War of men
War of Men
Index
War of Men. 1
Index. 2
Chapter 1: The lake. 4
Chapter 2: The War. 5
Chapter 3: The Enemy. 8
Chapter 4: The Cage. 9
_Chapter 5: The Night_11
"Lupus est homo homini, non homo,
quom quails sit non novit."
- Plautus, Asinaria
Chapter 1: The lake
I've played asleep as for no suspicions, and then night would be mine. Hours were eternal until this moment. My moment.
I got up silently, and checked if my family was sleeping. Indeed, they were. I got out through the door without making a single noise, I was quickly surrounded by darkness and nocturnal silence.
I didn't take so many cautions, my mind was totally focused on arriving at the place of meeting. It took me little time, it was not far away from home.
As always, I started by contemplating the lake, which was the major part of the forest. It was delightful, beautiful and calm. I approached it, and almost getting wet I saw the reflection on the water, distorted by the wind moving it. I raised my sight, and only the moon was on a starless sky.
A smile appeared on my face, I was happy with so few, but at the same time I long for so much. So few hopes, but the best of the reasons.
And again a fragment of a song came through my mind. "a love that's bound by the chains of reality".
That's the way I felt it. But I wanted to believe that one day my dream would come true. After all, she had come to see me.
Moon, oh, Moon... so close, so bright. Would you some day fulfill my dreams? I would howl for all etern--
Mi thoughts were interrupted by a voice calling me.
"Richard, Richard!"
I could heard it from far away. I recognized a certain worrying tone on my mother's voice.
"Here I am.", I replied, "I'm fine. I just came out because I heard some noises."
It was a cheap excuse for me, but I had used effectively it more than once.
"Are you crazy? You know the first thing to do is to warn us, and if you should, warn the leader too."
"I know... I'm sorry.", I answered sounding regretful.
"Now, let's come back. Tomorrow will be a hard day for you."
And that was right. It would be.
Chapter 2: The War
I woke up thinking in the frustrating meeting I had suffered. Just a few satisfactions I had in a world full of senseless things. Even that way, I had to give all my attention to other matters.
This day a battle would raise. One of the most important, they said, and I was part of one of the groups with special missions. Since I can remember this war exists... I didn't witness it's beginning. Old ones kept telling us those stories, about how man had broken the pacts that existed since ancient times. On those pacts, we were allowed to take what we needed for our community, and they would kill only our weakest ones. It wasn't a big loss, as surviving would be impossible for those, and if this meant they could be useful for man to feel powerful and to not trespass our territory, the pacts were really beneficial for us.
But then, old ones used to tell once and again, they attacked terribly against all of us. Nobody knew what they wanted nor what they searched for, nor why did they suddenly started to hate us, but our ancestors did not just wait and planned several defenses and attacks.
Battles were hard, losses were thousands, but none of us lied on the floor dead without having killed a man. If we suffered a massacre, they suffered an holocaust. But still, and until this day, they kept attacking us, and we kept defending ourselves, each time with less hopes of winning this endless, senseless war.
Trough generations, we've lost hope of terminating with the lasts of men, and war stories were crueler and crueler. Our old ones advised about communicating what we learn, about learning everything of what we were told. They told us about listening to fear, and when in danger, bare our teeth. They told us about not being alone ever, and to take care of our companions, only when they could survive and that did not risk our own life. Surviving and fighting was the priority.
Weak ones sometimes went to battle, but the most of them stayed at our places, studying our enemies. They've discovered lots of strategies our foes used to attack us, and they even learned part of their language. Man calls us "wolf".
"Richard!"
"Here."
"Mark!"
"Here."
"Dick!"
"Here."
I stopped paying attention to our general. I already knew his advises and his encouraging words at the point of being bored listening to them.
He always told us about protecting ourselves, about not getting too far from the pack, that if we bite before getting killed we'd had a lot of advantage, that death was not something that existed for us, that we would always live in the heart of our society, that even if we all should perish, we wouldn't leave a single man without bleeding to death.
We left quickly. There was a man camping near, coming to hunt us. Our mission was to eliminate them before they could attack our pack. When we got closer, they heard some noises and that alarmed them. It was Dick's fault, he wasn't silent at all. I've hated to make any mission with him, he always made it harder.
They saw us and started to shoot, we ran as fast as we could to dodge the deadly staring of those metal tubes. On the front our general and other two managed to get their attention, while from backwards we were able to attack them.
I bit one leg of one of them, he instantly threw his weapon and fell to the floor. I jumped to quickly attack at his face, their big weak point, because they only have one skin there, but my jump was interrupted by a burst of pain.
So hard was the impact I saw myself falling not over my prey, but aside it. I could not longer feel the snow on the floor, but a strong pain going through all my body. I tried not to give up, but my lower extremities did not do what I wanted them to, they only gave me more sharp pain. I saw a big log falling on me.
I woke up... I didn't know how much time had passed, but sun had just arisen from the horizon. I wondered how many nights I had lost unconscious. I still felt the pain and couldn't stand up. I wanted to howl, but confusion and pain were so hard nothing came out of my muzzle. I managed to focus my eyes, and I saw myself surrounded by steel bars... I remembered they used to call this "a cage". Even if it wasn't trapping me, I couldn't walk.
A few hours later, a little man got close to me... it was like them, but he had my height. Just occasionally we had seen of this men. Our investigators determined they were the leaders of man packs, because they were protected at any cost.
Nevertheless, he seemed very friendly. He looked into my eyes, and pointed to me with a finger. I told him my name, as if I was doing my presentation, even when I did not expect them to understand me. I wanted to show I had no personal issues against them... but as soon as I pronounced it, he got startled and quickly got behind of one of the tall ones, as if he wanted to protect himself. The tall one lowered his face, and between them they mumbled a few things.
The little one had a forced gesture, and a reddish face, with little tears coming from his eyes. Those were exactly the same signs we had seen on men when we attacked them. Surely, he was furious, and was asking him to kill me.
My pain was the same or even more intense than before... but I didn't care anymore. No when my own end was approaching.
Chapter 3: The Enemy
Listening to the screams of the leader, another tall man came. I thought it would talk to him, but instead he did it with the other tall man. I assumed the one that was with the leader before was some kind of representative, or someone with a higher rank than the one that had just arrived. They interchanged a lot of words, a lot of phrases.
Man's language was composed of a lot of sounds, and that was different from ours, and that had made really difficult for us to understand a lot of things.
In the middle of conversation, the last man went away, and came back quickly with a large heavy object, made of wood. One of its extremes was thick as a branch, and it narrowed until it finished in a disc-shape like with the same diameter as the other extreme. It surface was smooth, as some stones are on summer, but it was wood. That was something I had never seen before, although it was familiar to me.
When he showed it to the other tall man, both uncovered their teeth, but not as if they were to attack each other. Then they covered them back, and the one who came later showed the wooden-tube to the little man. He pronounced a few words, but everything I managed to listen was the short answer of the tall man: "Base-ball Bat".
The little one started to inspect the tube. And I did so, at distance. I could recognize that object: it was the log I had been hit with and that had left me unconscious.
And so I understood. It was a new weapon they used against us. And I had probed it working.
The men left. Then I saw dozens and hundreds moving from one side to another, little, tall, mid-sized. Fat and thin, all types of them. It seemed to be a very disorganized community to be an army, but there wasn't any doubt I was a war prisoner.
Chapter 4: The Cage
The hours passed with me lying on the floor, agonizing my pain. I had not been cured, and they didn't even bring me food. I was destined to die.
A man came close to me, one of the tall ones. He lowered himself down by my side, but with few uncoordinated movements. It didn't seem like he was going to attack me. He looked into my eyes a moment, and then with one of his non-furred paws took my head, to inspect it easier. It was very humiliating, but I had no energy, even to complain. He played with my head a while and then hold on my muzzle, keeping it shut against the floor. He took out a large and shiny metal thorn, very thin, and nailed it into one of my legs.
I was so weak I couldn't shake myself to avoid the pain. I only could cry, but the man ignored my laments.
A cold sensation invaded the zone where the thorn was, as I used to feel when I drank fresh water from the lake... the lake...
The man took out the thorn. I still felt the pain, but it seemed to dim a while later, although the cold liquid expanding inside me didn't seem to go away. The man loosed my muzzle, very sure I wouldn't bite him. And he was right: I could even rise my head from the floor.
I just limited myself to blink, breathe, and hope they didn't kill me too soon. I still had to survive.
That man also inspectioned all my body, hauling my fur. I thought for a moment he was going to heal my wounds, but he didn't. I also thought we would hurt me again, but that wasn't his intention either. It was like if he didn't care about me anymore, only my fur.
I remembered horror stories we used to tell about men as if they were fur-collectors, but I didn't believe in them. They just were nonsense. Men had two skins, and the deepest was the only one that bled. Why would they want another skin or a fur?
The man left, and I spent the afternoon alone. I just hoped no more men came to torture me.
I felt so bad. Alone, agonizing and trapped in this cage. I missed the sound of the wind and how the trees danced to it. I missed the night I would run up over the hills, freely... I missed freedom.
The fatigue invaded me... but how could I sleep when my whole being cries?
The wind brought a black flower near me. The whole universe was anticipating my death.
But I had to survive. Even if I could just one night.
Chapter 5: The Night
I've played asleep as for no suspicions, and then night would be mine. Hours were eternal until this moment. My moment.
I raised my sight, and only the moon was on a starless sky.
A smile appeared on my face, I was happy with so few, but at the same time I long for so much. So few hopes, but the best of the reasons.
I closed my eyes, with such beautiful image in mind. I had no strength to open them again. And again a fragment of a song came through my mind. "This is my final call, my evenfall. Drowning into time I become the night. By the light of new day, I'll fade away. Reality cuts deep. Won't you bleed with me, my Selene?"