The Contagion

Returning from a scouting trip, Doulzen's mother, Khalja, meets with her mate Ruvik during a migration layover. Two days later, back home within the mountains, Ruvik rushes to the herbalist's den when Khalja suffers a seizure. She unfortunately dies from a previously unknown virus. Returning from his den, Ruvik finds that one of the pupsitters had also died. Soon Ruvik isolated himself and other healthy pack members. Although Ruvik protectively kept his eldest son, Doulzen, quarantined away from the pack, isolating him and creating restrictions. This had caused Doulzen to grow lonely, without another companion to talk with, and unable to roam around to adventure.

Soon after, Ruvik becomes infected and dies, causing his pack to fall apart as there were no capable members of taking the title of Alpha. Soon abandoning the land and seeking safer places to hide from the illness, all while Doulzen was unaware of this, no pack members had informed the young lad. The novel virus spreads, several packs and other animals begin migrating further up North, hoping the colder temperatures kill the virus and avoid infection. Placing themselves under quarantine, most wolves began panic hunting, widespread looting, and violence. When Doulzen had finally risen from his hiding, the young adolescent was faced with an empty land, no scents or sights of wolves present. Overwhelmed, Doulzen sought out to search for his parents, calling out their names and attempting to find a single clue of where they had gone. Cold, hungry, and far away from home, Doulzen learned the harsh reality of nature, learning that no one was going to find him, and that his parents were gone. Giving up, the young adolescent seeked warmth and shelter underneath a dead shrub. Eventually, a lone female known as Melinoe, encountered Doulzen, finding the poor babe shivering, and quickly taking him as her own. With his new stepmother, Doulzen and her started to move further up North.

When Doulzen grew to a young adult, a herbalist claims to have found a cure of the virus, using a homeopathic cure derived from forsythia. Wolves seeking forsythia violently overwhelmed lands and mountains once the good news had been announced. Doulzen then inoculated himself with the experimental herb, then visited where his parents had died, and where the virus had taken place. He does not contract the illness, and the herb is a declared success. Confident in returning to his home land and hoping to reconnect with the nature he was born in, Doulzen soon took the title as Alpha, and formed his new pack, The Contagion.