In. Out.
In. Out.
I felt my sides rise and fall with each breath I
took, my muzzle touched the ground and I lay splayed across damp grass beneath
an old oaken tree.
Thud-Thud!
Thud-Thud!
My heart restlessly beating against my rig cage, just listening to it pumping
blood around my body gave me comfort, comfort that I was still alive and well.
Crunch!
I resisted the impulse to jerk up. Instead I slowly raised my head from the
ground, and still lying down I opened one golden colored eye and stared at my
surroundings.
Nothing.
No source of the sound it was gone.
I pulled my shoulders, neck and head up so that I was half sitting half lying
down.
I cast a look at my left foreleg, it was torn, I got into a fight with Bulshive,
a lynx with a reputation of utter hatred to any wolf that happens to cross her
path, well it was that and protecting her litter.
I licked the wound clean again. Half closed my eyes.
Yawned.
SNAP!
I jerked up. This was not exactly voluntary. I stood silent, on all fours, ears
forwards and jaws ready.
SNAP! Crunch snap, thud, thud, crunch, crunch.
"Offffff!"
The sound was coming to my right, in front of me; I dove in a thicket, crouched
low to the ground.
"This is impossible!"
SNAP! Crunch, crunch, thud!
"Coommmmm'oon!" The voice gasped. "Urgh!"
I smelt despair, fear, and sensed urgency in the air.
"You lump of…I should…" In between gasps the human, as she appeared
across from the trees, continued to talk, "I should…just go…catch me
breath…they are…I swear!"
I watched silently as the huffing and puffing human dragged a stranger of the
valley along with her.
"I should just drop you off I should…. stupid, aren't I? Me and my
pity…say…urgh!" The human female, she wasn't very old, maybe sixteen,
eighteen years of age. She stopped
dragging the stranger across the ground, "Arrrgh!" She yelled in
frustration, kicked it.
The stranger groaned and moaned and started to get up on its feet.
"Sorry!" The human gasped, still panting, "Its just that…you're so
heavy and I was so tired, you aren't angry fell'er are you? I didn't mean
it, I swear it!"
"Linka Ghool, is…thankful. Linka is happy that he is free." His voice was
husky and low.
"Got that right mate, we aren't getting back there soon."
"Yes, not go back there soon, not go back there at all." He nodded his
bladed head. "Where to?"
"I dunno. What do you reckon?"
"Human have no home in forest?"
"Naoow. Naaow. We left the forest long, long ago, I know next to noting about
it, oh well, I do know a few things 'bout it, like maybe they got a few tigers and
lions."
Throughout the time I had laid silent, the two creatures didn't look like they
were going to go anywhere too soon.
I decided to take a drastic measure, besides, I was supposed to be helping
getting humans back, according to Aftran; any human that isn't a controller is
a free human.
These two had talked about being free…but the stranger…could he be free as
well?
Didn't matter, I suppose I could fight even with him, even with my bad leg.
I slinked out of the thicket quietly and inched towards the two. I yipped
quietly to get their attention.
They turned, both of them.
The stranger stared, the human yelped.
"Arrgh! It's a wolf! Run, run, run! Before he makes dog food of both you and
I!"
The human ran, the stranger stood stupid, not really knowing what do, and he
hadn't made up his mind about what to do either.
I stood in the plain view and watched them calmly, the human had ran a few feet
then stopped and looked back at me.
"It's not wanting to hurt us, what do you think Linka?"
"Linka not know."
The human started coming back. When she reached the stranger she paused, then
took a step forward, looking at my ripped foreleg.
I did something normally wouldn't do, but since I was in the company of a
human…a true human I should say, I decided to experiment, put my knowledge to
the test.
I looked into her eyes and as she took another step, I took a step back, tail
tucked down. A posture of submission.
"You're not going to attack us fell'er are you?" She said softly,
"look at your leg, got yourself into down right trouble haven't you?"
I shifted uneasily, would she come closer?
She did.
I took another step back, and somewhere, deep in my brain, a voice screamed go, go Silvern go! You fool. Go!
But I stayed, and the human stepped forward, I could smell her fear. I could
smell her fear just as well as I could smell my own.
You can attack! Or run! Outrun her! You can! GO!
I stood my ground, watched with paralyzed fear, fear so sudden that it choked
me.
You fool! You defied nature's law, what are you doing! Now you would die. Yes you would, you foolish wolf.
The human knelt on a knee, reached out with a hand and-
I jerked back, black lips drawn revealing glistening teeth.
"Easy." She muttered, she ripped part of the dead skins that she wore and
looked at me, in my eyes.
I stopped snarling, her gaze took my breath away.
The knowledge.
The power.
Power to help.
Knowledge to understand.
And fear. Mixed up with all of it was fear.
Of me, of the wolf.
Of what I could do? What? What could I do? I'm completely terrified!
She reached with a trembling hand and her fingers froze and-
My heart hammered.
-her finger tips brushed my fur.
"Yereow!"
She jumped back, I jerked away and ran off.
"Come back wolf! Come back! I'm not going to hurt you!"
What was I thinking?
But Herne, he was human too, even though...I shook my head angrily; human Herne
was, even though I have kept him in close company, I had always kept my distance
physically, and sometimes mentally.
Yet I never…I never met a real human, sure Herne was human, but he was
accustomed to life as a human with us wolves and with Achivil…that human…the
female…her green eyes burned into mine, her auburn hair glistened in the late
sun…she was purely human…and not until then had I really realized that I
wanted to know what it would be like.
It terrified me.
You are wolf.
But Aftran the Yeerk was a Yeerk, only her body and half her brain was whale.
A technology, she said it allowed one to become an animal for a period of time,
experience senses the way that animal would. She said she trapped herself.
I talked to Aftran, when Herne was gone, of course, he had stayed for a long
time along side the whale, but I asked Aftran…and the answer…Aftran
wouldn't understand, why would he?
I asked him about being a Yeerk.
A Yeerk in a human brain. I told him what word would you use to describe the
feeling? To be human and intercept the world not only as human physically, but
the way only a human could see the world.
Aftran said a word is not enough to describe the feeling, from someone who was
utterly inhuman, and strange… the sensations were overpowering.
I was not human, and I was strange.
And even though I keep my distance from humans. I know it is pretence.
A lot of wolves suspected this, they have seen me watch them, watch the strange
humans with queer smells. The controllers.
And why?
Because I envy them.
Silvern the human lover. Silvern a wolf that was bound to sell himself to the
humans.
They had a world I could only dream
about. And even if the humans did come back, I still would never experience what
it would be like to be human.
I caught a flash of something long ago, when I was a young cub. I saw my mother
bathed in the orange glow of campfire, inching towards the human…him placing a
hand on her head.
She liked it.
And I thought it disturbed her slightly.
It didn't.
She liked the human touch.
Mother, did she know anything about this? Could she explain to me…could she
explain why I was having problems with myself?
'Problems with Silvern.' I sneered at myself, 'you grow human every day. You make me
sick.'
That came from the wolf inside me.
And that made me sad, very sad indeed.