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My memories are made from blood and pain. I don't mean to be dramatic, but it's a simple fact. Death heralded the beginning of my life. Not my birth... no, when I was born, I was normal enough... for a wolf, at least. I don't look it now, but really, I... we, were born in a litter like any other pups. Here, let me back up a bit... I've got quite a story to tell, if you're got the time to hear it.

I was born on a bright and beautiful spring morning in a pine forest lost somewhere high in the mountains. The first months of my life were uneventful, filled with growing, playing, and the beginnings of an education in hunting from my sire. When the wind acquired a chill, and the snow hit hard, we huddled deep inside our den while our parents hunted for food. I wasn't sentient or sapient at that point, so my memories are fuzzy at best, but I remember... one cold day, our dame came back without food, and our sire didn't return at all. I never knew what happened to him. Muzzles aren't good for communication past base growls, and the winter was harsh enough that some other carnivore surely got to him.

I wasn't especially sad about it... we didn't think or feel like you humans do, and all it meant to me at the time was that without him hunting, there would be less food. The winter was long and harsh, and survival is hard in the best of times.

Our dame did what she could, but... one by one, we succumbed to starvation. Without food, she couldn't produce as much milk. We got weaker as she did, until survival began to matter more than kinship. The weak were beaten from her empty teats, and the lack of food made them weaker. I'm not proud that I shouldered my siblings out of the way to save my own hide, but I'm not ashamed of it either. Animals do what they must. They seldom think above their bellies and their offspring. I'm a far cry from what I was then, but just wait, I'm getting there.

By the time spring arrived and the snow began to thaw, there were only three of us left: my mother, my sister, and I. Hunting picked up, and our dame packed fat around her ribs and milk into our bellies. She started to wean us off of her milk, teaching us the flavor of red meat and the strength of the hunt. She taught us how to track, how to walk, how to run. Months passed with just the three of us, and we were old enough that we could attempt to join her on the hunt. Ironically enough, that was when the hunters came.

Men came with guns and nets, tracking our scent to our den with tame dogs, idiotic simpletons who did anything for their masters. They shot my mother clean as she tried to protect us, and if I focus just right, I swear I can still smell her blood on the wind. Bullets pierced our hides as well, but where ugly metal slugs had punched through Mother's flesh and bone, thin needles injected some foreign chemical into my and my sister's bodies. We fell to our bellies, unable to move as heavy boots tromped closer. Soft hands lifted my sister and I into thick bags, and then everything went dark. That was the last time I saw my home.

I hold close to that memory of pine forests and sloping mountains. I was happy there. I know I can't go back to that, just like I can't go back to what I was, but those memories are better than the ones that followed. What they did to me... to us... it haunts me to this day. I'd say it was inhumane, but we were just young wolf cubs back then, hardly deserving of compassion or humanity. When I awoke, I was alone. My limbs were tied down on a cold metal table. I whimpered and whined, calling my dame, my sire, anyone to come and help. The pathetic mewling's only attracted the scientists... and that's when the pain started.

Kenneth Oswald

Employee ID 301645

Head of R&D

Research Log

July Twenty-Third, 2145

The first round of test subjects has arrived, but one of my imbecilic assistants has damaged the valuable machinery I use to produce the serum. It will be some months before I am able to repair and replace what he has broken. The assistant in question has been discharged... violently. I cannot work with idiots damaging my devices, but neither can I allow them to sprint off to the media to tell of what I work for here. Luckily enough, his abrupt "resignation" has my other assistants on their best behavior, and I expect no further mishaps.

---

August Seventeenth, 2145

After much labor and recalibration, the lab is once again in working order. I would have liked to begin testing with the subjects significantly younger, but I must work with what I have. I can start later groups at an earlier age, and compare the resulte.

September Eighteenth, 2145

Half of the subjects have perished, and those that remain do not seem to be adapting well. Of those surviving, five show signs of imminent death, one appears stable, and two have yet to show any reaction to the procedure. Subjects 09 and 08, those who have not reacted in the slightest, are also from the same litter... a curious fact, perhaps some secret in there genetics renders them resistant or immune to my serum. The chemicals are spread throughout their blood streams, muscles, and bone tissue, but they have not reacted in the slightest. I will monitor them closely, and attempt to catalyze the reaction in some other manner.

October Seventh, 2145

The last of my subjects died today. The only survivors are subjects 09 and 08, who still do not show any signs of reaction to the procedure. Seeing as my other experiments have failed, I have nothing left to do but study them closely; perhaps if I can learn why they are seemingly immune, I can find a way to slow the process down and give the subjects enough time to adapt that their bodies do not tear themselves to ribbons. The trace amounts of the serum in their bodies appear altered, as if their immune systems negated it. This requires further study.

November Third, 2145

I have discovered why 064 and 065 have not responded; the machines are improperly calibrated. None of my assistants will admit to the blunder, but 08 and 09 surely received an inert sample of the serum. I have no use for them, and they serve no purpose. I insist that they be put down, but management accepts no waste; they were transferred to a different department. I believe that they are testing some sort of new electric dog collar, but it matters not. I must return to my research... I have months of readings to pour over, and I am not so proud that I expected success on the first attempt.

I can only dimly remember what they did to me during the months I was kept at the lab. After some time, I remember being sedated again, and taken to a different place. Rather than solitary cells, kennels of huge, screaming, barking hounds stood stacked across an entire wall. My sister and I, still barely more than pups, shared an adult sized kennel, and because of that, we were also taken out for testing at the same time. Collars were strapped around our necks, and we were hooked up to various machines. Then they started electrocuting us at various voltages. I think they were looking for the sweet spot between painful and inhumanely torturous, but they found an entirely different sweet spot.

What the good doctor had failed to take into account was the fact that the serum he'd given my sister and I was perfectly fine, it just lacked a crucial activation component, a specific ingredient that catalyzed the reaction. Left alone, the serum would have remained inert, and we would have spent our entire lives in abject suffering and misery as we were tortured for the good of modern science. As it happened though, the highest voltage they shot through our quivering bodies was just enough it act as a catalyst and begin the reaction that the doctor had been trying so hard to achieve. The time spent inert meant that the serum was fully integrated through our blood, muscle, and bones. The electricity surging through us meant that every cell received ample and equal catalyzation. The carefully designed magitech serum took effect all at once, rather than over a span of time, and my sister's voice and mine took on a higher, more desperate edge as our bones began to twist and our muscles began to snap.

We screamed loud enough to wake the dead as our bodies shifted for the first time, blazing a miraculous new trail for the bastardized mixture of science and magic. When our flesh stopped crawling and our bones stopped twisting, we stood on two feet as... humans. We were humans now, humans born with the souls of wolves. Intelligence and higher logic impacted my mind at about the same time, and I raised one accusing hand towards our tormenters as my eyes blazed with hate and rage. Lightning shot forth unbidden from my hand, searing the body of the lone worker until he collapsed to the floor in a sobbing heap.

Had we been at the previous lab, we would have been immediately sedated and restrained, but we weren't at an illegal, high security testing facility anymore. Had we been purely human, we probably would have fallen apart with worry and panic, but we weren't human. We were animals given human form, trapped in a broken cage. Only one thought filled our minds.

Escape.

We hit the halls at a dead sprint, bare feet slapping against the cold tile as we ran through the halls. Electricity arced between us in leaps and shots, occasionally jumping out to a wall whenever anything suitably conductible was near. When we passed by a power outlet, the resulting surge knocked out power to the entire facility for a moment, leaving us running in the dark, guided only by the brief flashes of the electrical arcs.

When the backup power came on, all the doors unlocked. One seemed especially lit up, with a red sign above it marked with glowing red markings. I hit it with my shoulder at a dead run, which would have broken most of the bones in my arm had I not accidentally hit the push lever that opened it. Wailing sirens filled the air as we tumbled out the fire escape.

Deciduous forests entirely unlike our home greeted our eyes, and we continued our mad dash until we were well out of sight. Past the treeline, through bushes and over streams, we ran until our feet bled and our sides ached.

Then we ran a little more.

Up ahead, my sister noticed a cabin surrounded by a well-kept garden. She started to turn back, but I caught the dog's eyes and looked. He growled once, and in that growl, told a lifetime of emotion. Love for his home, worry for his master, and fear for these intruders that was overridden by his loyalty to protect his family and his turf.

The door opened mere seconds after he growled, and an old woman caught sight of us through the trees. She didn't scream, but she cursed fluently in words I didn't yet understand and started walking towards us. My sister pulled at my arm to run, but only succeeded in pulling me to the ground as she collapsed. As we fell, I fell atop her, doing my best to put my body between her and this new threat.

The crone approached with a glare on her face, hands firmly placed on her hips as she took in the sight of us. Then she turned and stalked back towards her cabin. I relaxed, allowing my aching bones and body to find peace as consciousness slipped my mind.

She returned not five minutes after we'd collapsed. Somehow, she got us into her cabin, cleaned us both, and set us into the only bed in the one room shack. I'd awoken angry and scared only to be met with a big bowl of hearty beef stew. I tried to take it from her hands, only for her to yank it back, striding towards the kitchen to pour it into the pot.

I had been sorely tempted to try and overpower her and eat it anyways, but something in her eyes made me hesitate. She had a steely will that didn't seem right for her diminutive frame, but she seemed warm and caring despite that. Against my instincts, I nodded my head and waited for her to make the next move. We didn't like it though.

Growling softly, my sister and I let her cloth us and sit us at a table, and only once we had napkins in out laps and spoons in our hands did she relent and serve us each a bowl of stew. Naturally, we did what any wolf would do and dove face first, only to find out the hard way that such a method doesn't match a human face.

After a harsh scolding, we'd used the spoons she'd given us, with varying results. I personally was still trying to figure out how thumbs worked when she casually asked what we'd been doing running naked through the woods as if the devil himself was on our heels. I looked up sharply then, eyes blazing.

"Back off. Our lives aren't your business."

It was time I'd heard my own voice, and I was so surprised to hear myself speaking Human that I didn't notice the wooden spoon descending towards my hand until she thacked my knuckles hard.

"Let's try that again dearie. I bandaged your feet, put you up in my bed, gave you clothes to wear, and made you breakfast. You owe me an explanation, if nothing else."

My sister turned to me and nodded slowly, thinking.

"She's right... we owe her that much at least. She's better than the others were."

"She's Human! She can't be trusted!"

"Has she done anything to hurt us so far?"

"My knuckles insist that she has."

She barked out in laughter here, interrupting our debate.

"I suppose I can't force you to tell me, but I certainly don't owe you two anything. If your lives are so secret that you can't even trust an old hag who lives alone, then you surely can't spend any more time here. No, you need to hurry back to whatever life threatening mission you have."

The sarcasm in her voice went completely over our heads; what did you expect? I have no idea how we even knew English, you can't expect us to be masters of nuance.

"I... suppose we can tell you. You won't believe me though."

She cackled, and gave us a steely look.

"Try me. Start with your names."

I opened my mouth and immediately shut it again. Names?

"We don't have names."

She rolled her eyes, then pointed me out.

"Your mismatched eyes burn like the Devil's flames. You can be Lucifer."

She pointed to my sister and thought a moment.

"Shira."

Shira and I glanced at each other, then shrugged. We hadn't needed names before, and I doubted we'd be keeping these.

"Okay... My memories are born from blood and pain..."

She didn't believe us. She drove us both into town and bought us each a pair of shoes, then drove off without a backwards glance. I looked at my sister, and she looked at me.

"Brother... what do we do now?"

I didn't have an answer. I was the Alpha now, even though the word meant nothing to humans. I picked an alley about like any other, upended a trashcan that contained nothing but shredded paper, then collapsed into the comfortable pile. I could feel the lightning running through my veins still, sparking through my fingers when I wanted. I searched deeper, and found the wolf I used to be hiding in my soul. My body began to shift, sliding painfully towards the form I knew and loved. My shoes and pants fell off, but the shirt stayed more or less where it was. I lifted one leg, marked the alley with my scent, then turned back and got dressed before I collapsed onto the trash pile.

"Mark our turf. Find out how and where to hunt. Learn what we can about this new world. In short, we survive."

She nodded, stepping down to curl up with me. We'd been asleep only a few hours ago, but our bones were riddled with pain and fatigue. Our bellies were full, surely we could spare a few more hours to heal. Survival... that could come later. For now, we rest.