Aleu & Scarlett: Terror in Alaska

Chapter 2: A Monster Afoot?

Aleu awoke from her sleep with a start, having had a rather disturbing nightmare during the night. It had been a week since the odd quake in the forest, and the thought of one of those giant beasts still being alive had given her all sorts of visions and nightmares over the past 7 days. She glanced up from her position beside the couch in the living room and looked at the old clock in the corner of the room, trying to make out the time while still having foggy eyes from just waking up. After rubbing her eyes with her front paws and looking a second time, the clock read 8:10 AM. Aleu immediately jumped to her feet upon reading the time, realizing she was late to a meeting with the others at the warehouse. "Kodi's going to kill me when I get there, I'm sure of it..." she mumbled to herself upon the realization hitting her. Without another thought, the canine bolted out of the door hatch and ran off down the street toward the warehouse. "I can't believe I slept in on the one day I have to do something important. OF ALL DAYS!!", she berated herself as she ran down the road, dodging every human that stepped in her path. "I really ought to make something that notifies me when to get up", she added before turning the corner to the warehouse. 

"I'm giving her 5 more minutes to get in here before I start without her", Kodi stated as he paced the room anxiously waiting for his little sister to arrive. Balto, the two polar bears, Boris the goose, Kodi, Ralph, Dusty, and even Jenna had turned up for the meeting. "Get ahold of yourself Kodi, you're acting like she isn't even family to you", Ralph chimed in as he rose to his feet. Kodi immediately shot a look at the blue-toned sled dog, as he was clearly not having it today. "I know she's my sister Ralph, but it isn't exactly like her to be late to something like this. I do care for her, though sometimes I may look like I don't", Kodi defiantly spoke as he stood there looking around at everyone. Shortly after he had finished, the door creaked open and Aleu stepped inside with her head down and ears pinned back. "Sorry to keep you all waiting, I slept in by accident", she mumbled as she took a seat on a barrel next to her mother. "You certainly took your time getting here, sis", Kodi said while glaring at his younger sibling. Aleu instantly looked up with the same glare, although her eyes had a noticeable hint of fury in them. "I just woke up a few minutes ago and had to dash like I was running a sled race to get here, so don't go saying I took my sweet old time. I'm not in the mood for your intellect!!", she spat at her brother before Balto put a paw on her back. "Now now Aleu, that's quite enough. We were waiting patiently for you", the gray wolf-dog calmly reassured his daughter. Kodi respectfully did not respond to Aleu's outburst, knowing he was going to start a sibling fight with her if he continued. Instead, he turned to the matter at hand. 

"Now that we're all here and ready, I think we all know what we are gathered here to talk about. So recently, a quake occurred in the forest last week and we still don't know how it came to be what it was. The town also felt the quake from what I hear, and they all believe it was an earthquake aftershock or possibly volcanic activity", Kodi began, looking around at everyone as he addressed them. They all nodded in agreement, as they knew the activity that had occurred was odd indeed. "However, the shaking was consistent, as if in a pattern of some kind. Earthquakes do not shake like that, and we all know that. So either it's volcanoes-", Kodi said before he was abruptly cut off. "Or it's a monster of some kind", Aleu cut in with a serious tone. Everyone instantly turned their attention to Aleu, their eyes going wide with surprise. "The only monster I've seen around here is the giant marshmallow sitting right next to me", Boris chimed in, pointing his wing at Luk, who frowned and crossed his arms in utter embarrassment and shame. Everyone except Aleu burst out with laughter at Boris's comment, much to Luk's annoyance. "I'm serious guys, this could actually be a living, breathing monster. My human, Alexander, has been studying about these giant wolf-like beasts that roamed the land thousands of years ago but have since apparently gone extinct. But what if one member is still surviving, and caused that shaking?", Aleu retorted as she put her front left paw down on the floor defiantly. Kodi and Dusty looked at each other, having seen the information with Aleu in the house the previous week, and looked back at her. "Honestly, if it is a monster, then it probably would have revealed itself far sooner than this", Dusty stated while trying not to sound rude. Aleu turned to face her best friend, and nodded in respect. "That could be true, but it just seems like a coincidence that after I read Alexander's notes, an abnormal shake happens. So one of these creatures could still be around", she pointed out. "But for now, I will remain skeptical on this matter, as we don't have enough proof to conclude that one does still exist", Aleu added before allowing Kodi to continue. 

After the meeting had concluded, Dusty and Aleu met up at the dockside watching the water. The sun was giving the water a glassy look, making for a picturesque scene that would make any painter or photographer jealous. As they sat beside each other watching the waves, Dusty turned to her best friend with a curious face. "Do you really think one of those monsters could still be alive, and that it may have caused the quake? Sure, the idea is outlandish but given how you've told us about your supernatural experiences on your quest back in 1927 and similar experiences with the wolf pack, it's not out of the question", she asked. Dusty knew Aleu's limits, and was acknowledging the fact she was most likely pushing her luck with talking about this. But to her surprise, Aleu turned to her with a calm expression that looked as if she was actually happy someone else was taking interest. "You're really curious on this idea, aren't you best friend?", Aleu questioned. She then proceeded to nuzzle her friend out of pure happiness, knowing that Dusty was actually accepting the idea. "Well, I mean it's not impossible for one to still be alive. But from what the information in those books said, most of them were hostile and if one is here, let's hope it's not the same way", Dusty answered to Aleu. The cream canine looked off to the side with a slightly more nervous expression, now riddled with the prospect of this possible beast being evil in nature and attacking Alaska as a whole. Then, something that Aleu had skimmed over in the information books came back to her. "Wait up a minute! I just remembered something from those books!!", she blurted out before looking at Dusty with the most bewildered expression, prompting Dusty to stand up with interest. "We need to go back to my place and get that book down!", Aleu added as she dashed toward her home. Dusty followed behind, keeping pace with her friend. "Isn't Alexander in the house right now? If so, how can we sneak his books again without him noticing?", Dusty questioned as they dashed down the street toward the house. Aleu's eyes went bug-eyed when hit with this question, and the same heavy feeling in her stomach from when she tried to get the book down in the first place rose up again. "I-I don't know if he's still there, but he did say before I left that he had to go to White Mountain to pick up something he left there by accident. So we should be clear to go inside and get the book. Hopefully...", Aleu spoke to Dusty as they arrived at the house. The duo squeezed through the hatch in the door and checked the whole house for Alexander, but found no sign of him anywhere on the premises. "Ok we're clear, let's get that book down", Aleu spoke to her best friend, jumping up on a stand near the shelf and allowing Dusty to stand on her back. "Which book is it again? I can't remember which one it is", Dusty asked as she sifted through the books. "It should be a dark green book with a yellow stripe in the middle", Aleu stated to Dusty. After finding the right one, Dusty pulled it off the shelf and dropped it on the floor before jumping off. "What was it that you saw in the book?", she questioned as Aleu flipped through the pages. For the next few minutes, she continued to look all through the book before finding the page she was looking for. "Here it is. This is what I was talking about", she declared to Dusty. When Dusty took a look at the page, she was shocked to see that the same creatures were firing some sort of beam out of their mouths, kind of like how a spider shoots silk to trap victims. "This beam is supposedly their main weapon, a highly focused laser of energy capable of setting fire to mass amounts of trees and structures in a matter of moments", Aleu said as she read through the page depicting this weapon. "If this beast uses this beam, it could destroy all of Nome in mere minutes", she added. As the two looked at illustrations of the creatures using this beam, they discovered that the beam color varied from monster to monster, with some being blue, some being red, purple, green, and others. "I wonder what color beam this beast has, if one is even out there", Dusty pondered as she looked at the different drawings. Secretly she wanted to see one of these things up close, but all the same felt rather nervous about a towering beast hundreds of feet tall still existing in their society. But despite how the idea of one still being around was out of this world, she took her best friend seriously no matter what and was open to possibilities. After looking through the pages about this beam, Aleu placed the book back where it was. Now they were both aware of the power these things possessed, and how they could pose a major threat to the world if they were still alive. That is, if they were even antagonistic in nature. "Let's head to the forest and see if we can find anything that may explain the quake", Aleu suggested as she turned to the door and crawled through the hatch, with Dusty following suit. The two then ran for the woods at full speed, reaching the area where they played hide and seek in no time. The cracks in the ground were still visible as well, and in some areas one side of the split had risen above the other, creating a small cliff about 10 feet high. "Look around for anything that may hint to the shaking", Aleu instructed to her best friend as they split up and observed the surrounding area. 

Dusty turned and walked through the trees heading to the nearby valley, following a particularly large split in the ground and eventually reaching the top of a hill that lead down to a massive field below. The crack ran down the hill and through the field, joining up with other splits that seemed to be heading to the exact same spot. Dusty followed the path of the cracks to the place they seemed to be coming from, and they lead into the side of a tall cliff on the edge of the field about a mile away. A number of large boulders had fallen from the cliff's top and fallen in front of an already existing rock pile that was sitting against the cliffside. Dusty froze when she saw this, and her belief that a monster was nearby reached new heights upon seeing the cracks heading to the same spot and the rockslides on the cliff. "Maybe there really is a monster here....", she mumbled to herself and ran off to find Aleu. 

Aleu was observing the same area where she had been hiding when the shaking began, and wasn't having much luck. All that she could see was damaged trees, broken boulders and massive splits that had formed small cliffs as well. She was about to try and go to the lake and see if anything there had caused it when she heard Dusty calling for her, turning around to see her running through the trees. "I found where the cracks were coming from, and you may be right about a creature being here!!", Dusty exclaimed as she tried to catch her breath. Aleu's eyes widened for a moment, then turned to seriousness. "What did you find, Dusty? I need to see what you found", Aleu stated as she put a paw on Dusty's shoulder. Dusty slowly raised her head to look Aleu in the eyes, still visibly out of breath from running. "Follow me, I'll show you", she wheezed between breaths before turning and heading back to the valley with Aleu following behind. Before long, they reached the same hill at the edge of the valley and Dusty gestured to the same area she saw. Aleu looked at the cliff and her eyes went wide as ever when her gaze landed on the rocks scattered in front of the cliff. They seemed to almost be....blocking something. "We need to tell the others about this, and fast!!", Aleu exclaimed as they turned to run back to Nome. Something was going on in the valley, and the duo were almost certain they knew what it was. And it wasn't going to be good if their suspicions were true, that there was a gigantic monster buried inside the cliff, attempting to break out of its prison and wreak havoc on the world once again.