The First Age

The scene moved quickly. The wolves attacked and a rifle shot went out. The first poacher was attacked by wolves and the second taken by an arrow. The scene done, Calvin turned around and the sight shocked him. Snow was on the ground. Sierra held him close, crying. He sent Snow messages, and there was no response.

Calvin couldn't stop the tears from falling. Images raced through his head - his mother, father, Mary, Benji, and Snow. Everyone he cared about died. All he could think about was it being his fault. He should have been a better son, or a better dad. Hell, if he hadn't asked Sierra to come with him today, this wouldn't have happened.

Calvin looked at Dawn Wind as he left and sent him a message."Why did you bring me here?"
The message was laced with too many emotions.

Surprisingly, the alpha didn't chastise him. The wolf sent him an image of himself comforting Sierra. They weren't a pack per se, but he could be a support to her.

Calvin's thoughts shifted then and he turned and walked toward Sierra and Snow, dropping the bow and quiver of arrows as he did so. Stop thinking of yourself, you selfish bastard
he thought as he knelt down.

Calvin had lived a life of loss. He didn't form many close relationships anymore because of that. He wanted a closer friendship with Sierra and his defense mechanisms warned him to stay away, but something inside of him shifted. Maybe it was Dawn Wind's final image, but he knew he had to had to ignore his thoughts of self-preservation. Sierra was more important than himself right now.

He didn't say anything. He had heard all the apologies after he had lost his family. They didn't help. You could never understand the pain of someone else's loss. Each relationship was unique. One thing he did know though, is that it always hurt to cry alone. That sense of loneliness was terrible and foreboding. It haunted forever. The only thing Calvin could do for Sierra now was to cry with her.

The tears were already there. Snow was his friend too. Calvin wrapped his left arm around Snow's body and with his right he hugged Sierra as the two mourned the loss of a true friend.


Edited by Calvin, Aug 13 2014, 02:16 PM.

Sierra cried for her friend. She felt his last breath slip from him. Everything had happened too fast. Sierra barely registered the fact that someone was near, much less who it was. Arms wrapped around her and her first instinct was to fight. She pushed the arms from around her and stood up with Snow cradled in her arms.

Tears blurred her eyes, it didn't matter, she didn't care. Right now loss was the only thing running through her. Even the wolves sendings she ignored.

Her friend was gone, just as his mother had been taken from him. He had been taken from her. Anger welled up over the grief. Sierra laid Snow down carefully and ran to her bow she'd dropped in the bushes.

One man was gasping for breath, the man she'd shot. She'd missed his heart, but his lungs were filling with blood. He suffered and Sierra was happy.

She walked over to him and pushed the arrow in deeper. "Who sent you?
The man gurgled up nothing. He was afraid, Sierra could see it in his eyes. She could feel the wolf inside rising. She knew exactly what Aaron had felt before he lost himself in the wolf. It would be so easy to get lost in it. To become what her friend had been - a wolf.

But she maintained her ground. The man had reached for his pocket, he couldn't open it but it seemed that he was telling her what she was after. Sierra removed the contents of his pocket and found a business card. The man nodded and pleaded with her. He wanted help? He killed Snow.

They were too far away for help to arrive soon. Sierra did the only thing she could think to do. She knocked an arrow and shot the man clean through the eye socket.

Sierra pushed him away. He had wanted to help, but it seemed like she didn't want or need it. He let her get up and move away towards the man she had shot before. Calvin backed away to watch. He didn't know what she was going to do and he didn't think he'd be able to stop her anyways.

She patted the man down. Calvin could tell the man was still alive but wasn't likely to live longer. Then she shot him - right through the eye. Calvin wasn't sure where his thoughts were on that. He could understand her anger - maybe. His thoughts drifted back and forth wondering if she was wrong or right. He kept trying to justify her action - it was a mercy after all - he died quickly rather than suffering. It was justice for Snow.

Calvin didn't move - he just continued to watch feeling completely and utterly useless. He wanted to help her, but didn't know how or even if he could. He thought of her smile and wondered if he'd ever see it again and wondered if he would hear her laugh again.

His thoughts were interrupted by the scent of blood. The entire area was covered with it and for the second time in a few moments the wolf rose within him again. He didn't resist it this time. There was no reason to resist it. Calvin wanted to hunt. He wanted blood.

He looked toward Sierra again - she was holding a business card. A animalistic anger shot through him. It wasn't directed at her, but at everyone who had caused him or those he loved pain - the drunk driver, the poachers, even the doctor who had diagnosed his mother's cancer. There was only one he could reach - the name on that card.

Calvin stood, a growl coming into his throat. It came without a thought, the wolf starting to take control. He wanted and needed to hunt - and he wanted to hunt whatever name that was on that card. Would Sierra allow him into her pack? If not he would hunt anyway.

He sent images to Dawn Wind - images of hunting and killing. Dawn Wind's reply was laced with anger. The images that returned were ones of chastisement. Images of the older wolf pushing Calvin back with his front paws and trying to force Calvin to submit to his authority. Calvin resisted, the wolf part fighting back against Dawn Wind. Calvin the man couldn't help Sierra - he couldn't do what needed to be done. The wolf could though.

Dawn Wind kept fighting as Calvin stepped slowly toward Sierra. He retrieved his weapons and put the bow over his shoulder as well as the quiver, his posture tense. He would follow her lead. If she pushed him away, he would find his own hunting grounds.


Edited by Calvin, Aug 14 2014, 03:04 PM.

Sierra had never killed a man before. She sank to her knees. Grief overwhelmed her. She curled up into the fetal position and cried. The card held in her hand. She'd killed someone. It had been mercy, which the man had not deserved, he had taken her best friend, he'd threatened and hurt other wolves, she could smell them all over him.

Sierra eventually realized Calvin was there, embracing his wolf, from the scent of it all. She looked over at him through the tears. He was trying to read the card. Sierra pulled her camera from her pack. And snapped a picture of the card. She could do what needed doing later, when it wasn't rash.

She held up the card to Calvin. He could take it if he wanted it. All Sierra wanted to do was cry and mourn her friend right now. But even in the grief of the moment she couldn't help but get the thought through her head, she'd killed a man.

Sierra took a picture of the card and held it out to Calvin. Calvin took it, still fighting the wolf inside of him. He could feel Dawn Wind pushing against his subconscious as well. Calvin took the card and read it.

Kasimir Bychkov

Probably some rich guy who wanted wolf pelts. There was an address too. Calvin would pay him a visit soon. Calvin looked up and saw Sierra crying and the anger melted away for a moment. Compassion sank into his body, but he still felt Dawn Wind fighting for him. Calvin approached her and placed a hand on her shoulder to comfort her.

”Go away…I want to be alone.”
Sierra said to him.

Her response brought the wolf back, and Calvin removed his hand. Although her tone wasn't angry, Calvin felt as if she was snapping at him. He silently stepped back and then began running towards the city leaving her with her grief. There was only one way he could help her. He could find justice for Snow; his mind unable to register the fine line between vengeance and justice.

---

Several hours later

Calvin found himself dressed in all black, including black leather gloves and a ski mask. He neglected to put in his contacts; he wanted Kasimir to see the eyes of all the wolves he killed in his last moments. Calvin had spent the time in between preparing. He had most of the clothing, but had gone to a sports shop to pick up a hunting knife.

As he made his way to Bychkov’s residence, he began to doubt what he was doing. He needed to do this. He needed to do this for Sierra and Snow, but he felt like he couldn’t. The anger that had fueled him was subsiding. Dawn Wind had finally wrestled his wolf to the ground and was furious at Calvin.

He arrived at the house and in his anger hadn’t thought of the security system that man would likely have installed in his residence. Thinking clearly again, he realized the stupidity of what he was going to do.

Calvin realized that he couldn’t do this. The images of all the people he had failed came to his mind; his parents, his wife, his son, Sierra, and Snow. The images mingled with the thought that he had planned on coldly murdering someone. Calvin turned and went back to his apartment, his failures echoing in his mind.

He changed clothes to something less gothic and left the apartment again. There was only one thing he wanted – a drink.

((Sierra modded with permission))

Continued in Plummeting into Darkness


Edited by Calvin, Aug 18 2014, 10:51 AM.

Calvin took the card and placed a hand on her shoulder. Sierra pulled away, she didn't want to be touched, much less to have anyone around. She wanted to be alone.

She yelled, she hadn't meant to but the wolf inside wanted to get out, wanted to tear the throat out of the men who did this to Snow, but she kept it inside, reigned it in, but her voice took out the aggression on Calvin. "Go away…I want to be alone."


She felt bad, but it had made him leave and for that Sierra was thankful she'd make it up to him later. Sierra wasn't really mad at him. It wasn't his fault, it was the fault of these men. They had killed Snow.

The wolves even left and Sierra was completely alone with the two dead men and Snow's body. The tears had stopped falling a while ago, the tear stains were nearly frozen to her skin. Sierra was shaking from the grief and the cold. Everything hurt.

But she had one thing to do and she forced herself to get up. Every step hurt, every movement, but Sierra picked up Snow and started walking deeper into the woods. She would find the perfect place to bury Snow, someplace that he could rest in peace and the world would never disturb his grave.