The snow crunched under my boots. An unwanted state of affair but expected under the current weather conditions. It was the death season, the coldest time on Terra. The snow was chilled as low as it could be now. Prone on squealing most audibly under my steps. Ready to disclose my presence to any creature with sharp hearing.

  Well, at least a wolf's most acute sense was that of smell. Though their hearing was nothing to shrug off either.

  I was far off from home as I've ever been. I surely passed, or was passing the border between the tundra and the arctic.

  I am alone.

  I ran away from home. Leaving only a note for my parents to discover. ''I'm going somewhere, don't look for me.'', was the only thing I scribbled on it. After all I was of age to be able to travel anywhere without any eyebrows bending in suspicion.

  The compulsion was unconquerable. I left with no real goal set. Leaving it to find meaning on my way. I had to know how stupid I was.

  They moved me away from where we used to spend my childhood after the incident. Southern, in the more temperate climates. Trying to offer me a new life, new opportunities. A chance to cover old wounds and horrific memories. My parents were good people like that, wanting to give me a new, better place, to grow myself in life.

  But my roots were not severed. Nostalgia and melancholia alike were all encompassing.

  The old village was desolate in the deep winter landscape. Barely could I see any signs of life anymore. Times were changing. The youth were gone.

  The old house was barricaded except for the sturdy door. I pulled the key I took from my mother, unlocking it. A chill went down my spine at the lack of smell my expectation amassed. The old smoky-wooden smell, was no more. A dead silence and dryness met me as I entered my childhood home. A veil of grey nostalgia was blanketing my soul.

  It was untouched, left as it was long ago when we left. I started a fire in the cobblestone chimney pit. Sitting before it as the stew from my ready-to-eat meal was warming.

  There was... no comfort. The once fond memories were all ghosts. Too tired and withered to bring anything but a sense of gloom from better days now gone.

  No one came to greet me. Nor to even bother checking who had come to their village and into one of their many unused homes. People here used to be more cautious of their territory. They had to be with the wildlife. But now...

  I perused the familiar rooms once basked in warmth and comfort. Now, it was just a shelter from the hellish glacial winds outside. The sense of belonging was gone. And there were no answers to cure me of the titanic mental ailment that pushed me to come so far back to my old home.

  I sat before my grandfather's desk, perusing his drawers. Stumbling upon old, and now meaningless notes. Sketches and books. My hand caressed upon something colder, metallic, nimble. I pulled out a key to the light of my torch as I inspected it. Thick, rugged. Surely an old styled key for an old and rugged mechanism.

  I left that home on the same sombre twilight a few hours later. This sunset would last for another month before it would plunge into darkness. And if it caught me in the midsts of the wilderness I knew for surety that I would perish.

  I was walking to my SUV having no expectations anymore. But on my way chance was given to meet an old childhood friend. To be honest, I was surprised she was still in this dying village. I looked at her as we stopped at a generous pace from each other. I would say nothing. There was a feeling of... apprehension. I had nothing to say. As if a ghost myself in search of answers.

  -Care to stay?

  -No, I'm just passing through.

  -Careful out there, it's easy to get lost.

  -Can't promise anything really.

  She seemed mildly saddened at my response. As if she had preferred I would stay... as if she knew I had a death wish.

  But I was lost with myself. To the point that I stopped seeking the company of another. Against all that was normal. Against the most biological impulses. Against all better judgement. I was a loner. And I would be, until I died or found myself.

  I passed by her, and then delved deep into the empty Northern forests.

  I had left my SUV at the end of the last trail. Itself long disused. The fuel just barely enough to bring me back to civilization if... I were to return. It was a chilling thought in of itself. But the thrill of it went into a calm acceptance of what could have come.

  I walked with an easy and calculated pace. Thinking methodically on the next step of survival as I went on aimlessly towards the north. Plenty of time to think on what I was actually doing all this for. Coming painfully slowly, but closer to a conclusion.

  On the fourth day I was beginning to feel the fatigue, recognising it a sign that I was getting closer to death. Man could only go so far against the elements. Yet the slim hope, or rather, the slim knowledge I had proved true. Far off in the distance I could notice a smaller clearing with a structural shape at the edge of it.

  Half buried into a small hill it was nevertheless made of thick wooden logs. With an equally thick door, and even a sturdy exterior cover for its only window. I could have chopped down the entrance with my hatchet, but that would have deprived me of its usefulness as a shelter. Trying to screw the bolts out would have been too long of a process now that I was shivering. The cold having managed to get to me under all the insulation of my clothes.

  I remembered the tales of my old man and his many excursions up north. He never took me that far, but...

  I took the rugged key from the village house and plugged it into the lock. I swung it around and heard two audible clicks, one after another. It gave way, and I instantly knew this was his hunting dwelling. The familiar smoky-wooden smell seemingly hitting my senses for just the briefest moment before it dispelled against the mighty gale wind coming from behind me.

  I went in, quickly closing the door behind. I took a moment to bask in this long forgotten shelter of my grandfather's. The smell was gone. Barely a semblance teasing my memory of it. A brief moment of the past that simple scent brought. Yet somehow... it was enough. Enough to bring up my spirit lightly.

  The cottage was small but homey for someone who didn't need much. It had all that a weary hunter needed. A bed, a stove, a corner filled with a dry pile of wood. A workbench, a stool, a chest as well as other useful miscellanea. And just enough space to stretch and do a workout to stave off the possible cabin fever.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  I lit a fresh fire with the wood that amazingly hadn't yet rotted, and as I sat on the bed I noticed many more sketches and drawings. A few pinned on the log wall, and a few more on the makeshift night stand. He had a small passion for art, my old man. Sketches of different sights. Animals of the local variety that he would have encountered: moose, deer, squirls, different kind of birds, even wolves. The last one I stared at most, eventually noticing that they were more detailed than most.

  I was curious at this, but at the end maybe I looked too hard into it. Still my thoughts fled. These... that wolf must have been the last creature he had seen several times over before... before it ripped his throat out. He must have spent some time with it, and it must have stayed long enough in one spot for the thorough level that these last drawings had.

  -''Oh, grandfather...'' I lamented verbally to no one, in a place far ripped from civilization and any company.

  I rarely talked. Ever since that incident, ever since his death. I seldom spoke when spoken to. To the point that my parents were worried that I might have been mentally impaired. But I was just myself. I shone the need of company and of my kind. And this, uttering words in his memory, was my way of keeping his memory alive. To show how much he meant to me.

  I couldn't help but crumple the paper of my grandfather's assailant. Gripping my rifle my intention became clearer, as hate flowed through my veins. The purpose of my travel finally unravelled.

  Revenge.

  And it was such a defining purpose. With a feeling so all encompassing that I didn't care if I wasn't going to come back alive from the attempt.

  After a week of travel the landscape became more desolate. The trees became thinner, rarer. The twilight was dimming into a nautical blue. My rations were stretched thin, and scarce were the sights of wild animals as well. But finally I had come to the query I had sought after. Wolves.

  A pack of them, resting in a small clearing in the woods. And there I thought I noticed what seemed to be a black wolf. If not ''the'' wolf that took my grandfather's life. She was now the alpha female along with its partner. Two small pups alongside her.

  These breed of beasts were large. Each adult easily reaching one point eight meters by what I could size them up to. The pack though was small. And the wolves themselves didn't look particularly well off, judging by their fur and their mass. I gathered that the season must have been harsh on them, with the land bare of prey unlike past times.

  Well, now I would be the final nail in their lineage.

  I settled my rifle on a fallen log, steadying my aim. Bringing the crosshair on the largest beast of the pack. Easily topping two meters and looking the best fed out of them all. It would be the biggest threat out of all of them.

  I focused, holding my breath. Then, I squeezed the trigger. A rush of frenzy and satisfaction flowed through me as the male alpha beast had its cranium shattered. The other wolves turning sharply in disbelief at its fall. I turned my silenced sniper rifle lightly to the left. Focusing my aim squarely at the second threat of them all, and the bane of my grandfather. I expertly aimed, squeezing the trigger as the mother wolf grabbed one of its pups in its mouth.

  I would not let it escape. I took the shot, but just as I did another of the pack ran pass by the black matriarch. Inadvertently taking the shot and falling dead into the crisp snow. By that point the pack was alerted, scrambling. But not before taking two more shots. Downing the other pup of the pack and a slower wolf who tried to carry the dead pup to safety.

  Four was all I could down before they fled into the cover of the woods. Four more were out at large except for the harmless pup. My thoughts wondered at how difficult it would be to track them down before I heard a howl. I realised I would not have to track them down at all.

  They were now hunting me.

  I ran at an easy pace. Knowing it would be a mistake to exhaust myself too quickly. They would long pick up my scent before they would hear me, despite the cold chill that dimmed the olfactory sense. Despite even the wind blowing from behind me. I simply knew that they would somehow find me. It was as if I could read the firmament of life, and it's present course.

  My expectations proved true as I thought I heard a branch snap somewhere not far enough behind me. I made a pirouette in which I quickly aimed my rifle. Catching one of the wolves fast enough in my sights to plant a 7.62×54mm round into it. Mingling and tearing through its innards as it tumbled down in its speed.

  ''Three to go'', I thought as I sped in the opposite direction. Jumping over a frozen earth mound only to somehow trip and fall over it. Landing uncomfortable yet luckily with my rifle still gripped in my palms. Taking down another mutt as it came on top of the small hill of dirt.

  Two left.

  In a clearing I had found myself circled by the last two. Smart girls, they were going around me behind the cover of trees. They somehow deduced I was a danger in a clear line of sight. When they would attack they would do so both at once. And I would be hard-pressed to survive it. And so it was.

  Clever beasts were on to a solid plan, forcing my hand by presenting me with a target first. A grey wolf jumping out of the bushes right behind me, only to have the black one race towards me a few seconds after from the now opposite direction. The damn thing was fast, barely having time to shoot it at near point-blank! Barely was my body moving to turn when I was tackled by what was probably my grandfather's assailant.

  The beast was fierce as well as smart. It caught the barrel of my rifle, its raw strength amazed me as it managed to pluck it out of my hands. It then dashed for the killing blow! With only a second to spare at blocking it with my handgun and hand. It's fangs about to pierce my hardened glove. Only the cold steel of my weapon stopping it from further digging its fangs through.

  It looked me in the eyes, and so did I. Seeing into the nature of a beast through its vile yellow eyes. And for a moment I wondered if it recognised me.

  Its vigour was incredible. I was struggling for my life as I tried to avoid its fangs digging into any a vital spot. Yet pierce through it did as it nearly mauled my right hand, only fortunate to slip my knife out in time to dig it into its ribs. Eliciting a deeply pained cry before its paw hit my head hard enough to rip the winter cap and draw a bleeding wound.

  My handgun and knife lost somewhere in the snow I rushed to the most visible weapon I could see, my rifle. Raising it in time only to use it as a barrier against the monster before me. The hard steel frame deep in its mouth and fangs, stopping it from giving me the same fate as my grandfather's.

  But now there was a significant difference. I felt it weaker, it was bleeding.

  The adrenaline was rushing hot within my blood. And I felt the primal struggle of survival that this hunt ensued. And more.

  I felt fear, I felt abhorrence, disgust, hate, and then the satisfaction of murder. I hated these wolves. I hated all their kind along with their civilized city mutts! I wanted to kill them all! These thoughts gave me strength in the tug for life that was ensuing. With one hand I managed to unclasp the hatched from its leather sheath, ready to strike the beast.

  And I wanted to scream these thoughts out loud! To vent my hate and fury and make it real! To make it know!

  I wanted to strike. I wanted to vent my intention.

  ''I HATE YOU WITH ALL MY BEING!'' I wanted to shout. But something was wrong. A deep apprehension at that statement stopped me. Something I could not remember at that point in time held my primal, murderous intention.

  Even if the struggle continued furiously. Even if the threat of death was very much at its height. I somehow instinctively knew that it would die. And that I would still live.

  A strange sensation as if time was slowing was permeating my senses. The heat of the struggle dying down in importance. Then, I heard his words reverberate as if he was just besides me like in that very day.

  -We dominate this world. We could easily destroy it...

  -''Grandpa.'' I spoke, my eyes widening at the recognition of that unseen voice.

  -But there is so much more value in preserving what Humanity grew along with. Like this wolf.

  I awoke with an audible gasp, and with a wolf girl in my arms. My deep breaths and troubled heart beasts quickly rousing the lupo girl from her slumber onto me.

  -Cassiel... had a nightmare?

  I was horrified at the lingering thoughts that still followed from my dream. A shiver of cold that seemed to touch down to my soul at the compulsion to murder in pure hate for a few moments longer. I felt beyond disturbed at the thought that such impulses, such feelings, would be meant for her. Regret and agony replaced them utterly before I could break these haunting thoughts.

  -''Provence!'' I uttered with a voice so imbued with relief, and with an affection so true that it washed all the darkness that was before. My rage dispelled, now wishing with all my heart to protect her. The one lupa who loved me so devotedly.

  -''I'm guessing right then.'' She spoke as she let herself willingly into my grasp.

  -I love you so much, my wolf!

  -''This lupa loves you dearly too, my dear Cassiel.'' She spoke reassuringly, caressing my cheek as she tried to comfort me down from my frenzy.

  -You mean so much to me, my lupa. I could never harm you. I cherish you so much. And you make me cherish life in turn.

  She looked into my eyes as she basked in my arms. And it felt like she delved deep into my being as much as I saw through her beautiful sun coloured ones.

  -''Leave the past now. You are here with me, mio amore.'' She spoke softly before kissing me. ''I will relieve your heart, my mate.''

  I basked in a heavenly comfort of the soul as I laid with her intimately. Feeling her warmth, feeling her being close as she kept me under her caring gaze. She accepted me as I was, and she redeemed me in doing so.