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Elena Michaels
Stonehaven, Bear Valley
1410 Hours Local
Something was wrong. Sarah and Bird Dog should have come back by now, or at least called. After a few minutes of waiting,
we went to New York City, and soon after that, we were in Farbanti.
Since we were new to this universe, let alone this city, we split up and walked in different direction, staying in touch with
our cell phones. Eventually, Clay and I saw Bird Dog walking alone on the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street. I took
a deep sniff of the air, and smelled nothing beyond the usual smells of a city: asphalt, gasoline, car exhaust, people, and
lots of other things.
We pushed the button on the stoplight, and waited. Eventually, the light turned green, and we managed to intercept Bird Dog.
He saw us coming, and when we caught up with him, he said: “Hello Clay, Elena, what brings you to Farbanti?”
“We’re looking for you,” I said. “You didn’t call or come back so we started to worry.”
I took a look around. “Where’s Sarah? I don’t see her around.”
He sighed and said: “I don’t know where she is. The meeting with her parents didn’t go too smoothly. They
forbid Sarah from ever being near me again. I’m lucky if they didn’t file some kind of restraining order against
me yet.”
Clay look confused and said: “Don’t they know that’s impossible? You two work together, and your practically
mates! Elena tried to stay away from me before, but it never quite worked out did it, darling?”
I shot him a dismissing look and said: “let’s not go into that right now, but Clay’s right. You two practically
lived together on the base before you got bitten, and from what I can understand, Sarah doesn’t want to change her job.”
Bird Dog nodded. “Yeah, I know that, and her parents know that too, but to them, I’m some kind of demon. I took
their daughter away from them, and made her a—“
Clay gave him a hard look. “Don’t even THINK the word ‘monster’. If her parents can’t see that
she’s happy with what she is, then why is she still LIVING with them?”
There was another sigh from Bird Dog. “It’s not that easy I’m afraid. I’m sure they’ll eventually
come around, but I’m not holding my breath.”
I pulled out my phone, and called everyone else in the Pack, letting them know we found Bird Dog, but not Sarah. After I hung
up, I asked: “Where do you think Sarah would be?”
He shrugged. “If she’s not at her house, then probably at the National Library. At least, that’s what I’m
guessing.”
I hailed a cab, and the three of us got in. Bird Dog gave the driver directions, but told him to stop at Dr. Wolfe’s
office. I thought it was a bit ironic, but I didn’t say anything. When I looked at him, he said: “I’ve got
a psychiatrist appointment soon and the office in on the way there.”
He stepped out of the car when we got to the office, while Clay and I continued to Sarah’s house. When we knocked on
the door, there was a slight hesitation and eventually someone, who I could only guess was her father, opened the door.
“Yes?” he said. “Do I know you?”
I shook my head and said politely: “no sir, but we’re friends of your daughter. Can you tell us where she is?”
He glared at us. “Terrific, more ‘people’ like you. Well, I told her ‘friend’ and I’m
telling you: Stay away from Sarah and my family.”
“Look, we really need to know where Sarah is. She’s practically family to us and—“
“Don’t EVER say that about my daughter. I’m warning you, either leave my premises immediately, or I’ll
call the cops.”
Not wanting to be arrested, we both left, and tried a different approach: we would smell her out. Not the hardest thing in
the world to do, but hard enough in a city. Although, there where, as far as we knew, no werewolves other then us.
We caught her scent, and followed it to a library of some kind, occasionally stopping to backtrack to regain the scent. Once
we got there, we followed it outside to a park and eventually we found Sarah and two other people. A man and a woman. I smelled
something else as well, but my brain wouldn’t believe what it was.
The woman smelled like a werewolf! But that was completely impossible! Werewolves where just native to my home universe, what
the…?
The woman turned around and looked panic-stricken for a few seconds. I saw brown fur start to sprout from her hands, but Sarah
quickly turned, saw us, and grabbed a hold of her, and said: “Don’t worry, Amanda. These are just friends of mine.
They’re from my Pack. It’s okay, just calm down.”
The woman named Amanda calmed down, and said: “I’m sorry, I’ve been a little on edge lately. My name’s
Amanda, this,” she pointed to the man on the ground. “Is my husband Neil. Sarah’s brother.”
Neil didn’t look up. He just sat there, looking sombre. To me, he looked like one of the Librarians here, but I couldn’t
be sure. I took a sniff, and he had that musty odour that usually comes from books.
Amanda was also looking very sad, as was Sarah. Eventually, I said: “what happened here?”
Sarah told me the whole story of Amanda losing control over herself, Changing, and attacking as well as about the Pack in
this universe as well. When she was finished, both Clay and I had the same expression: ‘are you fucking kidding me?’
After I recovered from the shock of being turned into a werewolf, I was ‘brought up’ I guess is the right term,
to believe that there was just ONE pack, my own. The same was true for Clay.
Neil finally looked up and said: “why didn’t you tell me about this before? You’ve been a werewolf for over
a year now.”
Amanda went close to Neil and hugged him, tears streaming down her face. “I’m REALLY sorry about what you saw,
baby, I was just too scared. You know how easily I get scared, even before I was bitten, and I was afraid that if I told you,
you’d reject me or something. I’m still having a bit of trouble accepting that fact; I had no idea how you’d
take it. Please, don’t be angry with me.”
Neil sighed. “I’m not angry, just disappointed.” He pulled her closer and hugged her. He started to whisper,
but with werewolf hearing, we were able to hear: “you can tell me anything, Amanda. You know that. It’ll be okay,
I’ll tell Cera about what happened, and you can go to this meeting in Yuktobania.”
She slowly pulled back and said: “thanks, but be gentle with that, and if she asks to become one, just tell her that
mommy said no.”
He nodded, and said: “you better leave soon. The next flight to Cinigrad won’t be here until tomorrow morning.”
Captain ‘Bird Dog’ Roy
Dr. Wolfe’s Office, Farbanti
1415 Hours Local
My appointment was scheduled for 2:15, but somebody was taking a little longer then that, easily eating away into my hour.
Once that person was finished, I got up and went it. I saw that like in all those stereotypes, a couch was there, and I asked:
“Do you want me to lie down?”
Wolfe shook her head, and said: “Not if you don’t want to. So, let’s start at the beginning: what exactly
happened to your parents? Tell me everything, what you saw, what you felt, everything.”
I tried to be strong as I dredged up the memories of that night. I was at a High-School dance, my school had one every month,
and as I was dancing, I heard a defining ‘boom!’ an asteroid passed right over the city of San Salvacion where
I lived at the time. Everyone rushed to the windows or doors of the gym where it was being hosted, and the image of the fireball
from the heavens completely destroyed my night vision. A second later, the fireball slammed into the town with enough force
to send Earthquake-sized shockwaves through the ground, even though it was at the opposite end of the town. I remembered the
news broadcasts that one student in my class did for a thing called ‘Current Events’ (Essentially, find a news
topic, and explain it to the class, stupid I know but what can you do?)
The ULYSSES1994XF04 Asteroid was on a collision course with the Earth, although, scientist discovered something troubling:
the asteroid, in passing around Mars, had disintegrated on that orbital slingshot, and had broken up into several pieces.
Then, a chilling thought entered my mind: Which city district had that hit? Sixteen years ago, San Salvacion was divided up
into four main areas as opposed to the three nowadays; Old Towne, New City, San Salvacion International Airport, and the Basin.
The Basin was roughly in the middle of the city, and was in a basin formed by a glacier as it passed over (hence the name).
The Basin was where my family lived, and I hoped to God that they got out in time, even though I didn’t know where the
Asteroid hit.
I ran out of the gym, and headed straight for The Basin first. When I got over a hill and looked down, I saw a vision of hell
itself: Flames rising all over the place due to gas mains that caught fire, houses and building blown to rubble and random
pieces of wood, cars upended and smashed as though a gigantic child had thrown them round.
I went down that hill, and that was the longest part of my life. When I got down that hill, the first thing I saw was a person;
I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman, walking towards me. Most of their skin was simply gone or charred black.
There were no eyes, ears, hair, mouth or nose; all had been burnt off. The person reached me, and then collapsed, and I saw
hundreds of shards of glass and splinters stuck in their back.
I somehow managed to keep going, and I weaved past the fire crews, and medical personnel. There was no one left alive, they
had all either been incinerated by the blast, or had died a few minutes later from God-only-knows what kind of injuries. I
thought I heard a scream from close by. A very young scream, almost like a baby’s. I went to dig through the rubble,
desperate to find somebody, ANYBODY that survived the hit.
When I dug through the rubble, I saw a baby next to its mother. The mother was dead, head smashed in from a heavy TV, and
several pieces of wood, rock or metal I couldn’t tell. It looked like she had dived over her child in protection. I
picked the child up carefully, and called the medical people over. That child I saved later became my adopted brother.
The smoke was choking me by the time I got to what was left of my parent’s house. I tried to call for Tom, my dog, but
the smoke and dust and heat stole the words from my lungs and I would up coughing. When I managed to recover slightly, I went
in, hoping against hope that even after what had happened, my family would still be at the dinner table, or watching some
TV show as if nothing had happened. No such luck.
When I went to open the door, I almost burned my hand. I wrapped my hand around my shirt, and tried again, but the door wouldn’t
budge! I kicked it, and I heard a ‘Crack’, but the door held. I tried one last time, backing up, and I charged
at the door!
It came lose with a flurry of splinters, and I dove inside. The devastation was inside here too. Fires had come and gone,
leaving this place a deathtrap of burnt-out wood. I made my way carefully upstairs, to see if my baby brother was still okay,
but when I got to his room, I heard nothing. Nothing at all, not even the lullaby machine that my parents always kept on for
him when he went to sleep.
Thinking the worst, I did another shoulder barge, and came into a room completely devoid of life: no crib, no bright colours,
and no semi-annoying stuffed animals that squeaked when you hugged them, no nothing. There was nothing that remained of my
baby brother’s room, not even him.
Fighting back the… well, there’s no word invented that describes what I was feeling then, I made my way carefully
back down stairs to find either one of my parents, or my dog. When I heard some whimpering near the kitchen, I ran to it,
and threw up almost immediately; there where my parents on the ground, dead.
I could tell because my mother was impaled by what was once a support beam that was safely inside the drywall, and my father’s
head was smashed open by large chunks of the drywall.
I heard the whimper again, and I dug Tom out of the rubble. He was in bad shape though, and was clearly dying. I hugged him,
and tried to say nice things in his final moments, but all I could do was cry. Once he did die, I went over to my mother’s
body, and cried harder then I had ever cried before or since.
Eventually, the rescue teams found me, and hauled me away from what was left of my house. That was the last time I ever saw
my parents again, except for in my dreams…
I snapped back to reality, and saw that I was crying. My hands where over my face, and I was crying. I always did that when
I remembered what happened that day. Hell, anyone would. What I saw was pure horror. The only thing that could come CLOSE
was when I was bitten by that Mutt.
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