I might as well wright about what I've gone through. It's fine if nobody ever reads this or believes me. I just have to do this while I still can. I lost my ability to talk yesterday. At this rate, I'm not sure if there will be anything left of my mind by the time my transformation is complete.

Let me start at the beginning.

Two years ago, my father was killed by a bear. He had been on a patrol with some of the other park rangers when the group found the mother bear and her cubs. They got too close. When the bear started getting mad, my dad distracted her so the other rangers could run away. The other men got home safely. My dad was killed by a beast for no good reason.

Shortly after my dad's funeral, weird things started happening to me: I started to eat much more than I used to, my teeth got bigger, my hair grew faster. I also began having horrible nightmares. I watched my dad die hundreds of times as I tried to sleep. I would wake up screaming, crying so hard I could barely speak.

At first, my mom thought I had some kind of disease. The doctors laughed and told her that I was probably just going through puberty early. For a while, she believed them.

Of course, I never told her about the voice.

In my nightmares, a voice I didn't recognize spoke to me. It sounded like it was around five years old. It screamed at me, blaming my father for the deaths of his mother, his brother, and himself. He said that he would make me pay, make me lose my family too.

I still hear that voice sometimes. It screams at me once every few weeks, always saying the same thing.

Anyway, back to how I ended up out here.

As time passed, mom and I had to admit that what I had wasn't an ordinary illness. She took me out of school around the time my nails began turning into claws. She tried to homeschool me, but that didn't work out well. Even when she wasn't busy writing articles for the nature magazine she writes for, she never seemed to want to be around me. She wouldn't even look me in the eye when she was trying to teach me.

She went through the motions of course, but Mom couldn't fool me for long. She may have made the doors big enough for me to fit through, checked me for ticks, and washed my fur, but I could tell she had stopped caring about what I was going through. She never asked how I was. She never tried to talk to me about going to a doctor or a vet. Honestly, I can't even remember how long ago she stopped kissing me goodnight.

I started avoiding her around the time my physical transformation was almost complete. She had obviously started hating me by that point, so I tried to spend as much time on my own as possible. I went out into the woods every day. When I was little, my dad taught me about all kinds of edible plants in the forest, so I knew how to get food for myself. I still came back to the house to eat three times a day, but I wasn't sure if Mom would keep feeding me. 

She certainly wasn't feeding me enough anyway. By the time autumn arrived, I was always hungry. I still am. Now that winter is right around the corner, I need to make sure I can hibernate through it. At least, I think that's why I've been so sleepy for the last few weeks.

About a week ago, I was so hungry that my stomach wouldn't stop growling. Dinner had tasted awful, so I had to rely on my foraging skills to get a decent meal. Then, I found a fawn.

He was a cute little guy, so tiny and quiet. But I was hungry. So very hungry. 

I blacked out.

I don't want to talk about what happened next, but there's really no getting around it.

I killed the fawn.

I didn't mean to! I swear I didn't. I just woke up with my teeth around its leg. I could taste its blood in my mouth. It's body...

You don't want to know.

Let's just say there was blood everywhere.

I went straight home after that.

There was blood around my mouth.

The look on Mom's face...

Well, you get the idea.

Yesterday, I felt really tired after dinner. I didn't know why at the time, but I'm pretty sure Mom put something in the blueberries or the salmon. I lay down pretty close to the house and closed my eyes.

The next thing I knew, there were rangers coming toward me.

I got up. I could barely stand. I so Mom in the window, so I tried to scream for help.

That was when I found out that I had lost the ability to talk. I'd been fine while I was eating dinner maybe fifteen minutes earlier. 

Why did I suddenly find myself roaring at some of my dad's old friends? I don't know. Maybe I was just unlucky.

I tried to get the rangers to leave me alone, but they shot me with a tranquilizer gun. My mom stared at me as I fell asleep. She did nothing.

I woke up in the forest this morning. Nothing looks familiar. I wouldn't expect it to, given what my dad told me about how bears are relocated. I just wish I knew more about where I am.

Anyway, I'd better go try to find some food and water. My jaws are starting to hurt from holding a stick between my teeth for so long. I hope the mud preserves this long enough for you to read it.

This might be the first and last time I ever write this stuff down.

- Bernard