~The Wolfen Chronicles: Mother Knows Best~

Prologue

The faint pounding of the soldier's combat boots against the stone floor, echoed off the high walls and distorted out of reason until it almost seems as if the empty passageway is wailing, begging him to turn back rather than continue his punctilious march down its cold, wet gullet.

If it hadn't been for the sheer quantity of quivering shadows and things moving in the corners of his eyes, the little soldier most likely would've enjoyed his time here, so far beneath the skin of the earth, safe from the clawing talons of both society and its abject wrath – his only job is to guard the one little creature, to shield it from the eyes of those above. Had it only been his quotidian duties, the little soldier would've felt comfortable, secure – but the presence that lingers above his redundant life, so massive and powerful, grating on the edges of his consciousness, drains all pleasure from his job.

He hadn't even started that long ago. It's only his second week down in the hellhole. And, already, he's missing the scorching desert sun above.

Awaiting the soldier at the end of the long chamber is another man, peeking his head expectantly through the heavy iron door shutting off the poor soul from the rest of the world. The other man seems bitter, annoyed, his harsh face ruddy with irritation.

"Hurry up then, green thumb!" the man barks. "We don't have all day, now, do we? I don't, that's for sure!"

Taking great care to hide the mumbled curses he utters, the soldier breaks into a jog, closing the distance rapidly. As he nears the prison cell, sweat prickles along the back of his neck.

Releasing a heavy breath upon arrival, the soldier slips through the heavy metal door, nudging it open with a shrill creak of hinges. The man put on previous guard duty is leaning against the wall, watching him with shrewd judgment.

"You be careful, newbie," he growls, gravelly tones reflecting upon his sharp, hardened features. "She's been more active than ever before. I haven't seen her so twitchy since the first atomic bomb hit the skin of the earth. Lil' girl's been babbling all my watch."

"Really?" Puffing out a breath, the soldier furrows his brow and pulls up the creaky iron chair, leaning forward towards the iron bars separating the prisoner and him. "Do you think she's trying to break out of her ring thing?"

"Nah." The older man chuckles roughly, as if the soldier's innocence is amusing. "Listen to her, if you'd like. She's been rambling on 'bout the same stuff for hundreds of years, son. She ain't going nowhere."

And, following his superior's advice, the soldier does listen to the raspy, strained chords of the girl's voice as she repeats the same incantations and praises over and over again. Praying to her mother, whoever that may be. Her pearl grey skin is fresh and smooth in the faint green glow of the dank overhead lights, and her pale hair flows down her back and over the jagged black stones like a cloak of dull silver. Though she seems proportionate to be human, a single glance at her face would vanquish any doubt of her alien tendencies.

"At least she's turning away," the soldier offer optimistically, glancing up at his elder's sharp face. "Those eyes always freak me out. They're like mirrors."

Abruptly, her hoarse chanting cuts off. "Nonbelievers," she shrieks petulantly. "Demons! Satanists! Devils! Leave me! Leave me alone! My mother! My mother is coming! She's coming for you! She will rip out your hearts and feast on your lungs! My mother is coming! Come, mother, come!"

"What a nutjob," the old man mutters, shaking his head in slight pity. "Even if she is a monster, she must've snapped pretty bad somewhere along the way."

Voice mellowing, the prisoner babbles, "Mother, mother! Come to me! My mother is coming! My mother is coming! This way, mother! Through the stone, through the rock, through the lava! Oh, mother, how I have missed you so! My mother is on her way!"

"Do we still have no idea who her mother is?" the soldier questions, tilting his head in the older man's direction. "Or why she prays to her so avidly?"

The man shrugs. "I have no idea, the scientists don't share any of their findings the few times they do get her to cooperate. And, honestly, I don't give a rat's –"

"Mother!" the girl abruptly shrieks, shooting to her feet, the rivers of grey hair pooling around her and swaying with currents of silver. "Mother! Mother! My mother is coming! My mother is coming! Come to me, Mother!"

Snarling out curses like a sailor lost at sea, the man slams the butt of his gun into the iron bars separating the girl from him, each collision sending shivers through the slender poles. "Shut up, would ya? Your mother's never coming for you! For Christ's sake, stop shouting the same things over and over again!"

Slowly, the girl turns, her hair wrapping around her like the cocoon of a butterfly. As her face peeks between the glistening locks, her harrowing features illuminated by the green light, the girl breaks out into a grin sharpened with triangular shark teeth.

"You don't understand," the girl hisses, bristling, leaping down from her perch on the oily black rocks. "My mother. She's here."

A reptilian roar shakes the floor, throwing the old man and the soldier tumbling down, cracking their heads against the stone. The long, iron bars peel back like melting candle wicks, the ring imprisoning the fearsome girl straightening into a pole, freeing her from the binds.

"Mother!" the girl shrieks, flying from the cage like a bird first flexing its clipped wings to the sky. Her hair follows like a long train.

Groaning gutturally, the soldier lifts himself onto his hands, but his quaking muscles and the still-trembling floor do not allow him to do much more. Collapsing with a sharp, painful exhale, the soldier manages to at least switch her view on the world. He watches with utter terror as the girl skips delightedly to the door, pausing, awaiting something.

A slitted reptilian eye slides before the door, only visible through the metal hatch, crowned with magnificent sapphire scales and overlapping thorns. It blinks twice with eyelids sliding over the pupils vertically, fixing its gaze on the girl.

Crying out with fear, the soldier squirms over the stone, recoiling even as the eye sinks below the window the doorway provides, as scale disappears beneath the floor. How? If a creature can go below the floor-level door, where has the walkway gone?

Before the soldier can ponder it very long, though, the girl walks out, standing on the edge of the door, teetering at the ledge without a care that she may be casting herself into somewhere where the floor might've once been.

She turns back once and waggles her fingers at the soldier, grinning devilishly.

Then, crying out with ecstasy, she turns back to the doorway, which is now dominated with a red, fanged maw, slavering with drool and blood together. Without hesitation, the girl flings herself into the beast's mouth, allowing the jaws to snap shut as she embraces the juicy red tongue. Any farewells she might've issued are lost beneath the soldier's screams of horror.

But, with a blink of his eye, all is right again – and that is what frightens him, startles his bones as soon as he processes the change. Behind him, the bars are bent back and the golden ring perturbed, but beyond the doorway, the floor sits once more, as solid as it had ever been – there is no place for the beast to have dwelled.

The soldier blinks in confusion.

There is also no place for the girl to have run to.

Guess who's back in business.

Alright, alright. Let's get one thing settled right here, before we get too far. For those of you that are innocently clicking on this… it's the third installment in a "triology". You've got to at least start at the second one – Jumping at Shadows – if not Time and Time Again.

To all my faithful readers: I have returned, bringing good news! …It's that I have returned. I can't promise speedy updates until summertime hits, but I can promise doing the best I possibly can to get you guys what you deserve.

About the stuff above? Yeah, here's the thing: in Jumping at Shadows, I introduced the antagonist first. In Time and Time Again, I introduced one of the protagonists. Some ideas as to whom this is, hmmm?

POLL: Just, uh, leave as many reviews as you can under the same name. I wanna see how many I can rack up first chapter.

Ciao,

~wolfluvermh