I Am Not A Monster
A young man learns his true potential
A/N - Finally got the time to get a little more writing done. This piece is clean, but does deal with mature themes including suicidal tendencies and attempts, death, and rape. If you are offended by fictional portrayals of any of the above, you may not wish to read the story. All characters are fictional and all situations are fake.
Today was the day.
As the bustle of the small city below slowly started to calm, I sat in my threadbare apartment, looking out over the growing sun settling in the west. The Spartan room, housing only a small mattress on the floor, cheap folding card table and matching folding seat that now held my beaten and defeated body, wasn't home, merely somewhere that I could crash... and crash I would.
The weight of the old revolver weighed heavily in my hand, the cold steel warming in the clenched hand that surrounded the wooden grip. This revolver was the only remnant of my father...my sire...that I still had. Everything else had burned on that horrible night. The night I became the last of my line...a line that I did not want to continue.
Taking the final slug out of the bottle of rotgut whiskey sitting beside me, I studied that lonely remnant. The bluing of the barrel and cylinder were both worn to the point where they were non-existent, the result of decades of wear from constant use. This poor chunk of metal had started its life as some cop's sidearm...his last line of defense against the violence of the streets, but no match for a monster who not only took his pistol, but also his blood, spots of which still splattered across the wooden grips covered by my palm.
My own father...killed another man, just because he could...no, because he had to. The call of the moon was just too strong for him to resist. I had been able to resist...until now. Today I became a man...and I became a monster.
And that was what I had become. No...what I was. No more.
With trembling hands I flipped out the cylinder, seeing the gleaming brass cartridge nestled inside. It was the only one that I had managed to get; the end result of a complicated process from a friend of a friend of a friend. No matter, it would do the job.
As I snapped the cylinder shut, the satisfying snap of metal on metal echoed the finality of my choice...no, my necessity. I couldn't let my kind hurt anyone else. Those masked men had done everyone a service when they slaughtered my father and his pack, but I was too afraid to meet death head-on. No, I ducked and ran away with my figurative tail between my legs like a coward. I would be a coward no more.
'You don't need to kill yourself. You're not what you think.' That damned voice in my head again. I swore it was the damn beast inside me telling me to spare myself...no, to spare it. I wasn't going to listen, but neither was I going to indulge it with any response but one.
I slide the barrel of my salvation inside my mouth, lips sealing around the cold metal in a futile attempt to maximize the effectiveness of the bullet. A feeling of finality washed over me as I felt that cool metal in my mouth, even as that tiny voice continued to protest within my mind. My mind had been made up a long time ago, and there was nothing it could do or say in protest that would make me change.
I pulled the trigger, feeling that cold snap as it broke, snapping the hammer forward as I had seen so many times before echoing through my mind as I thought of this day.
I saw the hammer fall in slow motion, the blunt end impacting the base of that cartridge as I heard the sharp pop of the primer. And then...nothing.
Silence filled the room as the cartridge failed. A mental sigh of relief echoed unbidden through my skull, but for the moment, I could do nothing, the shock of my newest failure washing over me like some unbidden black cloud. As the short spell of shock from my failure faded, I realized that I had to finish this now, before the beast could gain enough strength to come out and take me for its own...before I became one of them, the cursed of the night.
Propelling my lanky body from the folding chair with enough force to send the brown tubular construct clattering to the faded and discolored linoleum I forced myself to the counter that served as my kitchen. Reaching almost wildly, I grasped for the steak knife sitting atop the off-white countertop and felt my fingers grip the cool, plastic surface. Seeing the rapid fading of the fiery reds of the sunset splashing across the apartment only served to heighten my anxiety and franticness as I placed the tip of the blade against my skin.
I felt the cold steel blade nestling against the crook of my elbow as I pushed in, gritting my teeth at the feeling of the inefficient blade slicing into my skin. The sharp, coppery scent of blood poured into the air, overpowering the stench of stale food and staler cigarette smoke, igniting my nerves in ways that I had once hoped they would never be stimulated. I could see the dark red blood seeping out of my arm, slowly at first but gathering strength as the blade deepened. With one final pull I ripped the blade down my arm, ripping the arm asunder and allowing my true essence to pour out of my body unhindered.
As a small smile crossed my face as I felt the slippery blood coating my hand and allowed the knife to fall from my hand into the small pool of blood already forming beneath me and sending droplets scattering across the floor. I looked up to see that the fiery reds had faded completely, leaving only that dark gloom where it is not quite night, but no longer day. That smile stayed on my face as I realized that today was to be my last day in his wretched life.
The first sensation of the wrongness of that feeling of accomplishment was a fierce heat that supplanted the growing coldness along my arm. With a start, I saw the blood flowing from my arm had slowed to a crawl, the steady stream of the warm fluid slipping down my fingers into the growing pool of dark red blood slowing to a drip...and then to a stop. With a fearful stare written across my face and an indescribable blankness coating my mind, I wiped the remaining blood off my arm and saw that the jagged cut that I had made in myself had completely vanished.
I was too late. I was going to become a monster tonight whether I wanted to or not.
That burning heat started up again, this time centering in my gut as I doubled over in pain. The cramping was astounding and immeasurably painful. It was like a bad case of indigestion or gas times a couple thousand and it was all I could do not to start crying. Gritting my teeth at the pain, there was nothing I could do as my insides writhed within me, starting the process of remaking me into the monster that I had so desperately tried to destroy.
My body was completely going haywire as it started to change. Sweat poured out of my body, soaking the thin tee shirt covering my scrawny upper body in a foul stench of fear, heat and exertion. My gut was churning, insides squirming as a gnawing feeling of emptiness started to grow in the pit of my stomach, a hunger that, I feared, would only be sated by human blood and flesh this night.
As the pain and the heat continued to assault my body, it felt as if I was losing control of my body. My hands and arms moving of their own accord as I tugged the rough denim jeans down my legs and roughly pulled my tee shirt over my head, feeling a minute relief from the heat that was coursing through my body. As I looked down at my scrawny chest, I was surprised at the rapidly thickening pelt of hair coursing out from the slight dusting that had previously covered my chest, but not only had my body hair started to spill out more, my chest had also grown more defined, small pectoral muscles pushing out and a small group of abdominal muscles pushing out from my pale skin.
'It's not as bad as you think. You will grow to enjoy this, just let it happen. It's not like you can fight it, anyway.'
'This is who I really am.'
Again, that small voice within my head pushed in unbidden, a siren song of bestial freedom gnawing at the edges of my resistance. In the heat and pain, I couldn't, and didn't try to argue with it, merely trying to ignore it. My eyes were still focused on my chest as the thickening pelt of hair was rapidly becoming a thick pelt of fur covering my chest in ugly blackness, symbolizing the evil that I was to espouse unwillingly after this change. I felt my ribs cracking, my chest expanding and barreling outward painfully as lungs and heart expanded, growing better able to supply my body with oxygen needed for running, leaping...for hunting...for killing. My chest heaved, sweat dripping off my fur onto the floor as the heat continued to pulse through me, the already foul stench of my human sweat starting to more closely resemble the most ugly odor of an animal's musk as my sweat glands modified themselves, some, but not all, of them vanishing from my hidden skin, only serving to heighten the heat pulsing through my body.
As the fur finished its spread across my chest, I felt the sickening heat and unbearable cramping spread into my arms and legs, heralding more changes to come. Already on my knees from the pain and the heat, I saw the fur quickly spreading down my arms, covering them in that same vile, black coating that my chest had already sprouted. Muscles that I didn't even know I had were pulled and stretched by the heat, contorting themselves painfully into more powerful and more bestial forms, perfect for a quadripedal gait. I could see my growing biceps and triceps as the muscle groups writhed beneath the skin, but the rapidly growing fur helped shroud much of the increasing definition and mass of my muscles. As the fur raced down my arms, I saw my hands almost double in size, becoming gnarled and inhuman. A feeling of numbness and heat continued to pump out of my hands as the palms of my hands pushed out, numbing the feeling of the weathered, rough wooden floor upon which they were pressed.
As the metamorphosis of my hands completed, the most telling, and most frightening change so far, served to cap off the change. My already deformed hands were still numb and my nails had been engulfed by the thick black fur that had covered my hands, but they were not going to be hidden for very long. I saw the thin translucent keratin shells pushing out from under that dark fur and twisting, taking on a dark sheen. As my eyes stared unbelievingly at the growing appendages, I saw them twist from flat, relatively vestigial pieces of anatomy to strong, sharp implements of destruction, morphing into the monstrous, bestial claws that my new form would use to kill. As my eyes focused on my new talons, my mind too blank and stupefied to sob like I should, my attention was suddenly drawn to my legs as the heat suddenly flared up in my legs.
My head felt rooted and immobile, so I couldn't view or watch the metamorphosis of my legs and feet, but more than enough information came from the stretching sounds and sensations emanating from my legs to cause me concern. I felt the prickling heat that had signaled the growth of that blasted pelt flowing down my legs, and the stretching, cramping feeling of changing musculature that had signified the changes flowing down my upper arm. As those sensations assaulted my mind, an amazingly painful sensation of stretching assaulted my mind, centering on my lower leg as it felt like my heels were being pulled up into my body. A part of my mind realized that my legs were reconfiguring themselves into a digitigrade posture, the heels pulling back so that I would be walking on my toes. I heard, rather than felt the growth of the new toe claws as they scratched long gouges in the wooden floor as my legs pushed out behind me, growing longer and more powerful. Finally, the feeling of stretching and burning subsided, leaving me panting and breathless.
'There's so much I could do with this body. So much power...so much freedom'
I didn't know where that thought came from, but my waning conscious mind found it scary. The monster was taking over my mind, making me his. My mental wandering was cut short by a sharp, short pain in my face as the burning started up again. I felt an amazing, indescribably sharp pain push through my face as my eyes began to tear. Blinking furiously, I watched in stop motion as the pain was punctuated by the stop motion sight of my face pushing forward, my nose darkening, and gaining a visibly pebbled texture. I felt my tongue changing with my face, becoming thinner, wider and longer. I watched through the blinks as, on reflex, that changed, canine tongue snaked out of my new muzzle and licked across my malformed nose.
That lick, seen in slow, flickering motion through stuttering eyes, opened my mind to a whole new world of sense as my new nose took in the surrounding air and my mind got its first taste of the myriad of smells, ranging from the stench of human sweat, both the new sweat from my transformation, as well as the stale odor that I somehow associated with human habitation, to the thick musk pouring off my new body, to the acrid smell of blood and primer from my attempts at preventing this change. For a moment, I just breathed through my new nose, in awe of the new scents that I was taking in, not realizing that I was no longer fighting the change. The din of the city quieted momentarily as a new sensation of pain flew through my new muzzle, culminating in the coppery taste of blood flowing across my new tongue along with chunky bits of tooth and gums which I spat into the puddle of blood already coagulating across my floor. A thought quickly flitted across my mind that I should be using that puddle to its fullest, but I was distracted from that thought as the din of the city suddenly returned, and intensified tenfold as my ears had moved to the top of my reformed head. I could actually feel them folding themselves against my newly furred head, a sensation that I had hoped never to feel. A canine sounding whine escaped my lips as the pain of the city's bedlam scraped into my brain.
It felt as if it had taken hours, but in only minutes, I was left panting, long, pink tongue hanging out of my new muzzle hanging over my new, sharper teeth. A gnawing hunger filled my guts and dulled my conscious, rational mind. The sharp coppery tang of blood filled my new nares, bringing forth thoughts of feasting on raw meat...any raw meat and I couldn't stop myself from crawling to the puddle of blood, and as my new tongue touched the crimson liquid, I felt my mind shut down.
When my mind returned from the blackness, I found myself down in the bowels of the city, not far from one of the more colorful and dangerous neighborhoods as I prowled the city streets, my hunger sated, for now. I may have been conscious of my surroundings and actions now, but I was still just along for the ride, and I think a small part of me was enjoying the freedom. A small, quiet part of my mind prayed for whomever I had sated my hunger with, but the majority of my thoughts were filled with the thrill of prowling the city, becoming the apex predator of my territory. The sounds of the city were much more bearable to my feral mind, the mind of the animal much more attuned to what was nearby and what was distant. The myriad smells of the city were overpowering and very distracting to the meager human remains within my skull, but the hunter within my head seemed to revel into the delicious buffet of scents. One scent above all others drew my attention. I couldn't place the scent, and I don't think my beast could either, but it was so intriguing to the beast that I felt my body start to run toward the scent.
As I ran, I found that not only was my body stronger than it had been, but it was also faster and larger. With long, bounding strides, I found myself effortlessly leaping atop dumpsters and over fences to follow the alluring scent. As I grew closer to the scent, my hearing began to pick up muffled screams, and that alluring scent was overlaid by a recognizable tang of fear and anger. Slowing down as I approached the source of the scent...my prey, I found a pair of additional scents beginning to intermingle with my prey's, scents which were much less appetizing for me. Additional sounds of struggling and fighting reached my sensitive ears. Suppressing a growl that my prey wasn't alone, I leapt atop a nearby dumpster and then to the top of a small shed nearby. Crouching down atop that vantage point, I saw my new, ferocious visage in a darkened window in a nearby building and was astonished that I was that predator that I had always feared. My primary focus, however, was not on my new body, but on the scene arrayed down below me.
I could see a small, human female below me...frail, weak, helpless, I thought, the new recognitions startling my still human mind. She was being held down by a pair of men, their dark clothing blending in the dull light of the alley. My sharp nose picked up the acrid stench of fear flowing out of the woman, as well as the odor of human lust flowing out of the two males, covered with a sharp chemical odor, one that I assumed was some form of drug, and the stench of stale cigarettes and alcohol. As the men ripped the woman's checkered shirt off of her chest, a flash of silver steel caught my eye in the hand of the stockier man who was sitting atop the woman's legs. Another guarded, silent whiff of the air around me shocked me as a scent underlying the woman's fear struck deeply within my instinctive mind, pushing my rationality, already strained and injured by my transformation into this form, far from my mind. An unbidden snarl crossed my lips and my control of the situation was wrested from me, although I was still experiencing everything.
I realized that I was about to live through my body's taking of another life...my life's fear come to life.
Hearing my body let out a blood-chilling howl, I suddenly felt the wind rushing through my thick, dark pelt as my new, powerful legs propelled me off the short rooftop and toward the three figures below me. My arms were at my side with my new hands before me, claws out and ready to rend whatever they could reach. A terrifying snarl escaped my new mouth as I landed beside the trio. A short huff of humor left my muzzle as the beast recognized the look of shock that flitted across the face of the two men, a look that quickly turned into pure fear.
My wicked right paw clenched into a fist and I powered it into the closer of the two crooks, catching him in the shoulder and sending him sprawling into the wall, no longer struggling. Looking away from that prey, I turned toward the second male who I had seen. He was rushing away from me, clad only in very short shorts and a light tee shirt. A strange thrill shot through my body as I took off after the rabbiting rapist.
Falling to all fours, I could feel the rough texture of the alleyway across all of my paws and felt the narcotic sensation of the chase flooding my blood, exciting the beast within me. With the speed of my new body I tore after the male. Closing quickly on the fleeing rapist I saw with a repressed glee that those short shorts on this son of a bitch were his boxers. The poor bastard looked behind him, eyes widening as he saw my panting visage coming up quickly behind him. With a powerful snarl my powerful legs tensed and released in a lunge that launched my heavy body at the man who had attacked...her.
Tackling the fleeing man, my new nose tasted the delicious scent of the man's fear as he landed on his stomach with his hands under him. My beast took a moment to savor the delectable scent of my prey's fear...a moment that my prey took to its advantage. A quick elbow from my prey to my muzzle caught me by surprise. That elbow was quickly followed by the feeling of searing pain flowing across my arm as my mind came to the conclusion that the prey had bitten me. A feeling of rage welled up within me and a feral snarl escaped my lips. Baring my teeth at my prey, the beast in my body recovered its bearings and overpowered the man. Watching from my ringside seat within the mind of the bestial body above the man, I was horrified as I saw my muzzle open and my vision reach down, focusing toward the throat of the man below me. With a quick lunge, I felt warm blood splash into my muzzle as my teeth clamped into the soft flesh of the man's neck, the beast severing her jugular, carotid and windpipe with a quick shake of its...my head.
Spitting out the human flesh, the beast ran its tongue along the paw where the man's knife had cut it, dark blood matting the fur. The beast's self-inspection was interrupted when its perked ears caught the sound of running coming from the direction where it had left the girl. Rushing back toward the girl, the beast returned to find that the male that he had thrown into the wall had disappeared. Quiet, labored breathing could be heard coming from the unconscious girl behind him. The beast quietly approached the girl, inhaling the scent of fear and anger that the girl had been exuding before she passed out during his fight with her attackers. The beast also smelled the strong smell of blood coming from the large pool of blood and whiskey under the girl. A closer look and smell revealed an ugly gash in the girl's arm where she had cut it on the broken bottle of bourbon that was below her.
Wresting some control back from the beast, my conscious mind pressed my paw down on the bleeding, hoping to staunch it. I remembered watching on television where someone pushed on bleeding to stop it, and remembered that dying people got cold. Using my paw, I grasped the girl's upper arm, my paw completely engulfing the girl's damaged arm as I felt the pulsing loss of her precious bodily fluids. Holding my paw over the girl's wound, I tenderly lifted her off the bloody ground, out of the pool of alcohol and blood that she was steeped in. Carrying her toward a nearby abandoned building, I didn't bother with the door, breaking through the rotting wood with one powerful kick.
Carrying the girl a corner of the building where I could see the entrance, I lay her down on a small pile of canvas tarps which were arrayed in a pile in the corner. Looking down at the raven haired girl, I was struck at just how much she reminded me of my human body. Her dark hair was mussed and wet from the blood and alcohol and it was covering her homely face. Her body was lanky and lean, appearing scarred beyond her years with strange lines criss-crossing the inside of her arms. All over her body was the marks of the beatings that those two...animals that were attacking her, bright red marks from the recent beating clashing with the blotches of purple, yellow and green that could be seen in other patches across her body.
Removing my paw from the wound, I found that it had stopped its bleeding. Curling my warm, furry body around the girl, I just inhaled her scent, no longer overpowered by the stench of alcohol and unwanted lust and fear. I couldn't place it, but I just felt that I needed to protect her. It was a strange feeling, one I never expected to feel as this monster, but as the beast within me gently lapped at the girl's cheek and nuzzled her neck, there was no denying that this was just something I needed to do and couldn't explain. It was in these moments that the blackness of sleep took me.
I awoke the next morning to the sight of pre-dawn sunlight streaming in through the dusty, cloudy windows. My mind was hazy, cloudy and it took me a moment to realize that no longer was I looking out over a bestial snout. Starting awake, I also realized that I was alone in the warehouse. The girl that I had spent so much energy protecting the previous night had vanished. I wondered if this was just a case of me making her up in order to justify my slaughter the night before, but something within me simply spoke to me again.
'She was real. You are not nuts, and not a monster.'
My mind was in turmoil as I walked up to the top floor of the building. Reaching the top floor I looked out over the city, seeing the rising sun. As the sun rose, I saw the remains of the man I had attacked sprawled across the pavement below me. The shock of the night before, previously almost dreamlike in my muddled mind, finally hit home. I had killed a man with my own teeth, ripped out his throat in a bestial display of raw animal fury and primal savagery. Sitting down on the rampart of the building and allowing my legs to swing freely over the abyss...that five or six story fall from my perch to the cold, unforgiving pavement below. I just started sobbing.
I don't know how long I was sobbing there. My mind was in turmoil, part of me pushing to just end it all...to never become that monster again, but that other voice in my head, ever insistent and aggressive was pushing back just as hard, telling me that I was worth, reminding me of the comfort and care that I gave to the girl. The back and forth was so intense that I never noticed what was going on around me.
"Hey, Buddy. Why don't you back away from that edge?"
A voice broke into my mental debate, shaking me back to reality. Looking down below me, I saw that the area below me had become a beehive of activity, with a huge crowd standing on the sidewalk staring up at my naked, sobbing body. The rotating red lights of the fire engines splashed across the discolored bricks and intermittent graffiti of the run down storefronts. Looking down a little more directly I saw a flurry of activity below me as a huge bag was quickly inflating below me.
Turning my head behind me, I saw a large black cop standing behind me, with two smaller cops behind him. Slowly shaking my head in the negative, I stutteringly replied to the officer. "I can't. I'm a monster. I don't deserve to live."
"Kid," Came the reply, "The only monster here is on the pavement down there. I know what happened..."
"No, you don't," I shot back, bitterly choking back tears as I remembered my transformation into a slavering beast.
"Yeah, I do kid." His voice was softer now, but also closer as I heard his shoes scuffling across the loose detritus on the roof. A sharp snap was heard to my side as he knelt down beside me. "You went through your first change."
I was dumbfounded, my mouth hanging open in shock at the words of the cop. His brown eyes bore into my own, the quiet care in his voice reflected in those brown orbs. In shock, I simply goldfished for a few moments, jaw uselessly bobbing up and down. A smirk came to the cop's lips, deep white teeth flashing in a smile at my response. His hand was resting comfortingly on my shoulder as he became more aggressive in getting ready to pull me back from the edge.
"Kid, there's a lot you don't know about yourself, but let me tell you about what we do know. That man," he started, pointing at the body on the ground, "We know him very well around here. He gets arrested almost yearly for rape, but never gets much in the way of sentencing. His partner's never been caught, but the scare you gave them sent him into our arms. He gave himself up this morning, shaking like a leaf. The more important thing, though kid is someone else who came in this morning." Keying the radio microphone on his shoulder, the cop spoke something into the radio that I couldn't understand.
I could suddenly hear another set of footsteps rapidly approaching me, with another sharp click drawing my attention to my left. I drew in a sharp breath of air as I realized that the girl crouching next to me was the same one that I had saved the night before, but she looked different. Looking over her body, I saw that the marks that had covered her arms were no longer there, and the patchwork of bruises had vanished. In addition, the malnourished appearance of her skin and body had diminished, making her look more like a normal teen girl. My stupor must have been apparent on my face as she speaks to me for the first time since I first heard her screams the night before.
"Thank you. You changed my life." With that, she simply wrapped her arms around me from behind, embracing me.
The shock of the embrace was palpable, and I suddenly felt myself slip off the rampart where I was sitting. In shock, I windmilled my arms, feeling the weightlessness of my body as I plummeted toward my death. I finally realized that I didn't need this. I wasn't the monster that I had feared I would become, but I was going to die. The shock of regret was so abrupt that it felt like I had been jerked in my freefall as my eyes remained tightly shut.
A moment or two later, I was shocked that I hadn't hit ground yet...and I didn't feel the sensation of falling anymore. Forcing my eyes open, half expecting the Wile E. Coyote-type realization that I'd open my eyes just before I hit the pavement, I saw myself hanging against the side of the building. Looking up, I saw two different arms tautly stretched to my own, holding onto mine. With a heave, I am pulled back onto the roof of the building and see that the two arms that had pulled me up belonged to the girl and the cop who had been beside me.
"Kid, let's not do that again."
"Please, Ray, don't..." The girl broke down sobbing and embraced me again, this time startling me again as she started nuzzling my neck tenderly. I could hear her sobbing into my neck, but couldn't place what she was saying.
Wait, I thought. How did she know my name? The confusion wrote itself across my face, and apparently the cop caught it.
"Pup," the cop started, "I know about your old man. You aren't him. One thing you didn't know is that your father...well, he enjoyed spreading his seed." A strange sensation of understanding started to fill my mind at the officer's words, a niggling sense of understanding that I couldn't place, but the officer continued. "Holly, here was...well...she's your half-sister."
A sudden sense of inspiration filled my mind as I realized that the girl...Holly...my sister?...that scent that I had caught the previous night was familial, and that was the source of the protective instinct. As I felt her nuzzling my neck, I realized that she was reciprocating the platonic affection that I had felt the night before, but the manner struck me as...animalistic.
In shock, I looked at my palm, seeing nothing in my skin, but remembering the searing pain of that knife wound on that paw when I was the beast. Seeing my expression, I heard the cop clear his throat quickly.
"Ray, you just sped up her first change. We can't pass the change on to people who are not children of wolves already, but being exposed to blood or enough saliva can trigger the first change. You aren't alone"
"Wait," I replied, "We?"
The cop just smiled knowingly. "Yes, Ray, we. Your father's pack isn't the only one in the city, and we can take you both in. I was involved in the surveillance on your father's pack, and you are not like them. I saw you fighting the evil that he preached."
"Did you..." I started, not knowing how to ask if this was one of the men who had killed everyone that I had ever known?
"No, Ray," came the sad reply. "I'm not a killer. Whoever destroyed your father's group was, and we don't know who that is...but I also cannot say that I'm too broke up about it. It was just a matter of time...I wish I could say anything else, but we can talk more about this later. Let's go downstairs and get you some help." He towered over me, hand outstretched to help me up from where I lay on the debris strewn roof.
Diverting my gaze from the officer's, I looked into the deep green eyes of my newfound sister...eyes that were actually hopeful and eager. Unable to avoid the infectious enthusiasm in that gaze, I took the offered hand of both of them as they hoisted me to my feet.
As I walked toward the door of that warehouse where everything had changed, I could hear the voice of a newfound friend speaking into his radio.
"Command, Lincoln 56. We're 10-95 here. Can I get some clothes sent up, though?"
A/N - Thanks for reading, and please read and review.