Chapter 3 - Howl of the Wolf

A short story to accompany a friend's new series of short stories.
This is based in my Weredragon universe, but, with completely new characters, so sorry, no Shadow, no Xan or Bently, Ode or Vampire sisters.
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Deena gets taunted and bullied at school because she's different. But not the kind of 'different' you're thinking about. She's Human and also growing scales and feathers and has no idea why, so after an incident with the school's bully, she flees into the night.

Everything (c) me (Amy)
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Howl Of The Wolf: Welcome To The Underground


Deena sat at her desk, school book open and at least a paragraph and a half written down on the history of the too - much talked about Great War. She'd just started writing it when the teacher, Mr. Swofferson started babbling again, in his dreary mono-tone, the single pitch sound enough to put even the hardiest of student to sleep. She was the only one to the two seater desk, the other students refusing to go near her, the politest thing they ever do really, since the rest of the time between being ignored they rip the shoot out of her by mocking her and staring with disgusted looks etched upon their features, unable to peel their line of sight away from the light green and pale yellow scales that dappled her brow like small beads of sweat or the small leaf green downy feathers that clung to the area of bare flesh just beneath her ear lobes. It was something she couldn't help. The scales and feathers had come along during puberty, making this stage of her life all the more miserable and intolerable. Plucking the feathers didn't work. They were back the following evening and it hurt too much to do it in one go. And make up just seemed to slide off the marble - smooth scales, something that depleated her meager paper round wages quicker than she could breath, so she just gave up all together. She didn't know why they were there. They were even spreading to different parts of her body. Her deep brown hair was slowly being shed, more of these downy feathers sprouting out of the hair follicles to replace what she'd lost to her hair brush or the shower. Even her doctors didn't know what to do or why it was happening. Her family was slowly shunning her. She's lost contact with her aunt Leena, grandad Ken and a handfull of cousins. She was slowly departing from her immediate family now, too.

A paper ball to the back of her head tugged her out of her thoughts. Swofferson was scribbling some incoherent scrawl on the white board, the dry marker squeeking across the cold surface with each curve and line to each letter, completely ignoring the goings on in his class, submerged fully into his own little world of battles, petty and major, leaving the class of thirty to have a briefe mess around. Deena looked over her shoulder, her greying eyes focusing sharply on her paper ball assailant. Another girl, twice her own age, sat back in her hard plastic chair, tilting it onto it's back legs, a foot resting on the corner of the desk. Her bleached hair was pulled back tight enough to pass off as a face lift, gold necklaces and bracelets adorned her neck and wrists and her make up was thick and bright. Her name was Braken, or at least that's what the other kids called her. She smiled cruelly, showing cigarette yellow stained teeth.
'' Allo, Freaky m'dear. Walking home again today, hm?'' She said.
Deena turned her back. Braken was one of the toughest bullies in the school, and she knew exactly what was comming.
''How's about we have another little get together, yeah? You, me and the girls. How's that sound?''
Deena took a deep breath. It was nearly three twenty already. Five more long and tedious minutes until the terror of the weekly beating began. She heard Braken chuckle under her breath and her foot slid from the table when Swofferson turned around, a frown creasing and pulling his wrinkles together.
''Homework for tomorrow: I want you to write down paragraph A-1 of page three - four - eight in your history text books and explain it's meaning in three full pages.'' He snapped in his famous monotonous voice.
Deena replaced her pen and ruler back into her tin pencil case and slid it back into her pack alongside her books, all the while trying to stop her increasingly scaling hands from shaking. Then the bell went. That lame sounding horn - like siren blatting off one three second wail, signalling the end of school and the start of fresh cuts and bruises. Behind her, Braken grinned, her catalogue bought jewelry clattering as she shifted.
Deena stayed seated for as long as possible, choosing to exit with the bulk of the class, a feat easier said than done.


She walked uneasily down the wide pathway that was wedged helplessly between the conjoined back yards of the housing estate, the odd black wheeley bin sat dormant at a tall wooden gate, seemingly watching idly as she walked by them, knuckles turning white as she gripped the shoulder strap of her pack all the more tighter as more foot falls sounded out behind her, creating a chorus of scrunching debris beneath leather school shoes. Whispers and giggles and a few shushes ''It might hear you.'' and she sped up her pace. Deena marched toward the final corner, trying hard not to break into a run. Running always brought her down quickest. That final corner signalled safety, a place where she could see her home from, a small, but tidy semi detached house sat on a long row of semi detacheds. No such luck. Not this time. The foot falls behind her had sped up rapidly and were gaining quicker than she'd have liked, her brain clicking into gear just at the last moment, sending her seven footsteps forward before being pushed heavily to the floor, skinning the balls of her hands as she landed face first on the partially gravelled ground, just barely avoiding cracking her skull open.
''Thought y'might try and outrun us again, eh?'' Braken tutted in a huffing breath. ''Naughty little dog. How many times do we have to tell ya, eh? Don't run away. It'll only end in tears.''
''Looks like we're gonna have to up the lessons a notch.'' Sneered another girl, one of Braken's tag-alongs.
''That sounds like an idea.'' Braken said, mocking edging her greasy tone.

Deena squirmed and screamed for help, knowing full well that none would come. A heavy foot landed in her side, a searing pain bolting up her side, making her try and curl up, but the hands pinning her didn't allow for such meager forms of defence. Another kick, this one to the face. A trickle of blood, followed by a tooth being spat out onto the ground. A cruel laugh then another kick, the jeering of the girls blocking out all other sounds. Deena continued to wriggle and thrash, managing to free a leg, kicking one girl in the stomach, making her reel, severely winded. A moment of shocked panic and Deena grabbed her chance and twisted to her feet, pulling herself out of the grip of two more girls, her right arm still trapped firmly in the grip of Braken's right hand. Braken snarled something and came back at Deena, Deena putting her free arm up to shield her face from the in-comming punch, instead a horrifically sharp pain shooting up her arm as the skin on the underside of her wrist split open, a deep yellow pointed length of what could only be described as bone, sliding out of her arm fast, slicing Braken's face open, scarring the bone beneath, narrowly avoiding her left eye. Braken cried out and fell back, clutching at her face and screaming. Deena took a step back, her eyes slowly going from girl to girl then to her wrist where the sharp, horn like bone protruded from, heavily bloodied and acheing. Bile rose up in her mouth, mixing with the taste of blood and stinging the crater in her gum where her tooth had once been. She curled over as the remains of her school dinner hit the floor with a coughing heave and a wet slap. Once she told herself she was empty of anything chuckable, she violently shook her arm with as much force as possible, panicked whimpers, rapidly turning into sobs as she mumbled under her laboured breath. She took one last look at the girls, Braken crying hard and swearing angrily, her hands bloodied and clinging to her face as her so called friends huddled around her, one with a mobile phone to her ear. Deena mumbled an apology, the best she could muster, but her own tears won out and she ran as hard as she could, trying to outrun the memories of what had just happened. It was an accident. She told herself as she ran, no destination in sight. Just a freak accident.


She sat huddled on the edge of her bed, her left arm firmly wrapped in bandages beneath a long sleeved shirt, her favourite teddy pressed hard against her chest, nose buried in it's plush, balding head, a familiar scent to ease the day's pain. She tried to shoo everything out of her mind. Braken, her parents asking her questions about the blood stains, the questions becomming all the more intense when the police turned up. She stared out of her window, the stars glittering in the sky and the near full moons hanging low in the sky like two giant baubles. She edged closer to the window and heaved it upwards, propping it up with a lump of wood she'd found in her father's shed. She made herself as comfortable as possible on the window sill and looked out across the street and towards the forest. She inhaled the muggy summer night's air deeply and glanced at the clock. Four thirty five am, and still she couldn't sleep. A distant sound pulled her attention back out towards the forest. A strange sound, one that only seems to happen every so often. She'd tried figuring out what the sound was, but to no avail, her imagination always settling down on one of the creatures from tales her grandma used to regail her with about creatures that lived underground, hiding from the light. When she'd pried more about these creatures, she'd only been answered with a typical ''They're monsters, and if you ever see one, run.''
That's all her grandma would say, frustrating the young and curious Deena to no end. But then, she'd also heard other stories about what lay hidden beneath her feet. Some said similiar things to her grandma, saying that they were monsters, only emerging at night to hunt unsuspecting people. But only a handful would say the opposite; that the underground was a refuge of sorts for misfits and otherworldly creatures, saying that they'd caught a glimpse of them comming and going, climbing in and out of manholes that have been long forgotten by the council and the mass populace in general. She'd seen a few of these manholes dotted about, in the city and in the suburbs, their long since changed city emblem rusting and fading with time. She knew she wouldn't stop changing. And after what happened with Braken, now the previous day, still haunted her and propelled her to pack a back pack that she'd pulled from the top shelf of her closet, stuffing it with her tooth brush, deodorant, hair brush and whatever else she may need. She zipped up her bag, slung it on her shoulder and hesitated. A quick look into the mirror to her right and she herself for what she was; a monster. But it was only looks. She didn't feel like one. She only held an ounce of guilt for what she'd recently done. She took a deep breath, hooked a leg out of her window and steadily shimmied her way down the drain pipe, landing neatly on the grass below. She took one last look at her house, her garden and headed for the gate, a possible manhole location in mind. She knew she'd seen one close by. But would it be the correct one? It was a chance she wanted to take.


Deena wandered cautiously down an old alleyway between an old car workshop and a block of public toilets, looking about herself carefully, on a constant alert for any late night or early morning moochers. She stopped at the very end and looked around, finally spying a raised manhole to her left, set, secreted away in a shallow cubby hole, litter splayed around it's base. She kicked off an old beer can and winced inwardly when it sloshed metallically against the ground. Another look around. No one. She crouched, inspecting the steel plate's insignia. A Phoenix style bird clutching what seemed to be a spear lay embossed and worn on the rusting surface. It was the city's old insignia, a good omen for Deena. She took a deep breath and wiped at the cool surface with a hand and crouched further until her ear just barely grazed the rough texture of the steel. She fancied she could hear the sounds of life from beneath the heavy cover and tried to supress a grin. Now her only problem was, how to remove the heavy cover. She steeled herselfand rummaged through the masses of rubbish, finally comming across a disgarded crowbar. Though it could've been placed there for a reason... She pondered, gripping the metal bar with steadily shaking hands. She approached the manhole, forced the long end of the crowbar into a hole in it's cover and heaved as hard as she could until it finally shifted, being pried and forced from it's resting place. A waft of heat bellowed up into the early morning air, carrying an array of scents with it, each one assaulting her sense of smell with the force of freshly laid tarmac, making her gag and cover her nose with her sleeve. She peered down, spying a bright light at the bottom. There was a ladder leading down to a platform, then another ladder. One last look at the outside world and she grabbed her pack and carefully descended a few steps so she could try and pull the cover back across. But she was too weak, that first bout with the cover having taken much more out of her than she realised, so the cover stayed put, partially covering the hole.

As she landed on what she assumed to be the ground her ears popped again and all sounds suddenly became loud, the scents stronger and lights brighter. A heavy hand landed on her shoulder and she shrieked and ducked out of the way. A strange looking man in a black, heavily padded uniform stood infront of her. She eyed him carefully and quickly, spying the large gun tucked away, camoflaged against his heavy black armour. His hair was a brilliant red fur, firey slit pupilled eyes and when he spoke, she fancied she could spy fangs.
''Well? Where's your ID?'' He ordered.
''I-ID...?'' She said, trying to avoid the fear creeping further into her voice.
He bowed his head, dipping his shoulders forward and came to her eye level, seemingly inspecting her thoroughly, his gaze piercing through into her mind and soul.
''A Surface Dweller, huh?'' He re-gained his posture and gave a small roll of his shoulders. ''What's your business here?''
''Uhm...'' She faultered. ''Refuge...?''
A hazarded guess of an answer, but he raised an eyebrow.
''Wait here and don't move.'' He ordered again and turned around, ducking into a small doorway.
A murmered one sided conversation and he returned.
''A woman called Shelby is on her way. She's the one you need to talk to.''
Deena nodded uneasily, her mind abuzz with one too many thoughts. Was this really the Underground? How big was it? Where would she stay and what would she do? Would her small amount of pocket money even be valid here? She had no idea and a before she even knew what was going on, a blue, hovering vehicle pulled up at the low railing just off to her left and a short, stout woman with white skin and hair, deep blue eyes and a red skirt suit stepped onto the catwalk, briefcase in a leather clad hand, her other hand outstretched in greeting as she strode swiftly toward Deena. She took Deena's hand and gave it a firm shake.
''My name is Shelby and I hear you're new in town and looking for shelter?''
Deena was taken aback. Neither Shelby nor the man had looked at her in disgust or distaste, she realised. Maybe they'd seen more like her and could answer her questions and shed some light onto what she was going through.

''Now, now. Don't be scared. I know you're still just a fledgling, but we welcome all ages, here. All I need to ask you is a few questions.'' Shelby said.
The word 'fledgling' hit Deena's mind like a rock. She'd never been called that before. Ever. Shelby guided her over to the car and rested some paperwork on the roof. Deena watched, fascinated by the vehicle. Never before had she seen a car float in mid air.
''What's your name?''
Deena snapped back to reality and looked at Shelby.
''Uh, Deena.'' She replied simply.
Her name was scriblled down and the questions flowed like water. Then she had to explain why she was requesting refuge, a task much harder than the first few times she'd had to tell the tale. But the woman just looked at her sympathetically and the guard didn't shift at all.
''If it's anything to go by, I landed a forty seven year old man in hospital when I was twelve.'' Shelby said.
Deena stared at her.
''I threw a spoon at him. Broke five of his ribs.'' She grinned. ''Now then, I'll just do a quick scan of this and send your picture in so my boss can have a quick look. Fingers crossed.''
She picked up a small device and the light flashed. Then she produced a long, thin device and swiped it across the paper work before typing a code into the back of the small camera.
''Shan't be long.'' Shelby said and Deena managed a weak.
Shelby upheld a small conversation, telling Deena what it was like in the Underground and telling her about what she was going through. Apparently there was a certain gene that skipped several generations, but became active at random, usually spurred on into evolving during the ages of thriteen to eighteen. Now she knew what to expect, she wasn't to worried about it anymore. Everyone had been panicking for no reason.

A bleep then a short ring and Shelby looked down at the back of the camera, gave it a quick once over and pulled more papers out of her briefcase. A few signatures were signed, a green piece of paper was stamped and handed to Deena.
''Welcome to the Underground.'' Shelby announced with a smile. ''Take this over to the Civillian Station and they'll do the rest. Here's a map of where you need to go and a number to call incase you get stuck, okay? Now go on, get yourself sorted out and ready to explore. I hope to see you again.''
Another smile and she climbed back into her car, all paper work gathered and she drove off, leaving Deena behind on the catwalk car dock, clutching her pack in one hand and a piece of paper in the other. She looked at the guard, dumbfounded and he gave a small, knowing grin.
''Through that archway, go left then down two levels. Follow the blue and green stripes, you can't miss it.'' He said.
Deena took a deep, shuddering breath. The thought of what she'd just done was slowly creeping up on her as she walked towards the archway. She stepped out on the main catwalk, a flow of weird and wonderful people, all dressed in studs, colourful leathers, fishnets and heavy jewelry flowed around her like water does a rock. She looked all about her. All kinds of species and races were going about their daily business, neon signs lit up the cavernous, metallic and rock carved city. There were at least ten levels above her head. And then she looked down. She forced her way toward the safety railing and peered down into the masses of floating vehicles, puffs and streams of steam and smoke spraying from small ruptures, accidental or otherwise, in the network of pipes. Nets stretched between the catwalks at seemingly random intervals. She looked down again, feeling her stomach lurch once more as she looked down upon the colourful heads of those on the catwalk below her feet. This would take some getting used to. She thought and edged along in the direction the guard had told her to go in. She battled her way through the crowds and descended two levels as told to and found the blue and green stripes along with the sign posts. Another ten minutes and she was stood in the doorway, somewhat relieved that she wouldn't be alone in the waiting room. She approached the main desk, handed over the piece of paper and waited.
''Please take a seat. We will be with you shortly.'' The man smiled and gestured at the row of plush looking seats.

Deena sank down into the cushions of a seat and sighed heavily, her mind wandering back to the surface, to what her parents would say when they found her gone. She'd definately have to enquire about surface visits. She thought, tears trying to force their way past her eyes. She wiped at her face with a sleeve and waited patiently for her new life to begin.

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