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Chapter 3

It happened. I happened again, after all those years.

The dark room was filled by the buzzing noises of the computers, smelled like it was closed for a long time. It was completely dark if not for a couple of monitors, but even they were off before.

Only from less than ten minutes a man was seated in front of it, watching piles of data flowing through the screen completely freaked out, while another man was standing behind him, walking up and down the room in anxiety.

«Control again! - almost shouted the one standing - We must be sure about it.»

«Yes; it's the fourth time I check the system for any error.»

«And!?»

«As I already said, there is no error. The source is clear, it's been monitored right now. A constant flow, eleven seconds, it has a peak three times the average.» said the one seated.

The one behind immediately came watching the screen, his breath cut off.

«Oh, my Goddess. Do you know what that mean?»

«No, do you?»

«It is a Class-1 Event. I can't say the last time it happened.»

He did remember though, how could he ever have forgotten such a thing. But it was no time to think about it, they needed to be quick, or else they would have lost that opportunity.

«I have to call Dr. Meyn, she needs to see this as soon as possible. You stay here and track it down, when she arrives here she'll want to know everything.» he said leaving his friend alone to work.

«Fine, I'll do my best.»

He went up the stairs to the roof of the building. It was a lovely night, from up there he had a view upon the whole southern quarter of the capital city of Lothren, in the distance the waters of the Great Lake shined, reflecting the starry sky.

The phone ringed another couple of times, then she answered.

«Hello?» Her voice was resolute and strong as always.

«Dr. Meyn, it's the A.R. Center here, we have a Class-1 Event.» he said.

It was enough for her. She instantly dropped the call.

She arrived a few minutes later. The hall of the building was completely empty, as it always was, but she went directly to the elevator. She composed her personal code on the keypad on the right of it and the doors opened without a swish.

They were waiting for her. Upon her arrival he was immediately welcomed by the same person which called her.

«There is no time for pleasantries, show me what you've found.» she said interrupting him abruptly.

«Of course.» he replied. There was no doubt he was almost terrified of her, but still he showed the old woman the way trying to act as normally as possible.

They never met before, but he heard about her. A woman on the sixties, blonde hair fading to grey, with a gaze able to freeze a man in fear. Incredible physicist, president of the A.R. project, completely unknown to most of people, still she was probably one of the most powerful - and dangerous - person in the entirety of Waildstaff.

They arrived to their destination, the control room, where his colleague was still working on the computer.

«Show me the energy graphs of the event.» she ordered him without even deeming him worthy of a glance.

He obeyed and she approached the monitors putting on her glasses. She stared an entire minute to the screens, but when she took of the glasses she was sure. It was a Rare Event, she herself couldn't believe it.

«Sirs - she said, in the most calm and educate way - what you are going to see is something that shakes the foundations of anything you have ever known.»

«What are we going to do... miss?»

«Where it is?» asked her, it was vital to the entire mission.

«Nethir, somewhere in the middle of the city. In a couple of minutes we should have the exact position of the anomaly.»

She nodded like it was obvious.

«Then, follow the procedure. - she said to the man still right next to her - Call everyone we know. But first alert our men in Faeras, we need to secure the area and began the research immediately.»

She then left the room, but she was followed. He didn't understand the final part of her sentence, and was daring enough to ask her.

«Dr. Meyn, I'm sorry but, began the research of what?»

«Not what, who. We must find the witness. That's what a Class-1 Event means: someone got captured into the anomaly.»

Almost twenty of the most important person in the continent were in the room, waiting patiently for Dr. Meyn to arrive and commence her conference. All of them were waiting for an explanation.

When a scientist like her calls to a meeting two prime ministers, five ambassadors, and their respective national defense presidents, there is something up, something very big and probably very dangerous. Furthermore for that level of secrecy.

Not even the ministers themselves knew about that meeting until just a couple of hours before. It was strange for such a person to have that much power over so many governments and the US council itself.

Surely Elise Meyn was not someone to underestimate.

When she entered the room tension became real. Just a few more minutes before the reason for all that was revealed.

«Good morning everyone, and thanks to be here despite the short notice.» she said after taking his place at the end of the table. She carried a quite large amount of documents in a black folder.

«We are on a real shortage of time, so let's dive right in the matter.» She unfolded the documents, which appeared especially to be very old photos. «This may seem strange to you in the beginning, but I can assure you, this matter is serious above any other thing.»

She had their attention.

«Yesterday night, around eleven and an half, our systems measured a jump in the energy levels of the Unknown Radiations. It is something we call a Strong Anomaly.

Anomalies have been documented for over an hundred years, they appear regularly a couple times any years, but those are weak interaction and they are not perceivable to our senses. These ones are Class-3 Events.»

«Dr. Meyn - said one of the ministers, clearly unimpressed by the explanation - I still don't see the point of this. Have you gathered us here to do a physic lecture?»

«No. But this is still important for you to understand the rest. - she replied, then continued - Class-2 Events happens more rarely, once every five years, and they're much stronger, but what happened yesterday was a Class-1 Event. Something that happened last time forty years ago. For that event I decided to establish the A.R. project, and it is why we are here today. You see, not only the anomaly was strong enough to be visible to our eyes, but someone got captured into it.»

She quickly browsed the photos, then took one and showed it to everyone.

«May I present you, Xanthe. The man that forty years ago got captured into an anomaly.»

That was her ace in the hole. She observed their reactions, the confusion, the turmoil, the fear.

«This is impossible, for the Goddess.» said one of them.

The photo was old and grey, but it was without any doubt clear the subject. There was a creature, covered in white fur, the face of a canine, the muzzle, black nose, pointy ears, blue eyes, but it had the structure of a human and it was standing up on two paws.

«How can you call... this being... a man?»

«He was a man indeed before that day. The anomaly changed it, painfully. He was the first creature we found, but we believe there were more before him, that we don't know anything about. And know, since yesterday night, there is another one.»

That reveal was indeed something important, but none of the presents knew what really that meant, there was even more. Elise was not about to tell them all of it though, just a little bit to really get their interests on the matter.

«Maybe you still don't understand why that creature is so important. Their bond with the Unknown Energy is so strong, each one of them is the ring of chain, if we could study him and the power he contains.»

«What are you talking about?» one of them asked. He was one of the defense ministers, of course he would have been interested in possible application of new discoveries.

«The Unknown Energy... we believe it flows through all the kind of matter, everywhere in the universe. If we could grab it and use it to our will... - she almost laughed at the possibility - it may not have an upper limit.»

Silence felt over them. They were thinking about it, but it was in fact an easy choice. None of them would ever have let such an opportunity slip away.

«So... - the minister of Loth asked - What do you ask for?»

«I'll need absolute freedom of action and the cover of the secret service of all the seven states, particularly of Faeras.»

«Why Faeras?» The president of the Faeraese republic was preoccupied at all that interest to his country.

«Because the anomaly was located in the southern district of Nethir, so we'll need your complete support. Also it would be necessary to decide on the base of operation for after the capture of the creature. The military research base of the Svarak's islands would fit well the role.»

The president considered the risks of handling that northern stronghold to that woman and her A.R. project, but in the end he accepted. She really planned it all very well, that base was probably the most secure place in the whole continent. So far away from civilization and so unreachable; it was the perfect place for that secret operation.

«You will have our support.» he said, accepting her request.

«Good.» she said relieved. «Then we have nothing else to talk about. I'll inform the US council when we have the creature, there will not be anything else though. After all the secrecy of this mission is above everything.»

It was time to go, she left the others after warning them again about the importance of maintaining the secret. Less person knew about it the better it was. She wasn't even sure about telling it to them, but she needed their support.

The combined forces of the entire continent against a lonely creature. Poor guy, he doesn't even know how important he is, how much powerful he could be.

It was a moment she waited for her entire life.

It took a couple of hours for the plane to arrive to Nethir. Then more time was wasted preparing a base of operation in the capital, even though it was just a temporary setup.

Later Elise met the director of secret service of Faeras, to whom she asked to look for any person informed about the events of the night before. She didn't tell him the true reason for that, she didn't need to. The president of Faeras had already arranged everything.

The main priority was of course to find the person who saw the anomaly and got captured into it. Not an easy task, considering they didn't even know the exact point where the anomaly occurred. An entire district of the city was far too much, for that they needed time.

The only thing we do not have.

«Why it is so important to find him as quick as possible?» at some point one of his subordinate asked her. «I know he probably escaped seeing... how his body was changed... but...»

«The process is not immediate. For what we know from Xanthe... the pain is too much to bear. - she answered - We need to be quick not because someone might see him, or because he's actually running away, the problem is if he dies.»

«So much pain to kill him...» she commented, but was instantly corrected by her superior.

«No, not enough to kill him, but enough to push him to kill himself. Xanthe tried to suicide... before we found him.»

The young woman forced herself to continue looking onto her laptop. She was analyzing once and for all the data collected the night before, trying to shrink the area where the anomaly could have happened. But after a couple of moments she asked again:

«May I ask you, Dr. Meyn, what happened to Xanthe?»

Her superior looked upon her with a firm sight, then she answered covering any possible emotion.

«He died after two months. The energy within him was too much to contain, it consumed him.» she said, then, to prevent any more question, she also said: «Now go back to work, Kathrin. I've already told you time is essential.»

But they had no luck.

Even if Elise and all her collaborators spent all afternoon and evening trying to locate the anomaly they had no success. Well, they did manage to shrink the area of research by a little, but not enough to really be helpful.

Let's only hope that the secret service find something. If they are really searching through all the recordings of the security camera in the city - as I told them to do in the first place - they should eventually find the anomaly and our person with it.

Even that, in the end, was only a matter of time.

Elise went to bed that night hoping for the next day to be a little luckier than the last.

The next morning, the moment she entered the base of operation of her team, she was informed by Kathrin. Her face was pale, she had no good news.

«Dr. Meyn. They found him... but...» That last word completely wiped the smile from Elise's face.

«But... what?»

«You were right. We didn't have enough time.»

«No... you can't do this to me...» she whispered in despair.

«He escaped north, into the forest. They saw him throwing himself off a bridge.»

Elise almost swore in front of everyone, all the others were watching her waiting. She contained herself somehow, she didn't want to lose her mind in front of her subordinates.

«Did they find his corpse?» she asked after a while.

«No, the police is investigating, but they didn't find anything for now.» Kathrin answered.

«There might be a chance then. He is not human after all, he may have survived.» She didn't believe herself those words, but she wanted to. She knew that a being so strong was not going to die for such a thing, at least she thought so.

He is still alive.

The gentle light of dawn awakened him. He opened his eyes to see the trees above him and a clear sky.

I survived...

He felt the hard ground on his back, the gravel of the river side. His clothes were soaked, his legs were still in the water, but he didn't feel the cold.

What happened?

He managed to get up his head and sit on the ground. He had no time to get his thoughts in order, he was struck by the sight of his legs, then he saw his arms and hands.

His body began shaking in fear as he remembered everything. He clenched his fists and grinded his teeth to stop himself from screaming in despair.

He won. What I feared... the monster inside me...

As he came to the realization of that he lost the sense of time, recalling his escape in the wood, the bridge were he got trapped, the only way left.

As he was falling down to his certain death, tortured by the pain, he felt the creature inside him took over his body. Before even touching the water he already had lost his senses. If it wasn't for his creature he would have died, drowned or frozen in the waters of the Colwak river.

He saved me...

He watched again the dark grey fur that covered him, the sharp black claws on the fingertips of his hands and paws. Along his legs there was a thick, furred tail. On the end it had a some large tufts of bright red fur.

Watching his body and getting used to his new form slowly calmed him down. In the end he was still himself. The creature did not literally killed him, he did not felt like a different being. His mind was still his one, his thoughts did not change.

This creature saved me when I decided to give up un life. This darkness protected me.

He ran his hand over his face, touching his snout, long as the one of a wolf, the mouth, then the large and pointy ears on the side of the head. Everything suggested he was some kind of anthropomorphic canine. But while he brushed his finger along the fur he felt something he didn't expect. A smooth and hard thing right on his head, between his ears.

It didn't take long before he realized he actually had horns. They were smooth as glass from the base to the tip, twenty to at least thirty centimeters in length, large and curved, and really sharp at the end.

So... now I'm some kind of wolf-demon thingy, good... better than being dead at least, I believe...

That despair, the will to end his own life was going away. For the first time he felt he could trust the creature he addressed as a monster from the beginning. Of course he wasn't willing to bet everything on it, but at least he didn't feel so lonely anymore.

Lewis got up un his paws, finally getting his legs out of the water. At first it was pretty difficult for him to remain upright, because of the second joint of the legs, he had to grab onto a log, but he got used to it quite quickly - using the tail helped him a lot.

Looking back to itself only then he noticed how in a bad condition he was. His shirt and trousers were ripped to shreds, but it was probably irrelevant since his tail was already tearing through his pants.

It looked almost like ha had survived an attack from a furious animal. In truth it was probably because of tree branches underwater. Also, because of the strong stream of the river, he lost his jacket and both his shoes. Not that he needed them for anything. The shoes were completely useless to him, he had paws now, and he didn't felt the cold anymore, because he was covered from head to toe in thick fur.

The winter wind was like a morning breeze to him. It made him feel alive like he never felt before. In fact he felt full of energies, ready to continue his journey.

I'm not human anymore, and I'll never return to be one. I must accept this, or else it would drive me insane.

He looked at the water of the river, scarier as they always were. But they did drag him far away from his pursuers, he didn't even know where he was. There was no sign of the bridge he fell from.

Hopefully far enough no one will never know I survived. he thought turning his back to the river and he looking into the forest. Hundreds of kilometers through that hell of snow there was his destination.

A long way to go...

But at this point he wasn't really in a hurry.

He climbed outside the depression of riverside, then, when he reached flat terrain, he began walking steadily towards north.

Covering all that distance on foot would have been impossible for an human without any help, the snow was thick and at every steps he would have sank in it, reducing him movements by a lot. Luckily for him he was not human, so it was easier to walk in the snow.

He didn't felt the cold, in fact the walk warmed him quite a little, even though after a while he began to feel tired. He was not used to long walks after all, not so long. He had no way to know how much time was passed, but it looked like hours.

At the beginning he was trying to maintain some level of attention of the surroundings, but then he just started humming like it was a normal trip to the wood. He was confident in himself, he just needed to stay away from any sign of civilization. Of course it was easier said than done. He actually had no idea where he was going, but his instinct was pointing him in the right direction.

Lewis continued walking for a long time. Once in a while he had to climb up or down hills, at one point he passed by a clear brook just a foot deep.

He took a small break there, quenching his thirst. Only then it came to his mind that the last time he ate something was the day before, at lunch. Almost an entire day passed by, but he still didn't feel hungry at all.

_Strange..._was his only thought, then he moved on.

The sun had reached his peak only by some time when Lewis began hearing noises far on his left, but they were so faint he couldn't recognize them. Still he decided to deviate slightly to Northeast, to get distance from their origin.

After twenty minutes he stumbled upon a clearing in the wood. Instead of going away - what his common sense was suggesting him to do - he approached the open space sneaking behind the trees. Reaching the border of the forest he found himself on the boundary of a small town.

He was looking at the back of a couple of houses, but beyond them there was a street and probably some stores and people walking along the road.

Fuck..._he almost shout out, hiding in the foliage. _I cannot go through this, I'll have to bypass the town.

A car passed by just at that moment, only thirty meters from where he was hiding. His heart jumped into his throat, he didn't move a muscle until the car was far away.

Lew was about to return into the forest to make a large deviation around the town, but he stopped after a few steps. An idea came to his mind, but he didn't like it at all. He looked back to the first row of houses; that could have been his only opportunity.

Back when he was walking he realized that he had nothing, he was defenseless, and he could have really used some basic tools like a knife. After all if he wanted to survived he had to hunt, if he was found by someone he would have to kill.

He shuddered at the thought, but he was not going to stay put in a circumstance like that.

And is not only for that. he thought looking at himself, the shape he was in. I could really need some clothes...

He returned to the border of the forest, watching the street and the houses from his hiding place. The nearest house was no more than fifteen meters away from him.

This is a really stupid idea... he thought before getting out of the bushes and running towards the back door of the house.

His back to the wall he waited for a moment, trying to calm down his heart. There was no one along the street in that moment, neither in the back gardens, but he was still terrified that someone could have seen him.

Lewis pressed his ear on the wooden door, listening for any sound from the inside. Nothing. He tried to open the door but it was locked from the inside. He didn't surrender though, just a couple of meters away there was a window.

Even that was locked, but he picked up a tree branch from the ground and used it to smash the window. He tried to make less noise as possible, and after that he pricked up his ears. Still nothing.

He breathed a sigh of relief as no one heard that.

He moved away the broken glasses and opened the window, then he slipped through the gap. He was inside, in the kitchen it seemed. He had to be really careful not to step on the shards of the window, but he managed to get paws on the floor.

The first thing he did was approaching to the back door and unlocking it to have a quick way out in case of something bad happening.

Almost too lucky... he thought considering he was able to break into an house without anyone noticing. Then he asked himself: "What now?" He didn't really think it through.

First of all, what I came for.

He opened a couple of drawers until he found what he was looking for, a large knife. The one kind that could have opened a man half if used correctly.

This is done. Now: I don't want to stay half naked anymore. Let's find some clothes to put on in place of these rags...

He went into the living room, from there he took the stairs up to the first floor. He looked into a couple of doors looking for a bedroom. He stumbled upon the bathroom and immediately thought about how much he would have loved to have a bath. But he really didn't have any time for that.

When he finally came across the bedroom he opened the wardrobe and took out a pair of long white trousers and a shirt about his size, then also a hoodie. He put those things on the bed along the knife and he took off his wrecked shirt and tossed it on the floor. It was at that moment that he saw the mirror on the other side of the room, and his own image reflected there.

He stopped undressing and stared directly to his image. He approached to see more clearly. He saw his own face, how canine it looked if not for the horns. Those were black and almost shiny, like they were made by some kind of vitreous material. He saw his teeth - fangs - white and sharp like razors. Then he saw the most shocking thing, his own eyes.

His eyes iris were red like blood, scattered with lighter shades of red, with a black oval as pupil. The rest of them, the part that in humans is white, was black as well.

The eyes of a demon...

He himself was almost scared by that sight.

Well, with a cute face I could have survived somehow even if they found me. With this look I have no chance at all.

He looked away from his image and finished undressing and remained with only his underwear on.

He used the knife to open a hole in the back of the trousers to fit his tail through, then he put those on and found out they suited him perfectly. Then he wore the shirt, minding his horns; he didn't want to ruin it before even wearing it. He was just about to put the hoodie on when he heard a noise in the hallway. The moment after there was a man on the door, pointing a rifle directly to his face.

«What the hell...?» he whispered. He was not prepared for the sight of that creature. His hands were shaking, the finger on the trigger.

Lew had no time to react. The time slowed down for him, the knife was on the bed, out of his reach. He was letting fear take him bit by bit.

He was breathing anymore, his heart was not beating. For that instant everything stopped for him. Until he saw the old man pulling the trigger.

He lunged at him, without even thinking. His face contracted in a snarl and with his claws ready. He was not in control of himself, it was his instinct to survive.

He felt the bullet grazing his right check, then he felt pain.

A moment later his teeth were sinking into the man's neck, so fast and so deep he immediately tasted his blood. They both fell, but Lewis didn't let him go. He clawed his shoulders, scratching his face and chest without mercy. Then with his fangs he tore part of his neck off, letting it fall on the floor.

He was sat over the dying man, still growling. After a few spasms he died, his blood was pouring all over the floor from the open wound.

After a couple of seconds Lewis realized what he did.

«No...» he whispered getting up and looking away, then looking back at him. «No, NO, NO.»

He quickly grabbed the knife and the hoodie, then he went away. In a few seconds he got back to the kitchen, he opened wide the back door and ran towards the forest.

In the distance he could hear already the sirens of the police.

He ran as fast as he could. The iron taste still in his mouth.