Wolf Dominion Volume 2

The next time I wake up, I wake up in a proper bed; springs digging into my back. I couldn’t be happier about it. I’m in a room covered in pretty strange looking vines – creeping in from the outside. The house itself looks like it’s made of crumbling concrete walls. It does not look stable.

My window does not exist, it’s just open air next to me over an open sill, which shows me a very tiny human settlement, living within some sparse concrete ruins in the middle of a dense forest.

I’m up high, three stories above the ground. Around me, I notice I am not in a makeshift hospital.

I’m simply in someone’s house. Someone important, since they are elevated above the huts spread out at the bottom.

This high ranking family has not much furniture, and what little clothes they have are hung from old hooks on the walls. The only things in here, are a single oil lamp, a pile of sticks set for a fire in a makeshift pit from half an old oil drum. A metal filing unit in the corner, wrapped with rope, acting as a safe? The corner of a broken mirror is glued onto the wall. Beds are laid out sparsely, more old mattresses covered in deer hides.

The pretty human things are the art, colourful paint covers the concrete walls. Chandeliers of dried branches hang from fishing lines, creating the word hope.

There are two more people here too.

They’ve been watching me this whole time.

An older man sitting on a wooden stump by the bed.

The familiar teenage boy sits on the floor beside him.

They had been watching me sleep and they had been waiting for my eyes to open. Eagerly awaiting me.

That wasn’t a good sign – it smelled of desperation.

I grab the plastic bottle of water next to my bed and I drink all of it in one go.

“You’re welcome that I didn’t kill you,” the boy interjects, trying to sound confident, “You owe us now. Tell us. Who are you? Why are you not with your own Kind?”

“My name is Ryder,” I lie back down, feeling like I need my strength to charge up, for whatever was to come next.

“This is the Elder Orrin,” the boy introduces, “My father. My name is Orrin as well. Orrin jnr.”

“Have you heard of these names; Hades? Opular?” I ask as I get some extra rest, waiting for the water to fill my veins.

“No,” the Elder takes over, “Who are they? Who do you ask for?”

“Two beautiful traitors. Where are the Elites of the Earth?” I ask, thinking sparsely over a few points of interest.

“They abandoned the Earth thousands of years ago,” Orrin jnr. explains.

“That doesn’t sound right. What is the year? I left Earth in 3,000. We were due back around, I guess, 3,009,” I put out a rough estimate.

“I don’t know what gave you that idea, but this is not that past,” the teen has a sparkle in his eyes, clearly about to drop a bombshell.

Oh, no.

What else had gone wrong with the wormhole?

The Elder tells me, “This is the year 14,598.”

“That just can’t be right,” I motion to this place, “This is not the future.”

“Earth died, Ryder. This is the only place humans remain. Destor. Ten thousand humans before your Kind came,” the Elder states this.

It catches me off guard.

Before?

“So how many humans remain now?” I whisper, “After?”

“…barely a thousand,” Orrin jnr. sounds unsure.

“Five hundred,” Orrin corrects his son, “And even less after this next battle concludes today. The Dominator Skye allows us to reinforce every seven days, to give us a lawful death. According to his law. The 12th battle ended this sundown. It was my last battalion of good fighting men. We are now down to –”

“Women and children,” I whisper.

Orrin nods. Orrin jnr. blushes faintly, because he’s not old enough to go to battle.

“It’s what Skye did on Genesis,” I explain, “It’s exactly what he did on Genesis.”

“Next week, we will have no one to send to the fight,” Orrin is honest, “Skye said when no one resists any further, they would come. For a peaceful final execution of us all.”

That fucking bastard.

“Tell us please. Who are you? Not your name again. Who. What. A soldier?” Orrin jnr. is keen to find out more about me.

I could lie.

To save my own skin.

But I was done with that.

“I am the Luna,” I admit outright.

“…and what does that mean to them…” Orrin jnr. is intrigued.

“A Queen,” Orrin guesses correctly, almost tempted to reach for his gun.

His hand’s twitching pauses when he sees the look in my eyes. A look I can’t control.

I can kill him and everyone here if I wanted too.

“Why are you separated from Skye?” Orrin measures himself and asks, very very carefully, “Your… Alpha?” he guesses very well. He is very wise.

“Listen. I am his enemy. I am what he does to humans. He thought I was human once. In the experiments on Genesis. And I am, what Skye made of nothing. I am not like you, nor like him. I have metal and gears separating my bones. I have no fear of death,” I meet their curious gazes, “I also hold Skye’s heart in my hand,” Orrin remains silent despite this juicy fact, “What weapons do you hold?” I ask.

The Elder doesn’t have to tell me… the fact he does – only serves to worry me further.

“We’re down to reserve ammunitions, a hundred bullets. We are working on capturing their Beasts for our own use. They do more damage than their lazers. Especially Skye’s war dog. The largest of them all.”

“How many Beasts have you captured?” I ask, raising a brow. They don’t want to answer. They look at one another but they are too embarrassed to say, “So, zero?” I guess.

“Yet,” Orrin jnr. is adamant they will succeed, “…they eat us, it’s hard to get close… but we will do it…”

“Xrat,” I begin, dismissing the fear of being eaten.

“That is the name of the Dominator’s beast, isn’t it?” Orrin guesses correctly.

I nod, “But Xrat is not Skye’s Wolf Beast. Xrat is mine. I can command him. I can call him to me. Here.”

“No – we don’t want him here –” Orrin goes so pale he looks like he might throw up.

“Xrat and I are all you need,” I smile, trying to reassure him.

“…but you’re one of them, why would you help us?” Orrin hisses, getting defensive, but rather, he is too desperate to snarl any harder. To sound authoritative. The bark ends with his trembling lips.

They’re all very weak. Orrin jnr. himself looks like he eats every other day.

They are exactly what Skye would enjoy hunting to death. There was no challenge to make Wolf Dominion retreat.

“I will help because I am the death of the Dominator.”

How else could I blandly put it?

“So, you’re telling us you will just kill the man you once loved?” Orrin is certainly no fool.

I smirk.

I rise up and grab his old collared shirt, to drag him over closer to my lips, so I can tell him, straight into his ear.

“I hate his guts,” my words drip with my violent need to get revenge, “For his crimes against us all, he will die by these wolf canines he put in my mouth. I will tear him to shreds.”

“What has he done to you?” Orrin pulls back, to ask this seriously.

“Skye took everything. Everything from me.”

“We are the same. There is no question. We are allies,” Orrin strikes out his hand, and I take it, firmly shaking it, “We have seven more days of freedom, before we’re all dead.”

I speak for us all, looking to Orrin jnr. especially, as the thought of death has his blood rushing out of his face, as quick terror sets in, “Calm. Even if we die trying. The dead will not kneel. Skye is looking for submission. Don’t give in. Do not walk into his gun looking for a merciful end. We must go screaming. They will never forget the sound.”

I watch father and son rise together.

“Let’s tell the others we have hope again,” Orrin speaks with a tear in his eye.

Orrin jnr. helps his father walk, and I notice then the Elder only has one and a half legs. Like me. Except he has nothing to replace it.

Before they reach the stairs, I hear them talking.

“…are you sure she’s not just a complete crazy-crazy, a damn lunatic?” Orrin jnr. whispers into Orrin’s ear on the way out.

I don’t tell him I can hear him, as I push my blankets off my legs and pick up an old strip of jerky where the bottle of water was.

Human generosity.

Human kindness.

I doubt they had enough for themselves.

But they had nothing left to bargain with.

This was a desperate situation.

Luckily they met me.

I chew on the jerky.

And I am left staring out at a green graveyard.

The graveyard of Earth.

Now it was just Destor. The Elites obviously warred until the planet was dead, and then they just abandoned the planet.

The poor were left behind – dwindled to ten thousand.

Reduced to five hundred in weeks since the landing of Genesis ships.

Skye, you fuck –

The meat in my stomach does not quench the thirst I have for his blood. I hear the blood rushing through my ears, as my heart booms fast in my chest.

Wolf Dominion deserved nothing.

They killed and killed and killed and killed, until they ruled slaves or those so scared their eyes fell to their feet.

I would not rest until the Alphas were all dead.

Skye. Mila. Raygar. Vastian.

If I did not stop them; they’d end this wounded world of all intelligent life.

Only blood thirsty monsters would remain.

When I’ve regained enough strength, I walk tentatively that night through the dense scrub and ferns close by – not really getting very far. I was learning the moss, the twisting roots and the slimy rocks. I was learning the terrain.

All the trees looked a little different from what I remember of the old Earth.

Now everything is... a little deformed. Leaves weren’t the right shape. Trunks were thicker and stumpier than usual.

I was worried this whole area had some kind of poisoning on it. I wasn’t sure it was radiation. I’m sure by the time the world ended, it was biochemical, toxins and poisons that would permeate the soil and the air.

The nature was twisted all around me.

Earth was a damn mess.

I lean against a thick tree trunk and slide down to sit after my small trek.

I tire quickly.

I needed to find proper food.

I needed to hunt.

There were no extra food supplies at the tiny village of humans behind me. They ate what they gathered only.

Where was Opular?

Where was Hades?

Were they prisoners?

Were they dead?

I can’t see shit around here. Forest. More forest.

Why was Skye calling himself the Dominator?

I have so many questions unanswered.

And then my eyes abruptly land on it.

On all of it.

Every answer at once.

It’s in one deep itching into the wood of an old thick tree opposite me. Done with an advanced lazer. I read the symbols.

A bear claw, lion paw, wolf fang and a slit reptilian eye symbol on the tree.

Below it…

THE DESTOR ALLIANCE.

“No,” I blurt out to the empty air.

No, it can’t be.

The Dominions could not be united.

Could they?

Under Skye?

I feel a sudden surge of fear.

It almost overrides the anger.

I have a clearer picture for once.

An alliance? Taking over Earth together – and clearing out the rest.

Now I really do wander where the hell Opular and Hades are.

An alliance could not be possible without them.

This wasn’t going to be a war.

This was impossible.

Five hundred humans, against four allied Dominions, under Skye?

Against me.

They had me.

Was I really humanities only hope?

Me?

I can’t believe it.

After every test on Genesis.

The irony in this makes me sick.