ONC 2022 shortlisted: The Emergence of a more virulent lycanthrope virus decimated civilisation. As a street scavenger, Gulliver Chase risks his life in his home city's derelict streets hunting for resources for his fellow survivors. But it isn't fo...
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"Tell me about your symptoms." Gull willed his pulse to steady, his hands clenching on the tender's stern seat. If his mother's work had produced a serum able to stop lycans taking their more aggressive form, he had to learn everything he could about its effects; his mother wouldn'tbe interviewing her test subject herself. Humanity's fate might be on the line, but his family's lives wouldn't be, and autopsies could only show so much.
The second he got close enough to the Colony, he'd signal a watchtower sniper.
Imaging a large-calibre round turning Zera's head into red mist, Gull flinched, then hardened himself. To take down one of the Changed permanently, decapitation or catastrophic brain damage was required.
Unaware of his murderous thoughts, Zera hauled on the boat's oars. "Red, I think it's you who needs to explain what's happening to my body."
He grimaced. He didn't know. He only knew what would happen. A thorough scientific investigation. The lycan dead on a cold metal table, her organs bagged and weighed.
Gull swallowed bile. Killing Ghoul he'd managed to rationalise—just. But he knew himself too well to think that the same would apply to Zera. He'd spoken with her, been on the sharp end of her wit. With most of the blood and grime washed away and her hair slicked back from her face, she looked like someone at the end of a disastrous night out, not a predator who'd recently ripped out a packmate's throat. He had to remind himself the damp shirt clinging to her skin hadn't been borrowed from a boyfriend; it'd been taken off a dead body—possibly her last meal.
He fixed his gaze on her teeth, a visual reminder that while she'd once been a victim of misadventure, she was something else now. "That's not how the scientific method works. Perception is swayed by expectations and suggestion. If I say to expect a headache, you'll likely get one. You need to tell me what you've experienced, without me influencing your observations."
"You're assuming I give a crap about science." Zera yanked on one oar, bringing the tender around snappily. Overgrown mortar and stone stretched into the night a few feet to starboard: the retaining wall of Seabrink Park. A wild woodland challenged the border, the park's elegant, manicured tree-lined avenues no more.
Gull ducked, branches whipping overhead, dark and wet. "If you want help getting your wolf mojo back, you'll start giving a shit."
"You'll use any weakness against me."
"Completely and unapologetically." Gull eyed the moss-smothered bank as it transitioned from stone to wide concrete steps, a favourite picnic and swimming spot pre-Emergence. "But given you're stronger than me, heal fast, and own fangs, I'd say were gently tilting the playing field, not levelling it."
Zera considered him a long moment, eyes unblinking. "I know karate."
"Of course, you do, because fate hates me."
"Just remembered." Her teeth gleamed. "I'm keen to try out some moves. You look like a good practice dummy."
Gull eyed the waterside stairs as they approached too quickly. "I think we should do the talking bit before anyone's jaw gets broken, don't you?" The park's black trees loomed, saturated with the night's rain, alive with shifting shadows. Getting beaten up by Zera was only one of the threats he faced at ground level. The park's distance from the local dens didn't guarantee safety. At night, wolves roamed.
