The Last Wilshire: The Government's Dog

Chapter 5: A Familiar Face

The trip from the port city in northern Niflheim down to the Northern border of Muspelheim took a little over a month due to the seas still being bound in winter's icy grip. The soldiers responsible for transporting me to Fólkvangr had to book passage aboard ships that specialized in breaking through the icy seas. Even then travel was slow going at the best of times. We had to stop twice out on the sea due to two blizzards, and we had to make two extra stops along the way. One stop was to offload the dead so that they could be returned to their families back in northern Niflheim, and the second stop was to restock food and water supplies due to the extended travel time.

"On your feet." I slowly stood from the hard floor of the ship's cargo hold where I had spent the time that it had taken to travel to the northern border of Muspelheim. I followed the soldier up onto the main deck of the ship. I had to shield my eyes against the sun after being down in the dark cargo hold for so long.

"Keep moving." I was shoved forward by one of the other soldiers that were responsible for transporting me to Fólkvangr. I glanced around for the third soldier that they had sent with the two I was currently with, but I didn't see them anywhere.

I glanced around as we walked down the ramp to disembark the ship. There were soldiers on the dock below, and two of them were carrying a stretcher with someone on it that was covered by a sheet from head to toe. The person underneath the sheet must have been the third soldier. I was led away from the dock to a motor carriage. I climbed inside with the two soldiers, and the motor carriage started to move heading further away from the docks.

I was able to see out of the windows of the motor carriage as it moved along the roads. All the trees that we passed were a lush green. There were fields of green grass that had flowers blooming. I found this to be a strange sight. Snow typically covered the ground for seven months or longer on Niflhel. There were some places where the snow never melted, but here it seemed as if winter had never come. It had only been maybe four months since the first snow had fallen on Niflhel. I turned away from the window. I was sure that more snow had fallen since that night and covered what it could of the remains of the tragedy that had occurred there.

It took nearly two hours to arrive in Fólkvangr from the docks where we had disembarked the ship, but our journey wasn't over. The motor carriage took us through Fólkvangr. The streets were clean and paved. The buildings were well-kept. Hardly anything looked out of place. The motor carriage left Fólkvangr behind and started to move over a long bridge to an island in the distance whose pure white buildings rose high into the sky. As the motor carriage got closer to the buildings, I noticed that they were adorned with golden decorations. This must have been Sessrúmnir the capital of the world government. The motor carriage came to a stop in front of a building at the center of the island. The soldier sitting in the back of the motor carriage with me opened the door and climbed out of the motor carriage.

"Get out." I climbed out of the motor carriage. The other soldier climbed out of the motor carriage and joined the one that had been sitting in the back with me. He shoved me towards the building causing me to fall. I scraped my hands and knees when I fell, and the wounds were slow to heal. I pushed myself up from the ground to stand and started walking.

The two soldiers led me into a large room where there were several people gathered. They were all wearing crisp white clothing, and when they turned to look at me, I saw their faces contort in disgust. They quickly left the room leaving me, the two soldiers, and one man who was sitting behind a desk. The man looked up from the papers he held in his hands. His eyes never even acknowledged my presence as he looked at the two soldiers.

"I have no use for trash. Discard of it like normal." The soldiers flinched but did not move. "I said to discard the trash." I saw a flicker of movement from behind the man sitting at his desk. A man wearing all black stepped forward. I wondered how I had missed him when he was such a stark contrast to the white room that we stood in.

"This trash as you call her is the young Wilshire." The man sitting behind the desk finally looked at me for the first time.

"You mean that scrawny disgusting thing is the Wilshire?" The man wearing all black nodded his head in response to the man sitting behind the desk. "She certainly didn't take after her mother. For a feline demon, that woman wasn't half bad to look at, but her looks are where her beauty ended." I clenched my teeth.

"I can prove it for you if you wish." The man sitting behind his desk waved his right hand as if to say go ahead to the man dressed in all black. "Do these words sound familiar?" The man wearing all black stepped around the desk and approached me. "Kill them all. Burn this island to the ground. Make sure not a single soul escapes." I stood there for a second staring at the man wearing all black with wide eyes.

"I'LL KILL YOU!" I lunged at the man. Flames ignited in the air around me before I was hit in the back of the head. I staggered forward and fell to the floor.

"I had so much fun on that island of yours. Their blood tasted so good, and their screams were like music to my ears." The man's voice faded away as my vision went black.

"There's a good girl. Come on now. Wake up!" Slowly I opened my eyes to find the man dressed in all black standing over me. Slowly I looked around. We weren't in the same room as before, and the officers that had escorted me were nowhere to be seen. "Let's get some things straight. You possess enhanced speed, strength, mental prowess, and regenerative abilities, and I'm sure you think that you're strong. The truth is you're weak. I could kill you now, but that would put a wrench in our plans to breed you." I tried to get up from the floor. "Did I say you could get up?" He grabbed me by the throat and threw me into the wall across the room. The air was knocked out of my lungs when I collided with the wall.

"Why?" The man hummed as he stood up straight.

"Why what?" I gasped for air and coughed.

"Why did you kill them?" The man looked at me with a bored expression.

"Simply because I could. It alleviated my boredom." I stared at the man for a moment before I slowly started to get up using the wall as support.

"You killed them because you were bored." The man shrugged.

"I don't see the problem here. They were only lowly feline demons. Just mere cattle for us to harvest as we see fit." I pushed away from the wall.

"They weren't cattle. They were mothers, fathers, grandparents, daughters, and sons. They were precious people each and every last one of them." The man walked towards me and punched me in the gut. I fell to the ground coughing.

"Eventually, you will learn the ways of Jörd and your place in it." The man turned and started walking towards the door.