I am Wolf (The Wolfboy Chronicles) by Willow Rose

in the snow.
    Luckily for me it hadn’t snowed at all. I could still
see the tracks from the car that the soldiers had driven across the field. I
could even see my own footprints, and the mark where I had landed in the snow.
It was all there.
    So was the sack. As I scanned the area with my eyes I
spotted it in the snow not far from where I had landed,   right where I had seen it from the car.
I ran towards it and threw my bundle of clothes next to it. Then I sniffed it.
The sack had been chewed by a mouse in one side and some of the bread was
eaten. I didn’t care about that. I didn’t even care about my only spare shirt
and pants. It was all there, I was happy to see, but that wasn’t the most
important to me. All I cared about was the sack that the man had left.
    The belongings of the other wolf.

Chapter 14
    S unrise came and I was about to
change back. I heard the sound of a car engine in the distance and turned my
head. It came over the hill, its headlights flashed in my direction. Afraid of
being seen by soldiers I grabbed all my stuff in my arms that were almost human
now and started running. Slowly and still painfully my body transformed back
while I ran. I had to find a place to hide, I thought and looked around
desperately searching for something, a barn, a farm, anything.
    But there was nothing but the forest in front of me.
Hiding in there was my only chance.
    I was still panting heavily as I ran towards the dark
forest, my eyes fixated on the large trunks of the oak trees in front of me.
The Hoia-Baciu Forest. No one ever went in there. In there I would be safe and
the world would be safe from me. I would never meet a living soul, I thought.
It was believed the forest was haunted and rumors of the strange things that
had happened to people who dared to cross the borders of this forest were
widely known throughout the entire country. Locals avoided it as it was
considered to be a place of pure evil. Everybody knew that once a person walked
among those trees, they were able to hear the rustle that came from another
world where all the fears of the human would come to life. Only foolish people
would venture into such a place. Stories went of locals that had gone into the
woods anyway to chop wood or pick blueberries or flowers, stories were told
that even from the first steps into the wood, they were hit by inexplicable
states of nausea, anxiety, headaches and, sometimes, even burns on their skin.
The Hoia-Baciu Forest was a place people were even afraid to talk about since
the place was considered to be cursed and a dwelling of the devil.
    I stopped in front of the row of trees. They were tall
like they were they trying to reach all the way into heaven. Between them it
was dark, pitch dark, yet somehow I was able to spot a light in there
somewhere. Like the sun was shining in there when it wasn’t even shining
outside where I was standing because of the heavy snow-filled clouds. It woke
something inside of me, some kind of curiosity, a longing to go in there and
see it for myself, what it could be. I looked back at the village one last time
before I took my first step in between the trees and entered the haunted
forest.
    As soon as I set the first foot on the soil I heard a
whisper in my head. I gasped and looked around but saw nothing. I stopped and
listened. The voices were small and sounded like they were blowing in the wind.
I realized I wasn’t afraid. On the contrary I felt completely calm inside. I
dropped all my belongings on the soil and got dressed.
    With the rest of my things in my hands I took another
step into the forest and soon realized that I didn’t feel nauseous nor anxious.
Not the least bit. I had no headache or burns on the skin. This was strange to
me, because as I walked towards the light inside of the forest and walked
deeper and deeper in I felt calm and happy. The small voices were whispering
but never bothered me. I didn’t even feel cold in there, I realized. It was
like the