Natalie the Wolf

Everything must Die

“Natalie, it’s important you don’t attack anyone on this raid. A bad omen is coming,” said Mr. Nazarian. He looked at me scornfully, knowing I wouldn’t abide by his words. His brow furrowed, and his teeth clenched along with his fist.

Disapprovingly, I scoffed at him. In a loud, rude manner I yelled, “Why can’t I? You know you can’t stop me.”

“Listen Natalie, you know what my power is,” Mr. Nazarian replied. He grabbed my shoulder, gripping it tightly. “I have the strongest sixth sense here, your luck is not going to help you at all thistime.”

We both looked at each other for a moment, only for me to break it off. I shook his hand off me, and continued to talk back, “I can feel my luck growing by the moment. The stars were aligned such a way that I can tell my luck is increasing.”

He shook his head and muttered something so quite that even I couldn’t hear despite my acute hearing. With a raise of his hands he stammered out, “Bah! I don’t give a shit do what you want! This time, I’m not going to haul my ass out for you!”

“Fine.”

“Fine!”

“Fine!”

Mr. Nazarian, despite his calmness and resilient manner finally cracked today. His hair was a mess, although he was lacking it somewhat. His sweater and white slacks were wrinkled and worn. His eyes were maddening to look at, and his grey beard grew so thickly you could barely see his mouth.

He made me crack a small smile.

I began to laugh out unrestrained, not even trying to hide my feelings. I didn’t need to force it out. Soon, I was gripping my stomach so I wouldn’t fall to pieces. The hard cold ground embraced me, welcoming me to rest. I didn’t stop laughing for a while.

However, the look on Mr. Nazarian’s face turned so grim I quickly regained my composure. Coughing and choking back my laughs, I immediately faced him again.

With a slow breath of his voice, he asked, “Are you done behaving like a child now?”

“Yes.”

“Now, Natalie, tell me… No, promise me this, you will behave on this raid and stand by my side during this raid.”

“Nope.”

“Good, that’s what I’d like to hear. Now let’s go ba-” said Mr. Nazarian. He stopped for a moment, finally noticing what I said. “What? No?”

“No. I said no. I have to do this, David. It’s very important to me.”

“Why? Why do you give so many shits about hurting other wolves?”

“Because, this is the reason why I am a wolf. No other reason.”

“No, if it was so, the Wereking would have sent us all a sign by now. It is not our calling,” he growled. His eyes began to glow, his wolf was trying to restate its dominance on me.

It didn’t work, because I too had a Spirit Wolf. Sheba began to rise, making sure her presence was known. My inner confidence arose along with my physical manner. I straightened out, and tilted my head forward. “Then why, why do we continue these raids? For what, money?”

“Yes Natalie, money. We need the money.”

“Then why don’t we just rob a bank or something?”

“Too many reasons Natalie. First, it is law we do not mix regular people with our business. Second, we need to raise money to make our own pack. Third, I don’t do dirty business.”

“… Stealing is dirty business.”

“But, we’re stealing from the bad guys. The ones you despise. So it pretty much makes us good.”

“Don’t care, don’t want to listen! I’m still going after them!”

Suddenly, Mr. Nazarian took hold of me, his hand onto my throat. I didn’t have time to react, and he was so quick I was only able to grab onto his hands. He stared at me coldly, and his grip became tighter. I tried my best to get away from him, but the more I tried the tighter his grip got. Seconds passed by seeming like minutes, and my feet were lifted up from the ground. By any means there wasn’t any way for me to support myself, and I began to grow weak.

His hand clenched around my throat, if it got tighter he surely could snap my neck.

“Now, Natalie… Will you obey me? I don’t really like using force on you, but this is necessary. I want to keep you safe. Now, you must stay by my side or else. Do you understand?” asked Mr. Nazarian. He shook, his arm strained with weight.

I wasn’t able to answer, I could only gasp for air. I opened my mouth like a goldfish begging for water.

He let go, his hand suddenly loosened and I fell to the floor. Grabbing my throat, I stroked it as in a way to relieve myself.

 My eyes were in shock.

Mr. Nazarian used force on me quite often, but I never got used to it. Maybe it was because I felt like he was my father figure, or maybe it was because he knew all about my situation.

Then, my head collapsed on the floor, being crushed under a foot. Mr. Nazarian shifted his weight to his left leg, causing me to go further into the ground.

Luckily, I was able to kick him off me.

“What the hell? What was that for? I won’t go after any of the pack members, relax!” I yelled at him.

He smiled at me, and only replied back, “Good.” With those words, he turned away to prepare for the raid.

Sometimes, I felt that Mr. Nazarian was capable of horrendous evil. I had an impending sense of danger for him, he is to be very feared alert against.

I could feel that he enjoyed inflicting pain on others. Gladly, he never did it to us, but whenever we went on a harmless fun hunt he would maul an animal so bad it was unrecognizable. I remember one time, when we did go on a hunt, one of the elk we were hunting strayed off to the side away from his herd. Mr. Nazarian told us he wanted to go after it. We left him alone for a while, knowing he would come back eventually to the hideout.

Except, he took so long. We called out to him, but we didn’t receive his answer. We sniffed out his scent, and found him near the north side of the forest.

He was a complete mess.

Blood.

Blood everywhere.

There was nothing left of the elk, except shreds of meat and small bits of bones. Mr. Nazarian stood in his human form, clothes drenched in blood. He didn’t notice us, he was so in awe of his work. He stood there, admiring the trail of intestines trailing off the floor. The heart was in his palm, and the liver in his other. The head was unrecognizable, and its hooves were cracked in two each hoof. It seemed that it was struggling; the legs were twitching as if it just died.

The most horrific, was what he said. He, in awe of what he had done, said, “It all must die, everything.”

We dismissed the whole event, but in the back of our heads we still questioned him. Our whole group was a bit more scared of him.

Just a teensy bit.

We still don’t know what he meant, we never questioned him. The only possible explanation was that his Spirit Wolf got too excited and began controlling his thoughts, causing Mr. Nazarian to mirror it. Spirit Wolves have a strike of evil in them.

Sometimes I remember that incident, but I quickly shut it out of my mind every time.

“Now, Natalie. Come now so we can go. No need to pack, we’ll run.”

“… Yes, sir.”