Johaness McBride's Chronicles

Prologue

"Every moment is a fresh beginning" (T.S Elliot)

The human being's capacity for translation is impressive and never ceases to fascinate me. However, this story won't be about happy adventures where evil loses easily. Instead, it will be the unconventional dark odyssey where the reality that the hero faces surpasses what he has seen in his most terrible nightmares.

But every hero's mysterious story has a prelude. This one also has something like that. Getting to the point, our boy in question was called Johannes, and in his family, he was the youngest. He was born during the cold winter of 1937 in San Fransisco. Nevertheless, after turning ten years old, he moved with his family to a distant place in Alberta (Canada). There were many warnings not to go to the largest village in that country, but they were ignored. Even newspapers of the time associated the surrounding forest with all the evils known to the human race. Then Jhon, as the father of a family, loaded the heavy suitcases to his Cadillac Custom Convertible to leave for that populace.

So they leave their humble home for new horizons. The road trip lasted 2 months. By the time they took the road that led to the isolated town, summer had turned into autumn. Then, the father spoke to his sons. William, the eldest, contemplated the majesty and extension of the mythical forest near the town. While Johannes read Sherlock Holmes stories.

—Come on, guys. Aren't you going to say anything about the landscape or something like that?
—Father, the news says that the forest next to us is hell on earth —William argues wisely—.
—Don't talk nonsense, Will. Centralia is the true hell on earth. This is just a big forest —the father responds sarcastically—.

  But Johannes abandons his book when he sees a huge wolf pass by the car. The lycanthrope had dark gray fur, and his green eyes shone like jade as it jumped, blocking the vehicle's path. At that moment, the father could only manage to turn the steering wheel abruptly to avoid the enormous creature, ending in a collision with a tree.