First story since in recovery. Hollow Howls

[Laurentian90]

Hollow Howls

Prologue: The Lord of the Wild

In the beginning, there was balance.

The forests breathed and the rivers sang, and all beasts great and small moved to the rhythm of Cernunnos, Lord of the Wild.

He is life. He is the untamed heartbeat of the earth.

Every creature, every growing thing, every pulse beneath soil or sky, belongs to him. Once, the wilds of the world stretched unbroken and boundless, wrapping the earth in green and gold.

But those days are gone.

Now the wild clings to its last refuges, hidden in shadowed valleys and mist-cloaked peaks remnants of an age when man and nature ran side by side, instead of clawing for supremacy. The tipping point has passed. The balance is broken.

There will be no going back.

For every tree felled, for every river poisoned, for every heartbeat silenced beneath the iron of progress there comes a reckoning. The change that is coming will not be gentle. It will be the judgment of a world long defied.

Nature will always endure.

Her healing may take generations, centuries, even millennia but it will come. And when that day arrives, mankind must choose its side: to stand with the living earth, or to fall with the ruins of its own making.

Civilization’s towers will crumble. The seas will rise. The world will be cleansed by earth, water, fire, and wind and from the ashes, life will begin anew.

Deep within the shadowed fog of the Appalachian Mountains, where the old songs still whisper and the blood of the Celts runs quiet and strong, the Lord of the Wild stirs.

After a millennium of slumber, Cernunnos will wake.

His scattered children the beasts of the forest, the spirits of fang and claw and antler will heed his call. The Gods of the Seasons, long silent and forgotten, now rouse in anger. They are weary of watching the world decay, of seeing balance replaced by greed.

The dawn of a new era is upon us.

Whether it brings renewal or ruin depends on the heart of humankind and the side it will choose when the Wild returns. 

In the shadowed heart of the Appalachian Mountains, echoes of the Old World still linger. Here, the descendants of Celtic settlers carry fragments of forgotten myths songs of gods, forests, and the Wild that once ruled all things.

Alden McCrae, a former addict now in recovery, is rebuilding his life brick by brick. Seeking peace and purpose through his art, he retreats to the quiet edges of the New River Gorge. There he meets Ronan Gallagher park ranger, son, brother, and steadfast leader of his close-knit mountain community.

As their lives begin to merge, something ancient stirs beneath the ridges and rivers. Stories of old and gods long slumbering awaken, whispering through the trees. The mountains hum with unseen energy, and dreams of antlers, fire, and forest spirits haunt their nights.

When the forgotten god Cernunnos rises from his millennium of silence, the line between man and myth begins to blur. Amidst fog and folklore, Alden and Ronan are drawn together by love, fate, and something far older than either of them—something written in the bones of the earth and the blood of their ancestors.
 

Edited October 16, 2025 by Laurentian90