Chapter 1: The Night-terror

{Emediate threat detected, emergency protocols activated, rewards temporarily disabled}.

{Waking up in 3..2..1}.

My eyes opened, fully expecting to see my bedroom. Instead i was greeted by a scene strait out of a horror film.

I was laying on a small clearing of wet mud and dead grass, it was raining heavily, thunder and lightning cracked through the clouds, lighting up night sky and the area for moments a time, showing the array of dead tree's and thorned bushes that almost completely surrounded the area.

'Am I having another night-terror?[1]' I thought.

I raised my head off the ground to look around as i did lightning struck the tree directly in front of me, illuminating the area as it did, a black mass darted from behind the tree, heading towards him and fast.

Everything darkened once again, so i couldn't make out what it was, but knew i needed to move, i tried to push on the ground to lift myself to my feet but it was already to late "IT" had already lunged at its target.

Knocking me back into the mud, i instinctively put up my arm to stop the attack, i instantly felt an excruciating pain, it had my arm in its large mouth. I felt my bones crunching from the sheer force of what ever this thing was, i blindly searched for anything i could use as a weapon, as the unknown creature violently shook and pulled on my arm.

Then i felt something long and sharp, as i did lightning cracked through the sky once again and i at last saw the monstrous thing that was attacking me. It resembled a wolf but a least twice the size of any wolf i knew of, its jet black fur glistened like metal, its head was much larger than the rest of its body and eyes were at least as large as a human fist.

"What the f***!?" I shouted.

'What the f*** is that!?, its massive!, its eyes are huge!' I thought.

"That's it!"

i grabbed the object i found and plunged it into the beasts eye, this only seemed to anger the creature cuasing it to bite down even harder down on my arm snapping the bone in an instant.

"AAAAHHHH!"

I let out a blood curdling scream, i then slammed my hand on the object still stuck in its eye as hard as i possibly could with what little strength i had left.

"JUST F***ING DIE!" i screemed.

This time the beast almost emediatly went limp. the object had pierced its brain killing the creature amazingly even in death the beast hadn't lost its grip.

I pulled the sharp object out of the eye of the beast and started to pry my arm out of it mouth, it was an agonizing ordeal, i eventually freed himself from the beast, i then removed my top and tore to crudely bandaged my arm, i then placed my back against the body of the creature.

"Haaa... Its sharp but at least its warm" I sighed

Then i heard noise coming from the the forest.

"Looks like your friends are here to finish me off huh? I ain't going down without a fight!"

"Ha ha ha ha!" I laughed maniacally.

Then i slowly got to my feet holding the object in my hand and slowly made my way towards the noise.

"C'MON YOU B*****DS! i exclaimed into the darkness in defiance.

The noise grew closer.

"C'MON WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR OVER HERE, WHAT ARE YOU SCARED?, YOU COWARDS! OVER HERE! i shouted as loudly as i could.

Then the source of the noise grew louder and glowing orbs started to come into view.

"WHAT?!... Glowing eyes?... No... wait?... It's lights?... LIGHTS!, LIGHTS MEANS PEOPLE! I'm saved thank f*** for that!"

As soon as i said those words, i fell back down to the ground finally passing out from the exhaustion, pain and blood loss.

A few minutes later...

"It came frome over there" a deep male voice whispered.

A group of men stepped out of the woods, and seeing the mutilated body of a boy.

"F*** it! we're to late" said a man that seemed older than the rest.

They slowly came closer to the boy and the beast, expecting a fight from the beast, thinking it was sleeping after killing the boy they had herd shouting.

They got more and more anxious, the closer they got, it should have already noticed them and attacked bye now.

"Somethings wrong, be on gaurd." said the same man.

Walking past the boy, the men finally reached the beast. There torches somehow still alight despite the rain and wind, lit up the body.

*gasp!*

The men stopped and starred in utter shock as they realised it was dead.

They then looked to the small body of what appeared to be a child no older than 10 years of age.

"My God! Did that lone child really manage to kill an alpha?!.. The pore boy to show such strength and determination, enough to kill a beast as strong as this."

"At ease men". said the oldest man.

"SIR is it really an alpha? It seems deformed and it looks to small and frail apart from its head?

Well not quite...true it may be smaller and skinnier than a normal alpha it's probably an old alpha outcast from the pack deemed to weak to continue leading howev- He said before being inturepted

"Oh!?" the man said slightly confused.

"So it was weak! it mak-" the man was abruptly interrupted.

"NO!!!" He shouted with rage. He then looked the now startled and shaking man, glaring him in the eye,

every man there shuddered at the force that was now eminating from the man.

He noticed this and relaxed himself still slightly p**sed off he continued

That beast is is far more dangerous than most of you realise... when an alpha is part of a pack it only fights when challenged by another member or other strong beasts once in a while, also it does not hunt for its self, so it's only usually strong enough to maintain it status as leader. Sooo... what do think happens when this lazy pampered pooch eventually loses a battle and is cast out?

The men starred at him with expectant faces even the ones who knew the answer.

"Huh" he slightly chuckled. "THEY STARVE!"

"HUH!?"

"WHAT!?"

"STARVE!?"

The men exclaimed with confusion apart from a few who were now trying not to laugh at the others.

" Sir... How does that make it dangerous? The man who intturepted sheepishly asked.

"You lot really are dense as logs aren't you?... fine, when the outcast starts to starve it will try to hunt butt due to lack of practise it will most likely fail multiple times, becoming malnourished and frail in the process.

However due to the lost weight it devolopes a harder layer of fur almost as hard as iron for protection, it also becomes more efficient at stalking and killing by stricking as fast and as hard as possible and apon hitting its target will become frenzied violently shaking and pulling its prey apart so desperate for for food. It can lock its jaw and won't release until the piece its holding is torn from the prey, they prey dies or it dies its self.

Thanks to this style of hunting its head enlarges and its bite becomes much more powerfull, it gets smarter and it starts hunting more at night overtime causing it's eyes to become larger which is also it's biggist weakness, it uses enhaned sight, stealth and bite to take down much larger prey instantly. bassicly it becomes a wolf assassin and we call these monstrosities [Shadow iron wolfs] and even the strongest of you would struggle, in fact most of you wouldn't even see it before it killed you especially on a night like this!"

He finished his explanation and lecture.

'To be able to kill this beast at such a young age truly astonishing.' he thought.

The man looked at the body of the boy.

'If only we were quicker... you may of had a chance at life' he thought.

"We will give him a warriors burial, bring the boy and the alpha back to camp no need to waste a good kill!" he said.

"YES SIR!" all of them said sternly.

"The Shadow's ready to go SIR" one the men proclaimed.

"Good work" he said.

The men hadn't bothered checking the boy assuming he was dead.

One man simply went to drag the boy off to the cart with the dead body of the wolf on it, as he went to lift the body he froze...

It had grown colder while prepering the wolf...meaning he could now see very faint bearly noticeable puffs of steam coming from the boys mouth.

"HEALER OVER HERE NOW!" the man shouted.

"Uh! who's cut themselves NOW?" the eldest man sighed.

"IT'S NOT US! SIR IT'S THE BOY HE'S ALIVE! SIROUSLY INJURED BUT STILL ALIVE!" shouted the man.

"WHAT!... MY GOD. GET OVER THERE RIGHT NOW AND SAVE HIM!"

This time there was no response! All the men stopped what they was doing and attended to the boy, one man nelt down bye the boy removing the "bandage" and placed his hands above the boys destroyed arm, his hands glowed a light green and the wounds seemed to stop bleeding, the arm twisted back into shape as the bones crunched and ginnded back into place.

The Healer stopped, gasping for air, seemingly exhausted

"That's... all... i can... do for now... I'm out of mana. said the healer

The others rebandeged his arm and placed the boy on a quickly made make shift stretcher.

"Get him to the healers hut A.S.A.P." said the eldest man.

"SIR!" the two fastest men replied.

The two men curfully and picked the boy up and headed out the forest.

"The rest of you bring the alpha were going home."

SIR! the rest replied.

{Safety achieved, serious injury detected, emergency recovery mode activated.}

[1] Night-terror an exceptionally realistic type of nightmare capable of recreating the 5 senses and in some cases causing the person to lash out or even sleep walk.