It's the year 2047, and a virus is turning anyone it infects into rabid animals. The human race is on the brink of extinction. This is Eve's story, a woman struggling to hold onto her humanity while the virus wreaks havoc on her body. Living in a hu...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Chapter Twelve
I ran as fast as my legs could carry me, faster than I'd ever run before. The forest flashed past me in a blur, and the only sound that I could hear was the wind whistling past my ears. In the back of my mind, it dimly registered that this newfound speed was a result of my new form. My human legs could never have run this fast.
I gripped my spear in my right hand, my palm slick with nervous sweat. I had killed many creatures with that spear, but never had I taken a human's life. I had a feeling that was going to change today.
In the distance, I began to hear the sounds of battle. Voices I recognized as my former tribesmen shouted war cries and Bastian's wolves howled. I burst into a small clearing and skidded to a stop.
It was absolute carnage! Wolves and men lay dead all over the forest floor, and many more still tangled with each other. I saw humans lying on the ground, nursing bites or scratch wounds, and I couldn't help but feel a pang of sympathy for them. They, too, were soon going to become Hybrids. And just like me, they hadn't had any choice in the matter.
But that didn't matter at the moment. Bastian's pack, our pack, our FAMILY, was still under attack. Raising my spear, I leaped directly into the fray. Twirling and spinning my weapon, I struck several of my former tribesmen with it until they either retreated or lost consciousness. I couldn't tell if they recognized me in my new form or not. Part of me hoped they didn't so they wouldn't think of me as a traitor. The other part hoped they knew exactly who I was so they could understand whose side I had finally chosen.
A man came running at my with a battered woodcutting axe. He swung it, intending to cut off my head, but I ducked underneath it before springing back up, my fist connecting with his chin. He fell backwards, a couple of teeth falling out of his mouth. I spun around just in time to find a man sneaking up on me with a knife, and I whacked him firmly on the head with the butt of my spear. In the midst of all the chaos, one thought rose to my head above all others.
Where was Bastian?
I fought my way through the battlefield in search of the wolf-boy, desperately praying that I wouldn't find him dead. It was not difficult to defeat these humans. Very few of them were skilled fighters, and even those that were did not share my enhanced speed and agility. Using these advantages, I fought my way up one end of the battle to the other, but saw no trace of the alpha.
Suddenly, there was a sharp crack, and one of the wolves closest to me was knocked off its feet, dead. A small hole had been drilled into its side, and a thin trail of blood leaked out of it. I turned to where the noise had come from, and saw Edward standing in the distance, far away from the battle, holding some sort of metal object.
It took me a moment to recognize the gun. There were stories told of those weapons from before the fall of society, but such things were extremely rare these days. Where Edward had gotten it wasn't important, though. What mattered was that he was already loading another bullet into it.
