Laments of a Beast

It is difficult to discern what exactly the first omen was. This was a long-standing peril, one that reared its evil head far before things came to a close. It’s agony unspeakable, henceforth, I shall call it “The Event.”

Trees fell one by one. A chop, a saw, a tumble, then down goes the great oak, bird nests and loose eggs collapsing alongside it.

Then came the heat. That awful, sweltering heat. I’d howled at many moons by that time, and never, in all my days, had I felt anything like that damned heat. It seemed inescapable, with no shade for refuge. We began to resent the sunlight. Oh, how what we long depended on eventually became our detriment.

The fish dried out when the water did. The marsupials burrowed to their death underground. The deer, the elk, and those godawful bison— the few that could manage fled East, while the weaker were left to perish. Their carcasses only sustained me a short while. Now, it’s been years since The Event, and my only sustenance is the barren soil I‘ve made a home of.

I was always a lone wolf—no pack, no brothers. Perhaps this was a good thing. Years ago, I’d heard squeaks from the field mice about how the packs eventually turned on one another, doing the abominable. They’d descended into lunacy, begun eating their own young.

Hunger is a slow-burn, where your body turns itself inside out. You may think that you’ve experienced it before, but I’m here to tell you that you have not. What you’ve felt prior was just desire, something easily satiated. But hunger, famine, is something gnawing and gnashing. It stirs up something primal, and before you know it, you’ve lost all of those good manners and regressed back into the beast that you long thought you’d escaped. Do you know who you become when desperate, destitute?

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I first saw her. I thought the hallucinations were starting again. Rumor had it that humans were few and far between, their species lying on the brink of the inevitable. But lo and behold, a child, cloaked in a bright red hood, prancing jolly in the midst of a wasteland. Naïveté was ravishing—I couldn’t help but lick my chops.

I crouched and prepared to lunge, my first meal in eons merely yards away. But then I noticed she swung a basket, wicker with a checkered cloth atop it. Enticed, I slowly followed behind her.

The closer I got, the stronger the smell. Sniff. Yeast. Sniff. Wheat. Sniff. Salt. Sniff. Sugar. Her basket was filled with the human things. It wasn’t venison, but it would do, and perhaps, if I was kind enough, it would suffice and spare her life.

So, what was a wolf to do? Well, I’m sure you can presume.

I’d already lost everything. Why not take from someone else for a change?

After all, it’s better I ate the goodies and not her, right?

***Author's Note: This piece was originally written as an assignment for my Legal Writing course. In the class, we were practicing persuasive arguments, so we were prompted to write a retelling of a classic fairy tale from the perspective of an antagonist. As such, this was my attempt at an alternative rendition of The Little Red Riding Hood, told from the perspective of the wolf. I figured I would share it here just for fun. Nevertheless, I hope you all enjoy reading it equally as much as I enjoyed writing it. Let me know what you think down below, too.

With love,

Olivia Marjorae