Warnings for age-difference and implied M/M content.

NOT EUNHAE/SJ RELATED. ALL OCs.

***

“Let go! Let go! Let go!” 
           A chorus of cackling laughter rings raucously amongst the thick tree trunks of the Sherman Hills Preserve. The skies opened up about a half an hour ago, dumping heavy rains on the Maine town and nearly flash-flooding the forest. It’s about five o’ clock in the evening, the sky already dark as ominous clouds swirl with thunderstorms. Lightning dances between thick branches, casting spooky shadows on the ground. Thunder cracks in the atmosphere. Wind funnels through the trees, and they groan in protest to the abuse.
Four boys drag another between them. He is smaller than they are. Reddish, auburn curls are pressed flat against his forehead and neck due to the rain. He struggles and screams, striving desperately to wrench his red and white striped hoodie out of their grasp. His gray eyes are wide with apprehension and uncertainty. Overhead, the storm drowns out his pleas for help.
The boy trips over one of his pink shoelaces and falls face-first into the mud. The others only laugh harder and hold him there as the sky’s angry tears pelt him furiously.
“Please,” whimpers the prostrate boy. The fight is gone from him for now. “Let me go home, Charlie.”
One of the boys steps forward. Charlie, the ringleader of the group, squats down next to their victim and grinds the little redhead’s face harder into the mud until he coughs and gags for breath. Chuckling, Charlie, his ugly pig-nosed face twisted into a satisfied grin, yanks on the latter’s curls and hauls him off the slippery ground. 
“You know we can’t do that, Theodora,” Charlie sneers. “We already warned you yesterday at lunch about wearing that stupid, girly headband again. I told you on Wednesday that little boys don’t wear their sister’s accessories to kindergarten. And what did you do?” he asks, grabbing Theodore’s chin tightly between his fingers, pressing until it hurts. He glares angrily at the plastic band on top of the boy’s head like it had personally offended him. It matches his shoelaces. “You wore it again. And…” He lifts one of Theodore’s tiny hands. “Are your nails…painted?”
“I-I asked Lucie to do it,” the smaller boy whispers. He glances down at his hand where the hot pink polish glistens under splotchy mud stains. “It’s pretty.”
“You asked Lucie!?” Charlie gushes in mock adoration. His friends snicker. 
“’It’s pretty,’” another mimics in a high voice right in Theodore’s ear.
Humiliated and confused, the redhead’s bottom lip trembles as he attempts to hold back his tears. The rims of his eyes itch with the urge to cry. A single traitorous tear drops from his lower lashes down his cheek.
Charlie scoffs and sighs exasperatedly. “Theodora,” he addresses nastily, “do you know what happens to sissy boys who go to my school and disobey my orders?” 
Shaking his head no, Theodore tries one last time to pull his arms from his bullies’ iron grips. 
“They visit the old, abandoned shack on the edge of the lake. You know about the shack, right?”
For a moment, Theodore does nothing. Then his eyes widen dramatically. Jerking his head up, terror is clearly etched across his facial features. His mouth is parted in silent recognition and fright. His cheeks—raw, muddy, and ruddy from the wind—lose their color as he pales. His hazel eyes unleash a frantic hail of tears. The dams break at the realization of where they were heading in the dark and so deep in the woods. 
The monster’s shack.
Lucie had told her younger brother about the shack a few months ago when a hiker called police after finding dismembered body parts buried about twenty feet from the shack’s right wall. Lucie had warned him to never go near the broken-down cabin alone and especially not at night because a huge creature with blood-red eyes, razor-sharp teeth, and claws like daggers lived there and killed anyone who got too close to its home. Some people alleged that there was a deranged murderer hiding out in the woods, but police had searched the preserve for days and found no indication that anything, human or animal, lived in the shack or nearby. Like Lucie, the other fifth graders at Sherman Hills Elementary, firmly believed that the horrific, black beast was real. Charlie, as Lucie’s classmate and as the son of the principal, used the story to threaten younger students, like five-year-old Theodore, into doing his bidding.
But Theodore had defied his order.
“No,” the auburn-haired child uttered in a bare whisper. “Please don’t. The mon-mon—”
“The monster? I heard he loves to eat little, sissy boys. Especially ones with pretty, pink nail polish.”
Theodore resumes his struggling, but the older boys are stronger and only drag him along with a little effort. When the shack is finally in sight, Theodore digs his heels into the mud and s his tiny body in every direction. Dwarfed by the size of Charlie and his three goons, he doesn’t stand a chance. He screams at the top of his lungs. He yells for Lucie, for his mom, for somebody to save him. He doesn’t want to get eaten by the monster! 
Kicking wildly, he manages to clip the chubby, blonde bully behind him in the knee with his sneaker and bite the brunette on the hand that’s clamped onto his left wrist.
“,” swears the ten-year-old, letting go of Theodore’s arm. 
He tries to run; he really does. But Charlie is the one who snatches him by the hood of his sweatshirt. Theodore chokes and stops, his free hand yanking the zipper down so that he can breathe.
By the time they’re standing outside the front door of the shack, Theodore is exhausted from crying and fighting. He is slumped forward, being lead by his hood like a pup being carried by its scruff. 
The tree line ends about fifty feet behind them. The shack now stands just far and high enough from Stillwater Lake that even with the heavy rains, the lake’s growing edge doesn’t touch it.
In a theatrical manner, Charlie raises a grubby hand and raps on the shack’s door. He acts as though he peers through the crack in the wood and calls over the raging storm to someone, or something, inside, “Mr. Monster! I brought you dinner!”
Theodore starts sobbing. He implores one more time for his life.
Ignoring the plea and in one swift move, Charlie flings the door open and tosses Theodore inside. The boy lands hard on the splintery floor and lifts his head just in time to see Charlie’s ugly pig-nose and the smirking grins on his friends’ faces before the door is slammed shut. A muted scraping and sliding noise resonates from the outside followed by whooping laughter and high-fives.
“Maybe they’ll find his body tomorrow,” Theodore hears the chubby blonde remark as the four boys start walking back towards the forest and home to their families. 
On wobbly legs, Theodore stumbles in the dark, relying on lightning to brighten his way towards the door. He turns the knob and pushes, but it doesn’t budge. He rams his shoulder against the door only to bounce backwards and land on the floor. Wincing and rubbing at his eyes to clear away the tears that continue to manifest there, he shuffles over to the window next to the door and stands on his tippy toes. There must have been some kind of fishing boat near the shack—or Charlie and his friends had moved one there earlier—because it’s wedged against the door, making it impossibly for someone as cold and wet and small as Theodore to open the door.
Swallowing nervously, Theodore backs away from the window. Wrapping his arms protectively around his middle, he begins to shake. His eyes dart randomly around the shack. His breathing grows more rapid with each passing moment. A clash of thunder causes him to jump and run for a corner where he buries his head in his knees and covers his ears. He’s shivering and hyperventilating. He feels like he’s drowning. 
What’s happening? Am I dying?
His first panic attack. 
Suddenly, a noise reverberates around the cabin. It came from the outside and is loud enough for Theodore to hear even over the blood pounding feverishly in his ears and his harsh panting. Freezing and simultaneously holding his breath, Theodore is dizzy but forces himself to listen.
There it is again! He heard it a second time. There’s no mistaking what it is.
It’s a growl; a deep, animalistic rumble.
The monster.
It’s come to eat him afterall.
Theodore gasps, covering his mouth with both hands and crouches into a smaller ball. He wants to make himself as small as possible. He tries to stay quiet, but he can feel another panic attack coming on. He’s shaking uncontrollably like a leaf caught in the storm outside. 
Something bangs against the door. Something cracks, and Theodore knows that it’s the fishing boat shattering into pieces as the monster smashes it to get inside. To get to him.
Finding it harder to stay silent, Theodore moans in the back of his throat and curls up tighter. He should cover his eyes, hide his face so that he won’t have to look the monster in the eyes as it kills him, but he can’t. He is frozen in terror.
The door opens slowly, revealing what Theodore has feared since realizing that the shack was his fate. 
Crimson, glowing eyes penetrate his horror-stricken gaze. It’s true. The monster is real! 
In the dark, it’s nearly impossible to make out the features of the monster besides its eyes, but then it snarls, displaying sharp, pointed teeth. 
A bright flash of lightning finally ends Theodore’s wild, imagined illustrations of the beast—a huge hulking creature with horns and wings, like a ferocious dragon or demon. 
It’s a wolf. A big, black, beautiful wolf, which is strange because there are no wolves in this part of Maine or any of Maine to be more accurate. But it is definitely a wolf and not a wild dog or coyote. Theodore remembers the distinguished differences from pictures in one of Lucie’s books. And besides, this wolf is larger than even gray wolves from New Mexico.
The wolf is still baring its canines as another menacing growl echoes off the shack’s walls. It appears to be glaring at Theodore. Red eyes narrowed and snout wrinkled, it barks like its about to attack. 
Theodore’s round, gray eyes only stare back, partly from fear and partly from awe. A soft whimper escapes his lips before he can stamp it down. He averts his eyes to avoid looking as though he’s challenging the wolf and draws his knees up to his chest tighter.
Still toeing a line between an offensive and defensive stance, the wolf pads into the cabin. The door swings shut behind it, leaving the wolf and Theodore alone in the dark. Slowly, it approaches the boy who is still huddled in the corner. 
Theodore knows that it’s getting closer because its red eyes are now a few feet away. He can see the black pupils at their centers. A clap of thunder catches Theodore off guard and he jumps, closing his eyes and letting out a sob as he waits for the wolf to attack him for moving abruptly. But it never does.
Instead, Theodore feels a snuff of hot air on his cheek. Opening one eye, he sees that the wolf is now right next to him. Stiffening, Theodore chances a second, longer glance at the wolf as it sniffs him again before deciding that he is harmless and relaxes.
Theodore finally lets out the shaky breath that he had been holding. Along with it, he shivers as his cold, soaked clothing has started to freeze as time went on and the temperature began to drop. 
The wolf blinks, red eyes appearing almost human as they soften. Theodore swears he hears the animal sigh. Surprised by the wetness on his chin, he giggles as the wolf begins to the mud off his cheek and clean his face. It tickles, and Theodore moves away from the wolf tongue and actually smiles for the first time since the night started when Charlie followed him off the school bus hours prior.
Without thinking, Theodore throws his arms around the wolf’s neck and buries his face in the surprisingly soft fur at its shoulder. The wolf is the one that goes rigid for a second but then relents to the curly-haired child’s hug. It starts scenting to boy, rubbing its cheek against his hair and face.
Theodore pulls away slightly…and sneezes. He’s definitely going to be sick in the morning. 
Huffing, the wolf gently bites the sleeve of Theodore’s hoodie and tugs. Getting to his knees, the boy allows the canine to pull him up and lead him toward another part of the cabin. When it stops, Theodore feels around and finds a bed. He must have missed it before in the dark, and despite bursts of lightning here and there, there is not enough to get a good look around anyway. 
On the bed is a pile of blankets. Theodore hops onto the mattress and huddles under the blankets for warmth. He gasps softly when the bed dips as the wolf jumps on it to join the boy. It whines softly to convey that it means no harm and curls itself around Theodore’s small body. Immediately, the auburn-haired boy feels his body temperature rise with the added warmth pressed against him. He cards his fingers through the soft, damp fur of the wolf and cuddles closer.
It’s past his bedtime; he’s exhausted from screaming; from crying; from fighting; from his panic attacks (not that he comprehends what he was really experiencing). His eyelids begin to droop, and for a moment he thinks he feels a soft hand his hair and a soothing voice in his ear, but he’s too tried to know for sure. Managing to open his eyes one last time, he only sees gentle, red eyes and feels fur beneath against his cheek.
“Thank you, Mr. Wolf,” Theodore murmurs before finally drifting into a much-needed dream.
***
Dawn breaks on the lake. Sunlight filters through the dirty window on the wall opposite the bed. Theodore is still sleeping on his side, his knees pulled up to his chest and face now burrowed in the blankets. But sleeping behind him, spooned up against him is no longer a wolf. A shaggy-haired teenager around seventeen or eighteen years old groans softly before opening his red eyes and sitting up. He is and shakes his head as if to clear it. Scrubbing a hand down the shadowy stubble beneath his high cheekbones, he sighs. Carefully, the teenager maneuvers around Theodore without touching or waking him. After grabbing clean clothes from a duffel bag hidden under the floorboards and dressing himself, he runs a hand through his black hair and pulls out a cellphone. He hides the bag again and steps outside the shack where the remnants of the fishing boat from the night before litter the soggy ground. The mud squishes under his motorcycle boots as he dials the police to contact Theodore’s parents. When he’s done, he glances through the window at the sleeping child and places a hand over his chest. It aches. And not in a good way.