SHIFT: Book One: HORIZONS

Twelve: Darius

TWELVE HOURS TO RELEASE

DARIUS AWOKE STANDING up. The air was cold and bit at his skin, and there was an icy breeze that was growing stronger and colder with each gust. How he had come to be here at the edge of the forest, he could not understand. All he knew was his current situation. Adrenaline surged through his body, and he was breathing heavily, as if he had been running. His hands were still wet with blood, but he could find and feel no wounds on his own body. His vision was blurry, and his entire world seemed like a dream. He felt as if he was awakening from a long, deep sleep. The last thing he could remember was the first ape leaping toward him, but then all was black. 

The explosive sound of gunfire brought him to his senses. He stepped cautiously from behind the large red oak tree that he had been standing behind and scanned the clearing. It didn't take long for him to pinpoint the source. The entrance to the bunker, which was easily visible through the darkness as a large metal structure with excessive lighting and a huge, bright orange digital display over it that read four minutes and fifty-seven seconds, could be seen in the center of the field. A large bird circled low above the structure, and a group of people could be seen within the ultra-bright interior of the open elevator shaft. The gunfire had ceased for a moment, and one lone figure stood beside what looked like- 

Something distracted Darius. Not far to his right, three people burst from the tree line. They were yelling something, to each other or to the bunker he could not decipher. There was a boy and a girl, and another boy who seemed much younger than the other two. They were running, sprinting, but Darius didn't know from what. Maybe to reach the bunker in time, he told himself, just as the bushes and underbrush around him erupted in a chaotic mess as one, two, wait four, no, six dogs dashed past him with a wave of yelps and growls. The sudden stampede was enough to disorient Darius to where he had to steady himself to keep from falling. He quickly grabbed a hold of the tree's massive trunk as the rest of the dogs swarmed past him.  

What the hell, he thought as the last of the animals ran by. He pushed himself off of the tree and immediately looked behind himself to be sure there were no more surprises to be unveiled from the darkness. Only when he was convinced of this did he turn back toward the bunker. At least fifteen or so dogs made up the pack that was furiously trying to run down the group of three, and there didn't look to be a very large amount of room between them either. The beasts were moving at incredible speeds, at least thrice the speed of the fastest humans. Darius did not have much belief that the three were going to be able to make it to the bunker before they were run down. After all, there was about a quarter mile or so of open ground to cover, and the wolves showed no sign of slowing down. In Darius's eyes, the kids didn't stand hardly a chance at all. 

But one thing struck him as very odd. The animals hadn't even noticed him. They had ran directly passed him. They could have easily ripped him apart before he even knew he was being attacked, but they didn't. They were oblivious of him, completely unaware that he even existed, but why? Darius had no way of knowing the answer. 

But he wasn't about to take the chance a second time. He may have beaten the apes, but they were nothing in comparison to a hungry pack of hexwolves. He knew that once they were finished with their current victims, they would turn around, and Darius could hardly believe they had missed him the first time, so he didn't think they would do it again. 

He stepped cautiously from the tree line, taking careful notice of everything around himself. There was already one too many airborne threats, and he had personally seen the giant raptors silently dive down unexpectedly upon a person once before and easily fly off to a destination unknown with their next meal screaming their last words from the grasp of their deadly talons. He was not about to let himself be the next. 

There were no other birds in sight, and the rest of the clearing appeared empty. Darius knew that pretty much anything could be lurking in the grass that grew up to his hips, but he was going to have to take his chances at some point, so he started toward the bunker. 

With a few quick steps he propelled himself through the field in tail of the hexwolves, gradually diverting his course to the right to avoid crossing paths with them once they stopped. The tall grass of the prairie slashed at his arms and bare legs, and hidden rocks and thorns threatened to wrap their deadly vines around his feet and pull him down to their level with every step, but still he ran. He ran for his life, for he knew that if he didn't run, he would not live, and he was scared. Though he refused to admit it to himself, he was scared. It seemed that everywhere he turned there was something threatening to kill him. Above him were hawks. Ahead of him were wolves. Behind him was darkness, a forest from which one would never return if left there at nightfall. And he was a sitting duck in the middle of it all. 

What option did he have but to run? How could he not be afraid? 

The truth was that he was always afraid. Every second of every day of his life since the day he watched his own brother killed in a failed laboratory experiment like some lab rat test subject, he was afraid. But there was one thing Darius knew that not many people in the world could fully understand, and that was how to use fear to his advantage. From fear came anger, and from anger came adrenaline. From adrenaline came power. So he let himself become angry. He let himself shiver in motion while hot adrenaline coursed through every vessel of his body. He felt himself grow stronger by the second, and he ran as hard as he ever had in his life. 

There was a problem though. As he ran, he felt the cool sensation of freedom. He felt the twilight air bite at his face and neck, and it as pleasant. It was stimulating. Darius could feel the chilling surge flow through his body. He could feel as every individual hair stood on end. He felt the muscles in his face that caused his constant scowl slowly relax for the first time in many years. 

For once in his life for as long as he could remember, he almost felt happy. 

But that wasn't a good thing. Also for the first time, he didn't want to be happy. He couldn't be happy. His anger was keeping him alive at this very moment. But no, it was already too late. He felt the rush of the adrenaline slowly fade to relaxation and a looseness he had never truly experienced before, and he liked it. But no, not now, not at this moment where it could cost him his life. At this moment he could not be relaxed, he needed the power, the speed. But it was too late. It was going, and even though he felt that he could get it back, it would take too long. It was already too late. 

He had gained much ground when he was running, probably too much given his current situation, for one single dog, trailing a good distance behind the rest of the pack, slowed to a stop and raised his head to the stars. His ears twitched along with scent receptors on the tip of what in old days would have been a nose, and Darius knew he had made a mistake. 

The animal lowered his snout and slowly turned around to face Darius, and with a few quick yelps another three turned around with him. The beast lowered its head and tail and flared the open airways at the base of its neck in front of the collarbone, airways that the species had obtained through three centuries of accelerated evolution and deadly radiation exposure to replace the windpipe and be rid the dangers of its collapsing in a conflict. The fur across the animal's back stood on end in a sign of obvious aggression. The animal, already the size of the average deer, appeared to have gained forty pounds in weight in a matter of seconds. 

Four sets of six eyes each gleamed in the darkness, staring directly at him through the darkness, and Darius knew this wasn't going to end in the same way it had with the apes. He was going to die today. 

"This is what I get for being happy for a minute," he said to himself, and waited for the end to come. 

Then a roar of gunfire erupted again, but this time it wasn't coming from the bunker. 

It was coming from the tree line.