LongestRoad Jeralyn

Jeralyn's story:

I was born in a small villiage high in the mountains. From what I can tell my childhood was pretty normal, consisting mainly of playing with other children and helping my parents around the house. The winters up there were harsh, and it never really got too warm, even in the summer. By the time I was a young man I was hunting by myself, and had my own small hut. I was out late one night following the tracks of an animal I had shot when I was attacked by something dark and furry. I never really knew what had gotten me. I made it back to the village but was delerious with pain. I spent the next few days in a deep fever. When the fever broke the village elders told me that I had been ill, but that it seemed that I would recover. Little did I know what that recovery would mean.

Sometime in the next month my memory fades. All I can remember of the next period is nightmarish images of blood and death. I wake up at night screaming sometimes, with bits of that memory fresh in my mind. It seems that I was more beast than man for quite a while.

Then one night I suddenly awoke, laying next to the body of an old man who had been savaged by an animal. He was not quite dead, though he was far beyond my abilities to heal. He regained conciousness for just long enough to tell me that he had given me my mind back. He died before sunrise. I discovered during the next couple of days that I could shift between the forms of a man and a wolf. I didn't hear the term werewolf until sometime later, but that is what I am.

It took me a couple of days to figure out where I was, but once I had my bearings I headed back to my village. When I got there what I found nearly drove me mad. The whole village had been deserted for quite some time. As I searched the huts I found several skeletons of people long dead. I decided that one of the nearby villiages had become hostile and had attacked the village, and on the spot vowed revenge. I left and ran straight to the village I thought had destroyed what little I had hoped to find and went mad with rage. I began slaughtering them as I had imagined them slaughtering my family and friends. As my rage bled out, I came upon an old woman hiding in a hut. I had known her as a mother in my village, though she had not been young even then. I stopped in my tracks and begged her to tell me what had happened to our village. The story she told me froze my heart.

It had been a clear night, the moon full in the sky. With no warning a beast had attacked the village and killed many of the villagers before they could even rise from their beds. When the cry finally went out the hunters of the village had attacked the beast, but it had seemed nearly unstoppable. Those few who had not been slain by the beast then managed to flee into the night and had been taken in by the nearby villages. From her description of the beast, I knew that it had been me in my other form. The blood on my hands was the blood of innocent villagers who had helped those I had blamed them for killing. Unable to face what I had done, I fled into night, once more becomming the beast I had been, but no longer mindless. I let loose my rage against all the creatures in the darkness who would otherwise have preyed on the innocent and the helpless. I left a river of blood in my wake, and to this day persue the beast that has caused all my pain.