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Elena Michaels
Vladimir Air Force Base
0945 Hours Local
I woke up when my stomach started growling. I got out of bed, and saw that I was still wearing my drab green flight suit.
I put on the uniform I was given and made my way to the cafeteria. (Everyone else on the base called it the Mess Hall) and
got enough to eat so that I wouldn’t arouse suspicion, while at the same time filling me up for the day.
After I was done, I went onto the Tarmac of the air base, and saw that I wasn’t going to be flying today. As I looked
around, I saw that Bird Dog’s plane was still sitting there, practically unused. I checked the flight schedule again,
and none of Yellow squadron would be flying today. I saw another member of Yellow Squadron coming towards me to also read
the flight schedule.
“Excuse me,” I said, being as kind as possible. “Where’s your Captain? Bird Dog?”
“You mean Yellow 13?” he responded.
“Yeah, do you know where he is?”
The pilot shrugged. “He’s not in Sickbay looking after Tomboy?”
“That’s where he is?” I asked
“Last I checked,” he responded.
“Okay, thanks.” And I left him to read the flight schedule.
When I arrived outside Sickbay, I switched to breathing through my mouth. The smell of hospitals, infections, painkillers,
and god-knows-what, would drive me from there and possible leave me with a headache for the rest of the day. When I got inside,
I saw Bird Dog watching over someone. As I got closer, I saw that that someone was a woman.
At first, I thought she was dead, but I saw her chest rise and fall very slowly assuring me that she was alive. Bird Dog held
up one of her arms and checked her pulse and I saw leather restraints around her wrist. I didn’t see any IV tubes in
her unlike the other patients. Suddenly, the woman started to convulse violently, and I what I saw on her other arm made me
recoil. What I saw was something that had been on my own finger once, I saw it on another woman’s arm as well, and on
Bird Dog’s own arm.
What I saw was a purple swelling mass on her lower right arm, and was the beginning of a human’s transformation into
a werewolf. I inhaled through my nose, pushing out all the other scents of the hospital, and confirmed it: there where,
excluding myself, two werewolves there; Bird Dog, and the woman now convulsing in the hospital bed.
Bird Dog looked up, and seemed to notice me for the first time. I saw tears going down his face, now wrinkled slightly from
lack of sleep.
“It just happened so fast…” he said, wiping away the tears. “One second, I was alone in the forest,
then the next…” he shuddered slightly. “I swear I didn’t mean to do it, she just appeared suddenly…”
he stopped, in too much pain to continue.
The woman on the bed stopped convulsing, and several medics where crowding around her to straighten out the bones she sprained,
as well as to take samples of various bodily fluids. It took all my willpower not to break those guys necks right there. They
shouldn’t be allowed to do that! I thought angrily. That’s just wrong!
Bird Dog said nothing to this, and when I looked him in the eye, I saw nothing. Nothing at all. He was completely elsewhere,
probably focusing on a few months ago, replaying what had happened when he was bitten. Trying to track how she was doing,
I guess.
“Who is she?” I asked.
“My wingwoman, Sarah Nakano,” he said. “I was out for a run when she came out of nowhere, and by the time
I realized who it was, it was too late.”
“So you didn’t plan this?”
He was taken aback at that, and said: “no! I’d never even consider it!” he was being completely honest with
me.
Captain “Bird Dog” Roy
Sick Bay, Vladimir Air force Base
0644 hours local
October 4, 2006
The next few days passed in a blur for me. Elena sometimes came in to check on Tomboy’s status, and to threaten the
medical personnel that if they tried to take any more tissue samples from Sarah, she’d personally grind them into tiny
bits. Naturally, that lead to a complaint, which in turn, leaded to a public ass-chewing by the Base Commander.
Sarah woke up on October forth. I almost didn’t notice it because I was checking her pulse, if only to be sure she still
had one. Her fingers twitched, and I thought she was having yet another seizure. I saw her eyes open slowly, and I knew instead
that she was waking up.
“Whaa… happen…?” her words where barely audible, even with werewolf hearing.
“Its okay, Sarah,” I whispered, trying to get her slowly used to her new, heightened senses. “The doctors
are taking good care of you; you’re going to be fine. You just got a bad case of the flu, that’s all.” I
knew I was sugar-coating the whole thing. It would never be ‘fine’ for Sarah again, or at least, it would never
be the way she remembered it.
“Bull… shit…” she knew something was wrong. This was no ordinary cold, and she could tell that something
was totally wrong.
Before I had a chance to explain, I was shooed from sickbay, and the doctors restarted their medical tests. They thought Elena’s
threat was the real deal, hence the complaint, hence the ass-chewing. I knew she was kidding… I think.
Lt. Commander Sarah ‘Tomboy’ Nakano
Sickbay, Vladimir Air Force Base
0644 hours local
I woke up from my own, personal hell, although, I can’t say I was relieved. I knew something was wrong with me, but
before Bird Dog could tell me what it was, the doctors shooed him from the room, and started to run some tests on me. I had
the nagging feeling that what they where doing to me was somehow wrong, but I didn’t care, nor did I have the energy
to fight them.
After the doctors where finished with me, Elena came in and sat down on the seat that Bird Dog had vacated some time ago.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
“I feel like shit if you must know.” I mumbled, my lack of energy limiting that to just about all I could do.
She nodded, grimly and said: “I know, I’ve been through the same thing you’re going through.”
“So what is this exactly?” I was getting exhausted, but I had to know what this was.
Before Elena could explain, one of the doctors said: “sorry ma’am, but I’m afraid you’ll have to leave.
The Lt Commander needs to recover her strength. Come back in a couple of days, okay?” she tried to argue, but the doctor
threatened to call the Base Commander in again if she refused to leave.
So, I was left sipping juice through a straw, and an IV tube was placed in my arm to keep me from dying of lack of nutrition.
I kept dozing off and waking up so often that I thought days had gone passed, when it was only just a few hours. But I had
this weird burning feeling on my joints, like I had a muscle cramp or something.
I woke up again at night, but I couldn’t tell when. The burning feeling had not spread to every part of my body. Suddenly,
I was wracked with immense pain, and I fell out of the hospital bed I was in, and I started to Change.
Medical personnel rushed in to try and tried to help me, but they had no idea what to do. I tried fighting whatever this was,
but it wasn’t doing any good whatsoever. Through all the waves of pain, I could see that my arms weren’t human
anymore, I tried to scream, but what came out of my mouth wasn’t even remotely human. A final wave of pain more powerful
then any I’ve ever felt up to that point slammed into me, and I blacked out.
I ‘woke up’ in a dream, as a wolf. It was too crowded in here! I took off, knocking down several officers as I
tore out of the base. I crashed into a wall a few times, but I kept going, and eventually, I was out on the tarmac of the
air base. The roar of a combat jet taking off nearly defined me, and I bolted going right in FRONT of it. I nearly got sucked
in, but I dug my claws in, and got out of its way. I dashed into the forest, into safety.
Once I was in deep enough, I let out a howl into the moonless sky. This was where I belonged! I kept running, pushing myself
well past my maximum runner’s endurance, but I didn’t stop even to catch my breath for a few seconds.
I found a stream and started to drink out of it, my thirst was killing me. What was strange about this dream was that it felt
so real, but it couldn’t be. Last I checked, I was a human, not a wolf.
After I quenched my thirst, I looked at myself. I was a wolf with black fur making me almost completely invisible in this
night. Next, I went to my hearing. The forest was alive with all the sounds forests make at night; an owl hooting somewhere
off in the distance, a rustling of some kind of rodent in the underbrush, the trickle of water from the stream, and so on.
My vision? It sucked. Whether that was because it was night, or because my brain decided to make this dream as real as possible,
I couldn’t tell. That, and I didn’t really care. Now, another other bodily need came to surface: food.
I went off in search of something, anything that would satisfy my hunger. I soon found it, a camp of humans who had decided
to try living in MY territory. They where talking, but I didn’t bother listening. If you are so far down on the evolutionary
ladder that you need to TALK to get your point across, you are a hopelessly flawed creature with no hope of redemption. I
snuck up on them, being very careful not to give myself away. Their artificial scents where repulsive to me, but I was too
hungry not to care.
NO! Some part of my brain screamed. I WON’T LET YOU ATTACK THEM! NO! NO!!
I pushed that part of my mind away. I needed to focus, and having some part of my brain yelling at me didn’t help. I
suddenly heard a dog barking wildly. DAMN! I was upwind, sending my scent towards them, instead of the other way around! I
shot forward, and attacked the first living thing I saw, the dog.
The dance of intimidation lasted only a few seconds, because the dog –idiot that it was- charged at me, no doubt driven
by loyalty. I easily sidestepped, and attacked the dogs left hind leg, yanked it down onto the ground, and killed it by grabbing
its head in my mouth and snapping it’s neck.
I looked up after killing the dog. There was a family of three humans. One of them, an adult female lunged at me, trying to
protect her child, but I quickly overpowered her, and ripped out her neck. The adult male grabbed some kind of gun (the other
part of my brain, the screaming part, knew what it was, but I didn’t care) and started attacking me with it. Something
hit me in the side; I turned sharply, grabbed his ankle, and forced him down. He tried to get up, but I was to fast, and I
tore into his upper body. The last one, a child kept screaming at the top of her lungs not knowing what to do, but could not
think of anything else.
I killed the child with no real difficulty. God, this was such a RUSH!! I could keep doing this all night! But, first things
first: I was hungry, and I needed the food in my stomach, not sitting out left to rot. The other part of my brain had now
settled into a whimpering mess, no longer screaming at me, which was a relief.
I honestly didn’t know why it had gone silent though. I was hungry, they where prey, I killed them and ate them. What
was wrong? It happened all the time, all over the world, every second of every day. I shrugged those thoughts away and continued
feeding. I heard rustling to my left in a bush. It was too big to be a rodent, but to small to be another human. I sniffed,
and got the scent. Another wolf.
I was annoyed; someone had the nerve to violate MY territory!? I sensed that this one was a female. She had golden fur that
seemed to glow in the pale light from the human’s campfire and the stars above. I gave a growl to the new wolf. ‘Stay
back if you know what’s good for you.’
The newcomer looked around at what was left of my meal, and then growled at me. I held my ground and growled back, exposing
my blood-stained teeth. She then charged without warning, and slammed into me. We grappled with each other, clawing, biting
and snarling when one of us missed with an attack. I managed to sink my teeth into the newcomer, but I only succeeded in yanking
out a mouthful of golden fur. She jumped on me, and I was forced down. I managed to throw her off me after she made the wound
on my side that much worse.
The newcomer attacked my wounded flank, because she slammed into it a few seconds after I threw her off. The pain was so sharp
and sudden that I blacked out.
Chapter Seven
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