Episode 73: Last Request
Written By Karl White
To see what others cannot isn’t a gift of sight, but of understanding. It comes from truths gathered, and the willingness to look where certainty breaks. And once that kind of insight takes hold, it cannot be unseen.
Uti’s eyes had been opened. First from his conversation with the stars, seeing the dark entity manipulating the Wolf Tribe to spread their blood...Then through the collected stories of the Children of Nature. There was a foretelling reason to seek the Bearer of Light. Of the elemental powers, light was potent. It meant harnessing pure energy, bending photons, splitting atoms, rousing electrons into violent release. Imagine holding a star in your hand. Nuclear fusion. Dominion over matter itself. The power to create anything, or destroy everything.
Of course, Uti had no concept of any of this. But he knew how strong his elemental power of Air was. And with the sun itself, revered as a god...he could grasp how the simple truth, that one who controlled the power of Light could be devastating beyond measure.
The Bearer of Light - © 2026 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
Freed from the Army and fueled by the stories he’d gathered, Uti set out on a self-appointed mission. He traveled from village to village, taking in new cultures and listening for whispers of the Children of Nature.
Europeans were well-versed in werewolf lore, but American culture, knew little of it. Indigenous peoples, on the other hand, whether they revered or feared them, avowed their existence. And so, with his growing chronicle, Uti collected their history with a veiled intention: to find the Light Bearer. And Black Hawk’s story of Cuetlachtli, made him the prime suspect in Uti’s eyes.
Crossing the country, Uti transcribed other iterations of existing stories of the boy-wolf Honiahaka, the mysterious Wolf Tribe, and the Berserker of the East. But as decades wore on, he began locating and interviewing others like him. Most were eager to share how they’d received their curses, so he created his census. Connecting locations, bloodlines, and information on elemental powers.
What he learned was grim. Most received the curse with no instruction, no guide, no name for what they were. Abandoned to discover only violence and isolation through their affliction. They couldn’t be around others for fear of the change. And the werewolf side, ruled their lives. But a strange, recurring detail he encountered, was the mention of being followed after one’s elemental power surfaced.
By the mid-1900’s, Uti caught word of a sanctuary carved out for the Children of Nature. Its location was kept secret, taking the senses of a wolf to find it. In 1950, Uti arrived in Luna, meeting the town’s creator, Jones. He spoke of a lonely and violent life after being born a Child of Nature. Never knowing the ones who made him...though he claimed he saw one of them weeks after his first change.
Jones began to notice his elemental power early, the ability to control Fire. It was useful since he chose to stay in the far reaches of the wilderness. One night, as he coaxed flames from his fingers to light a fire to stay warm, he caught sight of someone watching from afar.
A female, one who had helped capture, and keep him prisoner. At first he thought she’d returned for him. Maybe to accept him into whatever pack had created him. But upon seeing his ability, she turned, and disappeared into the night. Jones chased after her, calling out, but there was no answer. Rejected again, this time by those who made him a monster.
Being followed - © 2026 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
Uti suspected he knew why Jones and others were watched, as the one’s who made them were in search of “the one” holding the gift of Light. And though Uti still hadn’t located anyone who controlled that element, the theme was unmistakable, the dispensable nature of becoming a werewolf was not random.
While in Luna, Uti interviewed nearly the entire town, including his sit down with Samuel Mundey. Discovering how interwoven they all were, meeting living remnants of legends, was astounding, if not revelatory.
But a name that continued to surface, again and again, was the dreaded Cuetlachtli. Stories painted him as savage beyond reason, yet no Child of Nature that Uti ever spoke to was directly connected to him. Tales grew with telling, so perhaps the vicious werewolf was an amalgam of others. Another ploy by the mysterious Wolf Tribe so no one but them could locate the herald they sought. And if elemental abilities were tied to powerful magic, then perhaps something far more sinister had been at work all along.
Uti sought the assistance of a secret society rumored to know of such things -- the Order of Wormwood. Rebuilt and refocused through the 20th-century by Veera Sarin, he told Uti of the Processions and the Dark’s wicked plan to bend history to find the seven souls tied to the end of mankind.
The year was 1975 and a Procession had already been enacted in Austria in 1944. The Order actively monitored the world for other signs of orchestrations -- evidence of the Dark guiding Fate’s hand.
Uti described the blackened entity of the Mother Spirit, the presence he’d seen during his vision quest. And of her steering the Wolf Tribe to spread their blood to find the one who could control Light. It was exactly the depths Satan and his minions would go to ensure victory. Veera left Uti with a sort of answer to the question that had propelled him forward.
VEERA: The surest way to stop the Dark from manipulating whatever soul they’re hunting, is to find it first, and eliminate it.
A simple solution for a complex problem.
Uti (L) meets with Veera Sarin (R) - © 2026 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
Fast-forward to 1981, Uti’s, continued pursuit of Cuetlachtli led him to the Museo Nacional de Antropologia, in Mexico City. Where he gained access to the original legend recorded in the writings of Friar Alonso de Grijalva, detailing the Wolf King’s reign in El Tajín.
Returning to his hotel that night, a telegram waited, from a mysterious sender claiming an intimate understanding of werewolf lore. Over the years, Uti had spoken to, and received letters from many claiming to know secrets he was already privy to. But this message held one detail that made his blood still, signed “Somewhere in Minnesota”.
He traveled to Santa Fe, New Mexico to meet the mysterious writer. And as Uti stepped into a diner, he caught an old, but familiar scent. Obec, the former Alpha in his wolf pack was waiting for him. And as if led by the hand of Fate, two beings, who had never uttered a word to one another in human form, sat down and spoke about the past.
Obec the man - © 2026 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
Obec was honest and forthright, a fountain of knowledge. He confirmed being Uti’s maker, along with many others. He told of the Wolf Tribe, their history, substantiating what Uti had seen in his vision...Adding insight only memory would carry…He told of conjuring the Mother Spirit. Of her call to create the one who would become the Bearer of Light, believing it was a divine mission.
But Obec had been a practitioner of magic even before the curse. And while he sensed malice in the spirit within the fire, the powers the curse brought were corrupting. He apologized to Uti for making him. His selfishness to create the Light drove him to do such things. And over the years, he’d come to a personal reckoning, sensing the Dark’s true intent in seeking that one specific soul. And more recently, he’d suffered a nightmare, a vision. A man in a field, blood raining from the sky. From that figure, came a whisper...Obec hesitated, then repeated what the man said.
The man in the field, blood raining from the sky - © 2026 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
OBEC: The elements must be brought together...And in his eyes I saw death and destruction.
He fell silent for a moment, then Obec revealed his true reasons in seeking out Uti.
OBEC: I’ve heard stories from other children, you’re preserving our history, our stories...I’m proud to be your maker…But there’s something I need. My life no longer holds the meaning it once did. While the beauty of this world hasn’t betrayed me, I fear whatever deal I’ve made to whatever devil appeared to us, is coming...soon. If I’m not around, it can’t use me against the world. I want you to end my life.
It was a brutal request. But thinking of Veera Sarin's words, Uti accepted. That night the pair headed into the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, a place of deep spiritual significance to the ancestral Pueblo and Apache. Under a wolf moon of all things, Uti transformed into a werewolf...and ended his maker. Deep in the valley below, a mournful howl carried through the dark.
TO BE CONTINUED…