Poor guy, unlike me, he probably had no memories of a previous life, so if he´s left alone he´ll be nothing more than a weird wolf-human thing, incapable of anything but growling. I remember seeing stories of human children raised by animals before, and they never had a nice ending. That is why I decided to take care of him, but first I had to relearn it all myself, the priority being walking. It´s like they used to say back then: “start with baby steps”
It was not easy, babies don’t normally start crawling until at least 5 months old, but I still practiced every day. At first, I really couldn’t do anything and had to be carried to sleep and “eat”, but after three months I was already slowly moving about. My brother started imitating me too, and being a little older, he made short work of it. Speaking of him, I’ve decided on a name for the poor thing. He didn’t do much and only followed me around, but he had a nasty habit of scratching his ass all the time, so I named him Toba[1]
All my effort was not just because I was bored all day, I had one clear goal in mind: food. Wolf milk was like acid for me, only it was corroding my sanity, not my body. Tasting anything else was top priority for now, and I would work hard for it.
The first thing me and Toba managed to eat was weird fruit, it wasn’t like anything I had seen or heard of before, but it was delicious. We managed to crawl far enough out of the cave to get it off the ground, and it was completely worth it. After months of my current diet, that thing tasted like pure honey. Eating it reminded me of the feeling I used to have when I ate a cheat meal far into a prep. If you deprive your taste buds for long enough, your senses go into overload when you finally eat something delicious.
Still, a weird fruit, a wolf boy, and strange animals and insects. I´m not on earth, am I?
Wherever this was, the wolves seemed to be a little smarter than usual as well. After they saw us eating our new catch, every morning we would wake up with all types of fruit and berries at our feet.
Well, I say morning but we usually woke up in the middle of the night, since wolves are nocturnal, I had to adapt to that as well. It wasn’t that bad, but I did miss the sunlight.
Life got a little better after that, and it made me… Grateful? Huh, was I roided out of my mind for so long that the feeling of gratefulness became alien to me? Looking back now, I didn’t really get angry after coming here, even having been through some terrible stuff. My sense of humor seems to be better, too.
Guess it really was just “roid rage”[2] then. Don’t get me wrong, I was a grumpy kid ever since I was born. At least according to my mother, saying I was short fused was an understatement. And my fuse didn’t grow with me one bit, people sometimes said I didn’t even have one.
But even the most naturally stressed-out people have limited fuel to burn. However, when someone like me starts stacking a lot of steroids into a prep for a long time, anger and paranoia runs 24/7. Your guard never drops down and behaving in a normal manner is a constant effort.
There is a bright side to it, though, and I’m experiencing it now. Since you must constantly try to stay calm and think things through, when you stop taking so much gear and it starts leaving your system, some people get much calmer and nicer than they were before, at least for a while anyway. I call it the buddha effect.
Also, since I literally switched my whole body, there was no transition period, so the feeling is much stronger than it would normally be. That must also be the reason why I haven’t felt sad all this time, and why I even felt happy sometimes, even grateful...
But if this is a different world, will it have steroids? Don’t get me wrong I like feeling calm and happy, but I want to get back to my muscular body ASAP. These scrawny arms and legs are only acceptable because I’m still a baby.
I was getting ahead of myself. There was still lots of things I needed to do before even thinking about gear. First, like I said before, was food. Not only it was needed to keep me from going insane, it was also indispensable if I wanted to grow this body into a mountain of muscle. Wolf milk alone just wasn’t going to cut it, I managed to get a source of carbs with the fruit, now I needed meat.
With that in mind, I wanted to try gaining a little more dexterity with my hands and strengthen my muscles a little so I could move better, and eventually start walking. For that I made a little routine, which Toba naturally imitated. It was nice having him around.
After two months of crawling around the cave, doing half push-ups and drawing on the ground with a stick, I could move my body a lot better. Honestly, I was shocked by the results. I could already use my hands for a lot of things, and if they weren’t so small, they would already function normally. Not just my hands though, my entire body improved massively in both coordination and strength. I didn’t feel as limited anymore.
So, this world’s babies can already do this much, huh? I need to give credit to my routine as well, but no amount of training would yield this kind of results back on earth.
Toba could probably walk if he tried, but he didn’t have a reference, so he started to move like the wolves. I had no clue how old he was by this point, but if I had to guess, he was almost a year old. He did look a little bigger than he should though, we both seemed to be developing faster than normal.
I could awkwardly walk, but it was still inefficient because of the shape of my body, so I just changed my morning routine from crawling to walking and crawled when I needed to get somewhere.
I was ready to start my master plan, my goal: rabbit meat.
I had spotted rabbits in this forest a couple times, and they didn’t seem to be afraid of me. So, if I ventured far enough that the wolves wouldn’t scare them, I could probably catch one. Not with my weak hands alone, but with humanity’s greatest strength.
The power of friendship!
Of course not, I’m talking about tools.
There was no way I could get Toba to understand an order yet, I had to teach by example. That is why this first part of the plan was all dependent on me. I needed a strong and flexible stick, Toba’s hair, and soft rocks. Those were the ingredients required for my secret harpoon! Which was just a children’s bow with a string attached to the arrow.
My plan was to get close enough to the bunny that I wouldn’t have to aim at all and use all the tiny force of the bow at point blank to somehow pierce through the bunny. Then I just had to hold the string until he died so he wouldn’t leave. It was crude, but it was the best I could come up with considering I was still in a 5 months old body.
It took another month, but I managed to do it after countless failed attempts. In my old life I always gave up after failing once or twice, but I salivated everyday thinking about that rabbit meat and failure wasn’t going to stop me.
There were two key factors for my success. First, the rabbits weren’t scared of me. There was no chance of me ever catching one if it was trying to flee, even with it standing still right by my side it was not going to be easy. Second, this new body. I was by no means an expert in biology but I’m pretty sure I was not supposed to have such a strong grip by this age.
I also seemed to have way more stamina than I should, I could practice crawling or walking for hours without getting tired, and my body wasn’t as soft as one would expect, I felt like I was already developing some muscle. My height was also increasing faster than normal, but I only realized that looking at Toba, who already looked like a 2-year-old despite being only a few months older than me.
If I’m already this strong, I wonder how much I’ll be able to bench if I survive until adulthood.
I failed a lot of times trying to make my bow, the hardest part was finding the perfect stick. I needed one that was small, flexible and strong. And those are characteristics normally at odds with each other, but after breaking a ton of them and venturing a little further into the forest, I found a light green one that did the job. A little bigger than I imagined, but I was afraid of it not working if I made it any smaller. The stick for the arrow wasn’t so hard to find.
Toba didn’t mind me picking his hair too much, it seems he respected me. It was the easiest part of the puzzle by far, I just weaved together a bunch of his hair and it was strong enough for both the bow and the arrow. I didn’t pull it out, though, I’m not that insensitive. I used the last piece of the puzzle to cut it: my arrowhead.
Honestly, I’m proud of this arrowhead, I used the ancient Azteca technique, only instead of obsidian I made it with the softest looking rock I could find by the river. That river has been serving as both my bathroom and my source of water for a while now, I cherished it greatly.
Where did I learn this ancient and previously useless forgotten technique? YouTube of course.
All that was left was to test it, I spent a week trying it out to see if it had enough force, I ended up breaking a lot of arrows, but it wasn’t so hard to make new ones. That also resulted in stronger arrows by the end, so it was worth it.
My product testing also had the purpose of training, I needed to be able to reliable shoot it, even if the plan was to stay at point blank. The whole process was very confusing to Toba, who had been trying to imitate me so far, at some point he looked like he fried his brain out and just gave up trying to understand it. Even the wolves were a little curious, hopefully they’ll also be impressed by the results.
With my tool perfected, it was finally time for hunting. I couldn’t make careless mistakes, because if I managed to hurt one and not catch it, I would lose my harmless baby privileges. It was a little like fishing (which reminds me, maybe I should try that next), it involved a lot of waiting. Even if they weren’t afraid, there wasn’t much reason to approach me.
So, inspired by my new fishing project, I gathered some berries I sometimes saw them eat, and each day I would lay them in front of me. It took a while, but eventually one of them came and started eating, not a care in the world. I loaded my bow with all the strength I could, and as a cold sweat ran down my forehead, I put it right up against him, almost touching him, and loosened the arrow.
It pierced but broke inside of him, as expected since I’m no fletcher, even after all that practice. In a hurry I quickly wrapped up the string attached to the arrow as the bunny tried to flee, and it came loose. I became desperate and tried chasing after it, I had a feeling I wouldn’t have another chance like this, I couldn’t let him get away.
Luckily for me, he didn’t have much strength left. The arrowhead didn’t secure the stick, but it stuck deep enough to cause some damage and hinder his movement, it wasn’t coming out of him easily. After a lot of chasing around, I managed to grab him by the arrow that was still stuck, he had almost no strength left, and neither did I. After he tired, I finished the job, exhausted.
I brought back the rabbit to the cave, this time walking, and in that moment, there was nothing else on my mind. I felt proud and happy, and I wanted to impress my… family? Yeah, family.
My plans didn’t stop there, though. What I really wanted was to expand my daily allowance. I wanted the wolves to bring me meat along with the fruit. So, I brought the rabbit with me and started eating it in front of everyone, raw. Honestly, it wasn’t so bad. It wasn’t good by any means, but it was better than “that” (which was still going on, by the way, but hopefully it would stop now), the blood was tasty, and it helped me ignore the weird texture. The heart was also surprisingly easy to eat.
Wait, should a 6 month old baby eat raw meat? And now that I think about it, my teeth are already strong, they’re few but they do the job, I don’t think I would manage to chew otherwise. I guess I should just be thankful that in this world humans are built different, and pray that I don’t wake up with an upset stomach.
While I ate, Toba eyed me curiously the whole time, probably trying to figure out how I did it. After proudly basking in the gaze of my wolf elders and my wolf brother, I fell asleep. My mouth and hands were completely covered in blood, but there was a wide smile on my face.
I was woken up a lot earlier than usual, and there was no dead rabbit on my lap for me to grill. The wolves were all nearby after waking me up and they eyed me like they expected something. It took me a while to figure out, but they wanted me to go on the hunt with them.
I guess there’s just no such thing as free lunch, huh? I should’ve known, but my Brazilian roots always strived for the laziest approach.
I still had no idea what I was supposed to do, but if they wanted me to go, I would. I climbed on top of one of the smaller wolves in the pack, and hugged him tightly, gripping his fur. It was the only way I would be able to keep myself from falling.
We set off, and I managed to get a glimpse of Toba, who was left alone in the cave while he slept. Poor guy, maybe I should take him on my next rabbit hunt (although he would probably scare them away).
The hunt lasted an hour or so, and as expected, I didn’t do anything but try keeping my balance, it was like riding one of those mechanical bulls. It was fun feeling the wind on my hair and back though, and it was also good exercise. I had a lot of fun in the end, seeing the wolves hunt was also pretty brutal.
My routine was getting a little more interesting now, it seems my months of sleeping and daydreaming all the time are over. It was worth rushing things, even if I didn’t always think it through all the way, it worked out in the end. I’m thankful for this herculean baby body, I would have died of boredom otherwise.
??? Stats
15 half-pushups
10 bow draws
Toba Stats
30 half-pushups
[1] Brazilian slang for ass or asshole
[2] Slang for the increased aggression some steroids cause
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