Dorian's

Tchk! The sound reverberates from the metal door as Naomi bursts from within the facility. Barefoot, alone, but already in a sprint, she was now in the open and free to really run. She leans forward into the momentum, her jet-black hair falls from its tidy bun and trails behind her like a scarf of midnight. Her pale skin glows under the moon-light, yet she doesn’t need its guiding hand to find her way; for her destination is anywhere but here.

The Kindness Non-Indigenous Growth Hormone Therapy Clinic, or Kindness Clinic as it is more commonly known, has been Naomi’s home for many months now. The beast within has ached for the moonlight, the sky, and the stars above. Resisting one’s natural instincts is bound to take its toll on any man, and Naomi was much more.

As she dips into the forest, she takes solace behind the first tree she finds. She waits. She listens. The atmosphere carries no sound, until it does. Naomi dashes from that tree to another. Then another. She keeps herself low, seeing and hearing that which is not.

When moving from one tree to the next, the sound of broken branches catches her attention. As high as she was on fear and adrenaline, this small event breaks her mind furthermore. Her fight, and more importantly her flight, instincts come to a halt. In mid-run she halts abruptly, nearly toppling over herself.

She focuses her ears, trying to pinpoint the direction. The wolf within whimpers, caught between the desire to come forth and fight, and to cower inside.

Her body goes rigid, frayed nerves burn with excited fear. She hears nothing for a moment more until a sound from above shows a winged monster coming down upon her, its talon's point sparkling within the night sky. Fear abound, Naomi forgets cover and staying low, simply runs away with all her might. The last sound she hears before her heartbeat pounds within her ears is the twittery singsong of a bird from somewhere unknown. She then stumbles across a rushing river.

The torrents of this beast washes away all life. The River Styx is unmanned and unused. Yet it was her only path to freedom.

Gulping down a lungful of air that sears her lungs, she continues forward and makes the largest leap she can manage, but to no avail. She crashes halfway across the river and a new kind of fear assaults her as gallons of water slip down her throat. She tries to scream but it makes the problem worse. As she flails wildly, a set of strong arms pulls her free from the damnation.

She rolls across the ground, gurgling and coughing and vomiting up her body weight worth of water. Through the corner of her eyes she sees the most terrifying thing yet. Men. Not creatures of lore, but honest to god men. So much worse were they that a momentary lapse of judgment had Naomi scrambling back to the watery grave. But the creatures of her nightmares were having none of it as they reach out and grappled her, trying to force her down and still.

As terrifying as these beasts are, they do not scare the beast within Naomi and it manifests its fangs and tears into their arms. Warm blood coats her throat and the men stagger backward in fear of her. She takes the chance to stumble away, slowly gaining speed and distance.

Her joints burn under the new-found strain as bone scrapes against bone causing memories of a worse and more distant pain to flood her mind.

Naomi shakes her head trying to stop the oncoming torrent of memories. She slows to a jog as she starts to realize she is even more lost than before. As much as she tries to ignore the memories and the pain of it all, they still managed to distract her just enough.

Naomi slowly comes to a standstill, stumbling and catching herself on a jagged tree. It hurts, and hurts and hurts. She can't resist it anymore and finally, the dam collapses, spilling forth her tears. She slams her fist into the tree, damning herself and her cowardice.

She falls to her knees, dragging now bloodied hands down her prickly comfort. She is torn between the fear of her freedom and the fear of what she left behind.

That raspy, dreamy voice thuds within her mind, bringing her back to the past.

Her odyssey began many months earlier, a starving woman roamed the streets, no home to call her own, for she preferred it that way. A pack was considered a necessity for her kind, yet no pack ever felt like home to her.

It was during one such time when food was particularly scarce that Naomi found that the Kindness Clinic was running one of its charity events, screening the health of the land’s denizens, and giving them the warmth of dinner. To be ever wary is to be alive; and Naomi was a survivor. Yet the Kindness Clinic was known all over to represent their name well. It was during one such moment of strife-filled misapprehension that Naomi made the mistake of giving in to her need.

For in truth, beneath the surface, the K.N.I.G.H.T Clinic was waiting for just such an event at just such a time. Their real objective was to study the regenerative properties of Homo-Lupine in hopes of finding applications towards the plights of Homosapiens.

The food lulled her to sleep quickly and only the pain of the needles woke her from the deep slumber. Slumber, perhaps, is the incorrect word as she felt more tired than ever before. The IV’s cold drops tingle their entrances yet are quickly masked by the pain of another injection. Through the haze of her vision, Naomi sees the masked men nodding to one another over various charts and graphs.

What follows is a quick blur as chemical cocktails force Naomi into the twilight of being just out of reach from the sandman’s grasp yet no closer to being awake. It takes hours, perhaps days or weeks, for Naomi to gain some semblance of lucidity. This self-same night she hunches against the wall, the cold-damp steel reminding her she can feel more than pain and fear and betrayal. Betrayal of what, one might ask. Yet betrayal all the same; from the world, from fate, from the men and women with their pokes and prods and stabs and injections. Alone her kind is weak, she knew, but never home were they.

Through the slit in the door, that the guards use to occasionally gibe and tease and stare in wonder, Naomi is able to catch glimpses of small humans, children and the like, pass by. They are, more often than not, accompanied by a regimen of adults all ebbing and flowing through the dull-white hallway. On not one occasion, the processions had to be halted for a moment or more as the children take time to recoup themselves after fatal fits of coughing or seizing. Strange words can be heard through the small slit at times like these, “limited time,” “Lupine studies need to be redoubled,” “key to saving us all.”

Things of this nature and more gives pause to the whirlwind of muddled thoughts accosting Naomi’s mind. During these moments she wonders if her suffering is worthwhile; if it will all amount to something for another at some time.

But the clanging from the next cell over, draws her mind to more immediate times. “Anyone else out there?” A raspy voice echoes down the hall. Raspy and mangled, but beautiful all the same is it, and it makes Naomi’s pulse quicken akin to how one might react to a Siren’s song.

“I’m here,” Naomi calls out. Or, eventually, she does after great effort. It’s not known to her if she’s had a drink of water since before she was brought here. Her parched throat tears at itself as it struggles to move, to resonate and produce the sounds necessary.

“Thank god. I’ve been in here so long that at first, I thought you were nothing more than my imagination as you’ve never responded before. Are you okay?”

The voice quizzes Naomi in concern. The confusion of it all halts any possible reply. Before long she dismisses the question and asks one of more importance.

“Are you one of the doctors, or scientists, or ogres, or demons, or devils that poke and prod and probe and stab and cut and rip and tear into me?” Naomi’s words quicken as she lists her fears, all the more scared for the answer they may bring.

A small, musical laugh, so unexpected and out of place, rings from the girl. This angers Naomi and the beast within. Who is she, on her high-placed pedestal, to make light of the subjugation therein?

Something within forces without, a growl that grows from Naomi’s chest and escapes her lips.

“Down girl,” the voice tells Naomi before continuing, “But a Lupine eh? How rare. I’ve never met one in person before. I thought your kind were gone.”

“Not quite!” Naomi spits back.

“Ey, ey, ey, calm yourself. My name is Evangeline Sayagawa. Just call me ‘Eve’.” The girl introduces herself.

Her laissez-faire attitude is infuriating but it would be stupid, Naomi thinks, to squander this moment to learn more of what is going on.

“Naomi.”

“Naomi what?”

“Naomi.”

“Naomi it is, nice to meetcha!” This girl, “Eve” says with too much pep.

“Who are you?” Naomi asks.

“Well I would guess to be another subject, just like you.”

“And how do you know who I am here?”

“No one else would be down here. Trust me, I’ve been here a looooong time.”

Naomi realizes, for the first time since coming here, that sleep, actual sleep, is making itself known. Her head droops, but she quickly picks it up. She can’t afford to pass up the chance to learn more about her situation.

“How long?” She asks.

“I don’t know. Time flows differently when you’re in hell. But if I were to believe I’m taken away once a day, then given once a day to rest, then I have been in here for one-thousand, ninety-six days.”

Naomi’s head dips again before she shakes the sand from her eyes, using some quick mental math to stave off sleep a moment longer.

“Eve, that’s... three… years…” Naomi’s sleepy voice trails off near the end.

“Sleep well Naomi," is the last comforting thing she hears. And what she does.

At least, she does before the next set of pain awakens her. The mask around her mouth muffles her screams, a likely enjoyed side-effect for the people in the room. One woman slices through Naomi’s tendons on her left wrist. Immediately Naomi freezes with fear. The pain alone would be one thing but with the sliced tendons, she has lost control of the major motor functions in her hand. The doctors make note of her quickening heart rate and dilated pupils. One such woman falls backward in fear over the beast within pressing against the surface of Naomi. Yet a calm man, perhaps in his fifties, with short-cropped hair, peppered gray, and a nice suit, orders another man to release another injection. From her right, Naomi feels another needle serpentine into her veins. The burning sensation takes but a moment to run its course throughout the entirety of her body. With this, the beast is lulled to sleep and Naomi laments her one possible chance of escape.

The suited-man adjusts his black tie and orders the woman up and to continue her exercise. This man, Dorian Grey we’ll call him, towers over everyone else. His physical form is irrelevant for his persona places him twenty feet tall. With a quick-wit and well adjustments to real-time information, he is able to quickly assimilate all the information and regurgitate it as an order.

No sooner than the woman arriving back at Naomi’s side, did she gasp. She talks with passion and scrawls across her clipboard about the amazing healing Naomi, or “Lupine-655321” as they call her, exhibits. From their fervored-conversation, Naomi is able to gather that she regenerates at a higher rate than previous Lupines. This moment of pride is quickly quelled when another man, from behind, jabs a scalpel into her jugular. All sans Dorian Grey are quick to a tizzy. Yet his eyes, alone, focus on Naomi’s, pulling her spirit out. The pain from her wound is so great as to overwhelm the rest of her nerves, effectively leaving her numb. Yet a part of her is sure it is his will. And she knows neither of which is true.

A quick few minutes later and the wound heals like any other non-lethal injury. The men and women here nearly dance in their ecstatic displays of joviality. Dorian Grey orders prisoner 655321 to be put under as she is looking pale from the loss of blood.

It is in these final moments that Naomi stares deep into Dorian Grey, hoping with all hope, that both she and her wolf are able to dive deep into those cobalt eyes of his. Within, she tears and eviscerates and brings forth a reckoning unto his very soul. Yet, of course, she is able to do nothing of the sort for he is law. As the false slumber takes her, however, she notices one more point of pride. During this transaction, Dorian Grey has, infinitesimally small it may be, taken a step back. And so falls the god.