Silver Seren/Derek's Past - Part 1

Moar info: Silver Seren.

Derek's Past - Part 1 by ~silver-seren

Derek’s Past – Part I The Resumption of Terror By Silver Seren

Pain throbbed throughout his body, flowing here and there in waves. A dry, sandpapered throat and a pounding ache in his temple also awaited his return to consciousness. As he slowly pried his eyes open, they found to view nothing but darkness. His mind began trying to piece together exactly what happened, when he was barraged by an explosion of the pain that accelerated through every nerve. A cry tried to force itself from his gasping throat, but nary a sound appeared. He collapsed into a ball and tried to manage the excruciating pain. The levels rose and rose, his body going into spasmodic shaking before, abruptly, it stopped. The pain was gone...

Derek’s eyes slipped open easily, staring at what seemed to be an altered world. What...happened? Everything he lighted upon seemed changed in some fundamental, yet subtle, way. A sound drew him to his feet and forward through the darkness. It was then that he realized that his eyes could easily pierce the darkness and see every detail of his surroundings. Around him was rough, hewn rock that was badly shaped, but functional. Ahead the tunnel curved away to the right, shielding the source of the sound that reached his ears. Padding forward, the noise became more distinct and formed into voices. Derek crept along the edge of the wall, each step carefully considered, until he was close enough to discern individual words.

“Have the preparations been arranged?” “Yes, my Alpha. Our Watchers will inform you if there is any activity whatsoever.” “Good, good. And the brother?” “We placed him further in. He was in the beginning grip of the Change. He will probably awaken soon.” “...yes, though you are wrong. He has already joined us. Isn’t that right, pup?”

The voice was directed at Derek.

Scrabbling wildly at the gravel, he spun about and fled deeper into the tunnel, pursued by mocking laughter. The tunnel itself twisted and turned this way and that, seeming to go on and on forever. His breath was rapid, heavy, his chest heaving like a bellows. But he couldn’t stop; there was no way he could ever stop. If he did...then he would be caught...by that monster. True darkness began to surround him the deeper he went, without any speck of light to brighten it. Even so, he knew how to run and how to avoid hitting anything. He could feel the rock beneath him and around him, understand where every single stone was placed. He didn’t dwell on it.

Hours seemed to pass, when it was only over a minute, certainly. Time meant nothing, not in the darkness. Derek could barely hold a breath and he knew he would collapse at any moment. But hope was brought to him as he looked ahead. A small, tiny mote of light shone in the distance of a tunnel that had suddenly gone straight. The light seemed off, artificial in some way, but he didn’t care. Light was light and it meant escape from this nightmare.

Increasing his own internal pace, willing his body to hold out for a few seconds more, he leaped gratefully into the lit area. Derek collapsed on the ground, panting, his eyes blurring from sweat that dripped from his body. He shook the droplets away and took a true look around...and froze in terror.

Wolves. Dozens upon dozens of wolves.

Twice times those dozens was the number of eyes that were focused on him. Cold, animalistic eyes. Derek froze up, his joints locking into place, the fear plastering him to the ground. He had just run into a den of, he hoped not hungry, wolves. This was bad. This was very, very bad. Forcing his body to move, he stepped backwards, inching his way back towards the tunnel. Anywhere else than this is a much better place. Just as the thought passed through his mind, the wolf nearest him, a dark brown one, rose to its feet. The upper lip curled back into what would look to be a snarl, but there was no sound. Terrified nonetheless, Derek turned to flee, causing him to run right into another wolf, which knocked him backwards.

He landed in a huff, his breath gone momentarily. Opening his eyes, he found himself looking up at the dark brown wolf, who was staring down at him with distaste. “Idiot,” the mutter reached him. But no...wolves, animals can’t talk. Perhaps in fairy tale stories or...horror films, but not in real life. Maybe he was dreaming, maybe this was all a dream, a dream starring gigantic talking wolves. Of course.

The dark brown wolf pushed him away and looked past him, to a place that his own eyes were forced to follow. If he could have been more terrified, then he would be at this moment. A midnight black wolf, larger than the rest, was only a few feet away and staring right at him. The expression was strange, both interested, amused, and disdainful at the same time. Derek coughed and looked away, his every instinct telling him to flee this place.

“It is good to see that you have finally awakened, pup. That was faster than most.” There was only one place that cold voice could have come from, but Derek didn’t look. His entire body was shaking and shivering in fear. If there was any way to tell if someone was evil through their voice, then it would be found within this voice. There was no denying it. He was evil.

“I’m dreaming, i’m dreaming, i’m dreaming,” Derek chanted, trying to forcibly wake himself. But nothing happened and only a hard laugh was responsive. “Have you forgotten, child?” The cold voice whispered in his ear. No, I don’t want to remember. “Have you forgotten how we tore your parents apart? How the blood ran everywhere? How they screamed and screamed? It was beautiful, really.”

No... It was too late. Everything that Derek had locked away in his mind to keep himself safe, to keep himself sane, flooded back at the words, flooded back and drowned him. The memory of blood and pain. It was too much. He curled up on the ground, the pain pressing him to the floor. “Why didn’t you just kill me?” he asked. Begged, pleaded, willing to prostrate himself to receive it.

The dark laughter took away any hope for deliverance. No, this creature wouldn’t do anything that he would find pleasing, but it would do everything in its power to make him miserable. This he knew. Flinching, but unable to move, when the glacial voice spoke again, Derek was forced to listen, “Because you are one of us now. And we don’t kill our own...without a reason. You should rejoice in that you’ve been allowed to become one of us...” The words were so close now that he could feel the heat from the breath washing over his ear, “quite literally, in fact.”

Made no sense...the words made no logical sense. Derek didn’t want to put the pieces together. It would only bring more pain, he was sure, but his mind, of its own accord, began searching for a meaning. The literal meaning would be...but, no, that wasn’t possible. “It can’t be...” he moaned, forcing his eyes to not even glance around. The sable wolf was watching him with what seemed to be fascination, drinking in every ounce of misery he was feeling. Viciously wishing to cause him ever more pain, this must have been what the wolf was like.

A low sigh echoed from behind him, from the only other familiar voice, the dark brown wolf he had fallen in front of. “Have you even taken a look at yourself, kid?” the wolf asked, causing Derek to shiver. He didn’t want to, he really didn’t want to. But as if compelled, his eyes moved down to his feet, hoping dearly that he would see feet. All he saw was black, the same shade of nothing that the horrid wolf in front of him was. Turning his hands over, he encountered pink pads and knew that he couldn’t deny it any longer.

He was a wolf. Just like the rest of them. The shock and horror at this revelation didn’t stop the wave of anguish that flitted to his eyes. Two lines of tears ran down what he now knew to be fur, leaving a definitive trail, until the drops met for a last embrace with the earth. Sobbing and rubbing his muzzle into the dirt, Derek just wanted to get away from them, to have everything back to normal. To have his parents...but that could never happen.

His cries were interrupted when a heavy weight pressed down against his shoulder and he recognized it to be a paw. Certainly of the dark brown wolf. “Stop your weeping, kid; it won’t do you any good here. It would be better to stay strong.” Kindness: Something he had not expected to find here. Bolstered by these beneficent words, Derek was able to place a tap on the water leaking from his eyes and he utilized his furry hands to wipe the marks away. The wolf was right; tears would not get him anywhere with this band.

Glancing upward after drying his eyes, he shrunk back from the malevolent stare that the ebony wolf had, but it was not aimed at him. It was aimed at his benefactor. “Well, Kright,” The sarcasm in the voice was dry, “If you care for him so much, then you might as well have him. I was trying to think of a good mentor for him and you fit the bill perfectly. Congratulations.” Unsure on whether this meant good or bad for him, Derek peeked at the wolf he now knew to be Kright.

The face, as far as Derek could tell, was blank, devoid of any emotion. He would be an awesome poker player. There was no visible reaction, but a small lowering of his head and the reply, “Your will is my command, Lord Logan. I will gladly take care of this young one.” The words were also lacking any tone, staying perfectly neutral. It was the voice of someone who had trained years to speak and act so.

Logan’s eyes widened, showing his displeasure at the lack of reaction, but he only curtly returned a nod, before whirling around. He disappeared back into the tunnel, followed by an entourage of five or six wolves. The silence gave a sense of relief that Derek paused to enjoy, taking a deep breath, before turning to Kright. The peace fell flat when it encountered Kright’s face, which was looking at him with disgust. Cowering before it, the words that Derek had been about to say crowded in his throat and refused to come out. Kright watched him for an instant, snorted, and then turned swiftly towards and adjoining tunnel. “Follow me,” he growled, sounding very unkind.

Afraid to follow or be left behind, Derek took a few shaky steps. In the end, it was the eyes that made him move. The rest of the wolves in the amphitheatre-like space were staring at him again and it was completely unnerving. Loping after Kright, they both disappeared into the pitch darkness of a separate tunnel. He was unable to see, so he relied on the sound of Kright’s paws to guide him. However, the sound rapidly faded into the distance, causing Derek to run to catch up. Sooner than he expected, light blossomed at what could only be the end of the tunnel and it was real sunlight. His heart ached for the caress of its warmth and his legs increased their speed.

Jumping into the light as he had done in the artificial light of before, Derek was blinded from the brightness. He blinked, his eyes beginning to water, and it was only by complete chance, or so he believed, that he heard the high whistling sound. Out of his control, his body flung itself to the ground and a wind passed by over his head, followed by a crack as it embedded into the rock of the tunnel wall. The blindness passed and he found himself staring at Kright, who easily extricated his claws from the rock and turned away, setting off at a fast jog towards a bank of trees.

Derek sat stunned as a few seconds passed, before his hammering heart quieted and he ran after Kright. Coming up behind him, he blurted, “That would have killed me! I mean...if I hadn’t dodged it, of course.” There was no change in Kright’s gait, but he responded, “I was hoping. Not from a lack of trying, at the very least.” It was obvious that he wasn’t joking.

Derek misstepped at the words and nearly tumbled head over heels. “But...but,” he stammered, “You’re supposed to be my mentor! I thought you were supposed to protect me, not kill me!” This brought Kright to a halt and his body went rigid. A single eye turned to look back at Derek, full of hatred, and the snarl he uttered showed sharp teeth that were made to rip and tear.

Shoving his face only inches from Derek, he enunciated every syllable distinctly with an angry undertone, “Listen closely, pup. Just because i’m in charge of you doesn’t mean I have to protect you. Logan doesn’t like weaklings or imbeciles and neither do I. If you have one moment of weakness...you will die.” The last three were spoken matter-of-factly with no menace, only flat truth. A tremor ran down Derek’s spine, fear filling his mind and showing clearly on his face. Kright snorted and snickered at the reaction he received, exactly what he wanted.

Turning away again, he paused while staring off into the woods piercingly. A smirk emerged a moment later and Kright glanced slyly at Derek, “I’ve got an idea.” Derek took a shaking step backward as he caught the look that Kright was giving him, “W-What do y-you mean?” His voice betrayed the utter terror that shook him to the core. The smirk grew wider at the hesitation and nervousness. Kright gestured vaguely towards a dense copse of trees, a thickly built patch that left little room in between the trunks.

“It’s just a little...training, that’s all. You will follow right behind me, exactly behind me, and dodge the trees. My speed will gradually increase and you’ll have to keep up. If you fail to dodge satisfactorily...well, you’ll be in a lot of pain, if it doesn’t kill you outright. And if you don’t stay close enough to me...”

A malicious, predatory grin shaded and transformed his face, darkening his eyes as well. The look was absent of kindness and wasn’t truly hatred. It was just the desire to kill. Far, far too much like Logan for Derek to not notice. The quivering of his body returned as the fear flowered, clamoring for his attention and notifying of imminent danger. Derek was frozen to the ground, his blood feeling like ice in his veins.

All the fear shown on his face was greedily taken in by Kright, the frightening visage still plastered on him. Soaking up the terror for a moment longer, he turned back towards the trees. “Time to begin. Keep up,” Kright said in a falsely cheerful tone. Shaking paws stepped forward, Derek trying his best to contain the horror he felt and his rapidly pounding heart, failing to accomplish anything in the trying.

Kright loped into the woods and Derek coerced his legs to move, staying directly behind. The wolf that ran in front of him was so large in comparison to himself that Derek couldn’t see anything ahead. He had to rely on Kright’s motions and tiny twitches that his muscles made before he moved to the side. The trees swam by, the pathways through them impossibly small, but Kright still somehow managed to fit. His heart was convulsing in his chest at a high rate, seeming as if it wanted to escape the confines.

It took all of Derek’s concentration to keep his paws from tripping over the raised roots of trees and pieces of piled earth. Now that he was fully conscious of the fact that he had four legs running in tandem, it was that much harder to keep himself from falling. While focusing on his abominable feet, he also had to focus on Kright’s movements to stop himself from being brained by a tree. All of this at once taxed his mental capabilities to the utmost limits.

In only a few moments, his fur was matted with sweat and gleamed when solitary snatches of sunlight broke through the canopy of leaves. The trees were closing in, the spaces between becoming continually smaller.

And Kright was still picking up speed.

Spots began to shine in front of Derek’s eyes and his breath came in quick pants. Trees began to graze against him as he began to react slower to Kright’s change in position. The fur on his sides was shorn away by repeated scraping against bark, blood beginning to flow in some areas. Too much, it was all too much, he couldn’t keep up anymore. But if he was unable to continue...

Then he would die. Adrenaline fueled by panic enabled him to keep going, if only for a few seconds more. A shaft of light shone around the colossal body in front of him, filling Derek with the hope that the test would soon end. He was already on his last legs, his lungs tasting of ashes in his throat, and a throbbing ache was curving down his spine. The light brightened until it blinded him like before, obscuring the moving shape in front of him, but he kept his legs moving. He wouldn’t put it past Kright to use the blindness as a diversion so that he might fall behind, giving him an excuse to...

But this seemed to not be the case, as there was nothing in front of him when his blinking cleared his vision. This confusion was only able to register for a second...because the ground dropped away beneath him. A howl erupted from his muzzle as he fell through the air, the sound cut short as water surged around him. Liquid flooded up his nose, choking off his breathing, and a current dragged him along. Derek’s head bobbed above the water, spluttering and coughing. Trying his best to paddle towards what he thought was land; the blurry shore began to form to a small extent. The water constantly lapped over him, but he stubbornly persisted in swimming.

Ground came up beneath his paws and he collapsed to the sand, gasping for breath. With his heart pounding in his ears and every part of him aching in pain, Derek could only lay there. He had no idea what had happened and his foggy mind was in no capacity to dwell on it. As his ears cleared, he picked up a sound off to his right and up a distance. It took him a moment to understand, before Kright’s uproarious laughter cut into him.

Derek shot a cold glare, but it only managed to look feeble in his bedraggled state. Still chuckling, Kright padded over and considered Derek with a critical, but extremely amused, eye, “You looked a little sweaty, so I thought a bath would help.” Anger flared inside of Derek, but it faded away nearly instantly. He had too much fear for this wolf that could, and seemingly wanted to, kill him at any given instant to consider any real methods of retribution.

Moving carefully, he tried to stand on his wobbly legs, when a whine of pain escaped him. Glancing at himself, Derek saw that his sides were sheer of fur with deep slashes indenting his skin. Blood had already tinted the water scarlet and the streams were still running freely down. A true concerned looked crossed onto Kright’s face as he leaned over to examine the wounds, “Get back in the water. It will help to stem the flow. It will help the healing too.”

Having no choice, Derek obeyed, scooting back until the water lapped around his neck. Now that he was ore aware of it, the stinging from his wounds felt like he was under attack by a colony of fire ants and one couldn’t exactly call the river warm by any stretch of the word. He was shivering as he stood in the ice-cold liquid, but the pain did begin to ebb. Kright stood on the edge of the water and waited, not saying a word.

A few minutes passed quietly with no words between them. Derek’s side had long since gone numb and he felt his legs falling asleep in the cold. Ordered out a second later, water dripping from his soaked coat, Derek staggered out of the river and completely onto dry land. The slashes had stopped bleeding, leaving behind horrific gouges that were painful to look at. Kright scrutinized them carefully and declared that they would heal satisfactorily. The calm, now unconcerned, words were a cause for irritation and sadness for Derek, but he supposed this was far better than he should have suspected.

Once he was wholly taken care of, Kright began walking off in a direction that was angled into the forest again, leaving Derek to scramble after him. The gouges burned whenever he stretched his legs too far in front of him but he struggled at a fast pace anyways. At first, Kright outpaced him by a large margin and he feared that he would be left behind in, what was to him, the middle of nowhere, but then Kright’s strides shortened and his steps came slower, allowing Derek to catch up.

Time passed and they kept walking. The burning sensation made Derek’s breath ragged and he gasped in sudden pain every now and then. When he felt like taking another step would cause him to collapse, Kright stopped abruptly, nearly causing Derek to smash into him. “We’re here,” Kright announced in a tone that was hard to place. It seemed...happy, enthusiastic?

The forest had opened up onto a cocoon of sunlight, a place that the trees had no advanced upon, but was still inhabited by a multitude of green life. Multi-colored flowers bloomed in all directions in the narrow strip of clear land, glinting in the light of the midday sun. Perfectly green grass grew everywhere, sparkling in some spots with un-dried dew. The picturesque glade looked exactly like that, a picture taken from a wildlife catalogue. It was too exact, too precise in detail, to be real, but there it remained.

A corner of Kright’s muzzle curled upwards as his eyes scanned over the vivid beauty. Derek watched him closely, amazed that he was allowed to view some pure, positive emotion from his mentor. He would have expected such a thing to be sacrosanct, untouchable. Kright’s eyes twisted away from the glade and zoomed in to look at Derek’s face, who was staring at him with a sort of wonder.

Snorting, he ordered, “Go lay down and rest.” Glad to do so, Derek padded over to a sprightly looking pile of grass and flopped down with a happy sigh. The twiggy green stems were light and springy, like a flawless bed. The sun warmed his fur and he felt himself drifting away, but he held himself firmly to the stable earth. Instead, Derek opened his eyes and glanced at Kright, who had settled next to a patch of wildflowers.

“Can I ask you a few things...er...?” He wasn’t sure how to address Kright, ‘mentor’ not sounding quite right. “Sir,” Kright supplied with a twitch of his mouth, “And yes, you may.” Derek thought for a moment before saying anything, trying to pick the best question to start with. He could ask more for clarifications about himself and his new body or he could ask about the Pack or...he could ask about Kright. Yes, pounding out clear details on their relationship would probably be best and bluntness would serve him well.

“Sir...do you hate me?” Derek spoke in a subdued voice. A silence followed, the rustling of the grass the only sound. “No,” Kright finally acknowledged gruffly, “I don’t.” Another silence blanketed the clearing, two eyes boring at Derek as he bored back. He wanted to ask why not or what did he mean, but he thought silence would do better. Kright studied him and he stared back resolutely, until Kright looked away with a sigh.

“I already explained this to you. In this Pack, strength means everything. If you aren’t strong, then you die. That’s the way things are. I want to make you strong and I don’t want you to die. I apologize if it seems like the opposite.” He fell silent, keeping his gaze away. A breeze blew through the glade, the rustling now turned ominous, supplemented by the sound of Derek’s heavy breathing.

The heat from the sun turned sweltering, making Derek notice the sweat that was beginning to matte his fur. Chill from the wind and heat from the sun combined to create an uncomfortable compromise with him in the center, pummeling against his aching sides. His mind was shying away from the buried truth in Kright’s words, not wanting to consider them.

The truth was too horrific, too...inhuman. That was the apt word for this situation. Only a wolf would be able to view something in such a black-and-white fashion, in such an animalistic way. To his human consciousness, the thought of being killed for lacking strength was utterly barbaric, but he couldn’t rationally think of a plausible counter for it. It was true that some in society believed that the weak were worthless and should be done away with. The law of nature...but he didn’t want to think about it.

Derek thought furiously, trying to find some back door or loop hole to the entire idea, but only an annoying blankness confronted him. There was no opposing truth to bring up. There was nothing. “I...see,” he was finally able to struggle out, Kright’s reply to that being only a curt nod.

As Derek pondered, he started to accept it, knowing that he had little choice. There could be no change to what he was now and...He wasn’t entirely sure if he wanted to go back, even if it was offered to him. An intoxication filled him in this strong, lithe body and he felt drawn towards this way of life. He couldn’t explain the feeling or drive it away. It was always there.

The uncomfortableness faded as time passed, Derek beginning to feel warm again, no longer disturbed by the cold as the wind died down. He was no longer focused on things that sent his mind in erratic directions and brought him grief. Just a light breeze drifted now through the air, soothing instead of paining his sides. His gaze wandered across the glade and the life within it mesmerized him, drawing him into the circle that drew through it all.

The mind that he held wandered over nothing, blankly taking in blankness. Cognition returned in fragmented pieces, until Derek moved to look at Kright and ask something more, before starting visibly. The two eyes were staring at him curiously and intently, tunneling into him. Kright’s eyes were piercing and they were certainly trying to pierce into Derek’s mind. Derek could only hold the hard gaze for a moment before turning his own eyes towards the ground.

“What?” he whispered, wincing because of the weakness contained in the word. It seemed like there would be no answer, when there was. “You are strange,” Kright replied brusquely, “But you are also interesting because of it.” The semi-compliment embarrassed Derek, but he was able to steadily return the stare, no longer perturbed by the blazing orbs.

Locked together, they both moved away at the same time, though Kright held a smirk. “Funny,” he coughed, scanning Derek again. About an hour ago, Derek would have asked what he meant by that, but he stayed silent now, waiting for the rest if it would come. The lack of response made Kright’s grin widen and he laughed in a bark.

“C’mon, let’s go,” he said, getting to his feet. “To do what?” Derek asked cautiously, not liking the ramifications of having to walk again or where they would be walking to. A friendly smile was returned,

“I’m going to teach you how to fight.”