Omega
The Wolf
The wolf stared. Ryan stared. The world seemed to sway, and Sierra slammed the door in slow motion.
"Yeah, that's what I thought," the sergeant-elect took a moment to rub the back of her hand into her eyes – the sudden belief that she had been awake far too long playing into her reasoning.
Ryan, for his moment, couldn't quite get his mind to work. He registered time passing, he breathed, he even blinked once or twice, but higher reasoning just wasn't an option. The mental block was the simple perception that there was a wolf in his bathroom.
Jane, on the other hand, peered around his elbow with all the courage it took for a girl to confront her worst fear, and passed it by with a stolid bravado.
"What's with the dog?"
"It's a wolf," the canine in question voiced its existence to the world with a series of redundant yelps and short howls. In return, Sierra smacked the door, a motion that ended the yipping, before putting forth an answer to the question, "And it's none of your business, shrimp."
Jane shrugged, but by the sound Ryan had recovered enough to echo her previous statement, though amended,
"What's with the wolf?"
Sierra glared, and under drill that might have been something to fear. But, as it were, she was merely his neighbor and friend. On the other hand, Jane was little of the sort.
"Get lost, kid," and accordingly, the corporal seemed less enthusiastic to bring any such thing about. In the same vein, Jane took things as granted and never complained, even in situations for which Ryan imagined exceptionable.
Regardless, she left without a word. And he had slightly more important things to worry about.
"What happened?" Perhaps they had been thinking on a level, or maybe Sierra simply had some other consideration that demanded her attention, but the question snapped her back to vigilance.
"I turned around to find a pissed off wolf in your tub."
"What about the woman?"
"Like I said, when I turned around…" Sierra let it rest for, as if that weren't disturbing enough, "It's the same wolf, y'know."
"I think it likes you."
"Well I don't like it!"
"Shh," Ryan hissed, ever aware that the whole household was, most likely, awake by now. Sierra rolled her eyes, peeling off the door and headed for the window. It took a moment for the youth to realize it as such, "Where you going?"
"Home," acrimonious, Sierra clambered out onto the nearby balcony with less-than-her-usual grace, "I've had enough for one day."
Ryan followed her to the exit, for lack of knowing better.
"What about the wolf?"
"Call the Animal Sanction," Sierra suggested, before finding a reason to turn around, "Oh, and I want that vest back later."
Considering any more of the conversation would have had to be yelled across the ever-increasing distance, Ryan ducked back inside to deal with things as they had unfolded.
---
As it was, his mother had, indeed, woken to the commotion. It was a problem – how to go about ensuring that she did not, and hopefully never would, discover the big bad wolf hiding under the sink. Reprieve came about by his foundling angel.
"…And they got to roughhousing in the tub," Jane explained, deadpan as he found her standing between his kin and that accursed door, "It's a mess and I think they broke something."
He could have hoped for better, but beggars did not exist to choose. Instead, he thanked providence that Jane was there – he knew he picked her up for a reason.
Although that didn't stop him from blushing when his mothered turned to him to assess the truth of the case.
And, after all was said and after his family were convinced away from that particular room until he had cleaned it thoroughly, it didn't stop him from praising her tact and deception.
"You're wonderful," he insisted. He would have done better, but under the circumstances it had to do. Especially when she reminded him about the issue at hand.
"You still have a wolf to deal with," Ryan was at once surprised that she didn't ask and, yet, that he would assume her to do so. Even so, he was grateful for the time it saved.
"Yeah, well…" he considered this.
"I'll clean up if you take care of the… guest."
Ryan grimaced, "I would, but, it isn't exactly tame."
Impassive, his fellow yearling merely stared, "Then what were you planning to do?"
There was no good answer for that, short of explaining, in detail, why there should not have been a wolf at all. Not something he wanted to do per moment, so he set about finding a way to move the creature without bodily harm.
He hoped a towel would suffice.
On second, Jane handed him a belt, along with a bit of silent empathy.
"What's this?"
"For a muzzle," as though the reason was self-evident, "You said it wasn't tame."
"Experience?"
"Common sense."
Ryan couldn't argue with that, so he simply got to work. With a quick back-left-right glance, he ensured no one else had wandered by before venturing to open the door.
It was easier than he expected, staring down the wolf. It made him feel bad about the muzzle aspect, but he wasn't in the mind to take more risk than necessary. Long minutes later, he had the creature somewhat securely hidden in his bedroom closet, and he spent the time Jane bought for him to try to look up anything that would help – from wolves to facility this one had come from.
Unfortunately, hours and hours of no sleep, and the recent days of little to no sleep, was not a good foundation for research.
Maybe Sierra was right. Maybe he should have just called on the Animal Sanction to take care of it, but that seemed to easy for what he wanted to know….
---
Hours later, as it seemed, Ryan dreamt of a splitting headache. When waking didn't cure it, he pretended it didn't exist.
Jane had taken up seeking where he left off, although, never having asked, she was far less knowledgeable towards what she needed to find. Instead, she had scanned over information from press articles to the general database for anything remotely useful.
"You should probably feed it," so her first words after were, as often, based upon common reasoning.
Ryan empathized. It was early evening – he was hungry, and he knew the last time he had eaten. The same knowledge wasn't in his mind with regards to the wolf, but he knew how long it had been since he'd found it, which gave him a starting guess.
All the same.
"I don't exactly have a lot of dog food."
"If it's hungry enough, it'll probably eat shoelaces."
"I want to keep my shoelaces," Ryan smirked, "You?"
Jane shrugged, though not expressly defensive over her property, "It's your pet."
"Yeah, remind me," Ryan sighed, moving to check on the errant wolf.
He was less surprised than he could have been, yet more surprised than he should have been, to find that the wolf had vanished, now replaced by a woman that was becoming all-to-familiar. She stared up at him, blue eyes rueful as she offered him the belt back.
"Where the hell did you come from?" he asked, exhausted from the effort of trying to think it through. There was a wolf in a cage, then a woman in the street, replaced by a wolf in his bathtub, and now, same woman as mentioned in his closet where the wolf should have been.
Actually, one theory did make sense… hypothetically. In a movie with car chases and explosions and such, it was common enough, but in reality?
"Jane, is it the full moon yet?"
"Yesterday, 'til tomorrow."
"Ah," Ryan replied, hoping that explained everything in one of two ways – either he had a werewolf in his closet, or he'd gone lunar. He cast a glance over his shoulder, to where Jane sat at his desk, though to a similar curve, staring past him and at the closet's newest resident.
Ryan passed if off, imagining that she hadn't come to the same conclusion he had – something he was glad of.
"Hey, you know those clothes I wanted to borrow…?"
"Go for it," the girl said, taking the suggestion lightly, "But you have to get her off them first."
The deep navy bag that held – quite literally – everything Jane owned in the world happened to be situated under the strange lady. Ryan cursed.
"All right, miss," not that it worked the last time. He doubted she could even understand him, but he could still hope, "You can come on out, now… we aren't gonna hurt you, see?"
She seemed passive enough, until he gently tried to pull her out of the recess. It was then that things got hazy.
The woman struggled, falling into vain whimpers; the world evaporated into concepts – young, food, hurt, home – as well as some very distinct images. All of this faded into distinct thought as she slipped from Ryan's hands.
No hurt! Is good; is good!
The shrieking cut through his mind; the sudden absence thereof kept him off balance even after it faded into oblivion.
"What…?"
Breathless, speechless, he stared down, to the stranger at his feet. She had stopped writhing, but still covered her face with her arms.
Want go home!
Not a scream, but a plaintive whimper, it forced the question, "Did you hear that?"
"Hear what?"
As it appeared, he was in on something that Jane wasn't.
Despite the realization, his voice went forth without him, and he asked what he dared to know,
"Where's home?"
The young man didn't know what he expected; truth told, he expected little, and felt quite asinine asking.
Yet came another flood of imagery and feeling: cold, dry, shallow puddles, mud, dead grasses, bloody lupines, signs, shadows, death….
Stop! And it did; the stranger cringed at the command he didn't notice he having given as he dwelled on the one thing out of place.
A sign, written in a lettering he was unfamiliar with, and couldn't begin to interpret, stood out in his mind.
So he wrote it down.
"Cyrillic?" Jane ventured. Ever tranquil through the whole ordeal, she was starting to make Ryan suspicious.
"You know it?"
"No, but I recognize it."
A moment's silence, before Ryan came clean about what he suspected to be its source. She stared at him with that same serene doe stare.
"And you aren't bothered by any of this?" he finally demanded, exasperated. In return, Jane smirked.
"I choose not to be," she shrugged, letting it be.
"Whatever," Ryan sighed, giving up, "Look, think you can translate it?"
"Yeah; probably won't even take too long," she said, taking the piece of writing and setting to work. In the meanwhile, he settled onto the bed, glancing to the stranger. She still hadn't moved. Despite any chance of these odd happenings being discovered by any common caller, he wasn't about to try moving her again after all that.
He admitted to himself – she did have a certain charm… even if it were just the mystery clouding his judgment.
Home…
It was so simple a word-thought-concept, and so instantly swallowed by obscurity, that nearly slipped him by. It could have been a minutes' old memory and he wouldn't have been able to tell the difference.
Even so, what was a distinguished man to do?
Hang on, demoiselle; we're on it.