Hey you ;)
I know it's early, but I won't be here to post on Friday. So, being the loyal up loader I am, I'm uploading earlier not later :) Don't you love me? ;D
P.S. Just so you know I don't actually have anything against science itself, bearing in mind that I want to be a scientist :3 That may sound strange but the people in this are not how I think of scientists, they're just 'bad guys' and how I wanted it to go :) Purely entertainment and funsies :) x
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As a blanket of darkness was thrown over us, I curled into it as if it were a part of me. I had given up on this being a nightmare. Unable to pinch myself I had dug my claws into my leg. Blood had pooled on my fur and still I didn’t wake up. I was still here on a cold floor, pressed against cold bars, with someone I didn’t even want to look at and the sound of keening moans breaking through the drumming of the path beneath the van.
And this was where I would remain, disgusted at my stupid brain and myself. I could’ve tried my claw in the lock, but if I had have been successful, then what? If I’d managed to release everyone in this van they wouldn’t have listened to what I had to say, and we wouldn’t have been able to get out until the doors were opened. Then all we would get for our troubles was shot or shocked back into submission.
“Where am I?” someone groaned groggily. I snapped from my thoughts and froze, recognising the voice from an encounter in the forest. It was him. I didn’t respond but kept my head down and watched him from the corner of my eye. He might just fall asleep and leave me alone.
In the darkness I could just about see him hold his head with both hands and squint with pain. After a moment he pushed himself up and began to look around. He was taking it all rather calmly, but I guessed that was probably because he looked as if he were about to fall unconscious again.
He reached out a hand and began to probe into the darkness, touching the bars with a jump and mumbling something to himself. He swayed uneasily and I didn’t know what to do. My heart tugged at me and begged me to help him and explain. It told me that it wasn’t him who had done this to us and that I shouldn’t take my anger out on him. But I didn’t care. I had said that I would never dirty my name with his.
Suddenly his other hand touched my side and we both jumped in opposite directions. I let out a snarl at the fire that spread through my body. It was like agony, raw and unwanted.
“Who is that? Where the hell am I?” he asked with confusion. I noted the undertone of anger and suspicion in his voice. It sounded like a voice trained for authority.
He at least deserved an answer to his question, though. ‘In a transport van, going to who knows where,’ I replied, short as I could keep it.
His brow furrowed. “What? How? And you? And you.” He repeated himself but the second time all questioning was gone from his voice. “I recognise your voice. Is it you, the tigress from the forest?” His earlier tone of voice I could’ve easily taught myself to hate was gone. It was soft now, sort of awestruck.
I swallowed, wishing that he would stop talking. It was hurting me more than I had expected. ‘Yes,’ I murmured into his mind weakly. All my anger was gone for now, replaced with sorrow.
He shook his head and let himself fall back and against the wall and his dizzy head into his hands. Her began to talk to himself, “This can’t be real. How am I here?” He looked up and tried to make something of the darkness, then turned to me. “Do you have any idea where we are?”
The van jolted as he spoke and he was flung into me. He just stopped himself crushing me against the wall, yet the close proximity to him made me want to curl up and die anyway. ‘On a track leaving the pack forest. Your father’s forest,’ I sent sullenly, hoping to get him to move away from me.
I got my wish as he jumped back like I’d shocked him myself. “You know who I am. Does everyone know?” He sounded shocked. Why did he have to keep talking to me?
‘Yes, I know that… Marcus Sole is your father. Only this van’s worth of shifters know. Why does it matter?’ I couldn’t help but wonder why this boy had been kept hidden away from everyone. Undoubtedly he was a son that Sole would be proud of.
He looked around in the darkness for the other shifters who I expected would be listening to half of our conversation. “I wasn’t supposed to be known about yet, distracted by anything. I – I don’t know why. I was being... prepared.”
“Well you should’ve stayed away,” someone spat angrily before he could finish the thought, with the same venom that I had been spoken to with. They were listening.
Sole’s son’s eyes widened. “What have I done to you?” he asked into the darkness incredulously. The tone I didn’t like tinged his voice again.
“You’re father, our Alpha, had organised this. Whatever this is. That’s what,” the voice snarled back, “Now humans are taking us away from our families and we have no idea where we’re going.”
His eyes grew wider. “What are you talking about? He’d never do that! He’s a good leader.” So Sole had even fooled his son, or he was a good actor.
“Well he did. We all heard. He betrayed us and there’s nothing more to it,” the voice continued with its same hateful tone. I doubted that the source of it would be so brave if it wasn’t separated from Sole’s son by cage bars.
I watched the latter shifter’s form fall back against the wall with a thump. Slowly he turned to me. “This sounds stupid, but for some reason I know I can trust you. Is this true? Did he do this?”
The trust in his eyes was painful to look at, so I didn’t. I squeezed my eyes shut and buried my head between my paws. I was tearing up inside. It was so unfair how much something in me wanted to ignore who he was, but how fiercely the other told me what his family had done.
‘Yes, he did. Please don’t keep asking me questions. Just don’t,’ was my reply. I could take no more of this. He made a pained noise and I turned away, trying to let sleep claim me.
* * *
I was awoken by the sound of metal scraping across metal. It wasn’t a disappointment to be woken though. My nightmare, as ever, had returned in full force. As I slowly opened my eyes a thin strip of light shone through a crack in the door that was growing ever wider. The sky was warm with peachy morning sunlight. We had been travelling for a day already?
The silhouette I had grown to recognise as Mr. Ward’s stepped into the light and then up into the van. The van tilted and creaked as he entered. He held a box in his hands and began to distribute items into all the cages.
I only realised that they were bottles of water and wrapped sandwiches when he threw them into our cage. My eyes widened in surprise as the cold bottle rolled against my side and he smiled. “We don’t want you starved to death on the journey, do we now? I need you there in tip top condition.” He watched my face contort in suspicion and smiled again, “There’s no point in me doing anything to you now we’ve got you where we want you.” It seemed his mood had passed.
'Fine.’ I swiped the sandwich towards me with a paw and left Sole’s son’s at his feet, his legs pulled up to his chest. I jumped when I looked up and saw that he was watching me. Piercing sapphire eyes fixed on me in thought.
I was spared the pain of his gaze when Mr. Ward began to talk to him. “So,” he said, “awake at last. You in on your dad’s little plan?” Sole’s son turned his head away from the light and into the dark with no response. There was a snarl on his lips, but luckily his eyes were hidden. He had at first acted like someone trained to be seen as an authority, and now it looked like reality was crushing him.
“Not talkative, huh? That makes a nice change.” Mr. Ward turned away and after handing out the rest of his measly rations he left, fortunately, without another word. The doors clanged shut and the bolts slid into place, darkness following. Soon the familiar rumble of the engine would start again and we’d continue over the ever-bumpy terrain.
I laughed weakly inside my head as someone mumbled, “Sandwiches? What are we, nursery children on a picnic?”
Sole’s son toyed with the sandwich, turning it in his hands, and I turned to my own. Roughly I managed to tear off the lid of the sandwich box and tip the contents onto the most likely dirty van floor. There I pawed at them, and decided that there was nothing to lose eating them. My stomach rumbled in agreement.
The food wasn’t suited to my lion’s palette at all, but I was so hungry it didn’t matter anymore. I rolled the bottle awkwardly towards me and pinned it down, popping my sharp claws through the plastic. The water sprayed out and I quickly put my mouth around it, not wanting my parched tongue to miss a drop.
As I drunk I took a peek from the corner of my eye at him pressed into the opposite corner. He obviously knew who I was, but luckily the revelation of Sole’s betrayal and my words had kept him quiet. I didn’t care who he was supposed to be; I didn’t want a thing to do with a Sole, even if it hurt me.
* * *
Days passed. There was no definition between the minutes that ticked by. I let the rumble of the road beneath the van rock me in and out of a restless sleep, but I always felt him beside me: an undeniable presence. Sometimes the convoy of vans stopped so we could eat and our captors could rest, allowing me to see a glimpse of the outside world and how far we had been stolen away from our home. From what I could tell we stuck to old roads and long plains of forgotten and empty highway. With every stop the comforting surround of forest began to dwindle, replaced by patches of towering man made constructions that stood even taller than the tallest trees of home, and my heart crumpled like discarded paper.
* * *
The cat’s purr of the vans engine suddenly cut out, dying quickly like the hope of rescue had as soon as I’d stepped into this hell hole. The unexpected movement shook my aching body and set off a new wave of pins and needles in my cramped legs. Sole’s son groaned and pressed the palms of his hands into his eyes. I watched curiously from the corner of my eye as his hands slipped away and he let his head loll back, staring up at the dark roof.
The doors swung open and both our heads snapped to face the light. I squinted out behind the approaching form of Mr. Ward and saw... trees. A wide expanse of dense trees filled the entire space that could be seen through the open doors. The sight of lush green sent a hum of life through my chest, which was quickly crushed when Mr. Ward started talking.
“Well hello there,” he smiled in that way that made me want to bite him, hard, “Let me be the first to welcome you to your new home.” No one made a sound, only blinked in shock at finally stopping for good.
My stomach did a somersault. We had arrived? My eyes flickered to Sole’s son but his face was hidden in shadow, the shine of his eyes the only thing I could clearly see. One question filled my mind and sent a shiver of panic down my spine: what was going to happen to us now?
Mr. Ward turned to the armed guards lining up outside the van. “Right, let’s get moving. Boys, unlock the cages and lead them out.” He jumped from the back of the van and faced us once again. “If one of you makes any false move you’ll be shocked senseless. And if you run, we’ll shoot. Got it?”
Once again not a single shifter made any response to his words, so he took our silence as a yes to behaving like good little animals. As he began to walk away he made a gesture and two guards leapt into the back of the van with a clunk of heavy soled boots, guns at the ready. The weapons sat cradled in their hands, a brutal reminder of the torment they could cause so very easily. One man took to opening a side of cages and pushed the traumatised shifters within out into the light.
Finally the man reached our cage with a face that expressed no emotion. Fear fuelled adrenaline shot through my body like a wild fire, lighting my muscles with strength. I crouched patiently, ready to get out of this cramped space as soon as possible.
The man grabbed Sole’s son by the collar of his shirt and pulled him, stumbling over his own long legs, out of the cage. “Get off,” Sole’s son snarled, tugging free of the man’s grip and walking himself out of the van.
I held back my own low growl. ‘I swear to God, if you touch me like that I will bite your fingers off,’ I snarled into the man’s head to keep him away.
He stepped back slightly and grunted, “Out.”
Pleased that he didn’t grab me, I obeyed my captor’s orders and slunk out, low to the ground. The feeling of stepping out into the sunshine was like a physical touch – a blanket of warmth. So many smells and forgotten textures filled my senses.
We were in a wooded edged grassy area. The dusty soil beneath my feet felt gritty, so very different from the damp soil of the woodland floor of our forest. I had never been anywhere other than Markwood in my entire life. The unfamiliarity of everything made my stomach uneasy.
I was jolted from my worried thoughts as someone shoved me into a line that was forming as shifters filtered out from the other vans. Sole’s son stood tall in front of me with the kind of stance that commanded respect back home. He held himself like a man, not a teenage boy. I shook myself out with a growl. Why was I even looking at him?
I wavered nervously, waiting for something to happen. Only when the all the van’s doors slammed shut with a resounding finality did the guards nudge us into action. We were marched forwards, one by one disappearing into the shade of the trees and almost as soon as we were in, we were back out in front of our final destination.
I joined the chorus of sharp intakes of breath as a ram shackled warehouse spread out in front of us, surrounded by piles of broken building material and furniture. It’s once white, corrugated metal covered walls were stained with streaks of copper coloured rust and grime. The few windows on this side of the building were smashed and covered with sheets of plastic on the inside. The whole place exuded a sense of abandon and disrepair. We had truly been taken to the most Godforsaken place on Earth.
The only visible doors to the building swung suddenly open and a few people stepped out. I could tell they were human by their scent, so strong even from the distance they stood away from us. As I took in their white coats and black controllers pinned to their shirt pockets, my pulse leapt. We were at a lab.
We were going to be test subjects. This is why we kept our existence a secret! Humans could not be trusted with any knowledge of us. They’d always let their inquisitiveness and fear of something more powerful than them control them. So we’d stayed hidden away, safe and secure. Until our ‘Alpha’ had betrayed us and told not only humans, but also the kind that would want to prod us with needles and push us to our limits. I felt physically ill at the thought of it all.
Mr. Ward stepped towards the small group and shook hands with one of the males. No words were exchanged, only pleased smiles, as if understanding that we would hear them. How could this all actually be real? Some humans had bought us?
The apparently lead scientist gestured to the guards and they suddenly pushed us back into our march with a stumble, moving us closer and closer to our destruction. One shifter girl in front of me hesitated; eyes glazed with fear and as someone knocked into her to she fell to her knees. A guard by my side lifted the controller in his hand and aimed it at the shivering girl, ready to shock her back into place.
Anger and protectiveness flared within me as quickly as if I’d struck a match. I span and swiped the controller out of his hand, accidentally tripping him and sending him flying in the process. He collapsed in an awkward heap just like the girl he was about to strike and the controller skittered across the ground into a bush. Good riddance, I thought to myself.
Out of seemingly nowhere, something solid and very, very hard smacked into the side of my head. White flared in front of my eyes and pain at the point of impact. My body screamed as I hit the floor and the force pounded against my injury. I curled up like a dying insect and my vision flickered. Then the lights turned off.
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