The rage of the Beast was fierce as
it always had been. Abandoned by the world and left alone in the wilderness the
Beast spent its days in a dark cave hidden away from sight. Roars echoed
through the stone tunnels as the Beast thrashed around his dwelling. The Beast
slammed its powerful fists into a stone pillar smashing it to pieces and lashed
out at the stone wall with its razor sharp claws, adding another set of marks
to an already torn up wall.
The source of the rage was long
forgotten and buried down into the creature’s soul. The words were lost but the
gnawing pain remained. It ate at the Beast so feverously that anything could
set the creature off into a frenzy.
Despite the loud roars and sound of
crumbling stone, the faintest noise reached the Beast’s ear, the sound of rain.
The Beast stopped terrorizing the cave walls and its eyes relaxed. Sadness
washed over its face as it slowly walked toward the mouth of the cave. Its two
hind legs made loud soft ‘pat pat’ noises against the stone floor.
Outside was a beautiful forest,
rich green trees rising up ten feet or more from the soft soil. A winding river
went through the forest like a snake adding the reflective touch of water to an
already scenic landscape. This scenery was lost on the Beast most of the time.
The Beast never came out of its cave during the day and it only surfaced at
night to hunt. Large monsters rarely have patience to admire a tree. Day or
night, when it rained, the Beast surfaced from the depths and stood in the
mouth of it’s cave and it would stare at the rain.
The pouring rain added a different
kind of beauty to the forest. Replacing the sparkling river waters and the
illuminated green leaves with a calm cloudy sky and the gentle hush of
raindrops. It was a mystery why The Beast changed its behavior when it rained,
The Beast didn’t even know. It would stare puzzled up at the sky and watch rain
fall from nowhere and little the landscape. The constant steady drum of
raindrops hitting leaves was hypnotizing and The Beast fell into a trance.
In a daze The Beast sat down on the
cold ground and put its hands over its face, its long clawed fingers stretching
up over its head and its rounded snout sticking out from between its palms. As
the fury and pain seemed to subside The Beast began to shrink. The horn ridges
on its back slowly faded away and the thick dark gray fur began to recede back
into The Beasts body. After several minutes The Beast had transformed into a
man.
The Man had dark gray hair and a
thin face with narrowed eyes and nose, like a wolf. He opened his eyes like he
had just woken from a dream. As he looked himself over all the memories and
deep buried feelings came rushing back. The questions that eluded the Beast
were now all answered in the mind of the man. He knew everything that happened,
why, when and how it all happened. He couldn’t stand it and began to sob. The
rain poured down and drowned out the sounds of the man crying.
There was something about the rain
that tied him to his humanity, a single piece that wasn’t corrupted by rage.
The rain brought this out of The Beast and it would transform.. The Beast was
its true form and the man was an echo of its past. A man so consumed with rage
that he willingly became a beast to hide the pain away.
The day turned to night and the
raining stopped. The man lay curled into a ball. He had a choice, every time it
rained he had a chance to remember and to choose to stay with those memories as
a human and every time he willed himself back into a Beast.
