Moonhaze, Prologue: 9,763 words | 10/16/2021
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:)
. [ad lunae lumina] .
. Δ .
The dead that roams has forced the living to their knees. Humbled the mighty civilizations that spat in the face of nature. Vowed to keep said civilizations in line.
Through carnage. Through gore.
Death became a blessing as life twisted into revulsion…
Yet, the dead aren't the mark of a first apocalypse. They play merely as a reminder of humankind's vulnerability. They aren't the first, for there was another that struck many, many millennia before: the Ice Age, where vampires tore through populations to feast not on flesh but on blood. They were conscious, not rabid. They were sophisticated, not quelled of all thought.
For such a threat, humans needed to change. Humans needed to become something more.
So rose Lycans. So rose a select few families that possessed the raw strength needed to diminish the parasitic hold. They followed the moon. They trailed scents. They kept warm. They were, more or less, the champions of the Ice Age.
They vanquished the parasites that prowled as said champions, and for their great deed to humanity, by the time the earth began to brew with heat, humanity kept scraps of Lycan-kind. They kept them as a pocket—a subsect that would always protect them whenever the time would come.
Until now, when the time has come.
And as it turns out, humanity's memory of Lycans, the scrap they named werewolves, are not as glamorized as they once thought. As the dead claims the living, the nature of werewolves are revealed to be less human than desired.
They are a threat.
It seems as though while the dead brought humanity to its knees, werewolves are the executioners that shall bring down the blade of extinction.
At the face of that reality, humanity has begun to writhe. It wants to keep life for itself.
Even if by the skin of its teeth…
.
Men had followed the woman and her girl for miles. The moon bloomed in full from high above, and through the trees, the shadows of the hunters and hunted warped with each stride. At some hours, they were meandering. At others, charged.
Clementine didn't want to know what they wanted from her, though she knew that she didn't want the answer—not at all. Christa kept her in tow, and to witness the visible fear that struck the woman, it rattled the girl to the core.
"Stay close…" Christa murmured every-so-often, eyes over her shoulder. "We haven't lost them."
And each time, Clementine would adjust the pistol in her hand. It was ready to fire. To see to it that the men would be left on the ground if things grew hostile. Up ahead, however, was a barn—old and weathered with a sturdy silhouette. Clementine hoped it would be enough, though, if anything, they would have to pass it by. With the moon as full as it was, there wouldn't be a chance that the men may miss the structure entirely. It would be a dead end.
Still, she had to try: "Christa, there's a barn right there."
"I know. I see it."
That confirmation startled Clementine. Where they going to hide in their after all?
"So are we—?!"
A bullet screamed. She staggered forward, clipping her calf against an up-rooted trunk from the impact. Christa's arm lunged, catching her fall as her amber eyes swerved over her shoulder. "Damn it," the woman hissed. Amber scanned the tree line, and through the shadows—beyond what Clementine could see—, Christa caught the outlines of the men. "Are you alright, Clementine?!"
"I-I'm fine!" she gasped. As their strides resumed in charge, her backpack was unshouldered before it snapped at the strap and tumbled in a heap behind them. "The bag!"
"It's what was shot! Keep moving!" Christa hissed. Through the obstacles of woodland, they ducked and swerved, up until a batch of trees. Christa halted and lowered to the trunks, but as Clementine went to do the same, she swiped her arm out. "Get to the barn. Hide. Find anything in their if that pistol fails. I'll take care of them out here."
Clementine didn't question it. So she looked into amber eyes, nodded, then ran.
.
Christa stood from the woods, waiting with her shadow stretched along the dirt road that encircled the barn. Not a minute later, she watched one of the men emerge into the moonlight. She held her blade taut in her fist. One halted before her with a shotgun at hand, accompanied by a sardonic smile fixed across his face. "Well, well… I don't think it's smart for even your kind to bring a knife to a gun fight…"
A brow arched. "It's also not smart for your kind to hunt us during a full moon…" she rasped.
The man glowered, and he fixed the helmet sunk on his head, leaving his blue eyes to pierce through her. Christa remained unfazed, however. She heard the twigs snap of ambush, still within the trees. Leering at her. Waiting for the man to fire a crippling blow—if not to put down entirely. She tensed. She eyed the silhouettes amongst the trees, crouched and aimed.
Well then. It looked as though Christa would have to manage her own human-shield.
Amber struck the man's piercing blue, and when she narrowed her eyes, Christa heard him swallow.
You.
Her mind was made, and she bolted forward. With strides of a lioness, the strength of a bear, and the mind of a wolf, Christa carried herself as the man's termination.
The buckshot pelted into the night's sky. Startled by her dexterity. Unprepared for knife and hands that found his throat.
.
There was a hunch that told her how the shadows in that barn wouldn't be enough. Not with Christa still outside, brawling against the other men with a mere knife tight in her grasp.
"Come on, …little girl," a gravelly voice snaked. One of the men had slipped away and followed Clementine for an easy advantage. From around a stall, she found his horrid intent gleaming within his eyes. He tsked! for her like he was calling for a feral cat. "Come on… I know you're in here, bitch."
Clementine seethed. Within the past year, that word alone riled her to no end. If he didn't have a gun as well—a rifle by the looks of the barrel's length—, she would've shot a bullet through a knee or thigh right then and there. Though, she found it fitting: such a vile word belonged to such a vile man.
"Little bitch…" he crooned. "Where are you…?"
Her sneer deepened from the shadows, and the pistol was raised. Better yet, shoot the fucker's head out. Knock it back to wipe that smirk clean. Tear it from the hinges of his ne—
She gagged.
Her throat closed, prompted by the swarm of pressure that tore to prosperity. Sh-Shit… Shit! Clementine crept backwards with as much sense as she could gather. What the— What's happening?!
The pressure drained across her shoulders. She leaned her weight against one of the stalls, grasping for any slice of air that could spear down her gullet. After a tight swallow, a blade of air, Clementine's body simply burned from the inside-out.
An eye was skewed through an agonizing wince while the other kept itself pinned on the man's taunting, meandering steps. And even though her ears rang with the second wave of agony, she knew that he was still chiding for the little bitch…
It aggravated her.
And in turn.
The pain grew to be nauseating.
Across her knuckles, down the tendons shot agony. They speared into muscle, then to bone. Along her arms. Rattled through her spine. Her head swam in retaliation of the moonlight. Clementine couldn't even look up. She swayed. Her balance teetered from the abrupt onset of exhaustion.
Then, her organs shifted.
Clementine muffled a gag through another jolt of agony—teeth sunk into the edge of her thumb. W-What's happening to me?!
His leering shadow was getting too close, yet there was nothing she could do. Her hand holding the pistol seized. The firearm plummeted.
An accidental bullet. It screamed just over the man's shoulder, and he whipped around with a manic smile. "There you are…" he snarled. "You're really just a little one, aren't you…?" She managed a pained glare before catching her balance by a swift hand to the stall door. "Someone needs to teach you how to shoot a gun," the man continued, quite entertained by whatever pain tormented her. There wasn't even a question as to why. The unfathomable ache that splintered her knuckles and sinched her hands was just a spectacle.
However, he had another idea. His eyes darted towards the pistol. "Alright then. Looks like you need to be put down," he chuckled quietly. With a swipe at her, the man sent Clementine's uneven weight to the ground. She grunted on impact, and from what decided to torment her, she curled into her stomach.
On both hands and knees, her eyes flecked to the moon that pierced through the cracks of the wooden panels high above.
Clementine glowered as the man's littered chuckles warped into barks of laughter. If this was it, underneath moonlight at the paws of this poor excuse of a man, she swore she'd rise as the worst kind of walker imaginable: one that didn't quit.
With that thought alone, her energy rekindled itself. It ripened with animosity, vowing to her that, no, this wasn't it. That no, Clementine would be the worst kind of girl instead.
She staggered upright. Her skin still blistered with agonizing adrenaline, though it began to curdle into something more. And in that barn, it was ready to reveal itself. Whatever surged through Clementine in that moment would never leave her:
An awakened instinct that was branded by the nature of a beast. Backed into that corner, every fiber in her body was seared to attention. Hyper-aware. Taunt with hostility.
The man turned his back. To pick up the pistol. To shoot her with her own bullet. What a terrible mistake. In hindsight, she doesn't believe that it his fatal mistake, though, no.
Instead, his fatal mistake was following the woman and her girl for miles. Turning his back only made things easier.
And as any instinct would, hers led her glare to his neck. The hazel of her eyes writhed into a brazen inferno, shifting with every heartbeat, and her skin tightened, and from the inside, her body coiled with strength. The coil sprung against the tension.
Clementine surged forward. Her hands found their mark.
If only she knew how easy it was to snap his neck. If she had, Clementine wouldn't have discovered how easy it was to drive skull fragments as deep as they could go…
Not on that night, anyway.
.
The ring of panicked gunshots jolted Christa from her collected breath, and not a second later, she was chasing after the shrill of a man's demise. Her strides carried her to the barn doors. With a heaved shove, they were open. "Clementine?!" she choked, scouring the shadows that were bled away from lanternlight. "Clementine, where are—?!"
Her eyes whipped across the floor until Christa found her, right as the bill of the baseball cap rose. Christa swallowed, and she began to carefully step closer to the girl. The scene around them, around Clementine, was one of death:
She stood in the epicenter of carnage. Panting. Shivering. Pale in the face. The man's body was strewn at her feet, eyes wide and bulged with a head misshapen beyond recognition. Bullet shells glittered his blood, and Clementine's pistol laid underneath his shoulder. All at the hands of…a young, young girl to Christa's mind, yet she began to know better:
Little girl or not, Clementine was one of the remnants of the Ice Age champions. Human. Vampiric. Lycan.
Christa let go a weary, shaken breath. "I had a hunch…" she whispered quietly, and Clementine swallowed.
"W-What…?" Clementine stared at the gore that coated her skin. How her tendons sharpened against the moonlight. How her blood pulsed from malicious adrenaline. "W-What's wrong with m-my hands…?!"
Christa set a hand on the girl's shoulder. "It's okay. It's okay, Clementine." She searched for a reasonable way to word her thoughts. A way to comfort the poor girl's distress. "This just means…that you're better suited for this world. I-It's a good thing."
Clementine stared at her, and her bewilderment festered. "What does that mean?!"
"A lycanthrope, Clementine… That's… That's what we are." Christa paused for a moment, and when that festering bewilderment continued to writhe, she said, "Werewolves, Clementine. We're what's between human and beast."
It was only then that Clementine began to understand.
She hated it from then onwards.
. Δ .
I could've saved him if I turned sooner.
Weeks passed, the season soured with iced rain and fogged breaths, and they still walked on, searching for the promise of snow. Snow meant nature at its most unforgiving, but their hope was that its mercy would be withheld from the undead moreover. That it would freeze what blood and tissue they still had. Force them into a rigor mortis, of sorts. And by the time spring would come, Christa wondered if the walkers would thaw out as mush.
That last sentiment was probably asking for too much, though Clementine never spoke said pessimism.
Instead, she pondered. She dwelled.
He wouldn't have been shot. I would've gotten to the girl first.
They walked, and they walked, and they walked.
And through it all, she dwelled, and she dwelled, and she dwelled.
When their legs grew weary, Christa carted their trek off the trail they had found, underneath the hood of a rest stop. There was a bench, and a water fountain; it worked, though, to their luck, the water was dark with whatever soil that managed to poison the plumbing. And to the side of both was a door to a bathroom.
It only served to press Clementine's internalized grief further.
Omid would be here. Christa wouldn't have lost her baby.
Why didn't I change then? Why couldn't I have stopped it from happening?
Sunk against the wall, the furthest she could manage from the dismal, grieved musk of night without facing any bathroom tile, Clementine stared at her hands. And then she flexed them. She watched the roll of her knuckles, then the pull of tendons. Every line and angle with a sharp edge. There were no scars, despite the fact that she remembered how his skull split skin; despite the fact that her teeth had sunk deep into her thumb.
The brain matter that she'd pick out of her nails.
The blood that still stained her clothes, and regardless of how dark the purple was, the stains were apparent.
"We should probably think about getting inside…" Christa murmured to Clementine's right, equally as sunk against the wall. "I don't want to think about what could find us otherwise."
Clementine stitched her brows together. The inferno of her eyes didn't leave her hands. "It's probably gross in there."
"I know," Christa said, "but luxuries aren't a thing anymore."
"A luxury would be a bathroom not full of shit," Clementine scowled, and whether it be the blunt edge of her tone or how the foul language worked so seamlessly with everything else, Christa breathed a laugh. "I'm not joking."
"I know, I know," Christa muttered. "But we should probably get inside anyway." There was no answer. The girl merely folded her arms. "…Clementine?"
She shook her head. "I don't want to go in." I don't want to remember the bullet in Omid's chest.
Christa's jaw was firm, then she retorted, "It's a matter of survival, not luxury."
"I don't care…" Clementine murmured. "I don't want to."
It was the first outright refusal of authority. Heels dug into the dirt. Toe-to-toe against what Christa insisted. Once the woman turned to face Clementine, she found…another slice of the little girl, stripped away. The pessimism laced throughout her tone, the way her muted expression had replaced that remaining layer, that slice, of the little girl—it all brewed with the intensity of the inferno in her eyes. Clementine didn't resemble herself at all. She didn't look like someone who'd walk up to Christa at the foot of a train, bubbling about her treehouse and Saturday pancakes. If anything, the Clementine that sat beside her was a beast wearing her face. But the body didn't quite fit. So soon, though in subtle ways, her features were sharper—mature, even, if her nature wasn't that of a werewolf. Her newfound strength which, within the past weeks, managed to startle both of them.
But of course, there were her eyes—bearing such an intensity—, and then her hands, already adept to tearing flesh and bone apart. Christa knew this was a good thing, that Clementine would be able to protect herself, though she never fathomed any change as rapid as this. …she wondered how strong the girl's teeth would become. What they'd do if Clementine ever lost control from a malevolent night's ploy. If she was an alpha alongside Christa, and a feral one at that.
It sparked an inkling of worry within the woman, in that moment. The worry latched onto her with serrated claws. There wasn't going to be a time where she could shrug it away, would there?
Christa pulled her brows together, solemn as she continued to watch the young, newly-turned pup. Clementine was going to become a force of nature, wasn't she? Christa hoped so, but again, that worry…
But there was something else, too, layered within those amber eyes. And from that, Clementine understood what the slow recognition dawning on the woman's face meant: that Christa knew what Clementine dwelled upon, and her heart was sinking down to the depths of her stomach, ever so slow, ever so heavy.
There was a gradual nod, and amber eyes pulled away. "Alright…" Christa murmured, quiet.
And then, there was nothing to be said. Nothing that either could gather, nor thusly share.
So, Clementine dwelled, and Christa worried.
.
I could have saved him…
What will she become…?
.
A few months. Grass took on the habit of collecting ice overnight. The dew was brisk enough to rattle Clementine awake. That was it. She hated the cold. She was not built for it. She needed fire. She wanted her home, but as every day passed her by, her home wasn't with a treehouse. It was instead a motel, and though it harbored a brewing storm of rivalry, that piece of her life was as calm and structured as it could've been. Simple, in a way. Something that Clementine sorely longed for with every moon and sun that passed.
Because, of course, ever since then, nothing had been simple.
The blitzed trek by R.V then train to Savannah. Toyed by the words of a stranger. Losing her parents. Losing Lee…
Then Omid. Then Christa's unborn child.
And then, that damned moon.
As it turned out, Clementine's very nature wasn't simple like the motel, and she loathed what it meant. Once, where her world was nothing but her parents and school, she had heard of them: werewolves. A select few from her class were pups themselves, and she began to wonder how the parents knew. They would've been too young to tell, though, then again, the parents were probably werewolves as well.
Clementine frowned at the thought, and huddled between a log and a pathetic campfire, she stared at the palms of her hands, then the knuckles, her wrists, her fingers, and back again.
…why didn't her parents tell her? She knew they weren't fond of werewolves. Her mother had audibly gasped with a visible jolt when Clementine asked about them, and her father merely watched her, pale in the face. Were they lying when they said their family was pure of all that? Or was it that Clementine was defective? That she shouldn't have been, but was?
She scowled, folding her arms to force her eyes to the fire. However, before long, they drifted to Christa as she eyed the timber—which did their best to satisfy her, to no avail. The woman sighed quietly and tossed in a few more.
It didn't take much longer for her to notice Clementine's concentrated brow. "What are you thinking about?"
Clementine felt her grip harden around both arms. "Just…stuff," she murmured. After Christa waited with an arched brow, she said, "My parents didn't like werewolves."
Christa hummed, then leaned against an adjacent log. "Not a lot of people do, but there's more than they realize."
"How…much more?"
There was a languid shrug. "Millions. And not everyone is…awakened, per se, so if you include that, probably billions."
"Oh…" Clementine crumpled further into herself. "And I'm one of the ones that just…"
"It seems so," Christa murmured. She watched Clementine for a long, quiet moment. If to comfort, she noted, "We weren't the only ones from our group who were, Clem."
"We…weren't?" Clementine asked quietly, picking up her head.
Christa shook hers. "No," she answered. "Vernon was one, and so was Ben. Molly. Chuck. There was even another one with you before we met—I could smell their scent on all of you."
"Really…?" Clementine breathed. She frowned. "The last one, it wasn't Lee?"
"No, he wasn't one," Christa said. "Whoever it was though had a strong scent. And it was very…" Christa paused to rifle through her words, and after a few seconds, she settled with, "Fragrant. I don't know if sweet would be the right word."
Carley, maybe… Clementine soothed the ring around her arms where she'd kept an iron's grip. "That's a, um…"
"A lot more than you thought?" Christa offered with a dry smile. When Clementine nodded, she hummed a laugh. "There's always a lot more…"
"And, um, scents?"
"Hmm?"
Clementine's frown deepened in thought. "What do they do?"
Christa said, "They tell a whole story for us. There's many things we'll know about a person from smell alone." She paused, tossed another few sticks into the fire, then exhaled. With her hands rubbed together, Christa promised, "I'll explain more to you as things develop more. You'll be able to understand better then. But…Clementine." The girl watched her expectantly. Reassuringly, Christa leaned closer and said, "I wasn't lying that night when I said that this is ultimately a good thing. It'll make it easier for you to survive out here. There's things a werewolf can do that other people just can't—especially if you have a stronger dynamic. It will probably get difficult at times, but this is normal for us. It comes with puberty, or some event that thrusts us in.
"For you, it was the latter, but…i-it's a good thing, in the end. Okay?"
Clementine nodded slowly. "Okay…" Even though Christa managed to ease a few layers of her uncertainty, however, she still felt the weight of inhuman instinct dwell within her chest. She couldn't shake it. Yet, whispered, she said, "Thanks."
Christa nodded. "Of course, honey."
Endearment. The fire crackled between them, and Clementine rested her chin against her knees. So it appeared that Christa had forgiven her for Omid's fate… Another frown of thought. Christa's baby would've been a werewolf, right? But instead of her own child, the woman had Clementine.
It surprised her, how Clementine didn't feel as bothered as she would've thought in retrospect.
Perhaps that had more to do with the fire's ambition to swell, thawing the dew and frost around the dreary encampment. Clementine was still too cold for her liking, but the flames reminded her of the candle lights that littered a quaint motel.
A simpler time. One of warmth.
. Δ .
Her rest within the security of the roadster stirs away, and with a flickered brow, the inferno of her eyes roll open. The first thing Clementine sees is the crescent moon, clipped by the height of the trees around her. She digs her palm into a tired eye and sits upright. The epitome of an apocalyptic ride sits underneath a garage's overhang, which is nestled within a gravel clearing overrun by the green of weeds and mossed soil. Across the way, a neighboring cleared spot of woodland with the garage's accompanying cabin. Clementine assumes that the two were connected at one point, though with the several years of the dead walking, trees have since reclaimed what road or path there was.
Clementine chews the inside of her cheek. It had to have been a decade by this point. At least. That, or the seasons were not kind to her insecure perception of time. These days, it's just sun and moon, rain or not, maybe too much sun or snow.
She sunk back into her seat with a sour breath.
Her thoughts drawled as she stared into the roadster's ceiling. The cabin and garage have been beginning to grate her ever last nerve. Too much time has gone by in the same damn place. She is starting to lose it.
As much as finding the car was a saving grace, Clementine can't help but detest how reality has twisted itself to this: a supposed mobile escape forced to stay underneath a garage's wing, starved of gasoline. She knew even before hindsight could confirm that this could always happen, especially with gas being as scarce as it is, though shoot Clementine for hoping it wouldn't happen to her.
Never mind the gasoline, however. As her eyes slide to the passenger's seat, inferno meets coffee—dark eyes that brew with life, accompanied by his youthful, java complexion. A.J. Her pup. Not by blood, no, yet it never has mattered. And as he watches her, quietly, it only cements that sentiment.
Brows quickly pull into a frown when she realizes A.J's concern. "What is it?"
He blinks, then his eyes veer towards the clearing—away from the cabin and down beside the narrow road they found themselves on weeks back. "So I went to the bathroom because I really had to go, a-and…um…"
"Did you…go…?" Clementine asks carefully, if with a touch of suspicion.
A.J flashes a half-hearted glare and answers, "Yes. But—" he looks back out, then back to Clementine once more— "there's monsters."
"Ah, okay," Clementine murmurs. "And there's multiple?"
There's a nod as A.J eyes the windshield. "Yeah. There's four. And I don't want them to come over here."
"Okay. Let's go take care of them, then," Clementine says. In unison, they slip out of the roadster and shut the doors, mindful. She stretches out the cricks of sleep as A.J finds himself at her side. "Alright. So where?" He points towards the tree line.
Sure enough, she catches the rattled moans of the dead from within the shadows. Clementine nods, and together, they stalk carefully towards them. Along the edge lays a thick log—a barrier, of sorts. They crouch along it, and A.J—while still nervous—is calmed by the distance between the living and dead.
Clementine takes out her pistol, thumbing the grip absentmindedly. She narrows her eyes. There's brief glimpses of their deteriorating maws, and from the natural barrier, she sees the point of fangs. From the one closest, and potentially the other two that lurk behind it—the fourth is a tree too far, though there is an estimated guess that they're all the same.
Just to be sure, her gaze slides to her side.
A.J's nostrils are flared, and with wide eyes, he sinks lower behind the log. Clementine watches him carefully, and in a low voice, she asks, "Are those wolfers?"
"…y-yeah," he fumbles. "They smell like…" A.J sags further down. "They're all alphas, I think," is breathed. He turns to Clementine and her tight jaw, lips pressed, and asks, "Are you going to kill them?"
She nods. Clementine watches A.J again with a quiet, reassuring smile, then says, "Go back to the car in case something happens. I'll take care of them." She starts to step over the log, plotting her route to stalk her undead kin. The only thing that truly hunt her and A.J's kin, to her mind.
"B-But the bullets! You…" Clementine halts and twists her head over to him. A.J swallows. "You only have three. There's four."
Clementine nods again. "That's why I told you to go to the car. I'll take care of them. Don't worry, A.J."
He hesitates, but after a moment, he nods and bounds towards the roadster as told. Leaving Clementine to gage the mess on her own. Three bullets on this fucking pistol… She scowls. It better happen.
It's simple, however, the solution to the four wolfers: shoot the ones close, leave the last to duck and swerve from. Granted, from watching them, Clementine hoped that their small frames and dragged steps meant that they wouldn't be difficult to manage. It should be simple. The pistol is raised, and Clementine lines up the first target, only a few trees away. Then it'll be the one a few trees beyond that, then the third just over its shoulder… Yes, that'll do.
The first bullet fires.
The second doesn't.
The last three snap their white, drab eyes to her.
"Shit, not again!" Clementine hisses, glaring along the gun's profile. Groans rip her attention from the damned thing, however, and she tosses it to the base of a tree without another thought. Replacing the pistol is a knife—the far more reliable option.
Her eyes dance between the remaining three. As one of the wolfers swerves its weight around, she seizes her chance: a quick knock to the knee slams it down, and mercilessly, the heel of her boot strikes into skull. One more taken care of, though the third wolfer steals the chance for her to rip the boot out of the rotting head's crater. It lunges forward. Given its lack of coordination, however, it topples over without the help of Clementine's blade, so her attention rears to the last one. Frail. The height of a child.
…a mere pup.
Her boot is torn from the prominent crater to sock its stomach, and she follows the gathered momentum to bury the blade to its side.
Then, the remaining wolfer—which still struggles on the ground—is kicked over and dealt with similarly.
The knife is pulled away, leaving Clementine with a long, bitter exhale. These weren't the worst of wolfers. If anything, they might as well have been walkers. Alphas or not, they were young. Younger than her. Clementine's lips press into a mournful line as the knife is carefully wiped of death by the flat of her pantleg, then slipped along the interior of her boot. The pistol is snatched from the tree once again, and she lightly thumps the side of the barrel.
Quietly, she asks, "You didn't even reload again, did you…?" As Clementine meanders through the trees, she pulls back the slide. She squints at the damn firearm. "…fucking piece of shit."
Stepped out into the garage's clearing, Clementine sighs and lifts her head—
And freezes.
Inferno is fixed on the roadster. It's too quiet. Far too quiet.
She swallows her spike of panic—the first jolt of emotion that night. "Alvin?!" Clementine hisses, voice strained. A.J isn't there. Her eyes scour through the trees, but no pup to be found. "Where did you go…?!" she whispers sharply. This isn't like him. A.J enjoys his own little jokes, of course, though he would never stray from her side like this. There is no joke to find with disappearing off the face of the earth. "A—"
There. Through the trees, she sees the headlights of a truck. And it's running. She can smell its exhaust from there—how it's fumed with malicious intent.
Teeth grated, Clementine surges forward.
.
From the corner of inferno, she saw the outline of a man through the cabin's open door. So, now, Clementine stands in its frame, her shadow stretched across the room, illuminated by the crescent moonlight. She stares into the face that leers with glee.
The man is nonchalant, propped against a bookshelf without worry. He's clad in all leather. His hair is slicked back, and it's accentuated by the glint of a golden tooth amongst the rest of his uneven teeth.
And as for Clementine, she remains indifferent to his evident character. He will be another body to her count. Another name she didn't care to learn. Another irritation that got in her way.
He tsks! with a small shake of his head. "Easy pickings… Easy pickings…" the man says, audibly disappointed yet visibly entertained. "Got so used to hunting werewolves, almost forgot that there's still other people like us around." She doesn't answer. She doesn't entertain him more than what he's gathered for himself.
Clementine knows what she appears to be. She knows that her height doesn't leave room or intimidation, nor the curves of her body that have been ogled at time and time again.
…yet, be it a primal, vindictive clairvoyance, Clementine knows that he will be her easy pickings. A mere irritation. An unnamed body to her count.
So, without an itch of expression, she mutters, her voice barreled into a growl, "Where is he…?"
The man snorts, and he crosses his arms. "What's a girl like yourself gonna do…? We're selling him, and we're killing you. Plain and simple."
Clementine narrows her eyes. "'Plain and simple…'" she echoes. "That sure makes it easy." She eases a step forward, her hands flexed and eyes darted towards his knife. Her brow arches, and she can almost feel one corner of her lips crease into a contempt smile. "Since I'm going to die anyway, you might as well tell me where he is."
You only have a knife.
How fucking stupid are you…?
"Show don't tell," he says with a light chuckle. "Tell you what, though, I'll show your head where he is?"
A complete dunce, apparently.
Clementine lifts her pistol, her contempt smile wiped away. "No, you fucking moron. You're telling me, or you're not. I'll find out regardless."
His eyes are wide—as if he didn't see the damn thing in her hand. But, alas, it isn't like it will matter. If curiosity killed the cat, arrogance poisons man.
The trigger finger is pulled, but nothing. Clementine scowls. Of course.
The man coughs a lathered, cooed laugh—most definitely to ease his spike of static adrenaline. "It looks like your fate is sealed, girl… Whoever gave you that pistol just took it away."
"I guess so," Clementine murmurs. She casts it to the ground, her eyes still fixed on him. She doesn't look to where it lands, nor is she fazed by the sudden shift in his attitude. He's disconcerted—startled by her lack of care. Clementine begins to stalk towards him, closing the distance. The man tenses the grip around his knife, and he watches her carefully.
"Your fate is sealed, you bitch…"
It's immediate, how her face warps with venom. "And you just did the same with yours," she snaps, and without a second to pass, Clementine lunges forward. The man barely has the time to stagger away from her swiped hand as it plunges through the glass ornaments. Though, when Clementine twists around to merely fleck the glass from her skin with one simple shake, he doesn't have the balance to notice the folded corner of the rug.
He's to the ground.
Clementine lunges once more, and this time, a hand finds the arm that sought to guard his face. She rips it away from the tip of his nose with an unrelenting grip.
The man slashes his knife outward with the other, expecting to slice her mouth effortlessly. And it should have done. Yet, the blade is met with teeth.
Or rather, canines.
Canines that are prominent—sharper and bigger than they should.
…until it clicks, and all of his hope to survive this encounter visibly drains from his face. Those teeth of hers that caught the knife, they're fangs.
It's simple, really:
He's her prey.
Werewolf. He begins to notice the other, subtler details about her: the bones accentuated in her hands, her feral disposition, and then her eyes. How the hazel swarms with a scorned prowess. The depths of fire. An inferno.
And they cleave through his soul, condemning him to death.
Clementine narrows them, and with a gruelled hum, she digs her nail into his wrist—right at the hilt, yet another soft, vulnerable point. She feels his pulse, and it's rapid. Her grip tightens. Clementine means to snap bone.
Maybe it's because the strain of his hand is agonizing now, or perhaps it's because it feels like she's done this before—regardless of his reason, the man bucks his knee into her stomach and rips the knife away from her, only to strike her arm.
He misses flesh, though both feel the tear of fabric. Clementine staggers away to observe the damage. Her nose crinkles in disgust. The sleeve is slashed up the forearm whole. Her eyes slide to his own, and the knife skids across the room with a rattled fling of the man's wrist.
The man then panics and staggers backwards into the wall on all fours. His eyes find her torn sleeve, and as they trail up her forearm—reading it—, he swallows a dire breath. "Y-You… Y-You're f-from—" His own choke asphyxiates his voice.
Clementine reads her arm as well, her sneer stretched across her face. The ink that plagues her skin drives more irritability into herself than fear into the man:
NF00195.
And just above it, as she pulls her sleeve past the elbow, is the scarred burn of a branding. She watches him with a wry smile. "I have a lot of history with Richmond…"
Her shadow engulfs him whole. He shivers with his arms guarded across his chest. How ironic. A self-proclaimed hunter of beasts, yet he walked right into the den of one unknowingly, picking a fight as a monster himself…
Clementine narrows her eyes, and through inferno, she spears his soul with ice. "So do you want to run your mouth again…? Tell me how you're going to kill me and sell him."
"Th-Those experiments," the man rattles hoarsely. "Th-Those— They— They created y-you, didn't they…?!"
Clementine arches her brow, and her wry smile freezes in place. "I don't know where you got that idea," she growls. Another step towards him. "But…I guess they did," Clementine adds, "in a way."
He shakes his head violently. "This wasn't supposed to happen, this wasn't—" His cowering turns flighty as Clementine closes the gap between them.
It's quick. The man makes for a desperate escape, though come to find, the beasts he has sought to hunt since the beginning of the undead wield an inhuman dexterity. Clementine lunges, and there's nothing he can do.
Her hands have found their target.
She feels the points on either side of his head—the ones that lay between the edges of his temple and his ears, so soft compared to the rest of the skull's barrier. And Clementine pinches. She digs the tension of her nails into those points. The man whimpers violently, though his pleading falls upon deaf ears. Clementine doesn't stop, so his eyes begin to bulge, and his head warps with pressure. Skin broils into red. Veins swell until a patch along his right ear ruptures and dyes the underlayer of his complexion. Bulged eyes roll back as the craters at each ear start to dig into her fingers.
It's only when Clementine can no longer feel his trembling does she let go. The man drops like an anvil. She swipes for the pistol, rattles whatever clogged the barrel with a forceful lurch of her wrist, and to insure the damned soul doesn't rise again, she punctures a bullet through the crater that faces the ceiling.
And then.
Silence.
With only the rumble of a truck's engine outside the splayed door.
Clementine gets to her feet, removed of any remorse. There isn't anything to feel, really. Nothing that she can tell. Her hands are rife with hostility, and her eyes with morbid intent. Yet, her breath is calm. There isn't time to process the bloodshed at her feet—the brain matter and shrapnel of bone that seep into the knots of wooden boards. There never is. Any time spent dwelling on carnage leaves less time for survival…
And she intends to promise A.J's chance.
So she's quick to charge for the truck, the pistol warm in her tight fist. Within mere seconds, Clementine skids to the apparent struggle between man and pup.
Once she rears the corner of the truck-bed, the second man crumbles to the dirt with a sneered roar. A.J swivels around, lit by a flash of joy before he bolts for her side. The man still cups his groin with mauled hands, both of which are littered with gashes from teeth and scrapes from nails.
Panting, A.J says, "I bit him! And then kicked him! Right where it hurts!"
"Good job," Clementine grunts. She points to the spot where he stands, grasping her arm, unbothered by the blood that swamps it. "Now stay here. I'm going to ask this friend of ours where they were planning to take you." She pauses, however, and watches A.J from over her shoulder. "Go behind the trunk."
"What?!"
Clementine's face twists with discipline, and she barks, "Now, Alvin." A.J doesn't answer with anything other than a nod. He does as he's told and swerves to the other side. With him tucked away, her eyes point to the second man as he unevenly staggers to his feet.
He forces out, "What are you going to do to me?! Huh?! Bite and scratch, girl?!"
"Trust me when I tell you, you don't want my bite," Clementine rasps. She raises the pistol to his head, and he freezes. "Tell me where you came from."
"…you don't want to do that," he threatens, "'cause I've got friends that will search for me."
Clementine glances at the running truck, to the dashboard's light in particular. When her eyes slide back to the man, still nursing his wounds without a gun in sight, the grin that spreads is warped with hostility. "Neither of us will be here to know that for sure," she murmurs. "You should've stayed away if you had friends."
The man swallows. "Wh—"
The bullet fired doesn't let him finish. So instead he drops like another anvil, and perhaps he'll be found by his friends in due time.
Not that Clementine cares in particular. He's just another body. A lump of flesh and blood corroded by her hands. Like the man in the house, there's no inkling of the numbed panic that consumed her all those years ago, underneath her first wretched moon.
Instead, as the dust settles around him, she's already around the truck. A.J stands there, crouched before she sinks to her knees, and he's swiftly enraptured by Clementine's arms. "…is he gone now…?" A.J whispers quietly.
Clementine nods against his shoulder. "Yes. They both are, kiddo." She doesn't feel the numbed panic, but she feels his trembling soothe themselves. She feels whole, knowing that A.J is safe by her side. And even though he's older now—no longer in little overalls, nor strapped to her back—, A.J clings to her as he did a mere few seasons ago.
…yet.
Her thoughts writhe. They question her ease. Her inhumanity…
.
The truck has a full tank. Clementine can't help but smile as she switches the engine off. She also can't help the pessimist inside her bring in a point of its own: the dashboard could be broken. It could be lying to her. Nevertheless, the truck has a bigger tank than the roadster, ergo, it shouldn't matter if it's completely full or not. Because there's actually gasoline, right at her fingertips.
Once out, with A.J at her side, she chews her lip, brows knotted together. If she is remembering correctly…what she needs is waiting for her back in the property's garage.
Wordlessly, Clementine glances at A.J and nods towards the roadster, and then they start moving. He follows, silent, and trains his eyes onto the truck from over his shoulder. After another few strides, A.J asks, slowly, "He wasn't actually our friend, right?"
Clementine frowns in intrigue. "Hmm?"
A.J looks up. Coffee meets inferno. "You said 'this friend of ours.' He wasn't a friend, right?"
"No, he wasn't," Clementine murmurs. "It's called being sarcastic. He wasn't a friend at all."
His face contorts with thought. "Is being sar…cas-stick like lying?"
"Well…no, not really," Clementine answers. She searches through her words. "It's like saying two things at once. What I said is one thing, but what I meant was another."
"Oh…" A.J blinks. "So what did you meant?"
Clementine breathes a laugh, partially amused by A.J, though otherwise cynical. As they step through the garage door, she says, "I meant that he was in trouble."
"And then you killed him?"
"Only because…"
A.J nods shortly and finishes the line, one that Clementine nods to encouragingly: "He was dangerous and would hurt us again." He pauses as she rummages through the shed's steamer trunk, stocked with the food and tools that'll end up in the roadster. "How do you know that they were bad? They looked weaker than the group of men that found us last week."
Perfect. Clementine fishes out a siphon with a slight, relaxed grin. "Because…those men knocked on the door and asked us for supplies. These ones took you and planned on doing bad things."
"Well, I know they did that…"
She stood up and turned around. "It's not about how big and strong they look, it's about how dangerous they are on the inside."
"On the…inside?"
Clementine nods. "If you saw someone that got lost in the woods, would you help them?"
A.J squints and slowly mumbles, "I don't know…"
"Would you attack them, though?"
He shakes his head roughly. "No. I wouldn't do that." A.J frowns and rubs his knuckles. "They didn't do anything to me."
"Well then, you wouldn't be a danger to them, regardless of how big you are," she says.
"Oh… Inside." He prods the side of his head. "So like what they're thinking?"
Clementine strolls back out the door and answers, "Yes," with a nod.
"But you didn't kill those werewolves from the other house," A.J says pointedly. "They wanted to hurt us too, right?"
"Yes, they did."
"But you didn't kill them."
"No, I didn't."
"…because, they're like us? Werewolves?" A.J frowns when Clementine shakes her head. "But you just said we only kill when they're dangerous! And those people were dangerous!"
Clementine releases a tired breath. "Yes, I know. But in that situation, we were the dangerous ones, A.J. We were in their house."
He narrows his eyes and says, "We weren't planning on hurting them, though."
"Yes. We didn't know it was there house either, but they didn't like it, so we left," she explains. "They weren't there to hurt us because they wanted to hurt us, they were there trying to protect their house."
"But because these men were really trying to hurt us because they wanted to hurt us…they're dead now?"
"Yes." She pauses, both in her stride and words, to add, "We only kill if we have to, and if it's the last resort. These two probably had other friends they would've brought back with them, and that would've been really bad."
A.J's concentrated frown deepens, and he scratches his head along his hairline. "How do you know that?"
"They wanted to sell you."
"So sell means that people have other people."
Clementine weighs her head on either side. "Yes and no. Sell means you give something to someone, and they give you something. Usually with money, but people don't use that anymore."
"Oh, that paper stuff," A.J says, eyes wide with clarity. His face then sours with horror. "Were they going to me like I was the paper stuff?!" Clementine nods gravely. A disheartened whisper: "Oh…" He looks up to her, however, with the beginnings of a beam. "But you saved me and got rid of them!"
She nods again, still grave. "Yes, I did." Clementine swiftly scours across the garage to find an empty canister. She takes it with her free hand. Five gallon. So…five or six trips… Clementine reasons to herself, processing through her estimation. …four right into the car? With a chewed lip, she watches A.J before asking, "You did see more of these—" the 5-gallon canister is raised— "on one of the higher shelves, right?"
A.J nods. "Yeah. I think so."
"…okay."
Clementine resumes her stride towards the cabin, still running through the mental math. If their luck had been overturned despite the depravity that found them, she should be sitting on a few canisters of gas (on top of a full tank) by the end of all this.
"So what are we doing n—" Not even half-way, the pup nearly trips over his own halt. "…are we going back there?" A.J mumbles, brows furrowed as he turns to Clementine.
She sighs, and with another gentle laugh—this one more for comfort than anything—, Clementine answers, "They have gas, kiddo. And probably a bunch of other stuff we could use. Then we can get out of here."
He watches the truck through the trees, quite utterly suspicious. Not that Clementine could blame him, of course. "To a better house? This one kind of sucks."
Clementine's nod is slow. "Yes…to a better one." She glances over her shoulder back to the roadster. "Look, if you don't want to come back here, I understand, A.J. You can stay by the c—"
"That's what you said right before they snatched me!" A.J barks. He folds his arms. "No, I'm going to stay right next to you, I was just asking, honest!"
She blinks, blind-sided by his outburst—but, then again, she couldn't blame him. Voice soft, Clementine assures, "It was just an offer, A.J. You can help me find good stuff since you don't."
He nods shortly. "Right."
They resume with Clementine a mere stride ahead. She chews the inside of her cheek, scanning the length of the truck until she catches the edge of a square compartment. There… Clementine is quick to graft, even with the few pauses as she works with the siphon. It's of an older make, if she has to guess, though it seems that it's yet another thing valued for reliability. Every-so-often, Clementine would find that an older tool worked better than whatever had a fresh date branded on its side—fresh before the world went to shit, anyway. The more she thinks on it, however, the more she doubts that the world was much better before. Especially with how no one complains about the lack of corporations these days…
"It's on the other side."
Clementine jolts from her languid stream of thought and turns to A.J. He blinks. "It's on the left. Our car has it on the right."
She hums a quiet laugh. "I guess it is. You're very smart, kiddo."
A.J smiles, then fidgets in place. "So…can I get that box and put stuff in it?"
Clementine nods, then adds, appreciatively, "That would be good." Identically, he nods, and turns his attention to the knocked-over crate beside the wheel of the truck. When he grumbles a sour breath, Clementine arches a brow. "What?"
"It's broken." A.J picks up the wooden crate with care, only to find that the bottom is worse for wear. "Can we fix it?"
"I think so. But you can start putting some stuff in there," Clementine says. "I think I'll be able to pick it up if I'm careful about it."
"Okay. …so do I go find stuff then?"
"Yes."
"Oh! In the house?"
Clementine nods, eyeing the gas canister with an absent-minded, "Yeah, there should be some things in there we didn't get before." Inferno narrows before she pinches the siphon and slowly reels back the hose from the truck. Gasoline rests at a comfortable height in the canister. She snorts a quiet, satisfied grin. Sure, the hose isn't the best. It spilled a little, but whatever metal thing at the end—
Ice spears down her spine.
Fuck! The house! The body! A.J!
"Wait, A.J, actually I'll…!" Clementine wrenches upright, although, despite her impromptu haste, A.J is already paused at the door. She winces with each step towards the boy, and at the doorway, they overlook the unrisen death she had left behind. Her mouth is split open, yet there's no words.
When A.J meets her eyes, he glances at her arm as well. "Oh…" he hums knowingly. So that's why you're covered in blood. A.J looks at his own hands. Hands that are soft, and innocent, and human. Instead of the sharpened ridge of knuckles, then the edges of tendons that follow, instead of Clementine's, his are merely nicked by dirt and nails—accumulated through tonight. And his question is simple: "Will I be able to do that someday too?"
Simple, and a tad violent.
Clementine exhales quietly, then admits, quite weary, "Yes, you will." After a moment, however, she adds, "But only when you don't have a gun or a knife. It's a last resort only."
A.J frowns, and he looks up again. "But wouldn't that be wasteful? You could save the bullets and keep the knife for food. And monsters."
"It's more resourceful, but it's not good for your thoughts, A.J. If you do it too much, you'll end up like them."
"…dead?"
"Dangerous." Clementine watches the body. "And dead because people would be trying to defend themselves."
He nods slowly. "Oh… That makes sense."
To that, she leaves him the space to ponder aside from the light graze of his shoulder, beckoning him to clear away from the sight. As he does, the door is closed, and A.J trails after her as Clementine rears back to the truck's gas compartment. Once the canister is closed, and the siphon set carefully aside—overtop the box of supplies A.J gathered—, they're strolling the first round of filling the roadster's tank. A.J's attention lingers over his shoulder the majority of the way, however—towards where the second man lays.
Once through the trees, she anticipates whatever question he harbors:
"…Clem?"
"Yes, A.J?"
He fidgets with his hands. "Does this mean…that I can watch you kill monsters now?"
Clementine sighs tiredly. Whoever told her that children bounce back quickly wasn't kidding, and now she wonders if pups are more so. That, or A.J is a little weird. She eyes him with an arched brow, though finds that he's still pale, still rubbing the cuts along his knuckles. He watches her back, and Clementine catches a layer of fear.
That, or maybe this is A.J's way of trying to bounce back.
"Oh, okay… We can do that," she murmurs.
"Yay," A.J chirps quietly.
"But not wolfers yet, kiddo. Still too dangerous."
"…okay."
.
Night swims into the newborn, early morning, and Clementine has yet to sleep. Half of her is still rattled beside the running truck's engine, holding onto A.J as his tremors settle.
It's the same few thoughts that cycle through her, punishing any semblance of slumber.
And they're relentless.
They're all too familiar. The few that she—her human side, anyway—can never shake as the carnage around her runs rampant, which spawn from the very instincts of hers that remain unbridled. She's still unbothered by what should terrify her; her hands are still sharp and angled; her emotions are seemingly behind a lock and key.
Behind A.J.
She's not ready for when the moon comes for him, and for when it does, she plans to ask it one thing:
To keep the scrap of humanity her own stole.
Okay, okay, I know I need to quit publishing stuff. I know. Lol. bUT, for one, if it helps, the rest of this fic will be written before I publish. As in, I'll finish the rest and then post on a schedule, or all at once, haven't decided yet. This one shouldn't be extremely long. A few 100k words, give or take some odd thousand. Chunky, but not egregious. xD (AYDF will be updated for those who are wondering. That fic just takes a while and a lot out of me each time, but I do intend on finishing it next year. I promise. And by that, I mean I sincerely hope for my sake as well. Lol.) But, with this first chapter, I am really just using this as a gage. It's an interesting story for me so far, with it's own lil spice, so…yeah. :D
Two: this is an omegaverse/werewolf fic. However, I don't play by the general rules of either trope. Luckily for me, omegaverse (A/B/O) has wishy-washy rules anyway, so it doesn't mean that much, but there'll be talk on the dynamics and things in this. The way I'll go about it shouldn't be hand-fisted though, so if that genre isn't your cup of tea, this fic might still be of interest. Or it won't at all. Tis fine. xD As for werewolves, before I get comments asking about them, no, this isn't full transformation. Nor is there really any transformation aspect. Kinda. Sure, there's change. Like what Clementine went through in the beginning of the chapter, and then there'll be some moon stuff, but ye. If you're here for full-transformation werewolves or anything of the sort, um…sorry, this ain't the fic. xD This story's kinda a weird one with tropes. It is technically the tropes, but also technically not.
Ah well.
The troubles of a writer playing around with writing and formatting. And like. Tropes. Of course.
Lastly, three: with the story itself, it will follow the games, but not closely. Major canon divergence. Just to keep things interesting between my fics (with the other two in the making, one is as faithful as can be, and the other faithful half-way, lol). Obviously, it picks up from between seasons one and two, it'll carry through four. Time-skips. Hopping around. Blah, blah. You get the gist. xD But again, for those curious, this story is ultimately another retelling, but it's also omegaverse/werewolf AU thing.
Whelp, that's pretty much it for now. Time to sink back into the hole of university student trying to write. Lol.
Hope you enjoyed! And Happy Halloween.
:)