Chapter 1: Introduction
I’m not a wolf… I’m not a… I’m not… No matter how many times I've been described the devil, I never seem to recognize him ‘til it’s too late. I was taught to fear the devil. Look around every corner, under every cover, cause the roaring lion prowls at night, and the snake strikes without warning. But I’ve seen the devil in a suit and tie. The gentlest kindest soul I ever did meet but clearly wielding a sycophantic demeanor in retrospect. His smile was sharp and his words, sharper, but didn’t offer me a thing. I wouldn’t’ve been any the wiser, but I’m sharp enough to know when there’s more than what meets the eye. At best he was sewing a sprouting spirit, at worst, I may have no soul to steal.
I’m afraid there ain't much to see out here anymore. The wetlands bear no fruit, and men have migrated westward to her heir of the Boon. Their efforts to root home out here dried up from their unfamiliarity with the soil. Green doesn’t mean life out here, at least not anymore, the gray of the desert wards off other life, and culture has morphed to its arid climate. Midbar holds kindly, historically.
The pastures here are sickeningly green, and my trees have rotted from the parasites that burrow into their softened interiors. But the heavy lifting has already been done for me. My property dates back before the Wetlands had been mapped. My ground is tilled, and moisture falls from the sky. This place is never too quiet either. The critters of the leaves scrape their song, and feed the birds and amphibians. My dark coat is far too thick for them to ever bother me, unlike the soft skin of men. It is here I stay, as the high beast, free to reap and hunt as I please. But answer me this: Am I living a free man, or simply just biding my time till the grave?
The grass grows tall out here. It only takes a couple minutes of walking in knee high shrubbery to get lost in horizon splittin’ cattail. Not to mention the man eatin’ ponds, bogs and critters that’d keep a sane man up at night. But the land surroundin’ me has been trodden and beat. And my history here has allowed me to make sense of all these pathings. Which makes what I found today troublesome. It's usual to find burrows and dead spots of land where the muskrats and vermin make their home for the cold, but the land here had been warped. Too wide to be a single creature. It had the makings of a caravan. Men don’t last long out here. And now they’ve entered my home. It matters not their intention. They’ve already invited themselves into the devil’s pen.
