1

The cold drink ran down my throat, leaving a sweet, burning sensation. The well-known burning of the alcohol seemed almost comforting to me. I narrowed my eyes at the half-empty bottle. Images from a bygone era crowded in front of my inner eye and I tried hard to suppress them, but the alcohol in my blood also weakened my soul. It didn't take long for the well-buried memories of my childhood to fight their way back into my consciousness.

It was a memory of my older brother. We were sitting in the large garden with our parents and the sweet scent of the old cherry tree was in the air. My brother had become obsessed with the question of whether a person always saw the glass as half empty or half full and what that said about him. I could still clearly remember his strict and loving voice when he explained to me that I saw the world in a far too bad light. How wrong he was then. Indeed the world is bad, cruel and unfair. Because otherwise he wouldn't be dead and I wouldn't be here.

The feelings that had been hidden inside me for a long time fought their way out again, meanwhile I didn't even know anymore whether it was anger or sadness. Probably some of both.

I banged my head against the cold stone wall behind me a few times, hoping to finally get rid of these memories, thoughts and feelings. After all, I knew how dangerous it could be if the others noticed my weakness, even for a brief moment.

But the stream of memories just wouldn't let go, like it always does when I've had too much to drink. Memories of the time before the Wild War. The end of the war would soon be celebrated, I had read it on many posters.

They wanted to celebrate victory, freedom.

And I would celebrate 10 years of bondage and pain.

10 years without my parents and my brother.

10 years alone.

I remembered well how my father and my brother had gone to war back then. I remembered just as well how I was sitting in front of the TV when they came. I cried against my mother and waited. The TV showed the live pictures of the city limits and for a long time it was just quiet. Seconds turned into minutes, minutes into hours. At some point I thought the fight was over. They would have been defeated before they even reached our city.

A few hours later, I realized that wasn't true. I realized there was no way to stop her. It was already dark when their mighty bodies slowly became apparent at the edge of the forest. I had never seen anything in my life that looked so majestic and murderous at the same time. They must have been between 2 and 5 meters tall.

wolves.

werewolves.

More and more streamed out of the dark forest and their shiny fur shone in the moonlight. We probably wouldn't have had the slightest chance against a group of 5 or 6 wolves. But it quickly became clear to me that there must have been over 100 werewolves. It wasn't a real fight, ours just got slaughtered. It was over after 5 minutes.

My mother hugged me and tried to protect me from the horrific images. But I heard the sounds of bones breaking and skin tearing apart. My mother's tears fell on my head and mine fell on the dark floor.

After a few minutes of silence, a howl was heard. But it didn't come from the TV. They've already been to town.

Then a jolt went through my mother's body. She grabbed my hand and ran with me to the kitchen. She grabbed the large pair of kitchen shears with nimble hands. She yelled at me with tears in her eyes to turn me over. I anxiously did as she told me.

She put the cold metal scissors on my hair just above my ear and cut off all of my hair.

I can still hear her trembling voice as she kept telling me to pretend I was a boy. That she didn't know what the wolves would do to us but they would do something worse to little girls than to little boys.

At the time I could only nod, even if I didn't understand it. It only took a few blinks of an eye and our front door flew open. Without a word, the young men pulled my mother away from me and me in a different direction.

I vaguely remembered how they put me in a truck with a group of guys.

And then we continued. For hours without a break and without any explanation. We drove and drove. It was dead quiet except for the crying and whimpering of the other children. I didn't cry, I didn't whimper. I kept whispering my mother's last words:

I'm Alex, I'm a boy, I'm a fighter and I will survive.