The world breathed, but it was a shallow, ragged breath. Eons had passed since the Great Disaster, since the howl that tore the very fabric of existence had faded into an echo. Below, the ancient forests still wept dew, the rivers still carved paths through stones, yet a fundamental song was missing. It was the song of the First Hunt, the harmony of the Primordial Pack. It was gone.
Then, from the deep slumber of the earth, something stirred. Not with the frantic awakening of prey, nor the predatory slither of the serpent, but with a glacial, inevitable tremor. It was the stirring of the last. His fur, darker than the abyss, seemed to absorb the meager light of the newborn stars. His form, immense and shadowed, was a testament to a forgotten age. There was no conscious thought, no name, only the primal command of survival, etched into bone and sinew.
He was a whisper in the wind, a shadow in the deepest caves, a tremor beneath the mountains. The ancient spirits, those that lingered on the edge of the veil, felt his lonely presence and recoiled, for in him resided not just the immense power of his extinct kind, but the raw, unadulterated grief of a world undone. He was the first legend born of silence, a myth woven into the very fabric of desolation. And the world, holding its breath, waited to see what hunger, what purpose, would finally fill the emptiness where a pack once stood.