THE WOLFBOUND

Chapter 1: Nightmare Motivation

August 23, 2240

Claude was startled awake in a hot and itchy sweat by the same nightmarish, rage-filled message he received in his sleep every morning: "YOU'RE WEAK, AND SO IS THAT SNIVELING LITTLE BRAT!"

The voice that said this in his dream... nightmare... was feminine, but it wasn't a sweet and delicate voice by any means.

Even though no voice really sounds nice when the person is yelling, this voice was downright hideous.

The anger and hate in the feminine voice was almost tangible, dripping thick and slimy off of every word.

This voice, this message, always got the same reaction out of Claude: rage. Pure and untainted.

Over time, Claude learned the best way to deal with it — among most other negative experiences — was physical exercise.

It cleared the mind. As he got up from his stiff twin-size bed, he looked around his room in the log cabin he lived in with his father and noticed the sun's rays coming through the window to the left of his bed were too strong... the sun was already all the way up.

What the hell?, he thought.

Claude decided to take a look at the clock directly above the front door to his room and almost blew a fuse.

"f**k, IT'S 5:40???"

Claude burst out of the house and was greeted by the sun rising above the forest that encircled the cabin he and his father lived in.

The rising sun gave the forest a refreshing glow and made the morning dew shimmer elegantly on the thick green grass.

Claude eyed the trail that led from his cabin into the forest — a loop that ran five miles around it — while doing leg swings and other warm-ups in preparation for his morning training.

He started down the trail into the forest to begin his run.

Once inside, he picked up his pace, passing large, spindly oak trees and beautiful white-tailed deer drinking from ponds tucked into little nooks and crannies to his right. As he breathed in the air of the forest, he felt as if there were something magical about it — so fresh, so wild.

Whenever he ran through the forest, he felt more at ease — stronger, even.

Despite running barefoot and bare-chested, jumping over low-hanging branches and bounding through the uneven forest floor, he felt a serene calmness, for the time being.

A few miles into the rugged forest run, he started to hear rustling and heavy, guttural breaths to his left.

Something big was running with him, and it was fast.

Before Claude could decide what to do about the large predator stalking him... it attacked.

Its large, brown, fur-covered body collided with him, crashing him into a nearby oak tree and sending the squirrels on the ground and the birds in the nearby trees fleeing in fright.

The smell of damp earth and wet dog filled his nostrils as he lifted his head out of the dirt to face his killer.

He eyed the beast from the ground up, noticing huge clawed paws with talon-like claws, front and back legs covered in sinewy muscle, and a wide chest that had to harbor gigantic lungs.

From its bulky head and snout, it displayed impressively sharp canines.

The creature's icy blue eyes seemed to be looking at him with a spark of... excitement?

Claude felt like he recognized this hulking mass of predatory power... "Wait a minute... FROSTY, WHAT THE f**k?"