Why was this diary the way it was? Why had it's author laid down in writing such strange and alien paragraphs? And the wolf. The wolf was part of the diary and yet, it seemed to me, that it had not always been this way.

"Many stories come and go," The innkeeper said, I sat at the bar listening intently. It had been only a few hours ago that I had stared into the blue eyes of the wolf, and the wolf had met my gaze. "But nothing comes to mind of the like you speak of, sir."

"No wolf?" I sighed.

"None in these parts, perhaps it escaped from some travelling circus but there'd be no wild wolves about. That I can assure you."

"Can you?" I grumbled, the memory of the creature still clear as day to me.

"That I can. Here, get this down yer throat."

The innkeeper left me with a pint of mead and that, as far as he was concerned, was the end of it. But I knew even then that I had to act on this, I couldn't just push it to the back of my mind and hope to forget.

And so, that very night, I went to the corner of the wild moors. I burned the diary. It did not take long to gather dry sticks and set them alight, with only a few minutes gone the fire was burning nicely. Taking the cursed diary out from my inside pocket, I hesitated. The night was cold and, had I not found a sheltered area of the moors, any fire would have been quite impossible due to the crying wind.

Standing over the small fire, book in hand, I told myself this should be done. It must be done. Whatever was inside these pages was certainly not of a natural source. I dropped the diary into the licking flames.

At first it spat a little, crackling in the sudden heat it found itself in. But seconds passed and the fire began eating up the thin paper inside and melting away the leather cover of the diary. It was dying. For a moment I thought I saw the page of the blue eyed wolf burning up but, if it had been, it was gone too quick for me to be sure.

I looked up in front of me and the wolf was nowhere to be seen. I felt a weight on my shoulders lift and made no effort to surpress a smile spreading across my face. Some things, I thought as I made my way back to the inn, are not meant to be found.

Three years have passed since the burning of the diary. I have never slept peacefully as I once used to. My nights are broken by distant and confusing dreams. I find I cannot focus anymore either, my work has suffered considerably. The diary's hold over me has not been broken and I can make no sense of it.

All I know for sure is the creature. A wolf it is not, for the wolf burned on the moors. But this creature did not. It is tall and thin, it's skin tight to it's skeleton. It's eyes a creamy white and it's hair wet and wild. I see it in the corner of my eye, several times a day be it morning or night. It peers around the corner of a door, or from behind a wall. Sometimes, I am sure, it just stands in the shadow.

Always the creature watches me and always it will follow me.

I'd now wager the diary was written by a man in the midst of being punished. For what crime I cannot say exactly but, due to the manner of the punishment, I'd say it was of the supernatural variety. I wonder if this creature followed him. Did it kill him? I shudder to think of such things.

And as I struggle on I regret burning the diary because I never did read the final entries. The author was dead, that I know for sure, because I did in fact read the very last passage of the book. It went like this;

'... so many regrets... there is no escape and I must do what I feared I would do all those years ago... goodbye, creature have me no more...'

As well as the writing there had been a thick red stain - dried blood. Suicide, it seems, was the only way out.

I wonder if it worked. Does the creature follow me now because it failed in it's task over the diary's author?

Or will I too succumb to it's mere presence? How much longer can I go on living like this?

POLICE FILE: EVIDENCE

CASE: SUSPECTED SUICIDE

BRIEF: Officers found this piece of writing on the desk of Professor Nigel Rickman, who commited suicide by hanging three days before.