Chapter 9
Awakenings - Part Two
Meanwhile, far to the north of the city, Wolf awakened in no less unusual circumstances. His lupine senses became aware some time before his befuddled human mind caught up with them. He had exceptionally acute hearing and he lay still, absorbing the sounds around him, building a mental picture of his surroundings. It was very quiet. Too quiet. He had grown used to the ever present hum of the city during the weeks he had been living there. Now there was a profound silence. Strangely he began to hear sounds of the wild forest; leaves rustling through trees, birds far overhead, claws of a squirrel as it ran boldly up a branch. The sensations were muted though he realised, some distance away.
He snuffed a little, quietly. Immediately a dusty smell, almost mouldy, came to him. It reminded him vaguely of the library in the city where he had spent so many hours. Old books, an old building surely with many disused rooms recently opened. Lots of man scent, some of it very new, but none that he recognized immediately as friend or foe. He tensed as a faint Virginia-scent came to him, but was clearly old, at least a few days so. He opened his eyes to pale slits, seeing a pile of his clothing laying on the floor next to him. His mate's scent came from there.
He closed his eyes again, stretching out with all his other senses. His head hurt, so did his wrists and ankles. He flexed them, testing. Bruised but not broken. He had a vague memory of fighting to get his hands free from some metal contraptions. He poked his tongue out, tasting the air. Straight away he tasted human blood, dried on his lower lip. He licked at it. Not Virginia's. A male, a stranger. He opened his eyes again, finding his vision slightly blurred and somewhat tilted. Of course, he was lying on the floor. He felt air currents move over his body but they were not wind induced, rather the faint eddies found in large rooms. Inside somewhere then.
His vision gradually became clearer over the next hour or so, his mind more his own. He found himself trying to remember recent events but failing. Strange memories had surfaced and his mind was trying to catagorise them. He parents burning? No, that had happened 20 years ago he told himself firmly. Get a grip, Wolf! he scolded his mind. He had bitten into someone recently. Who? and why? His wolf-self chuckled. That'll teach them!
He began to look more closely at his surroundings. Bars, he could see bars clearly now. Suppressing a momentary panic, he realised he was in a cage. A cage! Not again, please, he begged himself, fervently wishing they weren't really there. There was no denying it though. It was a large cage, but a prison nonetheless. His wolf -self cowered, growling. He sat up, noticing that he was quite naked. His clothing lay just outside the bars, out of reach. He could smell water and saw a plastic pitcher of water on a small table inside his cell (no, don't think of it as a cell!). He craved the water, creeping across the floor to grab the jug, gulping the fluid down. There was a smallish chair to go with the table and another small container with a lid that he supposed might be the privy.
The cage was indeed in a large room with a high ceiling and unusual coloured glass windows. The floor was tile and his prison was the only large object he could see. His cage ran about 12 feet or so each side. There was no door that he could see, but he noticed that a large set of chains was attached to the top of it which were connected to a pulley system on the far wall. He sat down again, trying to fight off the natural despair that came to any wild creature so imprisoned. He had no clues as to how he had gotten here, and worse still, he had No Virginia.
His ears suddenly caught the sound of footsteps approaching, and male voices. They were coming from outside, coming this way. Quickly he curled up again on the floor, feigning sleep as the far door opened and several men entered. He lay as still as death, listening.