The Beast of the forest

Birth?

Deep in the heart of a forest was a run down looking shack. From outside it looked like nothing much but once you stepped into the basement it was a large research lab full of magic tomes, beakers, flasks and alchemy ingredients. They also practiced an illegal kind of magic, creating life.

It is not that people find it taboo in a sense of fear of a god's wrath, it is looked down upon for creating abominations. Twisted mutants that are born into the wrong shell. Their minds, at odds with their bodies. The world council decided it was too cruel of a practice and made it illegal. But of course there exist those who don't obey the law and won't think twice about bringing suffering in their pursuit to create the ultimate being. To create a god.

In this basement lab was an experiment underway, with the idea being to instead of trying to force a blank soul into a shell, let the shell be fluid so it can take any shape it wishes. They added their ingredients and performed the rituals necessary, making adjustments as they went and adding different parts to the corpse soup.

After days the researchers were left once again with failure. A ball of strange flesh that no matter what they do doesn't respond to them. They call their henchman and begrudgingly tell them to dispose of it in the forest. Little did they know, what they left in the forest would... Be born? From this large round fleshy lump came a creature, splitting open the sack like a stomach with its contents spilling out as it fell. It was a thing with no shape. If you were to look at it your brain would have you transfixed trying to perceive it. Smelling the blood in the air of course the wild life came to inspect the scene with a fervour.

The first to arrive is a type of small wild dog, the species usually only takes leftovers but had observed that nothing was currently in the area so it could easily steal some of this delicious smelling meat. It approached from the rear of the sack, unable to see the creature. It sniffed at the sack curiously, giving it a lick and shortly after started tearing at the sack and eating it ravenously. The creature watched the little dog as it ate with wonder. Being newly born the creature couldn't help but try to approach the dog but it found itself stuck in place. After all, how could a creature with no shape move? Unbound by the common sense and laws of the world the creature decided to try and imitate the shape of the little dog. With all its might it contorted it's little flesh mass to grow four legs. Now standing like a meatball on four sticks, it felt confident it could do the rest. It pushes again with all its might and created a... Head? It has all the required features but some how looks rather alien at the same time. The creature was delighted with his new head, bending it to and fro, swinging it from side to side, hitting it?... On the ground?... Then, to its own rather unfortunate surprise, it discovered pain. While slamming it's head in to the ground it had found a pointy crystal among the softer dirt of the forest. Not with it's eyes, no, it had punctured the center between his eyes. The strange little creature fell on its back, wiggling his little "legs" furiously while contorting its neck. If the creature knew what crying was, it would be doing so. Instead it did not understand this terrible feeling and then discovered the existence of fear.

Every living thing has its own survival mechanisms. Some curl in to a ball, pointing sharp spines in all directions, shielding them from predators. Others have speed to escape quickly, but our little creature had none of these things. He did not know what to do with the fear it felt. How will it escape from this place that made it feel these terrible things? Was it the little dogs fault it was feeling this way? Is this all what living is? And then as time went by the creature calmed, it's pain, anxiety and fear subsiding, its more rational mind starting to take over. Realising everything was fine and its life was not in danger, the creature stood back up on its "legs" and tried looking back at the little dog. The creature then got startled, the little dog had vanished, and in its place stood a wolf magnitudes larger than the small dog before it. That was not all, this wolfs gaze was transfixed on the little creature. The large wolf had scars all over it's face and body, missing its left eye, with its right fang snapped from it's gums. The creature was once again shaken by fear and with everything it had it tried to scurry away with its rudimentary legs.

Little did the creature know, the wolf was also frozen in fear. With no idea what it was looking at, the wolf was in high alert but fearful of what it didn't understand. Slowly it crept towards the strange blob that seemed in distress. Its own heart pounding drowning out it's hearing but then it smelt it... Fear. The wolf was no longer afraid, it knew the creature in front of it was not dangerous enough to harm it. But the creature had also achieved something accidental, it's body naturally evolved during its time of terror and gave it a way to communicate its feableness. Pheromones. The wolf, though rugged in appearance and terrifying to look at, started to nudge the creature with its nose softly and then gently grabbed the creature by its neck. Our dear little creature had given up. Believing its life was at its end, it had fallen in to despair. But once they had travelled for a while they approached a small cave entrance and went inside. The creature could hear soft whimpers, shallow barks and soft howls. Once they rounded a small bend there was a roughly made den of branches and forest debris with four small pups nestled in the center. The wolf gently placed the creature among the pups and then laid down, exposing its stomach and engorged nipples towards its young and the creature. The wolf must have mistaken the odd looking lump of flesh as an abandoned cub and taken pity upon it. The pups started to bumble and fall over eachother to get to the feast that was now on offer. The creature however just watched intently while remaining as still as it could.

It couldn't really make sense of what was happening before it's rather poorly formed eyes so it focused harder on what it was trying to imitate. Seconds turned to minutes, minutes turned in to hours but on it focused. It's body now taking a more accurate shape to its imitation. But, it was still lacking hair. It could stretch its mass to make soft points of flesh but it knew this wasn't how it was supposed to be. The mother wolf however had not stopped observing this small "pup" it had brought in to its den. It had watched it change shape, abstain from eating and not move. But she was a simple wolf. She found it odd but thought the creature was suffering and so every now and then she would give it a sniff and a lick once she had confirmed it was breathing and responsive she would settle for a while again. Her nature towards small creatures, very tender to the point she will only hunt creatures larger than herself. That is the story behind all the wounds she carries. Her pups? The result of a wandering male taking a liking to her while she was in heat. Nature took its course, her mate however went on to become a pack alpha so in the end she was nothing more than one of many. Her unwillingness to eat creatures smaller than her and for showing aggression to those who kill them got her exiled from the pack.

As any tough mother would she found a safe cave and built something with all the effort she could muster. Then laid and gave birth to her pups. A few days later and here we are.

But after six hours the mother wolf had had enough. She grabbed the creature by its neck and placed it as close to her nipples as she could. While nudging the creature gently but with relative force until it copied what it could see the other pups doing. It mimicked the motions until suddenly it could feel liquid in its mouth. It observed a little more while storing the liquid inside itself as it noticed the others did not expel it so must keep it inside them. But, it knew not what to do with it. While being in such close proximity it's newly evolved eyes could see the hairs close, protruding from the skin from little pores. It had an epiphany in that moment and by absorbing the milk it could synthesize the material necessary to create hair. As if a puzzle piece clicked in place in the creatures brain it now also understood the need to consume for its own growth. But this was a gift and a curse, with growth comes hunger, and with hunger comes desperation. If you go too long without food you can be driven mad by the hunger. Luckily for this creature, it did not have to experience that yet.

The beginning of its life, was unfortunately the only time it knew peace.