• Kiara was only 6 years old. She had always seen her father carry in various game for their dinner, such as rabbit, deer, and fowl. But one morning, in the early hours of dawn, her father woke her to ask if she wanted to come with him. Eager to watch him hunt, she agreed and began to dress.
    15 minutes later, her and her father were walking through the surrounding woods quietly. She trailed her father closely, not have been into this deep into the forest before. All of a sudden, he stilled, and held out his arm backwards a little, as if to tell her to stop. She did. He crouched down slightly, slipping his hand back to his quiver to grab an arrow. Kiara crouched as well, peering curiously around him. He slid the end of the arrow onto the string, lifting his arm to aim. He pulled back far on the string, and then released. The bow made a slight 'twang' noise as the string snapped back, and the arrow made only a whisper as it slid through the air.
    The deer jolted, but it was too late. It impaled directly through its head, killing it instantly. Kiara jumped as well, and then stared at the damage. Her father went up to it, then slung it over his shoulders, and began walking back home. She stood up slowly, following him again, but a few feet behind. Her heart pounded loudly in her ears as she stared at her feet, her mind replaying the horrid scene over and over in her head. This is how she was able to eat? This is the gruesome fate of her dinner to come? When her father took it to the shed to clean it, she followed him numbly, not knowing where she was going. When she lifted her head, seeing her father cut off the deer's skin, and plunge his hands into its steaming organs, she screamed.
    Her father never understood why this happened, but he never took her hunting again. She refused to eat anything her father brought home, even the day she left there. Until a few years later did she start eating meat again, but only for a purpose of absolute need...

    Twelve year later

    Kiara walked through the forest quietly, and then stopped to crouch behind a bush. Her pupils dilated so they were just slits, her iris turning a bloody crimson. She focused on the grazing deer before her, her gaze never leaving it as she shifted very slightly behind the brush. The buck raised its head slightly, but not in alarm, as it still had a mouthful of grass it was chewing on. Kiara's fingernails extended into sharp claws within a few seconds, digging into the earth below her hands. As the deer lowered its head again, she pounced on it with silent grace, grabbing both sides of its head, twisting it to the point of snapping. The creature didn't even have time to cry out.. She laid the carcass out on the ground, and cut the hide off with her claws, being careful to do a good job on it. After that was done, she stripped the necessities from its body. Meat for her meal, antlers and bones for selling, sinew for various uses, like sewing. She took the remains of the deer and discarded them behind some other brush. She laid out the hide, letting it dry as she started a small fire with flint and tinder, to cook the some of the meat. As she turned the meat slowly on the spit, she absent-mindedly thought about her first time of being the hunter..

    Kiara was 16, and she had become one of Them. One had bitten her, so she was disowned by the family for being a 'tainted' one in their midst. And she was, in her own eyes. Nothing more than a filthy animal. No brain, just instincts now. A were-shifter. Her naturally green eyes had changed to a honey gold during the days...she could change it by will now, from blue to black. Her powers had strengthened now, as she got older. The one time she couldn't control the color was when the were came out in her. The Hunter.
    The first Changing is always the worst, they say..and they're right. A month later, when the full moon came again, she Changed for the first time. She was outside in the wood, because she couldn't sleep. Too restless. Then she saw it, the giant glowing orb in the sky, the one thing that she would ever come to fear.
    Her pulse began to race, as she fell on her hands and knees, panting slightly. Her back arched as her spine began to extend and protrude the ridges more visible than ever before. She cried out, but no one heard her. All of her nails extended into sharp points, and her teeth extended slightly and sharpened as well. The pain, by this point, was beyond anything she had felt before, and would ever feel. Her legs shrank slightly, the ankles extending out as her feet formed into a wolves' paws. Her hands did the same, as the black fur crawled down across her back and down to them.
    Her face extended into a wolf muzzle, her eyes coming a little farther apart. Her spine elongated into a tail, when the fur followed shortly after, now covering every part of her body. She shook off the clothing she had worn before as a human, ridding herself of it.
    She looked around at her surroundings, and no longer able to speak, threw her head back, and howled her agony and pain to the moon.
    After that, she felt her instincts kick in, putting all of her thoughts aside.
    Her highly increased sense of smell told her that there were many game nearby. She set her crimson eyes on the horizon.
    The hunt was on.


    Kiara pulled the spit off of the fire, and took a sliver off, popping it into her mouth. Medium rare, I'd say.. She thought to herself, grining slightly at this, her own joke. Rare would be the way she wanted it, of course..
    She'd grown since that night a couple years ago. She had learned to control it, and wasn't so animalistic anymore. She cooked her kill, and saved the parts that would help her survival, not just devoured it all. That night, she had hunted a deer as well, but not near the same way. She had torn it apart, eating everything that she could. Animal.. she thought bitterly. That's all I was. All I am, just a well-behaved one.
    She kicked a stick into the fire, making it hiss and spit out sparks at her angrily. After eating some of the meat, she put out the fire by pouring dirt on it, making sure that no embers were left. She gathered all of the things she put to the side, including the leftover meat that she cooked.
    She went back to the house putting all of the food away, not stopping to even look at it. She left and went back to her quarters, and had a troubled sleep filled with dreams of wolves, blood, silent screams, and howling at the cursed moon.