Fate Heals

Chapter Eight

The heat of the sun is becoming tiring, and I can feel my skin trying to burn from the constant exposure to the heated rays. Looking over at Alexis, I see that she has pulled out a t-shirt from her pack and draped it over her hair, letting it fall against the back of her neck and managing to keep it in place from where she knotted it under her chin. Not a bad idea, but I can't find the motivation to reach back in my pack and grab a shirt to do the same.

I have no idea how long we have been walking, each day passing in somewhat of a blur. My wolf spirit keeps fighting me, and there have been a couple times where I lost control completely. Alexis had had to tie me to a tree and wait for me to eventually calm down. Whenever I woke up after those episodes, I had a raging headache and rope burns in all the areas of my body that were in contact with the restraints.

Each time, Alexis had just looked at me, her lips pursed in worry but never saying anything out loud. It's probably for the best. I don't know what I would say if she started asking questions.

Because I have no fucking idea what to do with myself. My wolf spirit seems to know that I am distancing myself from Micah, and it is only seeming to become stronger. The solution to my problem is to wait it out, but I honestly don't know if I am going to make it.

But I have something that I am supposed to do, something to keep my mind occupied while I am out here wandering around.

The humans.

Just thinking about humans makes my skin crawl. Before this whole overtake of the infected, humans had not even known we existed. Well, maybe some had, but not the vast majority. We were relatively unharmed by them, and we intermingled with them on a daily basis.

But something about this viral outbreak has driven them mad. Alexis and I have both witnessed it many times, seeing the humans killing each other over simple things instead of working together towards something larger.

Since my wolf was fighting so hard to make me go back to pack lands, Alexis and I had decided to get as far away as we could, and then once I begin to gain more control of my body, we will turn around and go to investigate the humans that Micah had heard talking.

So, we decided to head Southwest, wanting to cross over to California and maybe even visit the coast. Who knows when we may be able to do that again.

While walking, sometime around the end of our first week being away from pack lands, we stumbled across some humans living inside a rundown church. We didn't think anything of it at first but decided to observe them from our hiding spot in the trees.

At first, nothing had seemed out of the ordinary, the humans going about their business as if nothing was amiss. The only thing that had seemed a bit strange was their clothing and the weird designs decorating their skin. They seemed to have succumbed to the heat, only wearing miniscule pieces of clothing over their genitals, but leaving everything else bare. The designs on their skin stood out the most though, weird shapes and symbols that I had never seen before. That was what made me want to observe them for longer than we usually do, curious to see if there was anything else strange about them.

Never before in my life had I wanted to be more wrong.

That night, when the sun was setting, weird music had started up. It was mostly beats of a drum, but then the chanting and weird singing had started. Alexis and I had exchanged looks before returning our gaze back to the now dancing humans.

Together, we watched as all the men and children danced around a stone circle, a large, flat rock placed in the middle. Then, two women had thrown open the church doors, standing out due to being completely naked, sans a lace veil draped over their faces. Their voices joined the others, sounding shrill compared to the men's baritones.