Bloodhound

The silvery glow of the crescent moon bathed the maple woods in a dim-lit manner casting its low light ambience over the towering trees scattered across Silver Brook Forest. The distant chirping of crickets in the shrubs and the constant hooting of an owl perched on a tree gave a sense of eeriness throughout the forest.

Elias Blackwood lay on his back, head resting on his hand, his green eyes fixated on the crescent shape of the moon above. A couple of hair strand danced across his face from the gentle breeze accompanying the moonlight. Beside him, a square jawed blonde rested on his chest cozying up to him like a child tugs at their mother. Elizabeth Andrews always enjoyed his company as it allows her to be free and unapologetically herself. The scent of the surrounding nature filled the air, mixing with the faint musk of his werewolf nature.

“Ever thought about leaving this town, starting a life together elsewhere.” Elizabeth murmured, her fingers tracing unknown patterns on his chest.

Elias adjusted his head a little, his green eyes dimming a bit. “Sometimes” he admitted, gazing away at her small even lips. “Just both of us, somewhere far from this godforsaken town.”

Elizabeth sighed, raising herself off his chest.

“Then let’s leave. Tonight.” she whispered.

Elias exhaled sharply, struggling to believe her words.

“You’re next in line to be mayor of our town. Why would you let that go by following me to an unknown town?” He asked, reminding her of her sense of duty.

Her blue eyes calmed, like she anticipated that exact question.

“We’ve talked about this remember. I’m not interested in my family mayoral inheritance. I love you and I want to be with only you.”

A moment of peace settled between them and as the two locked lips, they believed that nothing was going to break their blissful romance, they couldn’t be more mistaken.

The snap of multiple twigs, footsteps increasing towards their direction. They were close and they was more than one man.

Elias' werewolf instincts kicked in. Swiftly, he sprang to his feet scanning the dark bushes ahead of them waiting to spot someone.

“Is something wrong?” Elizabeth asked, puzzled by his quick rise to alertness.

Elias sniffed the air, and, in that moment, he realized that they were truly coming. The scent of iron, gunpowder, and something worse; something dangerous to his existence as a werewolf - wolfsbane - filled his nose cementing the presence of hunters.

“Elizabeth,” he murmured, his voice deeper and sterner, he closed his eyes and out came sharp claws from his hands, his face shifting from your normal high school teenager to something else- a face capable of intimidating even the bravest of men with its sharp canine. He stood protectively in front of her “We’re not alone.”

Before she could react, shadows appeared from different directions through the treeline - figures draped in camouflage clothing, their weapons visible under the moonlight. Hunters, at least five of them encased the couple in the middle of their formed circle. Leading the charge was Simon Andrew, Elizabeth’s father and town mayor, his face disgusted at his daughter and Elias.

“Dad- Elizabeth began but was quickly silenced by her father.

“Elias, no child of mine can relate with a hideous monster like you. Monsters don’t get to dream of happily ever after.” He paused, moving closer to him “Monster’s get put down and killed for the good of everyone.”

A rage-filled growl rumbled from Elias’ chest. He extended his hands, his claws waiting to grab Simon’s neck on his orders. He stared back at Elizabeth, expecting fear which was exactly what he saw. A look that added to his already growing fury.

As Elias turned around to face Simon square, Elizabeth moved seemingly to beg her father to let him go, however that wasn’t her intention.

The gunshot roared loudly scattering a flock of ravens from their nests.

Pain exploded through Elias’ back as the first bullet tore into him, the familiar burn of wolfsbane coursing through his veins faster than it ever had. It felt different, maybe because the wolfsbane has been chemically engineered to be more lethal than the traditional one or because it was his girl that shot him in the back.

He turned to face her, trying to fight through the excruciating pain. No sooner their eyes locked, the second shot came right in his chest, pushing him further behind, he struggled to breathe, his green eyes now yellow and fading, then came the third. His knees grew weak, his world dizzying all he focused on was the smoking gun steady in Elizabeth’s grasp.

“I tho.... I.. I thought.... you.. Loved....me” he stuttered weakly as he fell to the floor, his vision blurring.

Smiling menacingly, Elizabeth placed a foot on his chest “You really thought I considered you anything more than a disgusting force of nature? You're a monster and I’m an Andrew, I kill monsters.” Her voice soft, almost sweet, but the malice in her eyes sliced deeper than the bullets ever could.

Elias’ lips parted, a faint breath escaping as the wolfsbane kept him helpless and defenceless.

“Did you really have to shoot him thrice?” Simon asked as he collected the gun from his daughter

“Better safe than sorry. Besides he’s lucky I didn’t shoot him in the head.” She responded sinisterly. “He’s all yours.” She said, walking away into the forest.

The last thing Elias saw was the father-daughter duo chatting as the night swallowed him whole.

******************************************************************************

A dim, sterile but poorly maintained room with flickering fluorescent lights marked itself as Elias’ new home. The atmosphere was filled with overpowering antiseptic and dried blood. Wolfsbane infused metal restraints bit into Elias’ wrists and ankles, holding him steady against a rusted examination table. The walls of the room were cracked and peeling, their once white paint stained with dried blood or dark streaks of something that one can’t really identify. A rhythmic drip of water echoed from a leaking pipe overhead, and faint chatter of different hunters going around different rooms checking on captured supernatural, the only sound asides from Elias’ ragged breathing.

Pain, coursed through his body, merciless and unrelenting. His muscles ached like they’ve been overstretched to their limit and his veins burned from the continuous sting of the wolfsbane. He’s never been vulnerable or scared but, in that moment, he felt every fear in the world amplified. His vision blurred, the dim light casting eerie shadows along the walls.

A voice came out through an unseen intercom.

“Subject 217 has regained consciousness.”

He groaned as he tried to move, each turn allowed the wolfsbane seep further into his bloodstream. Whoever chained him up knew what they were doing and if he wasn’t the one on the table, he might appreciate the engineering. He was no longer in his territory, no longer free. He was a captive, the sense of suffering dawned on him.

It came rushing back- Elizabeth Andrews. Of course, he was warned by his pack not to befriend the daughter of a notorious hunter, but he refused thinking she was different, and the consequences couldn’t get any worse than it already is or so he thought.

His expression changed from pain to rage and all he was thinking of was revenge that is if he managed to survive the horrors of what was going to happen to him. He looked around trying to figure where he was, but he couldn’t decipher it. Simon Andrews hid the location of the Iron Asylums a secret after declaring it a toxic level zone to the general public but in secret it’s his laboratory of doom for nonhumans.

Footsteps echoed down the hallway, measured and intentional. Elias turned to the door waiting to see who was going to enter. His eyes darted to the only bar window in the room watching as a group of figures walked past holding a clipboard. Their coats were pristine white, but he could tell that they are more than ordinary scientists. Hunters. Butchers.

The door flung open, and Simon Andrews stepped in an immaculately tailored suit looking different from the man who ambushed him with his betrayer daughter. His face, sharp and graced with years of experience, his blue eyes like his daughter’s stared right into Elias’ green eyes void of pity.

“My daughter tells me you heal quickly. Quite extraordinary if you ask me.” Simon remarked, taking of his black Italian suit hanging it on a nearby coat hanger. “But the thing is, we expected that. You’re a naturally occurring werewolf. Which means you weren’t turned into one unlike most freaks I've encountered and that is what’s so interesting about you.” He glanced at Elias, looking at him as if he was just a specimen.

Elias sneered “Is that why you took me? To be your lab rat.” His voice hoarse, but defiant.

Simon ignored him, concentrating on inserting his hands into a pair of surgical gloves. “The fact that you are naturally born a werewolf is an abomination. And that is a threat to the balance we’ve maintained in Silver Brook for generations. This institution, if you will call it that, exists to correct that abomination.” He ended, fixing a nose cover over his face.

Elias pulled against his restraints, embracing the pain “You think you can break me?”

Simon grabbed a scalpel, leaned closer, lowering his voice “No, but we can learn from you.” And pried at Elias’ eyes, blood pooling at his gloves as he removed his eyeball from its socket.

Elias screamed in agony, howling out for help but his cries wasn’t loud enough to leave the Iron Asylum.

They came for him in droves. Needles plunging into his veins, restraint tightened as they tested his limits. Electrocution became a daily routine and there was nothing he could do to fight out of the agony of torture. Silver and wolfsbane pierced his skin, scarring him open only to vanish and to be reopened again in an unending cycle.

Days blurred together between pain and interrogation. The hunters wanted answers, they wanted to understand his genome as to how he became a shape shifting predator and prey. Through it all Elias endured the pain never speaking only screaming when it became too much to bear.

He wasn’t the only one. Rarely, when he wasn’t tortured, through the thin walls of his prison, he heard the shouts of others. Beaten but not broken, trapped and tortured endlessly just like him.

Three weeks in the Iron Asylum, a low voice came up in the darkness, tired but alive.

“They’re never letting us out of here, are they?”

“Nope, but I know I will get out one day and when I do, there will be hell to pay.” Elias exhaled weakly, his mind focused on when he escapes. The Iron Asylum was a tomb, a funeral parlour for people like him but he was planning not to rot in it.

Not for long.