// Wendigo //

You live in a village, you live the ordinary life, you harvest crops, you help your mother, you take care of your siblings, you beg your father to stop drinking

Your mother always warned you

"If you go out to play and hear something whisper your name in the woods, come back home, always come back, don't go far." It never seemed strange to you, but at night, like all children, you slept in fear.

In your town, people's whispers survive through legends, stories to terrify children and even scare boys your age.

"Among the trees there are voices, bones that crack like branches, and fur thick as tar...there are creatures...that can confuse you, an evil, one that can rot the mind and corrupt the innocent," the elders would say by the light of the bonfires before the festivities they considered pagan began. The adults would get drunk, the young people would have fun with masks, bonfires, and music made with drums, shouts among everyone; it was mystical, or so you believed.

In their drunken stupor, your father and a group of workers, strong men who provided the necessary food for the town, said with complete certainty that they would go to the forest, hunt down the evil that lived there, and with absolute certainty, tear off its head to place it at the entrance of the town.

Nobody believed it possible, except for an old woman. Hours passed and the men didn't return. Panic set in, but as soon as it arrived, it dissipated.

Your father returned, yes, although weak and wounded like everyone else, and they did not return alone.

Panic gripped them all; the members stopped dancing, and the bonfire seemed to crackle with fear of the presence.

You just watched, intrigued, curious, perhaps captivated by the view

You saw it and your body froze; it was enormous, robust, it looked like a bear but it was thin, with thick black fur, a bony face, the antlers of a deer and the claws of a badger, immense, imposing, still unaware of itself, it was the monster of all horror stories

He's cold at first, he's afraid, and that's what makes him really aggressive and violent with everyone. Show him he can trust you, help him.