Foreword

Rossi Giraldo.

That previous night I had been at my workplace, sometimes it was exhausting, but what made me most tired was the lack of sleep, so my arrival time at home was at the end of the morning, when it was almost dawn, sometimes the sun even hit my face when I got to the little house I have in Bogotá, my current residence.

 Throughout the night and part of the day, a babysitter was in charge of protecting my most precious treasure, my weakness, the man of my life; my little Thomas. He was a sweet, calm and quiet kid, a little different from the other kids at school, that's what I could see. But he was only a five-year-old boy, he still had a lot to grow up and adopt a definitive personality, meanwhile it was understandable, he was getting to know himself, even I was also trying to adapt to the changes that I saw in him and tried to I to understand why strange things happened in his personality sometimes.

 That morning I was sleeping, I know that it was definitely my fault what happened, but I was so tired that I didn't wake up on time, I also didn't know that the nanny's stay-at-home schedule had already ended and that she had to return to their personal chores outside my home. That was why I remained completely submerged in a deep sleep, until his sweet voice woke me up.

 "Mommy." The melody of talking about him was a painkiller for my soul.

 I shifted a bit on my bed, under the white comforter, separating my eyes slowly and stretching in the middle of a deep breath.

 "Good morning, my king" I spoke slowly and softly.

 "Could you turn on the shower head so I can wash up?" he asked carefully and innocently. “It's just that I got a little dirty eating.”

 I thought my son was talking about getting some dressing sauce or breakfast juice on him. At best, he might have spilled the milk while eating cereal.

 So, I still with my eyes a little closed and blinded by the daylight, I get up on the bed, sitting on the mattress and rubbing my eyes.

 "Sure, my love," I breathed out. “Sorry, it's getting very late and I haven't had breakfast with you—” 

 I stopped in my tracks at Thomas's appearance at that moment and my breath hitched immediately.

 His eyes were still bright and innocent, as well as his little face of not being guilty of something. But his mouth, cheeks, hands and his shirt were stained with blood, that was blood, it couldn't have been red paint. Besides, he really did smell of blood.

 I immediately got out of bed and went to him, all scared.

 "Are— are you alright?" I said quickly, crouching down in front of my son. “What happened? Is something in pain? Has someone hurt you?” I took him by the shoulders carefully and looked into his eyes again. “Tell me what happened, Thomas.”

 He kept his cool even though I almost had a heart attack.

 "No one has hurt me, mommy," he replied. “It's just— after Mari left, I was very hungry and I went out to the patio to play. I was very hungry, but I don't remember anything else.”

 My heart lurched desperately in my chest.

 “Thomas— you— were you with someone else? after Mari left, were you with someone else?”

 My questions were to make sure the worst hadn't happened, though from the blood on my son's clothes and face it looked like something very bad had really happened and in my mind I prayed that it wasn't so serious.

 “No. Mommy," he answered flatly, despite seeing me a little desperate. “I was alone after Mari left. And I was also with my food.”

 I put a hand to my face, my son was talking about his food, as if his food had been something with a life of its own and my concern grew, actually my fear was not precisely because I suspected that someone might have hurt Thomas, but because I knew very well that Thomas was not a normal child, Thomas was a dangerous weapon, he was a little predator without control and I was always afraid that he might end up taking someone's life in an instinctive rampage.

 Then I began to think that this terrible moment had already arrived and fear made me blink, looking away.

“Thomas. What or who did you eat?” I said that and turned to look at him.

 “I didn't manage to eat it all, mommy. I fell asleep and woke up next to it.” Thomas continued to speak calmly.

“Where is the?” I asked desperately, slightly shaking his shoulders with my hands, I didn't want to hurt him so I was delicate. “Where is that you ate?” I looked again at the blood on his cheeks, hands and clothes.

 “It's outside, in the yard.”

 I stood up and ran out of the room, crossing the room and out the front door.

 My house was a modest place, somewhat simple, with few rooms and a patio of about five square meters, greened with grass and a medium fence that delimited my territory from the territory of the neighbors and from the street. Even the initial door had a lock on, to prevent Thomas from escaping due to some mischief or someone unknown from entering. Although Thomas was never a child who ran away from home, he always liked to stay with his toys, doing homework or watching cartoons on TV.

 So when I looked around the yard, I saw that under a small bush was a corpse, a lump, but it had a surface of white fur or something, so I felt a little relief on that part, the affected It had not been a human being, but apparently one of my neighbor's sheep.

 I exhaled, bringing a hand to my chest, then I heard my son's voice again.

 "He was very big, mommy, but I was able to control him." Then his voice became a little sadder. “But I couldn't eat it all.”

 I turned to look at him and bent down to hug him, at least nothing bad had happened to my little son.

I looked towards my fence and observed a hole, yes, indeed my neighbor's animals had broken a part of the boards that delimited our territories, it had happened other times.

 "We have to clean this up, honey," I said in a low voice and as calm as possible. “Now go and wait for me in the bathroom, I'll go help you get cleaned up, meanwhile I have to clean this up.”

 “Sorry mom. I know you're tired and I just mess things up.”

 "It doesn't matter, honey. I got this.”

 I watched him go and quickly proceeded to lift the animal, spraying water all over the place to disperse the blood and leaving the place clean in less than thirty minutes. I would look for how to get rid of the sheep's body.

 Then I went to the bathroom and carefully showered my son, changing his clothes and putting the dirty ones in the washing machine. We spent the moment in silence, but I didn't want to scold him for that anyway, it wasn't his fault, he didn't know how to control himself and sometimes he would transform from human to wolf to feed or defend himself, although that time when he transformed during a school excursion, he only did it in front of two classmates who had been harassing him, but in the end the teachers did not believe the testimony given by the two assaulted children, no one believed that Thomas had become a wolf.

 I walked over to the dining room table and looked at the food on the table, a sandwich, fruit, and cereal.

 “Why didn't you eat what Mari made for you?" I asked calmly, proceeding to put that food away.

 “I didn't feel like it, today I wanted to eat something else, the sheep smelled very good, that's why I knew it was in our patio, I could smell it from here.”

 “Next time you want to eat an animal, please let me know first,” I said, checking the lunar calendar on my mobile phone and realizing that the night before had been a full moon and that this stage of the cycle greatly affected my instinctive behavior son.

 "Okay, mommy," he said.

 I was already trying to find out how I could educate him so that he could master his instincts, because sooner or later this lack of control could bring us very serious problems.

 And I didn't want to tell the doctors or the police what was happening with my son, I didn't want them to feel the need or the right to start wanting to do experiments on him somewhere, because obviously my son was not a normal human.

 At that precise moment we heard the doorbell ring, the warning that someone was calling outside the house, actually, beyond the little door that is after walking through the garden in front of us.

 I turned to look at my son.

 “Don't get out of here. Alright? Don't move from this place.”

 He just nodded and I left the house, taking diligent steps on the path until I reached the other door, I opened it and I found the blonde and plump neighbor.

 “Hello darling. I have lost one of my little animals, one of my sheep. Have you by any chance seen them here?” She asked me kindly, concerned.

 I shook my head.

 “No. It's just that this morning I got home from work and—” at that moment I turned back and pretended to take a careful look at my garden covered with grass. “No” I turned back to my neighbor. “The truth is that I have not seen his sheep. Since when have you not seen her sheep?”

 The lady of some sixty or seventy years of age sighed, with a worried face and she momentarily extended her gaze into my territory as if to make sure.

 They were all full last night, but today I need one in the herd. I thought he had run off to the other neighbors, but no. I searched on the street too and couldn't find it either. So I decided to come to your house as the last option.”

 I breathed in and out through my mouth, shaking my head as my gaze dropped.

 "Lo lamento. No he visto tu animal”, entonces me volví de nuevo hacia mi tierra, hacia mi casa, hacia mi jardín en general. “Pero sí noté algo, mencioné y señalé la cerca. “Sus animales han dañado mi valla. Entonces, ambos estamos perdidos en este momento. Miré su cara y sonreí débilmente. “De todos modos, te daré algo de dinero, tal vez te ayude a comprar otra oveja si lo ves necesario. Pero te agradecería que aumentaras la vigilancia de tus animales, no quiero que vuelvan a dañar mi valla después de que la arregle.”

 Ella aceptó y yo traté de comportarme con la mayor naturalidad posible, le di dinero, porque en realidad una oveja no costaba tanto y arreglar una cerca rota costaba mucho menos.

 Pero eso no era lo que me preocupaba. Lo que más me preocupaba era imaginar lo que mi hijo podría hacer si se volviera a descontrolar por sus instintos naturales, esta vez fue un animal el que se vio afectado, luego podría ser algo más grave, un humano tal vez.

 Esa inquietud ya flotaba en mi mente, necesitaba una manera de entender cómo educar a mi hijo sin lastimarlo, para que no lastimara a otra persona. Necesitaba hacer cualquier cosa para protegerlo.

 Y no solo en mi mente estaba el peligro que mi hijo y cualquier persona cercana a él corrían, sino que todavía no podía descifrar de quién había heredado Thomas esa naturaleza lobuna. Obviamente, lo había heredado de su padre, porque no de mí. El problema aquí era que ni siquiera yo podía recordar el rostro del hombre que engendró a mi hijo.