Â鶹Éç

My first memory is of darkness. Dark, cold and damp. If I close my eyes, I can hear the chilling sound of gushing water, dragging me from my home. The combination leaves me shaking and shuddering. A feeling straight from my nightmares. Literally.

Perhaps it isn't fair to call that my earliest memory. I suppose my very first memory would be the two syllables of my name. I am Remus, and this is my story.

Bright teeth snap by my head. I open bleary eyes and yawn, watching my brother receive the same treatment. Rough, furred legs straddle my chest and a tail whips in my face. This den really is becoming too small for us to share. Romulus looks up at me, his face clouded with sleep, and glares. I realise I am staring and look away hurriedly. Outside the den, a wolf howls.

Looking back, I can recall that howl vividly. It signalled great changes to come in our lives. Perhaps just another sound to add to my collection, but at that moment in time, I was terrified.

The wolf had looked after us for nearly three years, I think. Of course, it's hard to be certain, but I remember the freshness of two springs, the chill of several winters. Romulus just doesn't care. I don't imagine we were ever fooled into believing we were wolves ' we were just too different. I still wish I could howl at the moon like the midnight wolf.

We hold our collective breath, baking in the underworld heat of a sun. The wolf pack outside slaver in delight at finding two human pups in the middle of this hot summer. All the prey was dying before it could be eaten. Roasted to a crisp in the brightness of the sun. The wolf pack didn't count on us being protected by our wolf: Zeffa. Snarls erupt in front of us. The beloved, grey tail draws circles on the sandy ground. Ears flatten against the elegant skull. And then, as fast as lightning flashes ' and just as shocking ' it begins.

All we can hear are snaps and scratches.

All we can see is flying grey fur.

All we can smell is the rusty tang of copper blood.

All we can feel are each others' trembling fingers. Mine shake from fear, although I fight to keep them still. Looking at Romulus' fevered eyes, I know he is excited.

Zeffa is dead.

It was always like that, I can see now. Romulus was always exhilarated by even the prospect of a fight. In my later years I managed to clamp down on my fear, but I was never happy. Especially when blood was involved.

But I ought to be telling my story.

We run. For a night and a day and another night, we run. I can feel every step as my tough feet slap the hard, baked ground, every breath as the hot air sears my lungs. I gasp for air. The wolf pack follows.

Finally, I see a patch of trees ahead. I grab a branch, swinging up into the tree. The sweet smell of crushed pine needles invades the air. But Romulus is still running, glancing back in a brief attempt to find me.
'Climb!' I yell, but my throat is dry, parched. I gulp down a few mouthfuls of air before I try again.
'Climb, Rom! Climb!' my voice echoes through the forest, and a wolf scratches pitifully at the trunk of my tree. I catch a glimpse of Romulus' face, surrounded by yew leaves, and am content. We are safe. All we can do now is wait for the wolves to leave. Knowing this, I curl up on my branch ' curiously comfortable for a bed this far from the solid ground below - and sleep.

I could never have survived without Romulus. I think even at the time I knew that. He was my older brother, my guider, protector and role-model, all rolled into one. I was his victim, and happy to be. I was always ridiculously proud of having saved him from the wolves. He must have hated the very thought.

'I knew we had to hide in the trees. You didn't have to shout,' Romulus grumbles. He drops from the tree, throwing leaves in my face. I scowl. He begins to walk forwards. I look around, fixing the sounds of the forest into my memory. The dry twigs crackle under my brother's feet. From behind a bush, a bird cheeps. A wolf howls. I hurry to catch up with Rom. He shoots me a look as I catch up, but offers no comment. I keep my eyes on the ground.
'So,' I begin. Glaring brown eyes pierce mine. I carry on, seemingly oblivious.
'Where are we going?'

It took us a while to find our feet that time. After the wolves I remember most of our lives (or rather, most of my life) quite clearly. The next few days were especially vivid, punctuated with the fear of finding more hostile wolves. Actually, our lives were pierced many times over with vividness. Excuse me in advance for using the word more often than I ought.

But first I ought to explain how two four-year-old boys were able to escape a pack of wolves. It tool us the whole of that first summer even to start to understand Zeffa ' a summer of fear. With hindsight, I know that she was just being protective, but it didn't seem like that at the time.

Tensed with fearful anticipation, I lie on my bed of leaves. Warmth is beginning to creep back into the days, but I still shiver in the spring night.

A cold, wet nose pushes itself into my face. I scream, waking Romulus, and we clutch at the trees nearby, scrambling to our unsteady feet in our desperation to get away. I hear a thump behind me, and I spin round to see Romulus fall to the ground, the wolf's paws on his shoulders. I panic, not knowing what to do. Instinctively, I drop to my hands and knees, crawling as I have never crawled before. Straight into a wall of grey fur, mottled with curious blues and browns rather than the black I would have expected. Startled, I pause. But when the black lips wrapped around long, harsh canines appear in my vision, I panic. For the third time, I try to escape. For the third time, I am prevented. I close my eyes, knowing, even as an infant, that it is impossible.

All I can add, at this point, is that we grew up incredibly quickly during our 'boat ride' down the River Tiber. Fear does that to a person, even to a child.

I feel hot breath on the back of my neck, the cold teeth sliding down. I wait for the darkness of breaking skin, the blood pounding around my head. All of a sudden, my clothes are tight around my chest, the damp, princely velvet straining, and my feet are off the ground. I look up, boldly staring into the amber eyes of the wolf carrying me like one of her pups. I cry out as we pass Romulus, who is lying in a daze on the soft forest floor. She looks back once, but carries on forwards.

I am fully conscious still as she drops me, hard, into her den. A few moments later, when she returns with Romulus, I fall into sleep, letting exhaustion take control of my body. We are still alive. For now, it is enough.

And then came the difficulty of understanding. Wolf language isn't at all like ours. Yes, they use sounds, but many of them are too high for humans either to hear or reproduce. So we were stunted from the beginning.

And then, once we had begun to learn the multitude of yips and barks (not to mention all the separate pack songs) we began to see the positions that accompanied them. Within the wolf pack, your status is shown by how you approach the other wolves. We had to learn that. We learnt everything ' including how to run and hunt.