• I have been traveling the Colorado Mountains for over a month, it has been sixty five days since trinity station has contacted me about a job proposal. I was almost shocked that an alien life form had contacted me, never the less talked to me in person. But he had a job for me, said this planet has been changed and it was my job to report anything to trinity station about genetic mutations, so here I am scanning this damned mountain, for anything abnormal. I am a human, natural born in Colorado, I have short brown hair and brown eyes, oh and before I forget to tell ya, my name is Talin Krask, people call me T.K or Talin.

    I was getting into a schedule, I had to tap into the military comm., for anything unusual, I did that every thirty minutes. I stood there against a tree checking my laser rifle for anything that would harm it, I was still tapped into the comm. When a voice popped up.

    “Find the experiment, he can not escape yet, not while where so close to finding the answer” it was a male voice almost shaky and nerves, almost as if he was scared but of what. I quickly turned on my thermal vision on my head visor and saw almost an armada of people in a group, and there was one lone figure walking no limping his way away from them.

    This was rather odd, so I made my way over to the figure, being carful not to head in the direction of the armada of impending doom. When I found the area I was almost shocked. Was it an animal they where after… no it looked almost human, just looked like an animal combined with a human. It was rather odd, could this be what trinity station was talking about. I immediately took action, digging into my survival pack I pulled out a med kit and started dressing the things wounds. The thing was a mixture between a human and a wolf. It had the fur and all, but its body was shaped into that of a human.

    The thing was breathing hard, it had been shot about three times in the chest, and the jacket he was wearing didn’t provide any protection at all.

    “You’re going to be alright bud, ok just rest here for a bit, I’ll be right back.” I said reassuring. I stood back up, my laser rifle in my hands as I walked towards the figures. The fools where still in a huge group. They had swat uniforms on and carried the average rifle.

    I dug into his survival kit and pulled out a metallic object of some sorts, it was sphere shaped and glowed a dull blue; it had a black button in the center of it. I immediately pressed it and gently tossed it towards the group. The thing rolled into the center and everyone stopped to see what it was.

    Jackpot, the thing blasted a blue energy all around them knocking them all unconscious, the idiots didn’t know what hit them. I then went around the aria, and tied there legs and hands together, taking all of there pocket knives and leaving one for the weakest looking one in the group, all just to slow them down and to leave a warning for them.

    I clapped my hands together, rubbing the dust the accumulated on my hands and made my way over to the weird “thing”. It was still unconscious, and I didn’t want to take chances with it waking up and trying to kill me, which could very well happen. I went into my survival kit and pulled out a liquid gel. They were used to keep the patient unconscious and to also stop the bleeding for a short while. It worked by slowing the body system, latterly putting the patient into a temporary crono sleep.

    I forced the pills down the thing’s throat; making shore he did swallow it. I hefted the thing onto my shoulders, gasping from the extreme amount of weight that had magically accumulated on my shoulders. The thing weighed over three hundred pounds in muscle, not to mention that I had sixty pounds of gear already on me, so don’t get any bright ideas of how weak I am or how puny I am, because I bet you would be saying differently when there is a laser rifle pointing right at you.

    It was a half a mile hike towards my house… ok cabin I don’t make it a habit of living in the woods, by the time I had made it to the cabin the sun was already high up. “Mid day…seems to pass by quicker nowadays.”

    I laid the creature on one of the spare mattresses, and continued to dress the things wounds. Once that was done I exited that room and made it over to the computer module, typing my key card, and scanning my eye signature the screen lit up.

    “Caption Krask, how may I be of service?” The lifeless computer said. It was the same old boring voice that he had to listen to each and every day in order to reach trinity station. With a sigh I decided to start speaking. “Patch me into trinity station… there is something that I need to report.” The computer flashed another one of those lights, and a familiar face showed up on the screen. It was a silver cross fox; he usually went by the name halo, just a nick name as always. “Talin what do you have to report, this better be good we are right in the middle of testing a new computer uplink.” Halo said, a hint of agitation could easily be heard in his voice.

    “Commander Halo, I have interesting news. On my rounds of scanning the Colorado Mountains, I came upon a squad of soldiers. They were in there looking for some sort of experiment, further investigation brought me to conclude the whereabouts of the experiment, from there on I was able to take it to my base of operation’s he is here resting, and should awaken in the next two hours, permission to send data.” Halo looked at Talin, a quizzical expression had taken over the commanders face. “Permission accepted.” With that Talin pulled the recording chip out of his head visor and uploaded it into the mainframe, with that being sent Halo had dismissed him. “ take a break you need it for what had happened today” well that wasn’t exactly what he had said, but if you where to put what he said into kinder word’s you would get the message.

    I sat back in my chair, rubbing my temples. This had been a very interesting day, other than the fact that I had no clue if this thing was hostile or not. I already had trouble carrying the thing up here, that thing was made of pure muscle three hundred pounds of muscle. This was going to be interesting; he could very much as eat me alive. I sat there quietly thinking to myself, I jumped out of my seat when I heard something growl. Quickly looking behind only to see the armory I sighed. This whole wolf thing had kept my nerves on edge. I got up and made it to the kitchen, fixing myself a few hamburgers, and five extra incase the thing decided to wake up. Once I Was done with that I made my way over to the room that I put down the thing.

    It was still asleep, but the liquid gel did where off, he was just taking a long nap, either that or it was the weirdest way someone watched you. I sat down in a chair right next to it, reaching for the remote I turned the TV on, there was an emergency broadcast that had taken over the whole TV. I tried to change the channel, but it still went to the same broadcast.

    “Warning, warning new virus has infected thousands, changing them into monsters. If you have a family member or know anyone who has been infected please call you’re local military. This is a matter of national security.” The broadcast was repeated three or four times before I had actually turned it off.

    This was rather ridiculous, people where over reacting still. It was like the same thing with the swine flew. The media over reacted. It’s just a flew for Christ’s sake, nothing to get scared about.

    I was brought out of deep thought when groaning could be heard coming from the bed, I looked at the thing, it’s eyes shot open as it forced himself up, by now I was pretty shore it was a guy. It fell back into the bed gasping for air.

    “Ya got to be carefully a don’t open that wound, ya know.” I said awaiting eagerly for what it was going to say, if it was capable of speaking English then that would be all the way beyond evolution.

    The thing sat up in his bed, slowly at first, so he wouldn’t begin to fell the pain that caused him to fall back, the thing looked at me, anger in it’s eyes, though there was a small hint of curiosity that plagued his face, ok muzzle…whatever that thing on his face was. I can’t just say noise. That would be inaccurate.

    It was a good minute of icy eyes meeting icy eyes when I began to speak…again. “So are you hungry?” “No” the thing responded his voice as cold as his eyes, though the fact that the thing new English surprised me. He did however look at the cooked hamburger; it was the way he stared at it that looked like he longed for it.

    “Fine, more for me.” I said picking up the hamburger and taking in mouthful after mouthful of the delicious burger, if you where standing there watching me right now, you could say I was trying to tempt him into eating it, which I would admit that I was. After all he did seem to have the ability of thought.

    “So… what’s you’re name?” I said between mouthfuls, trying to get him to at least say something. “I am stray” finally he had said something other then one word; it was a full complex sentience. Well at least I had a name to call him.

    Stray looked down, his face full of sadness, something had happened and I wasn’t about to push for information, after all we just meet, and it would probably end in a really bad fight.
    “Why did you save me?” Stray asked this time he was looking at me rather then the ground. “Huh?” was all I could possibly come up with while there was still food in my mouth. “Why did you save me? I remember dyeing out in the forest and now I’m here…so the only conclusions I can come up with is that you’re… that you saved me.” There we go, that’s what I was looking for, the way he directed his sentience to something else then back to me in almost an Instinet suggested that he was hiding something, still it was pretty sweet that he said a now longer sentence. Maybe he is becoming more comfortable, maybe that’s the reason why he decided to talk more.

    “What? You expected me to let you die and have the soldiers take you’re body… not a chance. You deserve you’re life as much as I do.” I said putting the burger back on the plate. The conversation was turning out perfectly. “I don’t care much about the whole infection crap, it’s just like the swine flu ya know, too much people fear it and bam it becomes a tragedy. Ha-ha.” I laughed, it was all so true, and too many people reacted to fear. Its how human nature was and it’s probably how it’s always going to be.

    “Ya can relax; I’m not going to turn ya in… I would have turned you inn if ya hadn’t shown me that you had intelligence, that’s where I would think that you where just another cruel science experiment.” Stray shot Talin another one of those cold stares, It sent shivers done my spine, and it was honestly that scary…don’t get me wrong here everyone has a fear or two mine is being stared into the eyes by something that looked scary to begin with.

    I sat back into my seat, and sighed. It wasn’t the fact that something was getting me down it was just that I was exhausted, I mean if ya had to left a three hundred pound Thing over you’re back and hike half a mile up a mountain in a certain amount of time then I think you would get the picture of what I was going through. I’m just twenty two for Christ’s sake. I’m not superman, but that’s just another day’s work for an average joy.

    Feeling the awkward presence of silence I stood up. “Well you seem like a nice guy and all, except for being a living scar machine and all. I need someone to look upon the shelter, for about maybe two hours or so, now don’t give me any looks ok I need my sleep as much as you do, you don’t even have to move just watch the cameras and all.” stray only nodded, I walked out of the room and made my way over to my room. It was grey like everything in the place, the only difference was that there where posters on the walls. Ones of rock and country, and there was a picture frame on the dresser. In that picture stood a very young boy with brown hair pulled back into one of those pony tails. Not one of the girl ones but the boy types he was wearing a black tuxedo his face held down into a frown of some sorts. There was also a little girl. Looked the same age as the boy, except that her hair was a darker shade of brown and went down to her knees, she was wearing a pink dress, and had the hugest smile on her face, like she just found a chest of gold or something. There was one other person in the picture. A man about six ten wearing a black tuxedo one that matched the boys tux, hair shaved completely bold, his eyes held the brown like the rest of the family, he also held that smile.

    I sat on the bed taking the picture frame. “They think I’m dead.” I said quietly cradling the picture frame as if it was a newborn child, I missed them so much. The agony they must be feeling having someone tell them that I had died, that I was shot and killed serving my country.

    You know the sad part is that I’m not really dead, my death was faked, not by my intention of course, and to tell you the truth I was rather surprised that my death was faked. I thought I had died, but no I was supposed to be testing a serum that would increase the human strength by tenfold, I wanted no part in this, none at all, so you know what they tried to do? They tried giving it to me anyway. Well there’s not much there other then the fact that the scientist had died by my hands, and the serum had not been tested. I made shore of that.

    But that’s not the end of what had happened. A special group called eagle A.T.F was sent to hunt me down, Assassin task force. They where called in when the military couldn’t do a thing. Only a few knew about them, I only knew to not talk to them and to steer clear of any operations that involved them.

    So there I was being hunted down like a dear running from a wolf, it was futile. Never had anyone escaped them. It usually ended with you choosing you’re death, pick you’re poison if you will.

    I didn’t want to die, not at all. I wanted to escape that hellish nightmare. I didn’t choice this; I didn’t want this at all. I just wanted to be with my old dad again. But like all things had an end so did my chase.

    I was running for dear life, nothing could be heard in the night other then the pitter patter of my own bloody feet, that was never good, there always had to be noise always had to have some sort of life in this place, but no.

    I ended tripping and falling onto the ground face first, getting up I looked into the aria I was running from, still nothing, they where out there, they knew where he was. All he had to do was move his king peace and it would be checkmate for the enemy.

    Then all of a sudden a blue cube sprouted from under me. I was done. Done like a burger on a grill no hope, none what so ever, I had fallen into the enemies trap, and soon I was going to see my executioner.

    The sound of boots snapping wood could be heard getting closer. A man with grey hair appeared out of the bushes, the hair shaved down in a awkward fashion. He honestly looked like something out of a nightmare, at least that’s what his face looked like. It was covered with moles and bumps of all sorts, and when he spoke he honestly sounded like he was trying to imitate a gorilla, which was sad for that was his actual voice.

    His left hand held a strange weapon of some sorts. It had the basic premises of a handgun, but the barrel was extended and glowed a weary blue. He grinned at me, his prey, and the one he had hunted. It was me.

    “Well, well, well, look what we have hear, I rat caught in a trap” the man spoke in the UN earthly fashion, I couldn’t help but shudder. It was just that gross. “ so what will it be, quick and painless or slow but painful.” Smiled and then laughed, the face on the grotesque man was that of comedy. “ what’s so funny?” the man asked, and I started laughing harder. Then calming myself down, I whipped away a tear. “ it’s just that I’m going to be killed by a thing like you…you look so ugly I mean the voice almost complements the face.” I said laughing even harder. If I was going to die now I might as well enjoy making fun off the ugly one.

    “You will die slow and painful” the man said pressing a button on the cage then it began to shrink, and while it was shrinking I made insult after insult at the thing, I mean you should have heard me that night.

    Well by now I could latterly feel the pressure on my bones I held my left arm over my head to provide a cushion for the wall, a loud cracking sound emitted from my arm as I yelled out in pain, then my right arm was next. The sound’s of bones cracking and disparate cries for help was all that could be heard throughout the night.

    The cage dispersed, as the man walked over, and stepped on my lower back another crack could be heard as my lower back was latterly shattered to peaces, he then walked away a huge grin on his face. He had done his job to the letter.-----------to be continued