Hello all!
Thank you for taking a chance on this story, it means a lot to me that you're willing to give it a look.
I'm trying to use this story as an opportunity to improve my writing skills, so any constructive criticism is greatly appreciated. This chapter is probably going to be the shortest one I do, so please don't be misled by how quickly you get through it. The other chapters will be a lot longer, I promise.
Disclaimer: I don't own Young Justice or any of the characters from the show.
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The strange gorilla was here again.
Taking in a deep breath, I could smell the oddly human scents clinging to his fur. Not too surprising, considering he dressed and walked like a human….but still.
The scent of the wild was long-gone from him despite his increasingly frequent visits, and it raised an alarm in my head whenever I caught his scent. This was the sixth day in a row I'd caught him searching my territory; his presence starting to wear on the patience of the rest of the pack. With two of our females almost ready to give birth to their pups, my family was feeling more protective and aggressive than usual. For the sake of the pack this gorilla-man, whatever his purpose, will have to die if he returns again tomorrow.
Keeping my body low to the ground, I shuffled forward as silently as possible to keep a clear line of sight on him. With his back to me, I couldn't tell what it was he was doing, only catching the sound of metal grinding together with the occasional high-pitched beeping noise coming out of the strange machine he had in his hands.
I watched him for hours that night; keeping my body hunched down while I watched the intimidating bulk of the gorilla-man as he continued his mysterious search. A little after the moon had reached t's peak in the sky, I heard a familiar rustling of leaves in the trees next to me. The twittering chatter of a squirrel sounded out in the darkness as it tried to crack a nut, startling the gorilla into snapping around and shooting a weapon into the unsuspecting critter's direction; splitting the tree down the middle with a loud crack. Pushing as hard as I could off the ground as soon as I saw him start to move, I jumped back a few feet and tried to avoid the worst of the falling debris from crushing me.
Bewildered by the sudden turn in events, I stared at the gorilla-man with new conviction. If he could wield a gun then this intruder was more man than gorilla, whatever his appearance. And to aim with that much accuracy meant that he was too dangerous to allow him to stay here any longer. Knowing he posed too big a threat to my pack, I swallowed and made my decision.
There would be no seventh visit.
With the weapons he has at his disposal I desperately need backup, but I knew there would be no way to get it with the other wolves keeping watch over the vulnerable females in our cave or out hunting for food.
Seeing the gorilla put his gun away, I poked my head over a log and watched as he slung a bag over his left shoulder and walk away, his movements heading in the direction of where the river ran.
Not directly towards the pack's territory, I realized. But definitely too close for comfort.
If he managed to get to the river he might even run into one of the wolves out hunting. They'd definitely attack despite being unprepared for the damage this gorilla-man could do.
Running over to a thicket of bushes, I took a moment to figure out how I should bring him dowm. If I could at least injure him enough to draw blood then the scent of our fight would alert anyone upwind of the danger and hopefully have them come running, giving me the backup I'd need.
Seeing him pause and reach back into his bag after another few minutes, I saw my chance. Sprinting as fast as I possibly could, I leapt for his jugular, practically tasting the blood that would gush out of his neck, when suddenly I slammed into a strange blue wall of what could only be described as energy. Staggering off the ground, I tried to get my bearings and push through the pain hammering at me when I felt the vague sting of a needle hit my side and make my already blurry vision worse. Hearing heavy footsteps coming toward me, I raised my head and howled for everything I could. What felt like an eternity of calling out for my family, warning them, apologizing to them for my failure, was abruptly cut off by a painful kick to my side. The black shape of the gorilla-man against the fading blue glow of whatever it was that I'd hit was the last thing I saw before closing my eyes.
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Hell…..
Hell is hot. And somehow even though I never minded it before, the heat of India now seemed to squeeze itself around my bones and lungs; forcing me to feel the burning suffocation of the sun with every passing second I still lived.
As I discovered, there are only two types of creature in hell; the prisoners and their guards.
Since being captured every day that passed just brought a fresh new method of torture. With every new experiment conducted, every time our captors became bored needed a new way to pass the time, or every nightmare that plagued us when we were allowed the mercy of a fitful night's sleep; we've all come to the realization that there are no saviors. That there's nobody to rescue us.
No escape.
Before being captured by the gorilla-man I'd never killed a human. Sure I'd hunted and killed prey for food and scared off hunters getting too close to my pack, but I'd never once murdered a person. I more than made up for lost time once I was in the gorilla-man's and brain-machine's hold. Even with as desperately as I initially struggled and fought, I couldn't disobey the commands they sent through a mind control collar they forced us all to wear. Once that collar was on, we didn't even need to be restrained when they wanted to hurt us.
Over and over again we were betrayed by our own bodies as we sat there and allowed them to anything and everything they wanted.
I found out later that gorilla-man had been looking for me all along. After hearing rumors of a wolf pack in the forest, they'd wanted to capture the alpha to lead the pack of wolves they'd already taken prisoner. I haven't seen a single member of my old pack, which tells me they were either able to escape, or….killed. I try not to think about it too much – I've found that dwelling on what I've lost only makes it harder to get through the passing months.
I saw my reflection in a pond once. It was about a month after the last set of mutations they'd forced on my body; making me bigger, stronger and faster. I'd seen and felt how the changes had ripped the skin on my legs and back, but the shock I'd experienced when I saw myself fully for the first time revealed how greatly I'd underestimated how much they'd done to me. I could see how monstrously large I'd become, could see clearly the heavy scarring and enlarged fangs. And my eyes….the smallest physical change had felt like the most monumental. Where before my eyes had been blue, now they were an unnaturally bright molten-gold with the white's completely grayed out. When I saw my eyes, the eyes every animal around me sported, I saw the eyes of a monster.
Still, I count myself lucky in one respect. Neither the gorilla-man nor the brain-machine knows the secret of what I really am….Or what at least what I was.
Because I'm not a wolf – not entirely.
But to properly tell you what I am, I'd have to tell you a much longer story; one that will sound impossible. You see, when I was kidnapped six months ago I thought my life had ended.
It wasn't until much later I realized that my life – and the story of it, was only just beginning.