After what felt like the longest sleep of my life, I finally woke up, only to find myself surrounded by absolute darkness. Not only I couldn’t see anything, I also felt an intense pain in my lungs and bellybutton, enough pain that I couldn’t concentrate on anything else.

I had to man up and get used to it though, because the pain didn’t seem to go away even after what felt like hours of complete agony.

I tried to grit my teeth multiple times, it’s my usual way of handling these situations, which is partly just so I can feel like Guts[1]. But for some strange reason… I couldn’t. I didn’t feel my teeth connecting, and my entire face felt weird. Actually, my entire body felt really strange. Even if I couldn’t figure out exactly what was going on, something was surely amiss.

I then remembered what I was doing before falling asleep, it was my first competition and I fainted on stage. My memory was hazy, and it was difficult to think straight. But the image of my competitors looking down on me with terrified faces as I stared at the ceiling was forever burned in my mind.

That remembrance did very little to explain my current situation, however. It felt like dreaming, but time passed too slow for a dream, and the pain and discomfort were also very real.

As time passed, I thought of multiple hypotheses for my current predicament. First, I could be suffering from sleep paralysis. That would explain a lot, since I couldn’t properly move my body, and all the strange feelings I had would also make sense.

Of course, there was also the possibility that I had been drugged. Drug hallucinations can explain almost anything, and, If I was kidnapped in order to have my organs stolen, the pain wouldn’t be out of place.

Who would want my poor organs, though? Harvesting a bodybuilder’s organs is like raiding a house in a favela[2]. Sure, you could find something useful, but there are tons of better, safer choices out there.

Although I could joke around, the thought made me tremble. I had heard tons of stories about kidnappings. And being the weird angry nerd that I am, I also fantasized about people attempting to kidnap me, where of course I would quickly notice and effortlessly beat them to death. Reality, it seemed, was a little bit different.

No, I can’t think this is it just yet, there must be another explanation. 

My theories did make sense, but it was still weird that I was able to think that clearly. I never experienced a tiny demon sitting in my chest, like the sleep paralysis greentexts on 4chan, but I had used drugs before, so I knew something was different.

Look, before I get judged too harshly, bodybuilders can’t drink alcohol, it ruins all our hard work. And so, we end up needing to party with… alternative means. Not that I was much of a party guy myself, but life isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, it’s hard to stay sober during all of it.

All right, now that I’ve excused myself, let’s continue.

Even having been through enough bad trips to know this was not your typical one, there was a very familiar feeling, one every druggie knows about.

The feeling of movement.

Specifically, I felt like I was being carried by something, while inside a box. I could also feel some sort of rough fabric against my skin, and underneath it was a hard surface in a very unusual pattern. It felt like tree roots.

WAIT, AM I INSIDE MY OWN COFFIN?

I started screaming with all my might. Somehow, that possibility had registered as very real in my head, and all the fear and anxiety I was feeling finally cracked my tough shell, spiling all the delicate contents inside. I was truly afraid, being carried to be buried alive triggered a primal despair in me.

My fear soon gave way to an even greater shock, however, because what came out of my mouth was not a grown man’s shout. It was, and I don’t say this figuratively: a baby’s desperate crying.

What. The. Fuck.

                                                                                     ***

Hours passed by, and I was able to calm myself down a little bit. All sorts of thoughts passed through my head as I tried not to go crazy. The first one, and the one who almost drove me mad, was the possibility that I died and went to hell.

I was never a deeply religious person, in fact most of my life I considered myself an agnostic, with my early teens being tainted with the worst kind of fedora atheism you could imagine. As I grew older, however, I started to get more religious, even if I never did make the jump out of agnosticism.

But right then, in that moment, I felt the fear of God in me.

I must calm myself; desperation won’t help me.

At that point, the movements stopped, and it seemed like I was put on the ground. That allowed me to refocus and begin assessing my surroundings.

First, my hearing. I could hear faint sounds that were something in between a cricket’s chirp and a frog’s croak. It was more like a cricket though, only in a lower pitch. I could also sometimes hear muffled movements near me, like that of small animals passing nearby, probably rabbits. That, coupled with the now uneven ground that my container was recently put on, told me I was likely in a forest.

Ok, Satan’s got creativity at least.

Speaking of the container, I could now see it, which leads us to sight. Up until now I had been in complete darkness, I couldn’t see absolutely anything, and I was mostly keeping my eyes closed because of it. But as I was lowered onto the ground, the lid of the basket shuffled a little, and a tiny amount of moonlight granted me vision.

That’s right, a basket. Which leads me to the elephant in the room:

All the sounds I tried to make came out as “oohs” and “aahs,” and I was incapable of speaking no matter how hard I tried. Also, when I managed to move my hands enough so that I could see them, there they were: baby hands.

Baby hands, not being able to move properly, entire body feeling weird, pain in my lungs and bellybutton. And to top it all off, a fucking basket. It seemed to me, as absurd as it was, that I had just been born. Not only born, but also immediately abandoned. If I had realized this sooner, I would have cried more, that way at least my new mother would feel guilty. It was the only revenge I could enact.

But a basket, huh? And in a forest, too. How cliché, could’ve used something a little more unique. She could also have covered me with a blanket, it’s getting colder by the minute.

Still, being ditched by my girlfriend and all my friends, dying, and then instantly getting ditched again by my own mother to suffer alone in a cold dark forest.

You know, I think I prefer the whole “burning in eternal fire” thing. Can I choose my eternal damnation method, Lucy?

Well, as we used to say in Brazil: “I better laugh so that I don’t cry”. as long as I can keep my humor, I can keep my sanity; My sanity was hanging on a thread though, so I’d better turn into Bill Bur[3] soon if I wanted to keep it.

If I’m going to do a stand-up show I need an audience, maybe those weird crickets would come? If I remember correctly, crickets are artsy, they will support my performance.

As I was actively trying to get lost in thought, I started hearing multiple sets of small steps coming in my direction. Had I finally been found?

These steps don’t sound human though…

The steps grew more cautious, and so did I. Whatever was out there started slowly getting closer, and I started hearing sniffing, too. My heart was beating fast, there was some kind of animal out there. With a little bit of luck, it would be just a guy walking his dog, and I would be saved from dying alone in the forest.

The dog started pushing against the basket with his nose. I was being shaken pretty hard, and as I was reminded that I wasn’t a huge heavy bodybuilder anymore, the lid came loose.

What I saw was 3 giant wolves.

“Waaaaah! Waaaaaaah!”

To someone witnessing this scene, a baby was crying because he saw something he didn’t understand. Maybe he was cold or hungry too, maybe he expected his mother to be there. Inside the baby’s mind, however, there was a terrified grown man who just shat himself (or would have, if there was anything in his stomach). Mind you, I didn’t have time to think they were regular sized wolves.

HOLY SHIT. AM I GOING TO BE EATEN ALIVE? Is this really hell then? Am I in a “gold experience requiem[4]” situation? Will I keep getting killed over and over again, and being giant wolf chow is first in order? I can’t even properly scream or defend myself, I guess this is it, and it’s going to hurt.

I braced myself for what was coming and closed my tiny eyes. But death didn’t come. Instead of being mangled, one of the wolves lifted me up by my hair, using his mouth of course. I was so shocked at what was happening, that I didn’t have time to think about why I already had hair.

Apparently, that was not my end yet. I was still terrified, but as the shock slowly went away, I managed to get a good look at my body and the forest, all thanks to my new wolf friends and the moonlight.

Wait, “friends” doesn’t sound right. I still don’t know what they want yet. They could be carrying me to eat me later for all I know. Maybe I’m too small for them to share, so I’ll be puppy food, which means a slower death…

No, I needed to stay calm. Just like before, there was no need to get desperate, Let’s think positively.

This isn’t hell, I won’t die, someone will find me. And then I’ll be a genius child, using my past life’s memories to get richer than Bill Gates.

What if I got reincarnated into the past? I could buy tons of bitcoin and conquer the world; I wouldn’t even need to work for it, either.

As I calm myself down, I again notice the scenery around me. It was a very beautiful forest, the trees weren’t too big, so the moon could shine through just enough to reveal a little color on the exotic flowers and plants.

I didn’t manage to see other animals, only the occasional movement in the bushes nearby, but those weird crickets were still going at it. Maybe their strange sound was due to my underdeveloped ears.

In less than half an hour, we arrive at a gloomy cave. I get carefully put on the ground, which helps calm my thoughts of being eaten alive. I still had no idea where I was or why they picked me up, however.

It was dark inside, and it took a while for my eyes to be able to see anything. All I could sense at first was the breathing and the heat of the wolves inside, and a faint sound of water slowly dropping onto a pond, deeper into the cave. I realized that the pain in my lungs had ended, I was so shocked before that I didn’t even notice it going away.

I flinch from the cold floor touching my naked butt, and unconsciously try to touch my head which was aching from being carried by the hair. And then, I finally notice what was laying before me in the dark cave, it was a huge wolf. Well, by then I had realized they were just regular sized wolves, but this one was a little bigger than the others. It was displaying its swollen udders, with 4 puppies drinking from it.

One of them caught my attention, it had a bigger head then the rest and almost no fur on the back. I couldn’t see it very well in the darkness, but it was definitely strange. With a more careful look, however, it—no. He, seemed to be a little… humanoid?

Now that I paid more attention, I could make out little arms and legs, even in his hunched down posture and with his head buried in the wolf mother’s tits. He had claws, or rather, nails, and there was some fur on him, especially around the arms, legs and neck. He also had a tail and what seemed like ears on the top of his head, mixed in with his ample grey hair.

Wait, am I looking at a real life furry? What the fuck is going on here. Am I not in the real world after all? That must be it… WAIT, if there are wolf boys here, then surely there must be cat girls as well, right? This settles it, I didn’t die and went to hell, I died and went to heav- Hmpf!

My ecstasy was interrupted by my head being shoved straight into the wolf’s udders, and the reality of the situation hit me.

I was just a baby. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t chew, I could do nothing. Nothing but the only two things a newborn does besides sleeping: crying and getting breastfed. Well, there is also a number three, but we don’t have to turn the situation even grosser than it already is.

And gross it was, because if I wanted to survive, my only source of food and nutrients was right there, pressed against my face. I was about to become a roman legend, me and my furry friend at my side. The process, though, smelled awful. And probably tasted awful too.

I’m going to need all my courage for this one.

                                                                                     ***

In my bodybuilding career I tried all sorts of awful things in order to hit my macros. I blended white fish and rice together into a shake, I tried buying gorilla chow from the zoo (it had lots of protein and was cheap, don’t judge me), I even tried dried insects one time. Nothing, however, can compare to wolf milk. It tasted unnaturally weird, but what was worse was the… “Method” of consuming. I’ll spare the details, but these past months weren’t pleasant at all.

Not only I had to drink large amounts of disgusting milk as my only source of nutrition, I also had nothing else to do all day, being in a cave and all that. Thankfully, I was a lonely child in my previous life, so having my mind as a source of entertainment wasn’t hard for me. Sometimes it got boring though.

When I was not lost in my imagination, I was either watching that wolf boy, or trying to learn how to move this new, squishy body. I’ll talk about my wolf brother first. To put it simply, he was very ugly. I had a few chances to look directly at him in the morning, and the best comparison I could come up with to explain his appearance are those fucked up stray cats you sometimes find on the street, full of diseases and looking like zombies.

Ok, that was a bit harsh, but he is indeed very ugly

He looked a few months older than me, but he must have been through some harsh stuff already. His left eye had no eyelid, and his mouth had a nasty scar that exposed a little of his teeth, also on the left side. Now that I think about it, he also looked a little bit like Two-Face[5].