dimensions | original

Story Unfolds

Luma couldn't let herself fall asleep. After all, the last time she did sleep in was back in the alley of Lalaland's Underneath, and then when she did wake up, it was in a strange white room both familiar and strange to the young girl's eyes.

The lack of uninterrupted sleep took it's toll on Luma, as her thoughts became sluggish and dark circles formed around her green eyes, dull with exhaustion. Not only that, but she was beginning to become a bit hungry.

Finally, Luma had begun to drift off when she heard a swing open. Well, not so much the door (as the hinges were well oiled) as the intricate lock, which clicked and whirred.

"What? Huh?" Luma's head jerked up, and she met eyes with a young teenage girl and an older man with short hair and Asian facial features, both entering into the gray box, the door clicking shut behind them.

"Your name is Luma, correct?" asked the man.

"I... yes."

The girl remained expressionless. As you, the reader, have surely figured out, the girl's name was Asha, the very person who had stolen Luma away from En and Marge. Luma disliked her immediately. Someday she'll learn not to judge people so fast, but as of know she is only a naive child, and so we may excuse her rude behavior.

"There is a lot you must be wondering about." the man remarked. He was, of course, Kinglyn, old enemy of Mark.

"Yes, actually." Luma responded. She knew she ought to be wary, but his demeanor was very calm and welcoming, something that Luma felt as if she needed.

"Go ahead, ask." Asha spoke for the first time to Luma.

Luma scowled a bit at her bluntness. "Alright then. What's your name? Where am I? How did I get here? Why am I here, anyway? Where's Mark? Were you the ones who kidnapped him? I figured it out, you know. When am I going to go home? What did I do to you? Are you going to interrogate me or something? Because I don't know anything. I know I'm quite naive about these Dimensions, but I can't help it! But still, there's no reason to steal me away. After all, En and Marge will be wondering about me, what will they think?" Luma paused, breathing heavily from her outburst. "And all I really want to do is go home!" she ended in a shout.

Kinglyn sighed. "I suppose it is only fair if we tell you. It's not quite right to leave someone so very involved in the dark."

Asha nodded in agreement.

"My name is Kinglyn Copper, and this is Asha Arora. We are both members of an organization called Vitae Organization for Humanity, Vitae for short. We work to prevent Ragnarok, which is when the world is overrun by evil."

Luma blinked, trying to absorb the information. "And has to do with Mark and I how?"

Asha flinched. Kinglyn answered. "Ahh... Well, I thought you would have figured that out for yourself."

"Excuse me, but I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about at this point."

"Matchit- I mean, Mark's status." Seeing that Luma was still clueless, Kinglyn sighed, not knowing how to break the news to her that Mark was actually a werewolf-like being.

"Your friend, Matchitehew, is a werewolf." Asha cut in before Kinglyn could stop her.

Thick, awkward silence filled the room.

"Well then." Luma paused, thoughts clicking into place. "That actually explains a lot." Her voice had gone blank, and she had the urge to hit something.

"And so we have contained him as to ensure that he cannot hurt anyone else." Asha, eyes on the ground, continued.

Kinglyn, seeing that Luma was still a bit lost, decided to tell her the whole story.

"Matchitehew and another boy by the name of Keme were out hunting one day in a forest with there arrows. Mind you, this was a very, very long time ago, back when the two were humans, back in the time when animal and man were the very same. Literally, in some cases. A shape-shifting spirit took on the form of a hungry stranger and asked to eat some of the tender meat of the deer the two human boys had recently caught.

"Keme and Matchitehew agreed to share the meat with the shape-shifter, earning the spirit's favor. So when the hunting duo could not find any deer later that week, the shape-shifter offered to share his power with them so they could hunt deer with ease. Keme and Matchitehew, of course, accepted his generous gift. And so the spirit gave them the power to change into a wolf at will, but only under one condition: that they would never use their new power to hurt a fellow human."

"Is that really it?" Luma asked, and she couldn't help but be relived. Nothing terrible at all, not like she had been thinking.

Asha shook her head. "I wish."

And on that ominous note, Kinglyn resumed the story. "The boys became very popular back at their village, for they became the best hunters the people of their village had ever seen. All thanks to the ability to shape-shift into a wolf. But one day -and here's the bad part- Matchitehew and another village boy got into an argument. In all his rage, Matchitehew changed into his wolf form and fatally injured the boy. He regained control of himself, but not in time, for the boy died from his injuries that night." Luma stayed completely still, trying not to blow up. When she able to stay silent, she silently praised herself on her remarkable self control.

"That night was the full moon. Outraged by Matchitehew's broken promise, the shape-shifter that originally gifted Keme and Matchitehew now made Matchitehew into what we now know as a werewolf. Vicious bloodthirsty wolf on nights of the full moon, tortured, guilty human on all other days and nights."

"What happened to Keme?" Luma hardly dared to ask.

Asha was the one to answer. "Keme was banished by the people of his village, who were now fearful of his shape-shifting, which he was allowed to keep, seeing as he did nothing wrong."

"And Matchitehew. He's... actually Mark?" Her voice trailed off a bit at the end. Just when she had begun to consider him as her friend, he had disappeared, leaving her lost, and then she had been kidnapped only to discover that he had been some sort of blood-thirsty beast all along. Something like doesn't happen every day.

"Yes." Now it was Kinglyn to answer. "Matchitehew changed his name many times, hoping that it would cause people not to know of his... situation. He didn't want to have to face the prejudice that comes with being the First Werewolf."

Luma took a deep breath and tried not to scream.

A/N: Well. There it is. I got this myth off http://www.gods-and-monsters.com/history-of-the-werewolf2.html  about a year ago, and have been working with it ever since. I liked the idea of it, as well as the name Matchitehew and Keme, which became the names of some characters in this story. Of course, minor changes will be introduced. And while there is other werelore I could have incorporated into this story instead, I liked this one. I am aware that there is lots of myths about the creation of werewolves and such.

Thanks for reading this chapter.