Cry of the Wolf
All standard disclaimers apply.
Chapter 1
She whimpered pitifully. There were no words to describe the agony that she was in right now, as the unseen surgeon cut into her. She was fully awake during the procedure. This had happened so many times that she had lost count.
"Now, now little Lien…" A soft female voice cooed. "No need to cry! Only a few more of these sessions, and we'll be all done!"
Lien couldn't respond, as the muzzle over her snout prevented it. She only whimpered in fear and pain.
"What's wrong, darling? Does it hurt? Here, let your Auntie make it all better."
The next sound Lien heard was a sweet, yet discordant birdsong, and she began to feel sleepy. Then her mind faded into oblivion.
She awoke several hours later, back in the tiny little cell that had been her home for a very long time.
Lien was a young female wolf, about twelve or thirteen years old. Some would say that she was rather pretty compared to most of her species. Her face was round and puppyish, with a petit muzzle, big eyes, and tiny triangular ears. Her fur was mostly dark, rust red, with a much lighter peach color on her face, belly, and feet. She also had a little bit of black fur at the tips of her ears and tail.
But the signs of the tortures that her Captors had put her through were all too obvious. The surgeries were only part of it. Through the tattered rags she wore it was easy to see that she was malnourished. Her eyes were a bizarre, luminous tint of pale purple, and their whites were clearly bloodshot. They had been cut into as well. But the most obvious signs were her arms, which were completely furless, and covered in dozens of scars from where her captors had cut into them during their experiments. They had done things on her legs too, but they had used needles instead of cutting, so they still had fur.
Lien didn't know what they were doing to her, why they were doing it, or even who she had been before she had been captured. She didn't know whether or not she was the only person here. Whoever her captors were, they were careful to prevent her from receiving any sort of outside stimulus, utilizing chemicals to disable her eyes and nose during the surgeries. She was allowed to keep her hearing, but Lien wasn't sure why. Maybe they didn't know how to take it away?
Lien's ears pricked. She'd heard an odd sound. She'd been alone in this cell for a very long time, and not once had she heard a peep from beyond the metal door. Curious, she got up out of the corner and put her ear up to the door. She could hear the raucous noise more clearly now, and it was definitely getting closer. It sounded like many people running at once. Had there been an accident out there?
Suddenly, there was the sound of a key turning in the lock. Lien yelped and jumped back in surprise as the door swung open.
On the other side was a cute little beige bird wearing a little brown cape. A nightingale.
The small bird had a panicked look in his eyes, and he was rapidly shifting from foot to foot. With one wing, he pointed down the hall. "Go on! Fresh meat that way! Your uh…pack just went that way."
Without another word, he turned and flew off, leaving the door open. She heard a door unlocking and opening further down the hall.
Lien swallowed nervously, giving a cautious look up and down the hall as she stepped out of her cell. This area must have been some sort of cellblock. The whole corridor was full of cells. The cells all appeared to be for a single occupant each, and a sign hanging from the ceiling with the words Solitary Confinement on it. Her cell was located at the end of the hall, and all of the other doors were opened. "Was he just running around opening all of the cells?" Lien wondered aloud.
Something in one of the cells stirred at the sound of her voice. It came staggering out to investigate.
Lien gasped. The creature was far more disfigured than she was.
At one point it may have been an elk or deer, but now it was horribly altered, to the point that it was hard to discern the poor creature's gender. It had two extra sets of eyes above and below its actual ones. Its arms were long scythes, like those of a praying mantis. Oddly enough, its legs and feet were untouched. Its unnatural, chemical scent offended Lien's sensitive nose.
When it spotted the young wolf, it let out an angry screech. Lien yelped and fled, running out an open door at the end of the hall with the monster in hot pursuit.
Lien slammed the heavy door in the creature's face, lowering the heavy crossbar to block it. She jumped backwards as the monster slammed against the door, trying in vain to get through.
Lien stepped back, breathing a sigh of relief. She seemed to be safe for the moment.
Turning around, Lien examined her environment. It was rather dim, but not so much that Lien couldn't see. It was another cellblock, but was a large, square area instead of a hallway, and cells that had bars instead of heavy steel doors. Like the previous area, all of the cells were open. The strange, chemical scent once again assaulted her nose, and she could even see some of them wandering around. These ones were all rats that looked fairly normal, save for the fact that each was several times larger than average, at nearly five feet tall each, a full foot taller than Lien herself. None of them seemed to have noticed her yet.
It took her a moment to find a way out of the cell block. When she saw it, her heart sank. There was a door marked Operating Theater. It was on the far side of the room. There were at least six rats between her and the door.
The rats all seemed oblivious to her presence. Maybe she could sneak through?
Lien tiptoed as slowly as possible, praying that she wouldn't stumble or make noise. One of the rats stalked towards her on all fours, passing within inches of her. Lien froze, letting it pass.
Trembling in fear, Lien kept moving, slowly but steadily. She was nearly to the door when-
*CRUNCH!* "Ow!"
All of the rats whipped around to look for the source of the sound. Their eyes glowed an unholy crimson. Lien looked with dread at the small patch of broken glass she'd stepped on. Her foot was bleeding from several tiny wounds, but a few small cuts were now the least of her problems.
The rats charged, snarling like ferals. There was no time to run for the door, so Lien lashed out instinctively at the first rat to reach her. To her surprise, the force of the punch sent the creature flying across the room, slamming into two of its brethren and knocking them down as well.
Lien got the chance to look at her fist in wonderment for about half of a second before the other three rats jumped on her, trying to tackle her. Lien yelped and shoved one off, sending him flying to crack his head on a wall. One of them tried to tackle her at the knees, and was inadvertently kneed in the face and knocked unconscious. The third was backhanded into oblivion by one of the wolf's wildly flailing arms. Lien looked down at her paws, stunned. How on Earth had she done that? Had she been given super strength by those surgeries?
Three of the rats were down, but the other three were getting back up, and they didn't look intimidated in the slightest. They looked annoyed. Lien gulped, putting her fists up in a poor imitation of a fighting stance. Hopefully her new strength wouldn't fail her. She winced as she put weight on her injured foot.
The rats rushed her, just like the other ones. Lien slugged the first to reach her in the nose. The powerful blow crushed its snout and sent it staggering back, until it tripped over its own tail and fell unconscious. She kicked another between the legs. It crumpled, gurgling in agony. The final rat tackled her to the ground. It tried to bite into her throat, but missed and buried its teeth in her shoulder. Lien screeched, and returned the favor, chomping into the rat's neck. The wolf's fangs were far better for biting than the rat's teeth, and the rat let go of Lien, recoiling in an attempt to dislodge her. Lien held fast, shaking her head back and forth.
*Rriip!*
Lien fell. She spat out the chunk of flesh that she had pulled off. "Eww! Nasty!" She looked back over to the rat, and her paw immediately covered her mouth to hold back vomit.
The creature had its hands over its throat in a futile effort to hold back the flow of blood from the gaping hole that Lien's fangs had opened. It didn't take long for the spreading pool of blood to stop spreading, and for the rat to fall facedown, lifeless.
Repulsed, Lien gagged and dashed as quickly as she could for the door. She closed it slammed it behind her, and collapsed shaking to the ground. It hadn't been her fault! She'd had no other choice! The rat had grabbed her, her instincts had kicked in, and she had just…reacted. She wiped as much of the viscera staining her jaws as possible, trying to wipe away both the awful taste and the vile memory of killing a living being.
Suddenly, a furless hand touched her shoulder. Lien looked up.
There was a giant rat less than a foot away from her face.
Again, instinct took over. Lien launched a wild swing, hoping to one-hit-KO this rat like she had the others.
To Lien's absolute shock, the rat blocked, and actually countered, twisting the preteen wolf's arm behind her back and pinning her to the ground.
Lien tried to squirm free, but the rat held her firmly. "Hold still!" He hissed in a low, raspy voice. "Be quiet! Someone's coming!"
Mostly out of surprise at hearing the rat speak, Lien went still. The sound of armored boots echoed down the hall as several large people ran by.
The rat released Lien's arm and helped her to her feet. Rubbing her hurt arm, Lien scanned her surroundings. There was a large metal table that was covered in multicolor stains of unknown origin in the center of the room, along with several straps, presumably to bind the table's occupant so that they could be operated on. The rest of the circular room was filled to the brim with what looked like perches for birds to rest on, arranged like chairs would be in a lecture hall. Near the table was a tray full of surgical tools.
The rat dusted Lien off. This one was still giant, but he was smaller than the ones from before, around Lien's height. His eyes were also similar to Lien's, although they were a darker shade of purple than Lien's pale violet. He had a long, crooked snout, with razor sharp buckteeth peeking out of his mouth. He was also dressed in rags, but he wore no shirt, revealing a muscular, wiry frame laced with dozens of tiny scars. His arms had not been shaved like Lien's had, but his hands, feet, and tail were bald, like those of most rats. He seemed to be older than her as well, perhaps in his late twenties.
The rat coughed awkwardly, and Lien blushed when she realized that she'd been staring. "S-sorry!" She stammered.
The rat shrugged. "No problem. My name's Bing. What's yours?"
"Lien." She replied, relaxing a little. "But that's all I really remember. Sorry."
Bing nodded. "Same here. I think they have some way of erasing memories."
"Do you know what's going on?" Lien asked. "Some little bird let me out of my cell and then ran off."
Now Bing smiled. "It's a prison break. These guys, the "Birds of Prey" as they call themselves, have been kidnapping a lot of people. Luckily, they're not all sick bas-" He cut himself off, realizing that he was speaking to a little girl. "Uh, anyway… One of the Birds must have turned traitor, because he brought a bunch of Imperial Soldiers into the place. Those of us who are still sane enough to not want to be caught are making a break for it."
"What is this place?" Lien queried.
"We call it the Pits, because of those big, caged pits that they keep us in. It's like a hospital, or a prison where they experiment on us in a bunch of different ways."
"Pits? I was in a tiny cell in Solitary Confinement."
Bing tilted his head. "Solitary? That's odd. Anyway, there's only one way out of here that we don't either need wings to get out of, or that isn't covered by the soldiers." He produced a rolled up diagram from the back of his raggedy pants, unfurling it. "According to this blueprint I swiped from the Archives, there's a dump chute near the main labs that has an opening to the outside to let out all of the gasses from the bodies. To get to it, we need to get through the Storage Hallway, which is past the Botany Hall. I don't know about you, but I prefer not to be skewered by overzealous soldiers, so I plan on getting out. You can come with me if you want. We'll make a break for it and see if we can find somewhere to lay low."
"Y-you'll let me come with you?" Lien said, her tail wagging. This was a miracle!
Bing nodded, putting the map away. "Of course. You're just a little girl. I can't leave you to fend for yourself. Come on, let's see if there's anything that we can use in here before we go."
After a bit of searching, Bing found a razor sharp scalpel, a broom, and a little bit of twine. Tying them together, he created a makeshift spear. Lien jut grabbed a cotton satchel and filled it with various odds and ends that they might need outside; a roll of bandages, a tourniquet, and various tools that looked cleaner than the others, which they might be able to sell for money later on. She was still somewhat shaken by killing the feral rat, and the taste of the creature's foul blood remained in her mouth still. She was in no condition to fight anything. Bing had asked what was wrong, but Lien had refused to talk about it. He noticed the small stains of gore that the wolf had failed to wipe away, and the haunted look in her eyes, and decided not to press her. He found a roll of gauze in a small cabinet of supplies, and used it to bind her injured foot. It wasn't a bad wound, but it would need better treatment once they escaped, or it would certainly get infected.
Lien's tail wagged, and she smiled just a little. It was very fortunate that she had run into Bing when she did, otherwise she probably would have just sat down in front of the door and cried for who knows how long. The rat's calm, capable bearing made her feel much safer around him. She was even happier that he had agreed to take her with him when they escaped. Having an adult with her would certainly be helpful when it came to getting out, not to mention in the outside world.
Once they had finished preparing, Bing took her to a large set of double doors hidden off behind the rows of perches. "This should be the door to the Botany Hall." Bing analyzed as he looked at the map. "We have to go through here to get to the Storage Hallway, and from there it's a pretty short trip to the main labs. Are you ready?"
Lien took a deep breath and nodded. She was still pretty shaken, but the presence of Bing helped a lot.
Bing opened the door a crack, peeking tentatively through. He winced. "A bunch of wolf soldiers are in there, searching through the supply closets. But it looks like someone put out all of the lanterns in there, so it's pitch black, and the soldiers are all pretty helpless in the dark. If we're careful, I'm fairly sure we can slip by them, so long as we keep out of the lights from their torches."
"Won't we just be wandering around in the dark, though?" Lien worried.
Bing looked at her in confusion. "You haven't realized it yet? Those operations they did on our eyes give us almost perfect vision in the dark. I can tell you have it because of the fact that your eyes are purple."
"Couldn't we ask the soldiers for help, instead of sneaking past them?"
Bing shook his head adamantly. "No. That would be a very bad idea. They're not here to save us. They see us all as dangerous creatures who need to be destroyed. We were so happy when they showed up and opened the door to the Pits…until they started slaughtering us. I barely made it out."
Lien recoiled. "That's terrible!"
"Keep your voice down!" Bing snapped. "Do you want them to hear us? Come on, before they find the lights. Keep low, keep quiet, and follow my lead."
Bing opened the door just wide enough to slip through, then closed it behind them.
As he had promised, Lien could barely tell it was dark. The areas around the lit torches were brighter than the surrounding areas, but the dark areas seemed barely dim. She could clearly see the six other wolves in red and gold armor, carrying short swords and one-handed crossbows. The center of the hallway was lined by several waist-high planters filled with various flora.
One of the wolves, the only one wearing a helmet and wielding a hammer instead of a sword sniffed the air and grimaced. "Look alive. I don't think we're alone in here."
The wolves all drew their crossbows, nervously peering into small side doorways.
Lien and Bing took cover by the planter, ducking down low. They moved swiftly, stepping as lightly as possible. As they reached the end of the first planter, Bing signaled for her to stop. A soldier walked through the gap between the planters, the light of his torch just barely missing them. As he passed, they slipped behind him, crossing to the other side of the next planter.
"Hey, Lieutenant!" The lead wolf called.
"Yeah, Captain?" Another called back.
"Do you smell what I smell?"
The Lieutenant sniffed the air. "Yeah. That chemical smell. There's definitely something in here. The question is, is it one of the ones that's smart enough to stalk us?"
"I suppose we won't know until we find it." The Captain replied.
"Or until it finds us." The Lieutenant said, his tail tucked down nervously.
Lien couldn't help noticing that they kept saying 'it' instead of 'they'. They must not know that there was more than one in the room with them. Oddly enough, she also realized that she couldn't smell any chemical scent. Indeed, neither she nor Bing seemed to have any scent. The wolves' scents were clear in her nostrils. She gave Bing a curious look, which he ignored. He kept hold of her right paw. Leading her to the end of that planter. He held out a hand to suddenly stop her. Lien flinched as one of the wolves suddenly turned right in front of them. Lien pressed herself hard against the stone of the planter as he passed within inches of catching them in the light. He stopped briefly to blow on a plant that resembled a large dandelion, sending its fluff into Lien's face. She felt a tickle in her nose. 'Don't you dare sneeze!' She commanded herself. She put her paws over her muzzle to keep from sneezing.
Noticing her plight, Bing pulled her swiftly to across to the next planter. The rest of the way to the door was clear. Lien almost sighed with relief when they reached the far end of the hall.
Of course, as soon as they were almost in the clear was when everything went wrong.
"Achoo!"
Lien tried to stifle the noise, but it was no use.
The wolves all swiveled towards the noise. "Who's there?" The Captain shouted.
Lien kept her mouth shut, hoping that they would discount it as just noise from outside. Bing winced, knowing that they wouldn't.
No one expected what happened next.
"We're right here." A feminine voice murmured.
Lien's blood chilled at the sound of the horrifyingly familiar voice.
Creatures poured out of the side rooms. There were nearly twenty of them, all wolves of varying ages and sizes, with bald patches on scarred parts of their bodies, just like Lien. One key difference was clear, though. Instead of Lien's purple eyes, these had absolutely glowing pink ones. Even worse, instead of individual scents, they all had that same reek of chemicals. Several of them held crossbows. Behind them, a colossal, malformed shadow lurked, wheezing heavily, and too far away to make out its features.
In front of the pack, two little birds hovered. One was the same little brown nightingale who had released Lien. The other she had never seen before, but Lien's eyes were fixated on her nonetheless. She was slightly larger than the nightingale, with pink feathers and a yellow beak, wearing a gold circlet on her head. Her eyes were a startling blue.
When she saw Lien, a soft smile came over her face. "Come now, my lovely little Flower," She crooned. "Come to your Auntie Yinyue." She sang a few chirping notes.
Bing watched as Lien's eyes turned pink, and she smiled dumbly, beginning to stumble like a zombie towards Yinyue.
Lien's brain felt like it was filled with a thick, sweet, sticky jelly. It was almost impossible to think, but it felt too good for Lien to care. Her Mistress had given her a command, and all she wanted in this world was to obey.
The Captain and his soldiers stood with their hands raised. All of them had tossed their crossbows or swords aside. They were far too outnumbered to fight back.
Bing reached out and grabbed Lien's tail to stop her from walking. "What are you doing? Those are members of the Birds!"
Lien felt a tug on her tail, trying to stop her. She whirled and snapped her teeth at whatever had grabbed her.
Bing yanked his hand back to avoid getting bitten. 'Yinyue must be controlling her somehow.' He thought to himself. Bing looked down at the spear in his hand.
The Captain eyed his hammer on the ground a few feet away. If he was lucky, maybe he could get to it, and possibly go down fighting. Several of his subordinates saw this and began discreetly eyeing their crossbows.
Bing threw the spear.
The Captain lunged for his hammer. His wolves scooped up their crossbows.
Even in the dark, Yinyue saw the spear coming, and shifted to one side…right into the Captain's hammer, which she had NOT seen coming. The sharp *Thwack!* of the crossbows releasing preceded several of the wolves falling down, either clutching wounds or ominously still.
The wolves seemed to become disoriented. Some whimpered pitifully, or loosed mournful howls.
Seeing that things were going badly, the cowardly Nightingale took that moment to slip out the door to the Operating Theater unnoticed.
Lien shook her head. What had just happened? She looked around, disoriented, her tail tucked between her legs and her ears low. Why did she suddenly feel so awful?
Bing grabbed her paw and dragged her out the door, just as Yinyue lunged at the Captain. The malformed beast charged, casually tossing the disoriented wolves aside. As it drew closer, they could see that it seemed to be a hairless gorilla. It was just too slow, as the door was slammed in its face.
Bing slammed the crossbar down, locking the door behind them.
He turned to the very dazed wolf. "What happened back there!?" he demanded.
He must have had too much force in his voice, because Lien sniffled, and her eyes filled with tears.
Bing gaped. He hadn't been THAT forceful in his question! What could possibly have caused her to be like this?
Lien started whimpering as she wept. The wonderful, carefree feeling had departed so suddenly! Now it felt like the world had collapsed on her shoulders. The pain was mental and emotional, instead of physical.
All of a sudden, she felt a pair of arms wrap around her. "Hey…" A familiar voice spoke. "Uh… Sorry I snapped at you. I-it'll be okay. Just calm down."
Bing yelped in surprise as Lien suddenly lunged forward and hugged him back
Lien was so disoriented, she had no idea who she was hugging. She just knew that she didn't want to be alone, and needed comfort.
After a few minutes, Lien's mind cleared, and she stepped away, wiping her tears. "Thanks." She said with a sheepish smile, her tail wagging just a bit.
He gasped for the breath that her supernaturally strong arms had crushed out of him. "No…*huff*…problem…" He wheezed. "What…happened back there?"
Lien shook her head, mystified. "I have no idea. She just…took control of me. It felt so good, that when it went away I felt…" She shrugged. She couldn't think of a word to describe the feeling. "That was the lady that cut into me all the time, though. I recognize her voice."
Bing nodded. "I heard her call herself Yinyue. I've heard her name mentioned with some degree of fear, even by non-prisoners. I think she might be their leader, or one of them, at least."
Something slammed into the door, causing them both to jump. "We need to move!" Bing announced.
They turned to the only other door in the room; a massive steel door with a heavy padlock.
"Give me just a sec." Bing told her, moving to the lock. "I'm pretty sure I can pick this."
He removed some tools from Lien's pack and went to work. Again, something slammed into the other side of the door. Dust was stirred up by the force of the impact. "Uh, Bing? You might want to hurry up!" Lien warned.
"Hang on."
Another slam. A large dent appeared in the door.
"Bing!"
"Hold on! Almost done."
Another. Several bolts came out of the crossbar.
"Bing!"
"Done! Let's go!"
He dragged the door open, and Lien ran through. Bing followed, and she pulled it shut with much more ease than he had opened it with. Just before the door shut, Lien heard the other door burst open. Thinking quickly, Lien grabbed the padlock from Bing and used it to lock the door from the other side.
"Clever." Bing praised with a smile.
Lien blushed, smiling sheepishly and looking down at her feet. Her tail wagged uncontrollably.
"Come on." Bing said, pointing with his head to the end of the hall. "The chute should be at the end of this hallway."
Indeed it was. The big silver door looked like a laundry chute, only it smelled much, much worse.
Lien's nose wrinkled. "Eww! What's in there?"
"It's a body chute." Bing replied. "There are corpses in there."
"What!?" Lien exclaimed, recoiling in disgust. "I'm not going to crawl through a bunch of dead bodies! It's…" Several words came to mind; disgusting, awful, terrifying, and repulsive all fit the bill.
Unfortunately, before she could use any of them, a loud *bang!* sounded as the malformed beast slammed into the other side of the door, causing a large dent to form.
"No time to argue!" Bing ordered, grabbing her paw and dragging her into the chute.
After a short fall, Lien hit a ramp and slid to the bottom. She landed on something deceptively squishy, which made a loud *crack!* when she landed on it.
'Oh no oh no oh no!' Lien couldn't think of any other words as Bing dragged her through the pile of dozens of eviscerated corpses. She tried hard to not look at the bodies, to avoid the trauma looking would bring, but she couldn't help a few images in her peripheral vision; a fox with a giant X-shaped surgical scar on his torso, a goat that seemed to have had her spine stretched to an unnatural length, and another wolf with scars just like her own, only having seeped blood all over.
"Keep your eyes closed." Bing advised. "Everything will be okay. We're almost there."
Lien shut her eyes tight, avoiding the terrible scenes all around her.
It was roughly forty feet from the ramp in to the vent out. The vent was angled sharply upwards, but when a rat wants to get somewhere, there was little chance of stopping him.
Bing lifted Lien onto his shoulders. The young wolf was much heavier than she should have been, but Bing pushed the thought aside. With massive effort, he ran up the steep ramp, searching out hand and foot holds almost instinctively. He just kept going, without stopping, knowing that he had to get out as soon as possible.
Lien kept her eyes firmly shut. She didn't want to know what new horrors they were now in.
Finally, all motion stopped, and Bing gently tapped her arm, which was wrapped tightly around his torso. "You can open your eyes now." He said softly.
Lien opened her eyes, and gasped.
They were outside. Bing had run them far away from the Pits before alerting her, but the humongous, silver, domelike structure silhouetted against the night sky in the distance had to have been it. She marveled at how he possibly could have run so far so fast.
They seemed to be in a thick forest on a mountainside. The forest was lush and green, but the full moon was clearly visible almost directly overhead.
"I can't remember the last time I've seen something so beautiful." Lien said in wonderment. When she realized the irony of that statement, she could have cried, but she laughed instead. Bing, realizing it as well, started laughing too. In sheer happiness at her newfound freedom, Lien tilted her head back and loosed a gleeful howl at the moon.
They were finally free.
Hey everyone! How's it going? I am SO happy to finally have this thing out. I'm sorry it took so long, but I have a good explanation. The first chapter of SotH has always seemed a little too short and dull for my tastes. I wanted to have a longer, more action packed opening for Cry of the Wolf.
To get a question out of the way early, this story begins approximately 45 years before the main part of SotH.
Let me know whether you want another chapter of Silence of the Hare next, or if you want me to work more on this first. Also, favorite, follow, and review to feed my hungry ego. Feel free to speculate in the reviews about what's going on. I may not be able to tell you whether or not you're right, but it helps keep me motivated.
Until we meet again,
Mind Jack, OUT!