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Sarah “Tomboy” Nakano
Stonehaven, Bear Valley
1831 Hours Local
I woke up with one hell of a hangover. I opened my eyes, and saw a room that was definitely not mine. I sucked in a quick,
sharp breath, and checked my sides, and was relieved that no strange men where sleeping next to me. Once, in Erusia before
the Continental War, I had too much to drink in a bar, and I woke up in a bad part of town. It scared the hell out of me.
I checked myself over to make sure that I hadn’t been raped while I was out, and to see that my service pistol was still
there.
As far as I could tell, I hadn’t been raped and my gun was still there, so I went to find a way out of this place. I
opened the door as quietly as I could, being very careful not to touch the door handle with my bare hands.
As I stepped into the hallway outside my bedroom, I drew my pistol. Something inside me said that I shouldn’t even bother
with it, but I ignored that, and held my gun at the ready.
“Well, it’s good to see you’re awake,” someone said.
I turned sharply, and pulled the trigger. The shot went off-course in my panic, and I only succeeded in shooting out a light
bulb. Elena didn’t even flinch, while I was using my right hand (I’m left-handed) to cover my right ear. The sound
from that gunshot nearly deafened me. I quickly steadied my steadied my aim.
“Who are you? What am I doing here?” I said, as calmly as I could.
“You had your first Change yesterday, didn’t you? That’s the most delicate point in any bitten werewolf’s
life. You’re here because you need training in a place you feel most comfortable.” She said.
I had no idea what she was saying, but I remembered… oh god. What had I done? I killed that family… I fell to
the ground, curled into a ball and started crying again. I had killed that little girl in cold blood, and I didn’t even
feel any guilt towards it then. Jeremy tried to comfort me, but I was too far down in my own depression to notice.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I killed people for a living as a pilot, but you never actually SAW anything. You never saw
your weapons tear into your victim’s flesh, you never heard them scream unless you had your radio set on the right frequency,
and even then, it was synthetic and filled with static as the plane exploded. You never smelt anything at all except the clean,
pressurized air inside the cockpit.
Yeah, I suppose it’s a service branch for wimps, and we did take a lot of jokes and insults directed our way, from the
army in not getting up close and personal, and from the navy in our planes not being able to land on a carrier.
Once I came out of my depression, I heard Elena say: “I know what you’re going through, and believe me when I
say that you WILL get through this. I’ve seen another woman go through this too, she made it out of the shock as well.”
I tried to regain my composure, but it was nearly impossible to after what I remembered. Elena tried to console me, but I
simply kept refusing to admit what had happened. There was a perfectly rational explanation out there, one that didn’t
involve turning into a wolf.
It finally hit me: this was one of Yuri’s bizarre psychic experiments. Nobody knows WHY he does them, but he did. This
was a nightmare of some kind. I was still in sickbay on the hospital bed. He fabricated everything up to this point by messing
around with the signals in my brain.
I was still on the ground, but I kept whispering to myself: “Its okay Sarah, you’re going to wake up soon. This
isn’t real, and it’ll all be over.”
“This isn’t a dream, Sarah. Your brain is still accepting the transformation. It’ll pass eventually, but
not until you admit what happened to you. You got bitten, and now you’re a werewolf.”
I wanted to shut her out, I put my hands over my ears, but it didn’t work. My hearing was too good, and her speech still
penetrated my brain.
“You’re the only other female werewolf besides me in the world. You are extremely valuable to the mutts. If they
find you, they’ll probably rape you until they get bored, and then kill you. And if I know anything about mutts, I know
you’ll be in a worse hell than this for several months, maybe years. We’re not going to let that happen to you,
you got that?”
Only one word of that penetrated my mind: Rape. Every female pilot’s worst nightmare, being shot down, and…
I had seen that happen to another pilot, and I had NO desire to let that happen to me. I would rather DIE then let that happen.
“We can help you, but you need to do some of the work too. You need to accept what has happened to you. We can’t
start anything with you until you accept what happened.”
I nodded, trying to do just that. I was a werewolf now, just like everyone else in this house. Dammit! It just didn’t
fit in my brain! It was crazy! And Bird Dog; I’d kill him if I ever saw him again! What the hell did he do to me!?
I eventually calmed down, and accepted what I couldn’t change. For better or for worse, I was a werewolf. It still seemed
hard to believe, but I knew that my senses where not this sharp before my forest walk. I was talking with Elena about what
would happen later.
“There are a few things you need to know about being a werewolf,” she said, after I calmed down enough so that
we could have a conversation. “First, you need to know the difference between mutts, and the Pack. The Pack is the ruling
class for our society. We don’t attack people. If we get hungry, we go to the local fast-food place like everyone else,
and eat there. Mutts are all the other werewolves. They do kill and eat people. They’re also nomadic, as only Pack werewolves
can own territory. I keep tabs on all of them in my dossiers so in case one of them stirs up trouble, we can respond and take
him down before it gets any worse.”
I nodded and asked: “So I guess female werewolves are pretty rare then? And they don’t team up very often, right?
You said ‘he’ instead of ‘they’.”
She returned my nod and said: “yeah, mutts don’t team up. And if they do, it’s only for as long as it benefits
both of them. We had a mutt rebellion a few years back, but we stopped it. As for female werewolves, at last count, present
company included, there are two--me and you.”
“How come? Do the guys just think that daughters shouldn’t carry the right genetics, or what?”
“There are two kinds of werewolves. First, there are hereditary, and then there are humans who have been bitten. While
werewolves CAN produce daughters, they are never werewolves. The genes only get passed down the male line. The only way to
get a female werewolf is to be bitten and survive it. That’s something that almost never happens because A, a werewolf,
even a mutt, isn’t stupid. If they bite, they intend to kill, if they don’t kill, then they’ll hunt that
person down and kill them. Often, the person dies soon after being bitten. Either from the shock of the transformation, they
can’t survive the first Changes, or another werewolf comes in and puts them out of their misery.”
“This is a lot to digest in one sitting,” I said, trying to comprehend all of what Elena was saying.
“You’ll get eventually, besides, if whatever fighter pilot training is similar to what I had, you should be able
to understand this no problem.”
The Erusian military for training purposes accelerates everything, and tried so fit as much live combat and other practical
training in as quickly as possible. The Soviets picked up on this, as well as combining Belkan tactics of facing off against
ace squadrons.
I shrugged and said: “It wasn’t perfect, but I got what I needed to know out of it.”
“The next thing you need to know is the Pack hierarchy. Traditionally, the Alpha –yes, we use those terms--was
the best fighter, but since Jeremy took power, that’s changed. He’s not the best fighter, but he’s got better
self-control then any of us. Personally, I don’t really like the idea of an all-powerful, unchangeable leader, but what
are you gonna do?”
I couldn’t understand that attitude. Although, keep in mind I was born into a fascist society that didn’t change
from 1956 to 2004, so having a dictator was perfectly normal to me. It would be almost like being back home before the Continental
War.
“The next thing you should know is about your Changes, turning into a wolf. Most werewolves have a weekly cycle, meaning
that you need to Change at least once a week, or your body will force one on you. Another thing that causes a Change is fear.
It’s a reflex action for most mutts and untrained werewolves. Now as for the Change itself, I’m going to be blunt
here: it hurts. A lot. You had your first Change, so you should know how it feels, but it does get a bit easier with time.”
She continued telling me things on being a werewolf, and by the time she was finished, it was around 11:30 PM. I went back
upstairs and fell asleep in the guestroom.
Captain “Bird Dog” Roy
Vladimir Air force base
2212 Hours Local
I spent the rest of the day on automatic. I went to go get grounded from flying because of the bones Sarah broke, then to
fill out the various forms that pilots have to sign on an almost daily bases, and to eat whenever the need arouse. I guessed
that Sarah still probably had her cell phone, and that she probably hadn’t turned it off. It was worth a try, and if
that didn’t work, I could always try and call Stonehaven directly. I used the phone on my deck and called Sarah.
It rang several times before she answered it. She groaned when she picked it up, and said: “who is it?”
“Sarah, it’s me, Bird Dog. Listen, you have no idea how sorry I am. I swear if I had known it was you, I would
have stopped before I bit you. I love you, and-”
“Love me enough to turn me into a monster like you!? I hate you! I wish I never even MET you!”
“Sarah, as much as you think I’m the bad guy right now, I’m not. I’m not a monster either and neither
are you.”
“I’m hanging up now, Bird Dog,” she said, venom dripping from her words. “Don’t EVER call me
again, got it?”
Before I could tell her to stop, she hung up.
I went to my Rack and started to actually cry. I had screwed up with the one person I would probably ever love, and now she
wouldn’t have anything at all to do with me.
Chapter Nine
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