The next day Damien woke up and found himself chained down like an ancient prisoner in some Mayan temple. The chains were long and found in the bower when Sam went in there to get some potent herbs they'll use to get him running.
It was another experience for him even though he wasn't conscious of it. He tried freeing himself but the chain held him tighter. He tried again but found his body numb and weak from his bust upward. He has been stripped of his shirt with only his trousers remaining. There were marks on his chest and drawings of strange occults' images which were nothing too but simple shapes bringing things to life. He grinned and tried freeing himself again. The chain doesn't bulge. One of the children walked in when she heard his shouting. She was holding a doll that looked like a baby and smiled when she entered. Damien shouted again and pulled the chain harder but nothing bulged. The girl smiled and said.
"They are trying to help you. Why are you running?" Her face looked innocent and puzzled then she ran away when Damien couldn't stop looking at her.
He resumed pulling at the chain. Sam knew that could happen. So before they went back into the city to scout for more food from broken houses and stores he made sure the chain was lashed to a hook outside the bunker.
Minutes later, Damien gave up and started reciting poems from John Keat's Ode to melancholy.
Poetry has taken him to another level in his life. An epiphany. Something he might not be able to do without. He broke down crying. The girl came back with the other children.
"Why are you crying?" She said with her tiny voice. "My name is Tina and these are my friends. We want to be your friend."
Damien looked up at them and buried his face in his palms.
'Stop covering your face, " another child said. He was the boy that came with the pregnant woman.
"We only want to be your friend. We know the world is a strange place," he continued.
Minutes later Damien lightened up and smiled with them when they started running around him playing a game. The children to him seemed to be in a world different from his. He dreamed of being in their world to experience their level of happiness again.
A minute later he started seeing radiant light coming from the direction of a box placed in the room and covered by clothes. He knew it was a box because the light revealed it to him. His face squeezed into a box too and he started seeing dancing particles that looked like G clefs. He closed his eyes, and the children's play became a noise, an acute noise scaring his ears. He grinned and tried closing his ears but his hands failed him and his eyes failed to close too. Then he screamed and the box bounced around making the children run into the next room.
Seconds later his voice changed and he started speaking like a child. Motorrmouthed, loud and his words were scattered throughout the layers of the tiny room.
***
"He's speaking and shouting," Tina told them when they entered. They have been away for just four hours and so much has happened.
"Who?" Catherine asked.
"Him." The girl pointed to where Damien was kept. "He broke the box."
Sam ran quickly towards the run. The pregnant woman followed slowly and Sarah waited to hear more from the girl.
"He broke the box and spoke like a child." She sounded anxious and ready for answers.
"Come here," Catherine said. The boys came out minutes later when food was served. At the table, Sarah said.
"I can't believe what's happening. Though I want to believe it."
"It's possible since he's a werewolf. Hypersensitivity and telepathy is a phenomenon among them." The pregnant woman said.
"Then you think that's what is happening here? I think Damien has a mental health issue. Though, I don't know." She said sadly.
"It's a strange world, Sarah," Sam said. "The findings of Martha regarding the wolf form are too extensive to digest in weeks. I will get you one of hers. I think it'll help us."
"I hope Damien gets out of this safe," Sarah said. She held her forehead and glanced at Catherine who was eating silently and not saying anything. She knew she was consumed in her thinking and would rather not say anything.
"I know how to track his words. We can decipher whatever he's saying by using the oscillating forces coming from him. I have a device I have been working on before our lab went down in 5 Alley."
"Wow," Catherine said. Her eyes brightened and she wanted to know more.
"Do you have it here?"
"Yes, it was the only thing I could protect."
"We'll try them," Sarah said. "Or what do you think, Sam?"
"Let's do it. I hope we bring our man back."
***
The machine was set up and two wires were attached to a magnet to create a field which will collect the waves coming from his head, his voice and his eyes. He was strapped to a bed and a blanket was used to cover him because the field from the realm the messages are coming from can make him cold like icebergs forever.
"Hold him down, " the pregnant woman said. " We need this to touch his head."
Sam collected the helmet-like fluffy and elastic headgear and placed it on Damien's head. He shook his head twice and opened his eyes widely like he was going to glow forever.
"Step back, Sam, " She said. "The waves are coming. He will tell any second from how. Make sure she doesn't fall."
"Alright," Sam said. He squatted behind his head and they waited anxiously for what might come next.
Damien puffed and yelled out. The words were clear but they rattled the walls.
"Sarah," Catherine called. "I think we need to get the children into the bower."
"I will do that. Or you want to come with me?"
"I will be right here waiting for you."
He puffed again but now his words came out stronger and eloquent. It was a poem and his skin became pale yellow with strange glows. The poems continued trotting out like he drank an ocean of them.
"Catherine," Sam asked. "Whose poem is this?"
"I can't tell. It seems like he's reading from some palimpsest. "
"It's from the Gaelic poet Aithbhreac Inghean Coirceadal. You might not have heard of the poet."
"Oh!" Catherine said.
"His mind is connected to another. That person might be connected to another. The poem was written by a woman. He may be connected to one." She smiled.
"Then that will be a deeper love affair, probably not," Sam said. Be moved away from his head to stand close to Catherine.
"The poem was an Elegy and I can tell Damien is gay."
"Huh! You are smart." Catherine said.
"Thank you." The pregnant woman said. She moved closer to touch Damien's chest. Her fingers touched him gently but Damien wasn't gentle. He was yelling and reading the poem.
"The poem was an elegy to her husband. Now listen to him."
Damien started shaking and sweating but on touching his body he was cold like icebergs.
"Can you hear me?" He started saying. "I am here. Lost here. Where am I? Is anyone here to help me? Anyone? Please. Help me."
He went silent for three minutes and started talking again but this time in his voice. It was a poem he started with.
"This brave man, so filled with love for his country that he finds it difficult to die, is calling out to his friends and about to die".
The pregnant woman smiled. "The dude has a great taste in poetry. That's by Kuroki Hiroshi. The jisei, or death poem. This is hilarious."
"When did Damien read all these books?" Sam asked.
"We can't tell now, I think," Catherine answered. They continued listening to him as he switched from poetry to monologues and from monologue to pleading.
"No, I don't feel death coming. I feel death going.
having thrown up his hands, for the moment.
I feel like I know him better than I did.
Those arms held me, for a while,
and, when we meet again, there will be that secret knowledge between us.
James Baldwin means the world to me.
***********
Alpha couldn't understand why he merged into another realm. Why he's smelling dead couples. Why he's here speaking with a voice like the voice is in his head and why he's sounding like a child. He has lost some pounds. He continued strolling in the ever white realm that has no exit. The voice came again and he blocked his ears.
"Stop saying that to me, please."
"I won't stop. You idiot just start your journey here. You thought the dang stuff you do in that realm will help you here. No. None of it will help you here. Your sojourn here just begins."
"Please. Stop talking to me. You are sounding in my head." He grinned and grabbed his head shaking it like it would be better away from his body. The voice laughed at him like it was a mania.
"Idiot. You can't do anything to stop me. I told you you'll be here forever. Infinity begins here. Look around you. What do you see? Tell me. What do you see?"
Alpha couldn't say anything. He glanced over the emptiness before him and shouted again trying to ignore the voice and hoping to connect with someone he knows.
"Georgia, where are you? Please answer me."
The voice laughed. "Cad. You little mushroom. What do you think you are doing?"
"I have to get out of here. I have been asking for hours to know what this place is, you are not saying anything. Why am I here? Please tell me."
The voice laughed and a bright Sapphire light shined. He saw Georgina then Catherine. They both started merging into each other. He shouted.
"Please. Please don't take them away. I know Georgina and I have not seen this lady before."
"You fool. That lady you don't know is your girlfriend. Fool as you chose her as your mate instead of her sister who is a real she-wolf."
"What are you saying? Please don't take Georgina away."
"When you are ready for the truth you shall accept that you will be here forever. That's what it takes."
***
In the bower, they were hearing what Alpha was saying from Damien. He has stopped reciting poems but now talks more about escaping and Georgina.
"Who is Georgina?" The pregnant woman asked. Sarah looked at Catherine then back at the woman. They don't know who Georgina was.
"She could be his girlfriend or mate," Sam said.
"I don't think so," Catherine said. "Damien told me he never fell for a woman."
"And this Georgina couldn't be his sister, cousin or mother?"
"Let's have them in the possibilities. Or?"
"Once, we talked about family," Catherine said. "It was at the hospital when he was shot. Alpha was there and Damien spoke about his mother, Barbara, if I have not forgotten. He said he doesn't have a sister. I think he also has no siblings."
"Then Georgina could be closer to someone close to him," Sam said.
"Yes, and that person is Alpha. They play so much together. You can't separate them."
"Then we found who he's connected to." The woman said.
"Yeah," Sarah said. " The Alpha." She giggled and hugged Catherine.
"If that's someone he knows and you guys know him too then the person isn't dead. He's only locked away in that realm."
"Wow," Sam said. " Are you close to Martha Stewart?"
"I know her. She's friends with my grandmother. They are into the occult together. In the pouring form."
"So, we could bring Alpha back?" Catherine asked.
"Yes. He could be back if he doesn't fight them in that realm. But it seems he might be aggressive."
"Huh. What do we do to make sure he doesn't end up fighting?" Sam asked. He touched Damien's forehead.
"I don't know for now. But let's see what comes up next."
They left the room for some time to see if they could find more food in the streets. Smallsville is now barren. Activities have stopped and lots of people are dead already.
Damien was there with his eyes closed and his body lame. He still feels himself inside but everything around him has overwhelmed him and he feels like he needs to escape. His eyes blinked and he opened them. Nobody was around. He couldn't move his hands and his legs seemed like huge boulders. He closed his eyes again and tears rolled down in silence. He tried shifting his body but nothing happened. Minutes later all he could see was his body moving around the room without him moving.
Alpha appeared before him smiling, he smiled back and he disappeared from his view to appear in a kaleidoscopic view on the ceiling.
It was like Alpha began seeing him and he was trying to tell him things directly so that the voice won't notice him. Damien was there strapped and couldn't move.
"Damien, it's me," he whispered. "It's me. I am trapped here. Please tell Catherine this. Damien?"
Damien smiled and closed his eyes again listening to the sound in his head coming from Teo Milea's silence. He smiled again and the day went on like that.
***
"His condition seems odd to me," Sarah said. She was standing outside the grocery store with the pregnant woman waiting for Catherine and Sam to come out with bags.
"Strange things happen every time. The universe itself is strange."
"Yeah," Sarah said.
"When I was a kid I had the privilege of working with my parents on tons of intergalactic experiments. My mum was an astrophysicist. I learned that the universe will never obey us from both of them."
"That's strange."
They have turned scavengers. The island has stopped running. Werewolves and humans have died out with a few more somewhere hiding.
That was their thinking until they saw a large pack coming toward them. They quietly hide behind the doorway. The pack should be more than five hundred werewolves and she-wolves. Some humans were with them. They carried placards and sauntered towards the street. Not just any street but the street leading to the Guero fortress.