The Wildest Of Them All

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The day of December 19th was unlike any I had ever lived through before. 18 years ago I was born on a morning, just like this one—only this time instead of warmth and hugs, I woke up to a freezing room and a chilling silence.

Natalie Camilla Romeras is the name I was given by my Aunt Emma. She is a bit eccentric, though I may be a bit biased in that statement; a few years ago I discovered that I was named her old cats.

18 years ago I was born in Texas and lived there for the majority of my young life. Then during summer of my 7th grade year, my parents decided it was a wonderful idea to pack the whole family up and move to Canada.

They packed me, my younger sister, Anastasia, Aunt Emma, and our goldfish, Amanda. Now here we all are, 5 years later, still in Canada. We have become somewhat accustomed to the cold (all of us except the fish, she died on the 2nd night here), more accustomed to the people, and have fully embraced the food.

Despite all these years that I have had to become accustomed to the frigid temperatures of Canada in winter it did not stop me from freezing my butt off in bed, on my birthday I might add.

It took a few moments of blinking to acclimate my eyes to the cold sun that was being forced through my window; Aunt Emma must have opened the curtains before she left for work. I glanced over at my alarm clock, it was black and blank.

Damn, that must be why my room is so cold, the generator must have overheated again. So now I have to go out into the freezing outdoors and fix the freak in' generator.

I groaned and stretched as I sat up in bed. I poked my toe out of the corner of my comforter, decided it was still too cold for my fragile toes, and sat under the covers for a few more minutes. Finally, I resolved that if I wanted to be warmer I must get up. I mustered my courage and all the strength I possess, threw the covers off, and ran to my closet.

I reached blindly, throwing on the first thing I could touch. I ended up with my panda blanket, my warm and fluffy panda blanket. After I had been sufficiently bundled into the blanket, I stepped out of my room, heading to the kitchen for some food before embarking on my quest to fix the generator.

On my trek to the kitchen, I stopped briefly to look in each my mother, aunt, and sister's room. Alas, their beds were made and the rooms were empty. Concluding they had already left for work and school, I continued to the kitchen.

I shuffled into the bright room and decided that cold cereal was the best I was gonna get until the generator was fixed. As I was getting a spoon I noticed something very odd sitting on the counter. It was my dad's old leather hunting book; I hadn't seen it in years.

My mother had put it (along with all my father's hunting possessions) in the attic after he died. The book was the only thing they found after he died—no body, no blood—nothing but the book. The book was something of a relic, passed down through the generations on my father's side of the family. It contained many stories of wolf hunts and ways to dispose of a wolf should the reader ever have the misfortune to come across one.

The book also included all my father had recorded during his hunting trips. My father was said to have been killed by wolves. He had been on one of his many hunting trips when they allegedly attacked and killed him, personally I don't believe it since they found no evidence of the attack and no body. I think that the people of town just wanted another reason to hunt and kill the wolves.

I had been 15 at the time, 2 months before my 16th birthday. I had never seen eye to eye with my father about the wolves but, he was the parent I was closest to. He was the one who would help me when I had a problem with my homework, who would remember and ask about my friends, and who would always be there when I needed to rant about drama.

My father had first begun killing the wolves when they killed a boy in our town 3 years ago. The boy had been walking on the edge of the woods and decided it was a good idea to shoot some wolves he saw passing by, so he shot one, was dragged off by the other, and killed.

The town decided to overlook the fact that the boy shot first and came to the conclusion that it was all the wolves fault the boy was killed. My father was dragged into the hunting club that was formed and the rest, as they say, is history.

My mother fell apart when he disappeared, she put all his stuff that was in the house in the attic and swore to never look at it again. So the question remains, why the heck is the book down here?