One Last Kill

Over a century ago, a virus surge almost wiped Humans, and Lycans alike, from the surface of the earth. Meanwhile, Lycans could fully recover thanks to their fast-healing ability, humans did not, and many who survived the virus displayed chronic lung and heart comorbidities. The Lycans' rapid healing wasn't what uncovered the two-millennium-long secret, virus survivors unable to control the beast primal instincts did it. The insight into Lycanthropy and what we were capable of became the catalyst to the Hunting Era. From age as early as twelve, humans trained to become hunters. Weapons were adapted to carry silver—the deadliest agent to our kind—and Cancer Research Centers became cure-seeking laboratories conducting all sorts of unethical werewolf experiments. For half a century, we were hunted, kept in captivity, and bred for research purposes.

After finding the cure for the deadly virus, you would think humanity would let us live our lives, but they didn't. Our lab-rat days carried on for another fifty years. Society created drugs capable of helping us control our animal side. However, that wasn't their end game. Breeding enhanced war Lycans soldiers, like me, was. Scientists forced gene-selected werewolf females and males to breed by injecting the female with a fertility cycle stimulation drug. The hormones produced by the female made it impossible for males to resist the mating call, forcing two strangers with no emotional ties to reproduce behind locked walls. Having a mate became pointless, if not a mortifying reality. But everything ends tonight. Just like any dream, when the sun rises tomorrow, my life-long nightmare will be over. I will live a normal life with a place to call home and the right to have a family, a job, education. A free woman will replace the killing beast within me. All I must do is one task successfully. They will cure me of the beast I harness inside—just one more kill.

The heavy rain pours down with no signs of stopping anytime soon. I peek around the corner, taking a mental note of the armed security personal executing their rounds a few meters away from my location. Two spotlight drones fly in a computerized pattern, while two guards keep watch from the top of the watchtowers flanking either side of the mansion's gate, where four more guards reinforce the military layout. In their beast form, two pairs of Lycans patrol the inner perimeter of the house, which takes precisely five minutes and twenty-three seconds to round, giving me two minutes, forty-one seconds, and a blink of an eye to penetrate the resistance Alpha's mansion successfully once I make it through the gates. Looking down to my digital watch, I read the military time 23hr 42min 18 sec.

Something about this house makes my stomach feel funny, and no, it's not something I ate for dinner because I didn't have any. It's probably just nerves. After all, this mission will change my entire life. Retrieving back to the shadows, I inhale through my nose and exhale slowly through my mouth, calming my inner beast as my back presses against the abandoned building's cold brick wall. The weather conditions will help me stay undetected, but I must be highly stealthy. This is a solo mission with no backup. If anything goes wrong, I am on my own.

My eyes detect movement next to me, my whole-body tenses to the thought of being caught, but it immediately relaxes as I realize it's just an old newspaper flapping with the wind. Its headline, dated Saturday 7th August 2145, reads: Lyco-Genetics Corp's breakthrough brings hope of a Werewolf-Free World.

Throughout the years' many werewolf packs were driven into extinction. If you got caught, you only had two options: become a living genetic experiment or die. Those who managed to escape kept themselves hidden, living in the uncertainty of a future. Till a month ago, when Lyco-Genetics Corporation (LGC) synthesized a drug to remove the were-gene from the Lycan DNA, turning any werewolf into a regular human being. No more nostril incineration because the guard patrolling your cell decided to fart on the job, or torturous ultrasound whistles played to keep you awake for days, or beasty mercenaries. Our species had a chance to a peaceful life, at last. But things are never as simple as we idealize them to be. Power-thirsty rulers wish to keep using us as living weapons, while others deem us unworthy of human life for crimes their leaders forced us to commit.