CASSANDRA ARCHER
before there was any to tell
There was no reason for optimism. What, with the lightless sky a dead weight above our heads, the damp scent of our blankets soaked by rain and never dried, as well as the gnawing of hunger deep in the pits of our stomachs. Out here, we were never content, never just okay. There was always something about this land that brought out ones pessimistic side, no matter how life had looked on you before now, wether or not you’d had the preferable time to prepare.
There was a slight eerie glow to the landscape; dark blues not quiet black, a trickling of light in an otherwise dead place. Wolves let out low sounds caught somewhere between too soft and too loud, bringing a hiss of pain to my ears. They were no ordinary wolves though, no – those had long since died out here. They were, rather, shifters, a blend of man and beast. Inside them, the wolf and human lived harmoniously, two souls blended into one, at a perfect balance.
Yet, somehow, this place seemed to throw that balance completely off.
“Sam,” I hissed in a low tone, hoping that only he could hear my words, “the hunt has begun,”
He rose, his matted black wolf-coat tight to his thinned frame, his eyes dark and gleaming in the near non-existent light. He pressed his cold black nose into my palm and looked into my eyes, human emotions behind the harshness of his wolf.
“Don’t worry for me,” I told him, again in a hushed tone, “Just catch what they scatter,”
Letting out a long, low whine, he tapped my palm again with his nose. “Go now,” I urged, “you need to stay ahead of them,”
With another sound somewhere between a sigh and a whine, he pressed his nose, this time to my cheek, and took off into the night, a barley visible silhouette against the dark.
I buried our blankets between layers of sand and rock and thin wooden boards, hoping to disguise our scent, hoping to prevent them from catching us. They were our most prized possession, what kept us from losing toes and fingers to the dangers of the desert night. Even now, pressed against the wall of our underground den, hidden from the cold in a thick coat, I could feel the nipping of the frozen air.
As the howls of distant wolves echoed throughout the darkened Elseriyelian night, I felt my own wolf stir beneath my skin. Not now, I scolded, we must wait. Refusing my order, my wolf pushed, trying to break through my weak human-skinned barrier. No, I repeated firmly, if we don’t wait we will die - you know this. My answer was met with more resistance, a nervous whine escaping my lips, then an even stronger push against my skin.
Then, I realised what she was trying to tell me, a louder nervous whine, rather than escaping me, consumed me. The scents of many wolves hit my nose at once, and my wolf took that as nothing more than run.
The shift tore through me, all human and then all wolf, as though I’d never been a human before. Escape, escape! my wolf commanded, new senses and instincts overriding all of what I had been until all I could find was the black sky above me and the scolding of sand between my claws.
I found that the heart-thundering and the mind-shuddering of such an experience had a distinct familiarity to it, a single, calming note amongst the threatening song the rabid wolves at my tail sung, with their growls and snarls and crazed tongues.
I cared not to gaze upon the ruined land around me as I raced as quickly as my thinned wolf frame could carry me, paws rarely finding the ground in my absolutely consuming need to escape. The darkness beckoned, a haven I could not quiet reach.
“Cass!” his voice exploded in my mind, worry and fright at the edges of the single word. As soon as I heard them, I threw the wall right up between our minds. He can’t know, he can’t know. For the first time since I’d found myself out here, the human and the wolf had found a balance, thoughts no longer conflicting, no longer a battle between instinct and lack thereof.
Don’t tell, don’t tell, don’t tell.
My greyed paws pounded the ground, dust aflutter beneath them, thrown with every greeting exchanged, a fight between what I could and could not control. They where at my tail, teeth sharp at the corners of my fur, snapping and growling, eyes dark and soulless. These where the shifters who’d been here the longest, no more wolf and man, just instinct, just wolf. Years had beaten away at them, the harshness of the Outcast lands and the hunger and the questions unanswered and the sky a red wave above them, maddening them beyond all recognition.
I cut slightly into my own barrier, just enough to slip a, “don’t worry for me, I’m fine,” into Sam’s mind before repairing it, strengthening it, trying my best not to let him in again.
If I let him in, he’d be able to see through my own eyes, and see the danger I was really in. If he could see, he would worry. If he worried, he would loose focus. If he lost focus, he wouldn’t live to see tomorrow. The beasts he followed, clumsy yet powerful once-shifters, would tear him apart without hesitation. No man, just wolf, no mercy, just instinct. I couldn’t – I wouldn’t – let that happen to him.
The mindspeak worked in a mysterious way I was sure I’d never understand – a bond between two minds not related by blood, rather by an acceptance of one another, an understanding of a kind. It was one of the many mysteries of being a shifter – you where, and you didn’t question it, because that’s how it was, and it couldn’t be changed.
I could feel him pressed up against my wall, the barrier made of nothing but pure determination hard against his cheek. He tried to crack away at it, backing up and then forcing himself at it with all he had. But I resisted his attempts. He can’t know, he can’t know, he can’t know. I would not let him in, no matter how much he begged it of me. I couldn’t let something like that happen to the only person now that mattered to me.
He stopped fighting against me, leaving me to focus on fleeing, leaving me to watch the all-consuming darkness still evade my grasp, teasing at me. I could still feel the once-shifters at my tail, snapping and growling and snarling the equivalent to obscenities for wolves. I could tell that they would have no problems with ripping me apart, slowly and painfully, watching the blood leave my body and soak into the sand until there was nothing left of me.
Then, as all the possibilities of tonight’s outcome played in my mind, Sam made one last attempt. I didn’t expect it, I didn’t think he would try again. As his weight crashed into the barrier, weak and faltering from thought, I head his voice once again explode in my mind.
“Cass! Why did you shift?” his voice made demands of me, and I could imagine the hurt expression that would go with it.
“I’m fine. I shifted because I was cold,” I lied easily as my paws continued to pound away at the ground. The mindspeak allowed me to fake a tone, replacing my assumed breathlessness with a calm, contented voice that leaked no concern on my part, “Now focus before you end up getting yourself killed!”
“Let me see so I can make sure,” he pleaded, and I could tell he didn’t believe me. He pushed, and I felt my eyes roll back, making way for him to see...
“No! Sam, stop!” I begged of him, trying to prevent him from another foolish attempt, “focus and stay ahead of them before something bad happens!”
“Cass, let me see! I need to know that you’re safe!” I pushed harder against the sand underneath me as the wolves began to gain – they were tired of the chase now, and ready to taste my warm blood on their tongues. They yipped with excitement, making small happy sounds at my tail. I again forced the wall up between our minds. Focus, focus, run, run. My lungs and legs ached, sore and stretched and struggling to make my quickening pace. My breaths were heavy and hard, difficult to acquire and then quickly rid myself of.
Wolf Cassandra was giving up.
But human Cassandra couldn’t stand the idea of it.
Suddenly I recognised where I was - where they’d chased me to. The Overcliffs.
The ground jutted upwards at an appealing angle, an allusion that had purchased lives for much less than they were worth. Sam and I had been there once before, back when we were younger and less aware of the dangers of it. The angled floor made it appear as though there was no end to it, as if continued into the distance. That’s what the foolish thought, those who hadn’t walked right up close to the edge of it and realised that it actually ended right there and then, dipping into the earth so far that you could just make out the end of it in the night. No shifter ever known had leapt it and made it safely to the other side.
With my legs burning and lungs hissing at me to stop, I was not to be the first.
A flurry of movement to my left tempted my head to turn and gaze. It was another shifter trailed, another to fall with me as I met my death. This shifter was bone and fur, black whispers of warmth clinging to it, caressing it as though they made all the difference. Its breath was hard and heavy, head low to its chest as though it could not bare to look.
“Cassandra,” Sam’s voice found my mind as I let down my wall. There was no point now, it wasn’t worth the effort. Expecting him to worry again, I prepared my response well before it was due. His true words took me aback: “You hold my heart,”
I came to a quick halt as I neared the dangerous edge, as did the other wolf, as if it new as much as I did about this place. I sought Sam’s mind out to find only a mess of thoughts and emotions. “Sam, I-”
“Don’t worry, Cass,” his voice in my mind was a sweet relief. Tell him, tell him, tell him.
“I’m-” The snarls and deep-throated growls of the once-shifters ended my words, their teeth snapping at my neck and at my face, pushing me backwards until all my fourth paw could find was air. Dead, dead, dead, dead, dead.
“It’s alright, Cass, I already know,” At his words the wolf beside me turned to gaze, inching ever closer to our shared demise. I could see human emotions behind the harshness of the wolf.
Sam.
There was no doubt at all in my mind.
I could smell the rotting breath of the once-shifters as they pressed closer to me, browned blood on their ruffs and caught between their yellowed teeth. My chest found the pointed ground, harshly cut rocks as sharp as daggers, cutting away at me as my third foot lost its unstable grip and was left to hang helplessly over its edge. Their hackles were sharp, their growls clear in my ears, the haunting last sounds I was ever to hear made of the snapping of teeth and harsh noises of once-shifters.
Now, there was less than nothing that I could do to save myself.
“Cass!” Sam’s worried words flooded my mind, replacing what I’d assumed where to be my last sounds taken in with something I could bare even less. I hated to hear him worry, hated to hear the fear at the ends of his words and to hear him blame himself for something he could not fix nor had any part in.
My lungs ached, my legs burned, my head was a heavy inconvenience to the remainder of my thinned frame. My hind legs scratched helplessly at the Overcliff’s descent, trying to grip onto a helpless nothingness and push myself back up again. Live, live, live, live, live. Escape, escape, escape, escape. Human Cassandra was giving up, seeing the advanced ending to a story not yet finished.
“Cass,” he called again into my mind, this time much gentler, “I don’t want for them to have your life,”
I knew what he meant. If I hung onto the edge for much longer, they’d pull me over. If they pulled me over, my death would be slow and painful – they’d use me, first, and then, satisfied, they’d tear away at me slowly, a torturous death, being anything but merciful. It’d be a game for them, repeating what they lived for, the rush of the chase, capture and kill. They were the predators, and I was the prey.
“Then they won’t,” I replied quietly, as though they could hear me, as though they could listen into our bond and steal my words.
If I let go now, I would meet my immediate end, breaking myself on a rock or some other less than torturous device. It would be instant, a painless experience. Everything and then nothing.
Everything and then nothing.
“Everything and then nothing,” Sam repeated in my mind as though he had heard my thoughts.
“I’ll see you after,” I promised. Four last words planted in his mind as the once-shifters reached for my scruff, readying themselves to pull me up, readying them selves to rediscover their favoured part of the chase, the capture, and the kill.
“As will I,” Sam responded kindly, a hint of determination behind his worriless words. This way, our fate was decided by us for ourselves. If we stayed, we would have that choice taken away from us, shredded from our human hands, left up to once-shifters born of madness.
A deep breath found my lungs, a desperate last gasp. I fought against my wolf’s fight or flight logic, and one by one, my last two paws found the air, an unplanned dance of flailing limbs meeting something that might as well have not existed.
Our shared words rung true as the world flashed past, colours and sounds and thoughts and feelings and the peacefulness of floating down, down, down into the earth and the sky, suddenly littered with tiny streaks of dawn. The beginning and the end. Everything and then nothing.
The impact between the ground and my thinned wolf frame filled my eyes and my ears and my nose with blackness, a last pitiful gaze into the splatters of sky that I could see between the cracks and, with a final gasp of heavy air into my starved lungs, it turned red, red above me.