Running. The breath whooshing in and out, between my nostrils and teeth. Grass, dead leaves and twigs underfoot. Branches slapped my face and body, but I barely felt it.

My body moved without conscious thought. Running. Sprinting. Tracking. My altered eyes had spotted a Wolf as I was walking away from the scene of the massacre, and the words of the Mistress had immediately come to me. There must be no survivors.

My head swivelled, eyes darting and nose sniffing for the elusive Wolf. Unfortunately for him, the Wolf had seemed to be in too much of a hurry to cover his tracks, and it was easy for me to chase him. Speed and stamina was not an issue for this altered body.

The day wore on. Through the forest and the multiple streams I ran, hot on the Wolf's trail, the thought of not living up to the Mistress' expectations driving me ever on. I seemed to be a passenger in my own body, however malformed it was. It was as if my soul had detached from it, and I was watching someone else hunt another down, like a bloodhound on the trail.

Feel the power, the Mistress had once told me. Do you not enjoy the gift of this body?

The sad thing was, a part of me did. Whatever was left of my shriveled conscience shuddered. I liked the power I held over life and death. I liked the freedom this form gave me, despite not being visually appealing. I loved the fluidity of its movements, the danger in each step, in each swing of my arms. Oh, how I hated myself.

Ever so slowly, the sun started to sink below the horizon. Twilight was approaching. The part of myself that longed for the day when this would no longer be my life looked forward to the night, when, for whatever reason, I reverted back to my human form. I pushed my body to its limits, afraid of the judgement the Mistress would bring upon me, but the Wolf continued to evade me. Silently, I applauded him for having the cunning and fortitude to stay ahead me.

Control was everything. In the last rays of the setting sun, I could begin to feel as if I had control over my own body again, knowing that the time when I could be human again for the night was near. Day was the time when I had no control, the feeling that the Mistress was constantly peering over my shoulder despite not being physically there plaguing me. The portion of me that both feared and begged for scraps of praise from the Mistress wanted to capture and kill the Wolf in cold blood, but the other part of me that clung oh so desperately to my morals and the hope that I could go home to see my mother, or traverse the forests in Atlantis once more with my father, was glad that the Wolf had managed to outpace me.

At long last, the morning star finally winked out. For a moment, I felt inexplicably, unexplainably free. But not for long.

Immediately, pain assailed me. I screamed, long and loud, my cries sounding more like the lonely howl of a feral wolf than anything human. Collapsing to my hands and knees, I started convulsing as my molecular structure reformed itself. Muscles stood out in sharp relief as they tensed and locked until the breaking point, and my joints stiffened and flexed the claws on my fingers retracted.

I clenched my teeth hard. Four years of this, and it did not grow easier. A daily cycle, I was human for the night, but a monster incarnate in the mornings. My back arched as the mixture of bark, fur and thorns melted away, fading back into pale skin. I was once bronzed from my time in the woods, but after so many years of not feeling the sun on human skin, I was now as pale as a ghost, whitened, until I could pass as a vampire of the Mundane World's myths.

My open jaw snapped, and the cracking of the bones could be heard for several feet as my wolf's snout shrank back into a human face, and the tail retreated back into my spine. I ended the transformation curled into a fetal position, hissing at the agony of the change, no less fresh than it was, four years before.

Despite the excruciating affliction, no tears came. Show no weakness. I clutched the gold locket I had around my neck. You know what you have to lose.

Until recently, the Mistress had kept me a secret from the world, and the last years were spent in a harsh, rigorous training that resulted in me dying should I fail in any task. Over, and over, I was sent into the void, only to reawaken the next day with the price hanging over me like a sword over my head.

Four years later, I was desensitized to death around me. Death was merely part of the circle of life, and the only thing that mattered was the manner of it. Death was my curse, my gift and my friend. Death came to all, and I was the Mistress' tool in delivering it.

I accepted that. I accepted that there was nothing I could do to change it. But I still stubbornly clung to my conscience, knowing that what I was doing was evil, wrong, and I did not deserve redemption.

Crawling to my knees, I stumbled forward in the direction I was going. It would have to be a cold hard night under the shelter of one of the trees. However, much to my surprise, what I saw ahead of me was a clearing, with a small cabin constructed carefully from logs in the middle of it. A cheerful light shone through its windows.

Staggering towards it, I decided to ask for shelter for the night. The only article of clothing that survived my daily transitions was a tattered hooded red cloak that I wrapped myself in to preserve a modicum of modesty. When such changes overtake your body, modesty is no longer a luxury that one could have. Clothes would be ripped too quickly, shredded too fast. When the change came, it was rapid. It was brutal.

I knocked tentatively on the door, attempting to calm the racing heart that still pumped adrenaline throughout my body. You're ok, I told myself. She cannot see you at night.

Receiving no reply, I croaked out, "Hello?" The sound of my voice forming words was something I had not heard in a long time. The last was...No. I cannot go there.

Since no one had answered the door, I pushed against it, and surprisingly, it creaked open. No locks. I peered in, clutching the cloak tighter around myself so as to not give any of the inhabitants an eyeful.

Nobody was currently in the house. It was at that point that my heart finally slowed from a gallop, and I stopped feeling too on edge. It was a cozy scene, with a cheery fire roaring heartily in the stone fireplace, a stack of tinder neatly placed beside it. In front was a circular table made from the trunk of a tree, with three rough wooden chairs circled around it. On it were more wooden utensils, smooth after many years of use, accompanied by three wooden bowls and a cast iron pot in the center. The bowls varied in size from large to small, as did the chairs. To the right of the fire was two well made beds, and a cot that had been plied with rugs and cushions so that it was comfortable.

I glanced at the table. At the rich aroma of the stew that wafted from it, my stomach grumbled, and for the first time in days, I felt the urge of hunger. At the same time, I didn't want to impose too much on my unknown hosts, so I pulled out the smallest chair. To my surprise, my small and emaciated frame could fit onto the slender chair with room to spare.

I ladled a dollop of stew into the small bowl in front of me. Now that I actually saw the food, my appetite was suddenly gone, and I twiddled with the spoon in my hand, uncertain whether I should really touch it.

Just eat it, I told myself. You don't know where you'll find something as nice again.

Forcing myself, I spooned the savory stew quickly into my mouth. Open, slurp, swallow. The actions became automatic, and before I knew it, I was staring into an empty bowl. Standing up, the chair produced a grating sound as it rubbed against the floor. I carried my used utensils to the nearby tub of water, and dunked it in, my eyes still drinking in all the details of the immaculate cabin.

Who lives here? Please, do not let them be those that my Mistress hunts.

I swayed drunkenly to the beds. They were, of course, of varying sizes again. Tempted, I wanted to lie down in one of them; it was ages since I rested in a proper bed. Then, I looked down at the blood and gore caking my arms and fingernails. I couldn't possibly mess up their sheets with something hard to clean out. Sighing, I kicked the rugs and pillows off the cot into one heap, and settled on the hard wooden planks to catch some shut eye.

~

I tossed and turned. Despite being exhausted, my brain had decided to go on hyper mode tonight. Everytime I closed my eyes, my mother and father hovered over me, glaring down at me accusingly. How could you do all these? My mother would ask me, shaking her head. You are not my daughter, my father would growl, turning away from me. Each time I reached out, but I was pulled back, away from them, until all I could see was the Mistress grinning wickedly at me.

Don't you see? She would ask. There is no redemption. Why do you cling to them? Let them go. Become the true general of my armies.

Each time, I would wake in terrified silence, not knowing where I was, thinking I was back in the castle where the Mistress had trained me. The only thing that kept me sane was the little family picture in my locket that would remind me that we were once a happy family, and we could be so again.

I hope I was not fooling myself.

Eventually, I fell into restless sleep, phantoms of what I had lost, what I could become, and the Mistress' cruel laughter echoing in the nightmare plane of my dreams.~

Word count: 1798

~

Do you see it yet? The Goldilocks and Red Riding Hood aspects? If you don't, casually scroll up...it means you weren't reading close enough.

What do you wonderful readers think of Rose? She's been through a lot, and for her to tell her story, it's not easy. Intrigued? Lets wait and see how the first meeting of her and Ther goes...

Feeling sleepy at this point in the entry,

Kiawah