THE BEAR

You run over the glade and reach the forest. You are in shock. Run until you can’t anymore, until your legs hurt so much you fall to the ground and you… you die there. You just die there. You cease to exist. 

For a moment there is nothingness.

Not darkness.

Not falling.

Nothingness.

You wake up and you are an enormous bear, born from beneath the rotten leaves of a forest that you know to belong to your kingdom. As you walk around in your forest you meet the Wolf of the Dark. You confront him and fight, and you are victorious. However your injuries are serious, so you seek safety in your forest. Even though you didn’t want to, you find yourself in a village, where people live. You see one of the humans and immediately try to return to your forest but he spots you and calls the other villagers. You’re too precious for them to let you escape. And you’re too weak to fight back. They drag you to the centre of their village and pry apart your jaws. The four canin teeth of such a mythical beast are worth more than a fortune. The rest of them? They wouldn’t give a dime for them, but they pull out every one of your teeth just for the fun of it. As they pull them one by one your body is changing. You lose your fur, your claws, your muscles. By the time they are done torturing you, you are the one, your human body is the one that kneeling on the cobblestones, covered in your own blood and tears. Picking up your huge teeth from the dirt and trying to put them back, but this act of violence is irreversible.⁷ You see a river on the other side of the main square of this village of savages. You’re thirsty and dirty… And you feel like you’d rather be dead than humiliated like this. You crawl to the edge and throw yourself into its flowing water.