#wolf divided

Wolf divides wall -- when you accumulate too much dread it isn't eating only you, but the very veil between your dream and your waking world ______________________________

Nothing do with lore, just visualizing how 5 dreads all together on the deck (I had it on medium run once) could act on a dreamers psyche

World is heavily based on the world of Weather Factory's games, Cultist Simulator and Book of Hours, and does not necessarily strive for 100% accuracy.

An Unmaking is an independent work and is not affiliated with Weather Factory Ltd, Secret Histories, or any related official content. It is published under Weather Factory’s Sixth History Community Licence.

Available on AO3 and Spacebattles. Rough drafts are available on my subreddit. Read at your own risk.

A woman sits at the piano, smoking and singing. Her voice is rough. She finishes, and glances over her shoulder. I catch her eye. Below dark eyeshadow, I see eyes red with anger, and below a similarly colour lipstick, I see the baring fangs of a rabid wolf.

I trudged back home, my body operating more on instinct than with any conscious thought. My heart ached and burned, the blood in my veins seemed to move just a bit slower than before. I sat in my chair, my hands still coated in gore, my head empty. The knife, my knife, sat, cold and keen and pristine, radiating its awful aura, buried deep within my table.

The blood had stopped flowing long ago, coagulating a deep red against my skin. It was not mine. None of it was mine. I stared at it for what seemed like an eternity, the numbness within me only deepening.

The shower was scalding, but I felt nothing. My flesh turned red and raw, and I stared. The warmth should have reminded me of something, yet I remained cold, distant. Unfeeling. My tears fell silently, and my hair and skin were clean. Yet the blood remained, staining not my body, but my soul.

The blade was still there when I emerged. It still had that sharp, disquieting smell, neither blood nor ozone. Something wrathful, something that cursed all of existence.

I passed it by, walking out to my kitchen, only to be stopped by a voice. A familiar voice, if it could even be called that, growling in my ear. It called for division, for anger. It had shown me visions of a dissevered sun and told me that it would bring the same to me, to this city. To the cults. And I would be its fangs, to be wielded against all of existence. It whispered its name: The Wolf Divided.

I turned on my heel. "Why? Why have you chosen me?"

The Wolf did not answer, at least not with words. But it flooded me with its anguish, only satiated with the destruction of the very things it despised most: the Hours and all of their kin, and last, and above all else, itself. It wished to end it all so, finally, it could end its own wretched existence. It saw its hatred within me, my yearning for revenge, my loathing of the cults. It wished for me to be strong. Strong enough to end the Hours and then itself.

The blade called, its edge sharper than I ever thought possible, its keen song the most beautiful music to my ears. It called me. And so, I must answer.

My fate was sealed. The Wolf would not let me go. I would be its fangs. Its instrument, to end its existence. But that did not mean I would not struggle.

"You do not own me. I will not let you take over my body, my soul." My voice shook, my fists clenched tight.

The Wolf did not reply, its anger palpable in the air. I stood, unmoving. I hated to admit it, but our aims aligned. If I complied, I would have the power to end the cults and perhaps even the Hours they worshipped. But at what cost? How many more innocents would I bleed? I would be no better than the very people I despised, an indiscriminate killer under the service of an Hour.

"No," I spat. I would not submit to it. I would carve my own path without the help of the Wolf.

It growled in response, spitting its vile hatred. But within that hatred, I felt a smug certainty. Almost as if it was sure I would return to it. It could wait.

I sat back down in the chair, my knife, its knife, still buried within the table. I picked it up, the metal still as cold as death, the stench of sharpness still in the air. It was no ordinary knife anymore, that was for certain. Steeped in Winter, Edge, and the blood of a Long, it had been remade anew. Now, it was the fang of a wolf. And I would have to carry it, for I had no other weapon. No other choice.

I left it there, staring at it. It shuddered, its anger like a tangible force, but it would wait. It was my tool, and it would be wielded by my will alone. The Wolf was wrong to think that I would ever bend to its whims.

I would use it as a weapon against the cults. Nothing more.

---

The Children were dead. They were gone, and the city had no more to fear from them. But the others were still active, and their cultists walked the streets, scrambling to fill the power vacuum.

I bought myself a second knife, one untouched by Winter, Edge, or blood. Its steel was dull, and its Edge was lacking, but I made do. I was more than enough to make up for my weapon's deficiencies. The Wolf's Fang, as I began to call it, was kept strapped to my leg, where it had always resided. But it would not see any more action. I needed none of the Wolf's vitriolic blessings. Not if I could avoid it.

And so I tracked the cults down. Their members, their cultists, I would cut them down. Even with my dulled knife, it was far too easy. When I wasn't looking, I had become far, far stronger than I'd realized.

They were too weak for me, too slow, and too few to do anything about me. Scrabbling vermin, fleeing before their inescapable end. And with each kill, each life snuffed, I felt the Wolf's approval, its nihilistic delight in death and pain, its desire for an ending to everything it loathed. And so I continued to cut. But each flash of my blade would not be done in the Wolf's name, nor its hate. It would be my hate, my duty, and mine alone.

---

The cultists were dead; their cults were excised. None amongst them had a Long, so they fell with nothing of note. I thought of the Moth Long, who used to dwell in this city, but I could not find him, no matter where I looked. Perhaps he fled upon seeing my power, or perhaps his capriciousness had led him away through no fault of my own. But the cultists were dead, and their plots unraveled.

I was at a loss for what to do next. I had lived for my revenge against the cults, against the people who took everything from me. But the cults had fallen. They were gone, their remnants shattered, and their leaders slaughtered. All that remained was... me.

The Wolf Divided still called. It growled, reminding me that my city was only one of many. It showed me other cults in other cities, snippets of their condemnable actions and their prayers to their Hours.

The Wolf asked me if my hatred was truly satiated.

I knew the answer was 'no', but I still resisted. This was what it wanted, to wield me against all it despised.

But what was left for me if I rejected the Wolf? To grow complacent within my city, satisfied with my meager victory? The other cults remained, far away in their own festering cloisters, and they would need to be cleansed as well. The Divided One's goals and mine were aligned, no matter how much I would wish otherwise. But I was still not the Wolf, and I would never be the Wolf. Never again would my hatred, the edge of my blade, be turned against the innocent. Never again.

I owned few possessions. The clothes on my back, a worn notebook of occult knowledge scavenged from the cults I demolished, and my knives. And now, I was ready to leave. The cults within my city were destroyed. They would not recover for many years. My presence was needed no longer.