Myth

Story by The Fire Tiger on SoFurry

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#1 of Experiments

A mysterious letter has finally been pieced together. From who could it be?

I kinda forced myself to write this. It was something going on in the back of my head now and with some other things going on recently, I eventually decided to bring some short stories, thoughts and other things I kept inside me out to the light. Will it work? Maybe, if anyone pays attention to this anymore...

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To whoever it may concern, be it human or otherwise,

There's something you should know before I get into all of this. In fact, you should probably know a lot of things. One of which is that this was not written by a human. I am a pure werewolf, unlike your usual fantasy ones that disguise as a human and only come out once a month. I don't have a name, but most of my peers refer to me as "Noble". Call me Nobel, if you desire.

Other things you should know include the fact that werewolves have been, for all intents and purposes, in hiding and considered "just a fairy tale". Believe what you want, but I am here to tell you that yes, we have been among you for a long time, and although I can't speak for every one, at least I am not out for your blood. At least, not yet.

I must confess that I have been raised in an enviorment where we have been taught, as cubs, to completely disregard humans, as they pose a threat to our race. In part, this feels true, but after an "accident" a few weeks ago, I think I want to at least give you one more chance to redeem yourselves. Allow me to explain...

That day started like any other for myself: After a nice stretch and the usual soldier training, I mostly ran errands and tasks for my tribe chief. This usually requires running back and forth between various tribes, some of which are more further away. I can cover these distances pretty easily, and most of them only require crossing by a forest. We can also turn into feral wolves at will, so if I feel a human might notice me anywhere I can just disguise myself that way.

It was all the same. I had to resolve a conflict between two neighbouring tribes, bring materials to another, and check the status of many other tribes, just to report if any humans may have had contact. So far, no one has at least come forward and said that any of their members met a human, save for the few remaining "lycanthropes", the ones that can also disguise as a human. I have not run into any human myself, and I at least assumed that was the case for all the tribes, including the ones very close to rural areas.

On that day, however, that changed. After quickly prancing through the end of the forest I immediately arrived at the Northern Star tribe, given that name for the way one mountain top always pointed to that particular star every night. Usually at this time this tribe was bustling with joy, the little ones having finished their usual daily classes and now playing outside. When I approached the center, however, not a single child was around. Some adult werewolves instead guarded their teepees, looking at me as soon as I entered the tribe and just giving me a nod. I was a little confused.

"I see you finally made it here," a voice greeted me from behind, and I quickly turned around. It was the chief of this tribe, with some sort of book in his hands. I rapidly saluted to him, and as we both let our guards down and shook hands he explained to me what happened.

"Our rations so far are okay. We have enough to go by the week and the lycanthropes have bought more things for us. There are no abnormalities as far as living conditions and no major natural disasters have made present." The chief then looked around himself. "As for humans, though..." He seemed to gulp. Something definitely wasn't right.

"Well, what is it, chief? Did you come into contact with one?" I started, trying to get the words out of his mouth.

"It's worse." He shivered as he looked over his shoulders one last time, and then finally confessed, in a low, hushed voice, "Someone managed to capture one."

"What??" I was shocked by that very sentence that I shouted it, prompting most of the guards to turn my way in an attacking stance. I calmed myself down and waved them off, before coming back to the chief. "And... and what did you do?"

"Well, I didn't exactly order a human to be captured, so we had to find the one responsible. Just to calm everyone down, I had to lie to them and say that a human wandered into the tribe and was promptly caught. No one should know about this." The chief now tugged me to his teepee, still speaking in a hushed tone. "We started with the lycanthropes. None of them had revealed their secret, and most have concealed their true identity pretty well, so surprisingly, they were out of the question. And I pondered to myself, 'if it wasn't them, then it had to be one of us.'"

The chief and I now entered the teepee, with the chief motioning me to sit down as he circuled around his seat. "I tried to make sense of it all, and then it hit me like a rock. There's only one werewolf in this damn tribe that is as passionate for humans as we are to destroying them!" He then settled down the book he was holding, allowing me to clearly see the cover: it was a human biology textbook, the kind most have told me is used in human schools. "I am not joking here. He actually did it." I knew exactly who he was talking about.

"Wha-- Impossible!" A flurry of emotions waved through me. I knew he would eventually want to but he's a total wimp! "Are you absolutely sure? He could have sent someone in to--"

"No. I'm definitely being serious here, I'm afraid," the chief replied coldly. "He confessed it to me himself: with his own hands, he snatched the man in the middle of the night, while absolutely no one was around to see it." The scene in my head played out like it was the 1800's, where that sort of thing was common among us.

"Just like old times..." I muttered out. "Alright... We know how, but that just leaves the question: why? Didn't we already extract everything we knew about humans a long time ago?"

The chief looked at me with a worried face. "Apparently not."


The lab of our culprit was almost similar to that of a human one, or at least, that's what he tells me anyway. The human he captured was just in a room with some peculiar windows where apparently everyone on the outside can see the inside, but not the other way around. How did humans learn to create such devices without magic? It seems they're getting a little bit closer to us by the day.

The human in question was now resting in the room he was trapped in. Average size, athletic type, short dark hair... Possibly no more than 30 years old. Amazingly enough, he didn't have any sort of visible scars, typical for almost any human who got captured back in those days, when they tried to wriggle out of our grip and instead had our claws dug into their skin.

I kept looking at this human. He didn't seem to be phased by any of this. He just sat on the bed, looked around and even sighed. He didn't look like he wanted to escape, nor did he approach the windows to try and find help. Does he already know why he's here...?

"Ehm... You wanted to see me?" A meek voice broke my train of thought, and my head turned to face the source: the werewolf who kidnapped the human. Let's call him Sherlocke for now. He was wearing some sort of white lab coat and held some papers with what looked like just chicken scratch for me. As much as I appreciated his efforts in discovering human traits over the years, Sherlocke was a little too obsessed with them. Regardless, I couldn't be mad with him. It really felt like he didn't mean any harm this time.

I simply motioned him to come closer and sit beside me, which he did, slowly. It was an awkward few minutes of starting at the captive human after that, but after enjoying our company, I raised my voice again, with a straightforward statement: "Just tell me why."

He didn't respond for a few seconds. Eventually, he sighed. "Well, I was studying the inner workings of humans a little more from the already expansive library of information we have, and, well... it was a little jarring to know we had their organs mapped out but not their thoughts..."

"So, you decided to just up and snag a human just so you could complete that part?" I spoke flatly. Sherlocked looked down in shame and quickly stood up to walked to the window. "How long has he been here?"

Sherlocke became a little furious. "Let me finish... I realize that this may have been highly unprofessional, but I can assure you..." Sherlocke then looked back at the human for a bit. "He consented to this."

My ears perked up again. "Wait, what?" I stood up and stood near him now, looking at the human with him. "But... you can't trust them. Isn't it true that they all lie? What if he actually tried to--"

"Shut up!" Sherlocked snapped at me, and I stood still. It was rare for him to be this angry, so instead of bickering back at him like I usually would, I just backed off for a bit. He was... a kind of situation sometimes.

Sherlocke now moved over to the door and placed one hand on the knob. "I'm going to prove it to you. He's been helping me for over a month now with this, and honestly he isn't like the rest. He has a life, but all you see and want to taste is their blood. Maybe that's why you all think they're the same." He stared me down with such a menacing glare that was almost uncanny of him. I would have never expected this attitude from him.

"Um, okay. Fine." I tried to think of something to calm him down before he actually tried to kill the human. "Then let me try to help out in this. You want us to change? Put me in there." I pointed to the window, directly at the human. At that same moment, he lifted his head up as if he heard the proposal.

"Wha-- Are you insane?!?" Sherlocke became more furious and guarded the door. "How should I trust you won't tear him to pieces??" I remained calm and slowly approached the door, towering over him. He wasn't all that strong, but I gave him at least one more chance before I knocked him out.

"How should I trust you aren't lying? For all we know, you could have captured him last night." I huffed, clenching my fist and waiting for him to open the door.

Sherlocke shook just a little but remained at the door like a statue. "I... I won't l-let you..." His voice reduced to nothing but a whisper as he tried to convince me not to punch his face out. "P-p-please... let me handle this..."

"Look..." I started. "I don't have to do this, sure. But I want to. I promise I won't rip out his every organ, or bite him to turn into one of us." I placed both of my hands on Sherlocke's shoulders, and he shivered more, knowing what was coming. "Let me in, and we won't have to do this the hard way. I really don't want to, trust me. Just open the door for me."

Despite all this, he didn't budge, standing up straighter even as he visibly trembled before me. All he did was reluctantly shake his head while a single tear rolled down his cheek. He was this passionate about protecting this human...?

I sighed. Guess I really did have to.

"Well, I hope you can take notes in your research while you're passed out." And with this I violently swept him away from the door, kicking him away for good measure. His frail body hit the wall and slumped to the ground, unresponsive and blacked out. That... actually hurt me, too. He didn't deserve this, really, but I wanted to at least prove his facts were exactly that.

I turned to the door and slowly turned the handle, peeking my head in the room. The human seemed to notice, and immediately turned his head to me, and for the split second our eyes met I felt very uncomfortable. I shut the door again, breathing heavily as the human called for Sherlocke.

"Uh... hey? Dude, you alright? I'm not sure what's happening, and I'm kinda hungry..." The human's little calls were cute, to say the least, but I didn't want to get too carried away. If I had to protect this human at all costs, then that meant caring for him. I quickly dashed to a nearby table with some conveniently placed grub and braved myself enough to open the door again.

As I did so, my head peeked in the room and the human and I made eye contact again. It's been so long since I last made eye contact with a human like that...

"Hey, you're not..." The human started. "What happened to the lab coat... and the... don't you all have names or something?"

I took a deep breath. "Well, not really. And don't worry, he's, uh, mostly fine." I chuckled nervously as I shifted my weight to let myself in. Then the door closed behind me with an audible click.

"Um... was that just me or..." Please don't tell me I just locked myself in...

"The other werewolf of yours told me the door always closes with a lock..." Hm. Interesting. So they can do that now.

"Well. He didn't exactly tell me any of these specifics. I guess we'll be here for, uh, quite some time." I set some of the food I grabbed and handed the human a can of soda. "Heard you were hungry."

The human reluctantly took the soda can from my hand and opened it up, drinking from it and humming. "So, what kind of expiriment is this now?"

I nodded, not being able to keep the truth away from him for much longer. "...erm, it's a social experiment, or something. You know how most werewolves are against the idea of humans, now, right...?"

The human nodded his head. "Yeah. The other werewolf has told me a lot about that. It's basically the only reason I'm here all the time. Gets a little boring."

I took some mental notes. "Right. So, I'm just one of the few werewolves he appointed to try and hold a conversation with you." I tried to make up more things in my head to say. "Very few, in fact, as in just me and, uh, perhaps one other mutt... It's a pretty taboo thing."

The human bought it and sighed. "Alright, as long as you don't eat me or anything..." The human now laid on the floor, face up, and removed his shirt to let the cool ground touch his skin. "Right, speaking of, how much of all that nonsense is true? It's definitely not a full moon today, neither was it yesterday or all the days I've been here."

A friendly conversation. I can handle that. "Well, there are a few of us that can shift between human and beast, just only when they want to and not judged by a lunar phase." I eventually sat down. "As for the rest of us, well, we may have been born in this state permanently, but at least we can do this..." I swiftly turned into a wolf, shaking off for a bit to grab the human's attention.

The human turned and chuckled. "Oh, cool! Is it okay if I... you know, pet you?" The human reached out his hand, which I approached slowly. "Heh..."

The human patted his hand around my face and head, making me feel a little happy. "Mmf. Go on..." Instead of actually having those words coming out of my mouth, which was impossible in this form, I instead communicated to the human via telepathy. Needless to say, the human was just a bit shocked.

"Whoa. You can do that too..." The human stopped petting me as he now laid back down again, giggling to himself. "I don't know why you seem to think so wrongly about us. You seem fine to me."

I turned back to the beast form and sighed. "Well... there's a lot of backstory as to why we seperated ourselves. It's too much for now, so let me just say that a bunch of mistakes and misunderstandings happened, and in the end we were blamed for it all..." I scoffed and growled. "I know it's specifically not your fault but... you know that feeling you get when you just want nothing but revenge...?"

The human looked at me, seeing me a little tense. "I know that all too well. Listen, though..." He now placed his hand on my face again, squishing my cheeks a little. "Can't you just put it all behind you? It's been, what, a really long time now for you. If anything they're all already dead, perhaps." I snickered as I thought about it. Hell if I knew when out first contact was... "How about we live alongside each other again?"

I calmed down with his petting, but eventually pushed his hand away gently. "Humans could adapt to the change, but we're the problematic ones. This would be a huge problem and, frankly, at this point, is it even worth it anymore?" I'm not sure, but I felt a little more connected with this human.

"You can't knock it 'till you try it, man." He simply laid back down. "It'll definitely be difficult but I know a few more of you might want to. Maybe in a few years it'll all be over." I sighed, and for once in the thousand moons I've lived though, I said to myself, 'Perhaps the human is right.'

The rest of the time I was in there, which was for a short period anyway, I talked to the human about some of our customs, and in exchange he talked about his life. Apparently he lived alone, and wasn't actually against the idea of being transformed to a werewolf if he had no other choice. The human didn't have any particular interest in anyone near him, and he always felt like he didn't fit in with society. It was definitely something humans weren't good at most of the time.

"...I just find it cool that you guys help each other out and all that," The human talked to me as we both ate from the same party bag of chips. "When I was in school everyone seemed to just silently evade me for no reason, and the few people that I did end up making friends with, they didn't seem too thrilled to try new things."

"Hmph! I've heard stories of the lycanthropes that went like that," I continued. "You guys are the superior species, apparently, and yet when you exclude one person and they end up like crap, you all are scrambling to find out what went wrong somewhere else!"

"We're stupid, I know," the human chuckled and loudly crunched on his chips. "My only wish now is for everyone to actually have something like you guys have. It just makes more sense, though a few things should be shifted around to account for the 5 billion other people in the world." I laughed, almost forgetting I was having this chat with a human.

"Hey, so," the human started again. "it's been fun and all, but I'm a little concerned. Your other friend doesn't seem to be around yet, and usually now would be the time most of our experiments end..."

I brought my mind back and forgot completely about Sherlocke, going wide eyed when I finally did remember. "Oh sh-- uh, hm. Well... I, uh..." I don't think I had any more lies to tell.

"What's wrong?" The human asked, still oblivious to the fact that I swept Sherlocke out of the door and probably put him in a coma. I think it came time to tell him.

"...alright. We've both been honest with ourselves these past few minutes, so I'll just say it." I gulped as I tried to get the words out. "I... may have knocked him out cold before I went in here... and, well, he's a weakling, so like..."

The human snorted a little. "Well, alright, then. At least the experiment can go on until he wakes up, right?"

"Actually, I wanted to try this..." I approached the door again, getting ready to barrage it. "You might want to stand back for this." The human stood as far away as possible.

I launched myself into the door once, making an audible thump but not budging. I barked furiously for Sherlocke to wake up before trying again. Still nothing.

"I don't think that door will break. It's steel for a reason..." The human underestimated our powers, which I definitely wouldn't tolerate.

"Well, we've got the magic. I'll just..." A few waves of my hand made some smoke form out of nothing, and the fog made me stronger. I leaped into the door again, confident it would break... but I bounced off of it and hit the ground hard. The human approached me quietly, to make sure I wasn't hurt. I don't actually recall the last time any human did that.

"I'm... fine. Please." I waved him off as I stood up and tried once again. Are we really stuck here...??

"I'm not even sure why I'm suggesting this but..." The human approached me again. "You guys can smell blood, right?" I nodded, curious as to see what the human would do, only for him to force a hand on his wrist. "Perhaps if I smear it on the door maybe you'll get elevated in power or something. I'm just spitballing here, but in the movies I've seen you guys go crazy over it. Just... cut it open. I'll be fine."

I didn't want to, and the human was, unfortunately, correct, but we were running out of choices. With one claw and my breath held, I quickly tore through his wrist, hearing the human cry in agony as he now spread that blood over the door and retreated to the corner. "Salt?" He asked, knowing well it was the only option available to treat the wound.

I nodded, then looked away. I exhaled, took one good sniff of my area, and...


I slowly came back to my senses. I could hear absolutely nothing, and I just started to wake up. From the look of it I was on the floor, still inside the experimental room, some food still scattered around from before our escape attempt. As for the human, one look around and I found that he was gone. The door was still smeared in blood, but there was no sign of the human himself.

I woke myself up quickly and started to panic. Perhaps in my rage something might have happened to the human, or worse... I started whimpering, looking around the room nervously. Eventually, after a few seconds, a voice blasted in the room.

"So, have you learned your lesson yet?" It was Sherlocke, and I could not have been happier to hear his voice. I approached the window, banging on it.

"Please, man! Get me out of here!! Is the human okay? Are you okay?" There was nothing but guilt in my voice as I shamefully tried to apologize to almost everyone. Sherlocke was having a good laugh over it.

"You big mutt... the human's fine. I'll open the door. Don't break it this time." The door unlocked itself and opened slowly. I immediately darted to it and flung the door open, and was greeted by Sherlocke and the human, both sitting at the control panel. Almost teary-eyed, I walked up to the human and lifted him up with a rather strong hug, still whimpering slightly. He was still laughing about it.

"Hey hey! It's alright. I told you I would be fine!" The human didn't even have a single scar save for the one on his wrist that he made. "You got out of there stomping, and when your friend tried to tranqualize you he dropped the gun. You were about to attack him but luckily I found a spare lying around. Had to climb on your back to get just the right spot!"

I just looked at Sherlocke and set the human down again. "Well... still a wimp, now aren't you..."

"Hm, at least I didn't get trapped in a room unattended for almost an hour," he sneered back. "But anyways... the human told me about your newly acquainted bond with him. You even managed to get data that he refused to tell me!" Sherlocked flipped through the notes and nodded, making sure everything was in place. "Darn it, I can't believe I'm saying this, but you actually helped me out here. Great job." Sherlocke patted my back.

I felt a huge sense of pride. "See? I told you I could learn to forgive..." I may not still trust them all like this human, but it was definitely a step in the right direction. However, now I had a different kind of gun pointed at me: a water gun.

"Let's get you showered, then." Sherlocke demanded, motioning the human to appear with some shampoo in his hands.

"Don't want to smell like me when we're done here!" The human gleefuly said.

I never liked baths...


And so, as weird as it may seem, this human has been the bridge to perhaps making contact with other humans. I still visited him from time to time, but we had to relocate because Sherlocke recieved complaints from the chief that the werewolves there, especially the males, could still smell the human, even though his entire underground lab had been disinfected thoroughly.

Eventually, after many days and some very careful consideration, the human decided he would become one of us. Once all his experiments were done and Sherlocke published his finidngs, the human was promptly bitten by me, and then taken to my own tribe, disguising him as a lost traveller looking for a place to stay. He adapted quickly to the place and, surprisingly, no one managed to figure out he was once a human, despite most of the human mannerisms he often made.

I asked the lycanthropes in my tribe to go looking for "person missing" posters that resembled the human. Nothing appeared in the days after his transformation, but neither were they present beforehand, as factchecked by the lycanthropes in the Northern Star tribe who were very attentive. He really did mean it when he didn't fit in with society, huh. Still, though, on the days we meet, the once-a-human still tells me he misses certain aspects of human life, but never regrets the transformation.

After that I just hoped I could see another human again. Perhaps this time it wouldn't end with them actually being one of us. Maybe we'll just be the secret forest friends, like that kid with a giant dragon thing or something.

And that's how I end up here. If you see me in the forest (it's literally the only one around here) with a feather on my right ear and a long necklace, don't be afraid to approach me when I'm alone. Just... you know. Try not to make too much noise. It's for your own good.