Paragenesis: Stories of the Dawn of Wraeththu (7 page)

‘Wha...what about Jamie...and
the others?’ I swallow, trying to ease the scratchiness of my
throat, a bit taken aback by how different my voice sounds now.

Adam - Athame - merely
chuckles. ‘Oh, we had them undergo the change as well. Only Jamie
survived.’ Athame laughs again, this time a sound of dark
amusement. ‘He will find that he’s not the top predator
anymore.’

‘Adam, what the hell is going
on? How has this happened to me? How long have I been here? Have
you starved me? But my eyes...?’

Athame puts a finger to his
lips to silence me. ‘This is your beginning. All that you knew,
that you were, you’ve left behind. All the old limitations of human
form are meaningless now. You are Wraeththu. You are har.’

They are just words. I stare at
him, this creature of dream with Adam’s eyes. ‘But how...?’

‘We gave you our blood, our
difference. This...’ His hand sweeps across my body, and I swear I
feel electric heat pouring from it. ‘This is our gift to you.
Humanity’s time is done. It is our time now. As Homo sapiens
replaced Cro-Magnon, it is time for us to replace humanity. Nature
has made us stronger and faster than man, as well as giving us
other gifts, including the ability to make man into our own
image.’

‘Then what am I?’

‘As I said, you are har, no
longer man, but one of us. Don’t be afraid of the changes. From now
on, Mikey is dead and gone. As of this morning, you shall be known
as Boline, the light to my darkness and the darkness to my light.’
He leans over me and exhales. The steam of his breath conjures
pictures in my mind: new possibilities unfolding, of dark days
filled with riots, rage and flames; of a glorious glowing city
filled with others like ourselves; of a new world rising from the
ashes unlike anything anyone could have ever imagined.

Something within me blossoms in
the darkness of my soul as those images fill my mind, a glowing
bloom of light that fills me with a new sense of purpose, a new
reason for being. I am no longer Mikey, the frightened and ugly kid
from the suburbs of Carmine. I am Boline, the blade who will help
usher in a new world.

The Dawn of
Hope

Suzanne Gabriel

Human death came in quick
flashes from the muzzle of the gun. The echoes continued to
reverberate around the old garage for longer than it took for the
bodies to fall. Some gambles don’t pay off, we should have known we
were pushing our luck. We’d gambled and we’d lost.

Civilization had crumbled to
the point of non-existence; it wasn’t very civil anymore. The city
was a burned out war zone; a shell. Those humans with means or
influence had fled to safe, fortress-like gated communities and we,
the lost and disenfranchised, found safety of sorts in gangs that
fought for survival against other gangs of humans; and we all
fought ‘Them’. We all feared Them – they called themselves
‘Wraeththu’, but we had other names for them. They were strange,
terrifying beings: faster, stronger, wild and unpredictable, and
far more deadly. Sometimes they made their presence known, winning
strategically impressive assaults against human strongholds and
sometimes they appeared out of nowhere, silently dispatching their
victims and then disappearing without a trace.

We’d lost this one. Our gang
had been harrying a group of these strange creatures for a few
months, but we’d fallen into a trap they’d set for us.

More shots rang out, and one by
one more bodies fell. I felt nothing other than a hopeless sense of
resignation. These were not my friends, these were my fellow gang
members; humans thrown together, as there was strength in numbers.
In this part of the city it was almost certain death to be on your
own, so membership of a gang was essential. I feared my fellow gang
members as much as we all feared these Wraeththu. I was the last
one left standing, being held firmly by two of Them. I hadn’t
fought; it seemed pointless.

Their leader approached me,
sneering. “Been watching? If you got anything to say – better say
it now.”

“Goodbye cruel world?” The
insolence of my tone and words certainly didn’t match what I was
feeling.

The Wraeththu threw back his
head and laughed. “You’re a pretty thing. You’d make a good little
plaything.” He grabbed my hair and kissed me roughly.

I fought then. I knew – or
thought I knew - what happened when they “played”; I’d rather be
shot.

There were a lot of them,
kicking and punching, and only one of me – I lost, fast. Balled
into a foetal position, I prayed for a quick end.

The leader rolled me onto my
back and placed his knee on my chest as he drew a knife from his
belt. The knife was big, silver, and cruelly serrated. He drew the
blade across the heel of his palm; blood spurted up immediately and
he licked the wound.

“Sharp!” He laughed spitefully.
“This’ll do some damage.”

I swallowed hard and closed my
eyes, but it didn’t do any good, I could still see the blade.

I held my breath and when I
felt him shift his weight a bit I bucked hard and rolled.

My bid for freedom didn’t get
me far; I ended up face down on the garage floor; my face pushed
into the oily reek of old car grease and gasoline. They had my arm
twisted so far behind my back that I held my breath afraid that
even the slightest movement would snap it. I could feel their
leader’s weight on me, pinning me to the floor.

“I like a fighter,” he growled,
his face near enough to my ear that I could feel the heat of his
breath.

The knife sliced into my left
shoulder. The leader grabbed the wound roughly, pressing hard into
my shoulder, twisting the wound until I yelled.

He lowered his face again, so
that his lips were touching my ear. “Now you are mine.”

Then one of his group shouted,
“They know we’re here! Let’s go! Fast! Move out! Go! Go! Go!”

The creatures reacted to the
alarm immediately. I was dragged to my feet and shoved at a tall
Wraeththu in a leather jacket.

“Don’t lose him,” barked their
leader.

They moved quickly and
silently. I was dragged, shoved, and hustled along with them; out
into the night street.

There were some yells and a
popping noise. Something whizzed past my face. I heard a grunt from
the creature dragging me and when he fell I dove for cover,
crawling through a small hole in a chain-linked fence.

Then I ran until the first dark
doorway arch I encountered. Although it smelled of urine and decay,
I pressed myself as flat as I could and waited. It seemed like
forever before the shouts and the running feet faded. Still I
waited.

Dawn found me beneath a rusty
fire escape hidden behind some battered garbage cans. I’d been
woken by the sound of squeaky wheels and shuffling feet. I waited
silently until they passed; two old men pushing an old shopping
cart loaded high with junk. They muttered to themselves as they
passed.

I weighed my options. I
couldn’t go back to my old ‘hood. I was alone now and I’d be marked
for revenge by all those with grievances, real or imagined, against
those I’d relied on. I also couldn’t stay out alone. You didn’t
survive alone. I’d have to squirrel into another area and try and
work my way into a new group.

I felt awful that morning: a
heavy queasiness accompanied by the chills, and my shoulder really
hurt to move. I was weak and shaky. Daylight in the city was safer
than night, but I still moved cautiously through the streets; it
never paid to draw attention to oneself.

As the morning wore on, I felt
progressively worse; nauseous. My stomach cramped. By midday my
head was swimming. I felt so sick and dizzy. I stopped to retch a
few times.

The earth began to rumble and a
mechanical throbbing filled the air, a warning that motivated me to
find safety behind a burnt-out wreck of a car. I huddled there as
several army patrol tanks and armoured cars rumbled slowly down the
street.

I’d often toyed with the idea
of flagging one of these patrols down and throwing myself at their
mercy, but they worked for those humans who existed in the gated
communities; there was no room in those safe havens for
disenfranchised hard-luck stragglers.

By late afternoon I was fairly
sure I was dying; whatever disease I’d picked up was progressing
rapidly. By the time I crawled into a rusty, crumbling dumpster, I
could barely walk. I huddled there scared and feeling beyond
miserable.

“Eww. He’s a mess.”

“Don’t look at me! I haven’t
done anyone in weeks…”

I could hear voices.

“Well get him out of there! We
can’t have him hollering like that out here. He’ll attract too much
attention.”

I tried opening my eyes, but it
was hard; they didn’t open all the way and my face felt swollen. I
could make out several figures. My stomach lurched; they were
Wraeththu. I closed my eyes again and sank away from the pain.

The next time I opened my eyes
all I felt was tired.

I blinked a few times and
gingerly tested my limbs. I was lying naked under a sheet in a
dingy room. From where I was lying on the floor I could see grey
light filtering through filthy windows high along the walls.

“Wakey wakey newbie,” a voice
drawled.

I turned my head toward the
voice. A slight figure in a dark hoodie sat slumped against the
wall opposite hugging his knees.

“What’s your name?” he asked as
he shifted forward and peered at me.

“Nolan.” My voice sounded
slightly slurred.

“They call me Mouse,” he said.
“It isn’t my name, but that’s what they call me. How you
feeling?”

I sat up cautiously, holding
the sheet tightly around me and peered around the dingy room.

“I feel okay,” I said.

“Consider yourself lucky. You
survived. A lot don’t make it through, you know.”

“Survived? What the hell did I
have?”

“Have?” His laugh was a short
bark. “You had
inception.
” Mouse shook his head at my
puzzled look. “Dumbass! You were incepted. You mutated. You went
through ‘The Change’. You’re a har now. You’re Wraeththu. One of
us. Get it?”

I stared at him for a moment as
his words sunk in. “A har?” I asked, blankly.

Mouse nodded. “Har. It’s what
we call ourselves. It’s what you are now. Har. Wraeththu.”

“But how?” This was
surreal.

“How should I know?” Mouse
shrugged. “We found you in the dumpster. You must have got blood
from a har somehow at some point. It’s the only way I know of for
inception to happen.”

I didn’t say anything, but in
my minds’ eye conjured up the scene in the garage; I could see the
Wraeththu gang leader and his knife. That must have been how it had
happened.

I looked down at myself. I was
definitely different. What little chest hair I had developed was
gone, as was the hair on my arms. My hand came up to touch my face.
My chin was smooth, not a hint of beard stubble. I felt a little
different too. I felt slightly ‘wobbly’, as if I’d suddenly come
out of a doorway to find myself balancing precariously at the very
edge of a skyscraper’s roof. I felt a vastness and expanse that
both thrilled me and terrified me.

I looked up at Mouse. He smiled
slightly.

“Yeah, there are differences.”
He said in answer to a question I had not asked out loud. “Brace
yourself before you look under the sheet.”

I dropped my eyes again to
where the sheet lay across my lap and swallowed hard as an uneasy
feeling twisted my stomach.

“Wraeththu blood turns humans
into Wraeththu?” I was still trying to wrap my head around this new
wrinkle in reality.

We humans had known the
Wraeththu were
different
and that they were enemies of
humanity, but other than that I did not know much else about them.
They were shrouded in mystery and suspicion. So many rumours and
wild stories about them were told it was hard to know what to
believe.

“Blood and three days of hell.
Those are the facts of life, my friend,” Mouse replied, nodding
curtly.

“So I’m Wraeththu now?” I asked
again slowly. This seemed very surreal

“Mostly. There is one more
thing that needs to happen. To be completely har you’ve got to
spend some time with Dawson.” Mouse leered at me for a moment. “And
maybe a few of the others too.” He smiled an odd tight smile before
looking away quickly. “I’d better go tell them you’re ready.” He
scrambled to his feet.

“Ready for what?” I called
after him, but I got no answer.

Mouse and I often scavenged
together. We usually set out in the mornings and in the
mid-afternoon had hauled our treasures back to our home in an
abandoned warehouse by now unused train tracks. I was one of them
now; I was Wraeththu. To me, there seemed not much difference
between being human and being one of them. Life was still harsh and
violent, and we still struggled for territory and dwindling
resources. My life had settled down to a dreary routine of
scavenging, helping to maintain our territory, sleeping, cleaning,
and trying to attract as little attention to myself as possible.
Dawson, our crew leader, wasn’t terribly fond of me; I didn’t fit
in.

That day’s scavenging had been
successful; we’d found a bag of old clothes and we’d managed to
steal a case of canned peas.

That afternoon was different
from most. When Mouse and I returned to the warehouse, our clan
weren’t the only ones there; Dawson appeared to be
entertaining.

“You’re late,” Dawson
barked.

“Sorry,” I replied. “We had to
be careful – wanted to be sure we weren’t followed.”

“Tanks! Bunches of them!” Mouse
supplied, nodding enthusiastically.

Dawson waved his hand
autocratically. “Come over here and meet my guests.”