~~THE REALM~~~
Alpha couldn't stop running in any direction with the hope that one of them could lead to his escape from the realm. Somehow he has gotten his mind back and now he could also remember his friends. Though the voice was still in his head he could listen to it and turn it off whenever he likes for his voice to be heard.
"I'm freeing myself from his shit." He muttered to himself.
But he continued running. He could not stop running. Everything in the new realm is white and he couldn't differentiate any other colour. The only colour he is seeing is white and white alone surrounded him.
He looked to his left all he could see was just the single dimension, nothing more and nothing less. The threshold looks the same and no place specifically for him to run to.
He continued running knowing that he was going to get somewhere, knowing that this is not some infinity pool.
He couldn't stop. He has gotten back into his senses. He understands now that he has friends and that he missed them so much. He understands now that his girlfriend, Catherine, will be waiting for him to come back.
Alpha continued running in the white realm. All of a sudden the whiteness in the realm started falling apart, turning into something he could not understand. It turned yellow then sapphire and green and then another colour. They appeared like they were coming from the spectrum beyond.
He looked at each one forming an abstract loophole. The voice asked him to jump in. He smiled and continued running. Then a wormhole appeared. He looked at it and smiled.
"I am not getting into this. Never."
The wormhole morphed into another and the whiteness gradually returned. Everything became wider and so it looks like the whiteness started coming forward to him closing in on him. Tightening him up in a shallow space.
He shouted.
"whooooat am I doing here? How am I going to get out of this? Somebody help me, please."
He continued shouting then he felt like if he doesn't get the help he is going to die there.
Suddenly he heard Damien's voice in his head. Right there he knows finally his telepathic sense is working.
Ae smiled and shouted.
"Damien, can you hear me? Please helpppp me if you can. Damien? l"
He heard a voice coming back to him. There was like a glitch in the air and everything seems like it was going to fall apart but then he heard the voice coming clearly. It's Damien's voice.
"Yeah, I can hear you, man. How are you doing over there?"
Alpha giggled and started jumping.
"I am great now. Damien, is that you?"
"Yeah, man. Where have you been? I've been searching for you."
"Oh my God! That means I finally get to hear your voice."
"Yeah."
"I don't know where I am. Everything seems white here. Please just come and help me."
"That I'm inside your head and you get to hear me is what we have been trying to achieve. Now we got it right. We are working on locating where you are. SaA is here. We have Lillian, your Catherine and Sarah. Also, we are trying to make amends. You only have to come down and look around you closely. Tell us where you are. "
"I can not tell. It is all white here." He looked around still puzzled.
"You will be able to soon. I will tell you what to do next."
"Good."
"But for now, just stay and make sure you listen closely to where you are. That realm is going to fall apart soon. You should continue disturbing the molecules. You don't have to stop running. You should continue running and when it's time for you to jump I'll tell you."
"Damien, you are the best. Tell everyone I love them."
"We love you too."
***
"This is the beginning of a story I wrote some time ago."
"We are listening."
"Hope it is a creepy one?
"You'll know at the end."
"Why not ready us another poem instead?"
"I will read one after this. This is a story I'm working on. You guys are the first to see it."
"Start reading. " Tina said. She pouted and sat beside the bed.
The morgue
It was in a day everything in Dan's world crumbled. He walked out of the morgue holding Jane in his hands. His claws were out and blood scattered around his face making him look more handsome but drained. She was breathing when he took her from the gurney closer to the window but now she looks like death. He walked quickly towards the opening and reached out his hands, with her in them, to Joe.
"Boy," Joe said, " hope she's not dead?"
He dropped his jade-green dagger to take her from him. He grained and the aglet in his left sneaker pinned him to the wall outside. He designed stronger than the others.
"Hold her well... Her face is pale and blood seems to have gone out of her," Joe said, wiping away the sand on his face. The sand smells like petrichor and he wanted to taste it but stopped.
"Sure, boy. Why are your claws out? I thought your father told you not to suck anyone of 'em..."
"Yes. I didn't suck any of them. I found something strange in the hallway. I don't know what it is but it looks like some folks are communing there and it looks like it's secretive."
"We should talk about this later. Gotta get her well. She's getting paler."
But Joe and Jane know him. His reputation has the Alpha who never wanted his pack to see back in time and prohibited the time-travelling machine her mother, Dr Anna made before the impact.
He walked back into the dingy room, hoping to bring out more people from the morgue. Hoping to rekindle his feelings for her and hopes he nabs Matt, the blonde with a broken left eye, who entered the machine to end everything. Entropy was on his mind and Dan wanted to clean up his mess.
"Everything is gonna go down, but..." He giggled and walked back in holding something covered by the shadow from the flickering bulb in the middle of the morgue.
"What type of story is this?" Tina frowned. "It reads like crap. You should stop writing. I'm serious. You should not write again."
She started laughing and ran away.
***
"I guess our communication with Alpha is getting better now."
Damien nodded. He hasn't started speaking but he's hearing. He only speaks in a strange language which only Lillian translates. And he now recognises them. He knew every part of his life that left before. Though he didn't know most of the horrible things they did to the humans. He never remembered the boy too though he felt connected to me whenever he recited poems to him. He showed him the collection they started writing. Damien grinned. He never saw himself as a writer though he has always admired writers.
"Alpha should be able to tell him where he is now. Or what do you think?" Sarah said.
"It takes time, Sarah. The realm he's in is beyond what most of us will understand. Let's hope he's smart enough to figure it out. If not, he'll be there for longer."
"You mean we can train him based on models?"
"We can try that but you know we need electricity. This machine can do that. It's too basic."
"Let's wait for Sam. I hope he gets lucky selling that batch." Catherine said.
"He'll. Don't worry. The pack always needed guns."
"You guys know the earlier we do this the better. Damien is getting weaker daily."
***
When they left him alone, Damien turned his head indicating the direction Alpha told him. But he can't speak and his body and head only move when they aren't there with him. Alpha has told him where he's. He's in a sinkhole before Fifth Alley.
Sam saw the sinkhole he felt connected to it and wanted to see it but Laillain told him they needed to be on their way. He wanted to stop at another one close to the one Alpha is but he stopped himself from pushing for it.
"Life is simpler when you take things easy. When you know you need to seek knowledge. When you know the works aren't necessarily against you." Sam repeated this to himself throughout the journey not knowing they could have saved him.
********
The fortress went through some renovation. Georgina sat in the office. She was on a call with someone. Sam waited for her to finish before sitting down and she wore a revealing cloth. She smiled at him afterwards.
"I was informed you want to see me. What's the problem?"
"Nothing much, just that I am here to tender my allegiance to you. I'm a businessman, who just relocated here from Figma p and I know you might need some of what I sell."
"Yes we need many things but what do you sell?"
"I see rifles at cheaper rates. Recently, the infection was that no guns should enter Smallsville.."
"Then you are a criminal for bringing guns here." She grinned.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Sam begged her. She chuckled and waved at him. Her fingers are long and glowing with rings.
"You are not in trouble, we need guns. Our enemies need to go down. So we'll need to get some from you."
"Alright," Sam said.
"Let me see what you've got."
Sam pulled out the guns. M5 and lots of others stacked in a black bag beside him.
"They look neat. Can I test one on you?" She asked, smiling.
"Just joking. I don't kill just like that. You must have betrayed me before I take you down."
"I will be careful then. Just here to serve you well at any time." Sam said anxiously and waiting to run away from the office. The office has been renovated too but some of the cabinets remained.
"Alright. The money will be sent to you."
"Okay. Thank you very much."
***
Sam walked out of the fortress. He saw the renovation going on at all wings of it. He remembered staying in the bar drinking wine with some of the folks around and the games they played whole there. He walked towards the gate and the new men there. They looked more muscular than the others and taller too. They are typical bouncers but he thought he could still deal with them when it comes to that. He walked past them into the street. The tree flanking the fortress had been chopped down and somehow everything around seemed moving and renovations were pulling all around with most of the house going to werewolves' families and humans being downgraded.
He walked out seeing that everything has changed and the community itself has turned into something else because the renovations going on around are different. The humans were not allowed to get back into their houses. Georgina now controls everything and everything is going according to her plans. He had looked around before giving her the guns. She smiled and teased him again like she has known him for years. That's the same trick she used on Alpha. Immediately he walked out of the fortress he felt the urgency to get the fortress back. He missed sitting in the bar. He missed the banter and laughter.
Georgina smiles a lot. She uses that to conceal her actions. It was cool since her smiling face did all the ends, for humans. To Sam that wasn't fair to the humans. It's not cool seeing that the majority of humans lost everything they own.
"Sam looked around and he couldn't find the trees again. Most of them have been chopped down. He doesn't know why. He thought perhaps the werewolf doesn't want to have anything to do with trees at all and perhaps the new development they're having is going to change things for everyone and make smallsvile a werewolf world alone where humans will be slaves.
He walked past everything and started thinking to What end will the selling of ammunition help them.
He continued walking and they continued being like this, to what end will the world continue cheating them.
He looked around him and discovered that not some of the trees but a lot of them are gone. The forest is going. It was burned down and it will be in no time developed into houses the more he looked around him the more he sees that everything seems different. Not like when he went to Fifth Alley. Not like what he saw in the caves and among the people staying there. Everything seems different. It looks like the world is new. When he was a child, he knew a different world. A world with lots of flowers and trees around.
He'll try to play. What we should embrace is that the death of a civilization happens and everything changes. Things cannot be delayed or should be allowed to take forever. Things will always change and sometimes these changes come with lots of distractions, sadness, breakage and at the same time joy to some people.
That's why he thought he should look around him. He discovered that the earlier they get everything back, the better.
He looked around him and he thought, how far can they train themself to understand the others? In what way can they and the others do things that will perhaps set the world straight.
He saw the path he used to take when he was a kid riding his bicycle to school and most times to Martha's place, the bower at the flowers, the beautiful lilies, a frangipani tree and now everything around seems different because they've been consumed by fire. But the deeper forested terrains remain.
He's looked around him and discovered that he's the only one probably that moment seeing everything differently. He looked around him and smiled, at least everything is changing, and he had succeeded in selling the first set of guns. That will help them to start pushing their plans forward. He looked around him and smiled. He looked around him and his dream of seeing oceans, waterfalls and everything good came back to him. He looked around him and the whole world seemed to be in place.
***********
Finally Alpha found where he was. He has connected to Damien again and he pinpointed the reallocation. It was in a sinkhole in Fifth Alley. He looked forward to them picking him up and at that he thought about his life and how he wanted to start afresh. He paced around hoping they would locate him soon.
Damien woke up finally, he looked around him no one was in. He quickly stood up and walked towards the main room, grabbed a gun and ran out. He knew Laillan kept some information away from the others. He was listening to her one night when she thought he was hearing them. She was speaking to someone on the phone. She was telling the person their plan is going on fine and that soon they will get rid of all of them.
He went out and quickly grabbed the bike and drove off. Some minutes later Sam came in and couldn't find him on the bed. He looked around for him but couldn't find him.
" I can't find Damien," he knocked on the ladies' door. Lillian was the first to wake up. She quickly jumped out of bed and went to the door.
"What did you just say, Sam?"
"I can't find Damien. He was on the bed but now gone."
"What's it?" Sarah said.
"Damien is gone," Lillian said to her.
"Catherine, wake up. Something just happened."
"What's it?"
"Damien is gone. Sam can't find him in the room."
"What! Where did he go to?"
Lillian rushed out of the bunker towards the backyard of the bower. She brought out a phone under a metal casing on the floor and quickly called Georgina's phone.
"Hello, get men to follow Damien. He's going to the sinkholes in Fifth Alley. That's where Alpha is."
"Damn! How did that happen?"
"I don't know. Be fast about it before he gets there."
She placed the phone back and went back in. They were still searching for him. Sam went out and discovered the bike was gone. He walked back in thinking if it's possible Damien went to get Alpha.
He quickly went back into the place they kept the guns, grabbed some guns and bullets then headed out too. On his way, he saw cars driving past him going towards the same way he would take to Fifth Alley. Then he knew something fishy must be happening.
The cars buzzed past him like they were some sports cars. He hides behind a tree and watches them go.
"If Damien went to get Alpha and these folks are going towards that same way some minutes later then there is something. They hardly went that way."
He thought to himself.
"Then someone must have informed them."
With his puzzled mind, he went towards the road and tried to disguise himself. Some of the cars were packed. He heard someone answering a call from one then he went towards the car.
"Don't worry, we are going to Fifth Alley now. He won't get there alive."
"Damn," Sam said in his mind. Who is giving them intel and how did they know Damien went that way? He moved closer to the car and gently placed his gun on the man's head.
"You don't have to do anything." He said. "If you try, you'll die."
"Alright. What do you want?" The man said, shaking.
"Who did you just finish speaking to?"
"My friend."
"Are you sure it's your friend?" Sam asked.
"Sure, man. Just finished speaking with my friend."
Sam shoots his hand.
"Who did you just finish speaking with?"
The man shouted. Blood gushed out of his palm. He held it shouting.
"If you don't speak up you are dying here."
"Please don't do it. Please."
"What's the name of the person?"
The man whimpered. He was crying.
"Lillian, " he said.
"What?" Sam asked surprised.
"Lillian. She's pregnant and… hah"
"What?"
"We have Intel on everything you guys are doing."
At that point, Sam shot him in the head and quickly entered the car after dumping his body in the but. He started the car and drove off in the direction of Fifth Alley.
***
Catherine went into the room they kept the guns and found that they were missing. Before she could go out to ask for their whereabouts, she was knocked out by Lillian and drawn into a corner. She went for Sarah too.
"Sarah. Sarah, could you please come over here? I'm having some difficulties."
Sarah heard her. She thought she was going to have a baby. She rushed into the room and before she could turn to face Lillian, Lillian knocked her out too.
"Fools," She said. Quickly she took out a rope from her bag and tied them down. She removed the rubber tube from her stomach and placed it on the floor.
"Foolish humans." She spat on them and took out her phone. She called Georgina again.
"Hello"
"Buddy, what's good?"
"Get some men over here. We need to get these folks imprisoned."
"Right away. Are they still breathing?"
"Yeah. Just knocked them out. They are fine."
"Good."
She went out to the bower to get the children. She met them playing with the hound and the bower looked like a home.
"Lillian," Tina said. "What are you doing here?"
Lillian smiled.
"I came to make sure you guys are cool."
"Oh, kind of you. Do you know I'm only three years old but smarter than them?" She pointed at the boys.
Lillian laughed again. Her phone rings.
"We are outside."
"I'll be out with the kids now. Get to the bunker, you'll see some packages."
***
Georgina's men got to the sinkhole before Sam. They came down from their cars and started shooting into it. Alpha saw sleeping but then saw bullets coming in from all directions, he ducked behind a stone without saying a word. The bullets continue coming in but moving past him like light. None could reach him at the angles they were shooting from. They continued for about five minutes then suddenly, one of them fell into the sinkhole, blood gushing from his back. Someone must have shot him. Who could that be? Alpha thought about it for a while then quickly he ducked his head and grabbed the gun from his hands and won't back to his position. The shooting has been directed at another person or thing outside.
"You bastards," Sam shouted. He continued shooting them while he was hidden away behind the car. One of the men ran off with his phone trying to make a call, Sam located him and shot him in the head. He fell like a rock on the hot floor. He came out from behind the car and rushed to the sinkhole.
Quickly he grabbed the rope he found in the car and started lowering it down the sinkhole for Alpha to grab it. One of the men was not dead. He crawled slowly towards him with his gun. Sam didn't pay attention to him because he never noticed him. The man aimed his gun at him and was about to shoot when a bullet pierced his head and came out the other side. Blood smeared the hot floor like one roasting a lamb.
Sam was startled by that. He turned trying to grab his gun then saw it was Damien who shot the man. He smiled and ran to hug him.
"Where have you been? You left before me."
"I took another route down here and this is your bike.. "
"That. Damn it." Sam laughed.
"Good to see you, Sam."
"Same here," Sam smiled. "They might have reinforcement. Let's get him out quickly."
"Sure, man."
Minutes later, they both started shouting. When Alpha heard their voices he was happy. He stood up and came into the open. He looked lanky and his smile seemed wider like a sinkhole's laughter.
"Men, I'm here." He smiled.
"Look at you, man," Damien said.
"The rope is coming up. We are going to pull you out."
"Thanks, Sam. You guys are the best." His voice echoes.
When they started pulling him out of the sinkhole, the rope nearly cut, But they continued pulling stronger and Alpha made sure he lightened his weight by adding to the upward force. They continued pulling and sweating until he was out.
They all giggled and lay in the sand tired. The sun shines on them.
"Life is simpler when we see things differently," Sam said and continued smiling.