seemed to have taken a strange hold on her.
A couple years passed like this. She never again regained her human form. Still, her parents never revealed the truth behind it all. They lead her to believe a fairy godmother came down and blessed her with a new body. She accepted what they told her, despite a voice somewhere in the back of her head. But not everyone is so easily deceived. Not long after her eighth birthday, the family had bedded down one night, unaware of the danger that closed on their very home.
Hunters of the supernatural had discovered Narysia's "gift". The curse of Lycanthropy. They came to destroy her. The hunters came silently and, with mercy they thought, swiftly and painlessly ended the lives of Narysia's parents as they slept. But the werewolfess was not so easy a prey. It was the hunters' blunder that they chose tonight to attack... the first night of the full moon...
As they entered Narysia's room, they met with not a sleeping child, but a feral wolf, staring at them with a savagery that would chill the blood of even the hardiest of men. The struggle that followed can only be described as a miracle. The young werewolf pup tore through the ranks of the hunters, cutting with her claws, escaping into the night. Try as they might, she was never found again.
...And so she lies now... lying by the river bank... naked and alone, far from home...