??A Howl In The Night??
?She’s mine?
?Chapter 32?
? Something Smells Fishy ?
I stare at the body beside me, wondering what on earth I should do.
The red-haired man looks like a gangly puppet; bent, broken, and lifeless. His breathing has almost stopped entirely, and his face is a strange shade of purple. How do you revive a dead person? Should I just leave him and try to escape?
For some reason, I can’t cast him aside. I creep closer, looking at his bloodied head and body. It seems like his head hit the side of this well pretty hard. At least I think we fell in the well.
He looks familiar to me, just like the other strange werewolves I saw since I landed in this strange place. There is something about him that I just can’t place.
I raise my hand to his shoulders and head, twisting his body so that he is lying on my bruised legs. Carefully examining his face and hair, I notice a gigantic gash stretching across the back of his skull. It doesn’t seem to be healing like a normal werewolf wound would. In fact, none of my bruises or cuts seem to be healing either.
I tear my long-sleeved shirt and press it against his gash, tightly binding it as much as I can. His breathing slowly becomes more regular and steady, and a strange emotion lifts my spirits. He is alive. I don’t have a dead person on my hands.
The rest of his body is bruised and his knee is turning at an awkward angle. I slowly try to raise his pants above his knee, being careful not to be too rough with his clothing. A gasp escapes me as black and blue dances from his ankle to his knee, at which point the knee doesn’t even look like one anymore. It’s an explosion of color—which I assume is probably not a good thing.
I let my finger skim across the top of the bruises, which probably wasn’t a good decision judging from the whimpers and yelps escaping the man’s dry and crusted lips. His voice is hoarse and strained, so I lean over to the pool of water in the corner and scoop some into my hands. “Open your mouth,” I whisper to him, hoping he will understand.
It takes a few seconds, but slowly he obliges me, though wincing in the process. I let some of the water drop into his mouth, and he swallows it greedily.
The well is close to empty, but still meager puddles of liquid are scattered around our prison. I wonder what has happened in this world, because this is the very first time I have even seen water since our arrival. Although if my visions are correct…
“Mona?” A tiny whisper escapes the red-haired man’s mouth, and his arm slowly lifts up in a somehow angelic gesture. “Where… where are you?”
I nearly jump all the way across the well at his words, the chills suddenly creeping up and down my back. Every hair stands on edge as I grow scared to hold him, but scared to let him go. His eyes have been closed ever since I first met him, so there is no way he could know my name.
Or… is there?
Out of impulse and a bitter frustration, I lean towards the beautiful stranger’s ear. “She’s dead,” I whisper in a biting tone, the words embracing his ear in a sickening caress. “You will never see that weakling of a creature ever again.” The most horrible thing about my words is that I don’t believe them with every portion of my being. There is some part of me that refuses to accept that these people I keep encountering aren’t worth any of my time.
He shakes a little bit, still leaning against my body. I draw back in alarm as his arm brushes against my own. “I… don’t believe that. Because she is right here.” At first I don’t hear him at all, because his voice is so low. But his deep tones are so intoxicating that he pulls me in, forcing me closer and closer until I am caught in his sticky web.
“How would you know that?” I ask nervously, unable to turn my face away from his. His eyelids start to flutter and in shock I nearly hit his face with the back of my hand.
To my dismay, his eyes fly open and they sweep over my face and our surroundings. His gaze is powerful and authoritative, yet I sense a vulnerability about him that is somewhat endearing.
“You’re funny, Mona.” He smiles tentatively, probably straining inside with the motion. “Nice joke.” His acknowledgment makes me feel empty and heartless inside. He seems to have so many false expectations of me, expectations that I simply cannot fulfill.
“It… isn’t a joke,” I respond dubiously, suspicious of even myself. His smile disappears instantly, and his eyes roughly close, like a child that has just been told that Santa Claus isn’t real.
I check the bindings around his head to make sure they are tight and putting pressure on his wound. Moving to shift his weight so that he is leaning against the wall, I notice the red dancing around my own arm. The bruises and blood covering my elbow are almost as bad as Griffin’s knee. I guess before I never noticed the pain when I used my left hand because the strange red-haired man consumed all of my thoughts.
“Where is this place?” He asks while trying to push himself farther up against the wall.
“It must be h*ell,” I comment softly to myself while examining my arm, “otherwise both of our injuries would be healed by now. It’s been a good fifteen minutes since we landed in here. I think.” As expected, he hears me and once again his eyes fly open.
“Surely you are kidding.” His body shakes slightly.
“No. Well, yes. Partly.” I lean against the side of the well and sigh. “It doesn’t make too much of a difference where we are anyways.”
Silence stretches between us as he thinks about who-knows-what. His hands keep curling and uncurling before his eyes, and touching the water at his side. I take this minute to examine him, trying to figure out how I know his name. Griffin is handsome, almost annoyingly so, with fiery hair and dark brown eyes. The endless chocolate pools morph into a beady black as his brow furrows in concentration.
I watch in fascination as his right hand grows fur and claws, the wrist and arm rippling with new muscle. And then, just as easily, the transformation reverses and he is back to normal. “I never imagined hell to be like this… that I would be pushed into a well with you for all eternity so we can die again and again,” He mumbles, “I always thought I was at least a decent person… this must be my punishment for leaving you when you were a child. I guess it’s too late now-”
“No,” I correct him, the hint of a smile at my lips, “I’m pretty sure we aren’t dead. This isn’t really the result of a punishment, but a traffic collision.”
“But… you said it was hell!”
“I’m pretty sure this is the world I have been seeing in my visions for quite a while now. Months, actually.”
“What in the name of…” He rubs his head in frustration, “the last thing I remember was Xavier and the others busting in and crashing the Sharuken ritual.”
There it is again. I must be surrounded by lunatics.
“I have no idea what you are talking about. There was no Sharuken ritual. You and those other werewolves are creeping me out,” I sharply correct him, using bitterness to mask my confusion. It seems like I am the only one without these crucial memories, and I’m not sure I want to know why that is.
His frustration increases, and he rubs his head on his knees. The bandage all but falls off, and I crawl over to him to fix it. “Mona, I don’t mean to be impolite…” he asks softly as I concentrate on tying the knot, “but did that old hag remove the mating mark on your stomach as well?”
“I don’t have a mating mark on my stomach. Never had one,” I scoff, ignoring the throbbing in my elbow. I barely notice he is moving until he catches my elbow and holds it tightly.
“Don’t strain yourself,” he whispers, “neither your body or your mind. The hag’s ritual was probably not completed when… uh… all this happened. Your remaining memories will come back to you and your injuries will heal, all with time.” I shake my arm away, but then hold it with my other arm.
“I don’t remember anything about how I got us here,” I begin with confusion, “but I know all of my visions of this place are exactly what I have been seeing since we arrived. The grey death that covers this place like a heavy fog is so distinct I would recognize it anywhere. I know for a fact that no humans live here, and that this place isn’t on earth.”
Griffin says nothing, just staring at me as if he is trying to decipher a puzzle.
“I saw a Shifter here just lying against a tree, with no cares in the world. Without the red eyes!” I exclaim, and he nearly falls onto the wet floor.
“I’ve been smelling them too,” he chokes, “everywhere I turn. This really must be hell, otherwise we wouldn’t have landed in a Shifter’s nest.”
“That’s it!” I grimly smile with exhaustion, “that’s what this place is. A spirit world of some sort, the world of the Shifters. We’ve only seen them in our home, and now we get to see them in their natural habitat.”
Griffin looks exhausted now, his brain probably overwhelmed from all the information it has received. He stares at me for a few seconds, and then he slumps against the side again. This time, he stays there for quite a while. It takes me a minute to realize he has fallen asleep.
I look around the well, and then give up on thinking. I must be going cr@zy, otherwise I wouldn’t entertain such ludicrous thoughts. A Shifter habitat?
Might as well get some sleep myself and let this craziness leave my head.
* * *
For the first time, there is rain.
It pounds on the stone walls, swirling around the spires and turrets. It caresses the clear windows, dripping off each stone like blood. It must be God’s wrath, come to us in the form of liquid terror… a symbol of worse things to come.
He turns away, distraught from the never-ending sight of rivers pouring from above, washing the land with change. Never before has he experienced such fear, shaking through his soul with an overwhelming intensity. The old is being toppled, the regime coming to an end. But it is difficult for him to grasp—the “end”.
End only exists in the relation to the beginning, omega to the alpha, and there is no beginning here. There is only the “is”, the simple state of being that stretches farther than the eye can see. No one knows when it started; it just was—was, and is, and always will be.
The continuous roar of the darkening clouds as it hastens to take the land beats upon him until he can take it no more. The tsunami of fate is gathering, preparing a tidal wave that will deliver the final blow, wreaking eternal havoc in the process. It is impossible to accept that the is could become the was, that the continuum could be disrupted.
At the very least, he cannot sit and watch as the destruction envelops this world. He tries to remember that he isn’t powerless. He can control the destruction, wield it to his liking. This isn’t something that is impossible to avoid.
If only they could find them. For this… this would make all the difference.
The last grains of sand trickle down the glass walls and tumble towards certain death.
* * *
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