LAND OF STRANGERS
1349 Words
I had been walking for two days.
Forty-eight hours.
No sleep.
No food.
No warmth.
No hope.
My clothes were torn. My feet were bleeding. My lips were cracked. My hair hung in dirty, tangled strands. Every step I took felt like my body was been shattered, I needed to rest but no place to crash. Nowhere that was safe. Nowhere that would want me.
I looked like a ghost—no, worse. I looked like something people would run from. A mad woman. A lost animal.
I tried to call Mia. She was from another pack. We’d been friends since childhood.
The phone rang once. Twice. Then it stopped.
No answer.
I called again.
This time, the line connected. I felt my heart rise for a second.
“Mia—please, it’s me, Ava,” I whispered, tears in my throat. “I need help. I have nowhere to go.”
There was a pause.
Then her voice came, cold and distant. “Ava… I’m sorry. I can’t speak to you.”
“What? Why?” I asked desperately.
“You don’t know?” she said softly. “Your father and Alpha Andrew made a decree. Any pack that helps you will be seen as an enemy. They said you betrayed the alliance. That you’re dangerous.”
“No! Mia, please believe me. I didn’t do anything wrong. Please help me, I’m pregnant and—“
The call ended.
I froze. Mia was someone I thought wouldn’t turn her back on me but she just hung up on me.
She has left me just like the others.
I kept walking.
The city lights blurred through my tears. Cars passed by, people walked fast and avoided my eyes. No one wanted to see the girl with nothing. The girl who looked like pain.
My knees suddenly went numb.
I collapsed on the floor for a moment, my breathing ragged. My belly ached. My pup—my sweet, innocent child—was still inside me. Still holding on. I touched my belly gently and whispered, “I will protect you at all cost. I promise.”
But I wasn’t sure if I would be able to keep my promise.
The hunger was unbearable. My body ached. I haven’t eaten In two days. My body was slowly loosing it and my vision blurry.
Then I saw it.
A small food store on the corner. The lights were still on. The door was slightly open.
I didn’t want to steal.
But I had no choice.
I sneaked in slightly. The scent of food filled the atmosphere. My wolf whimpered in hunger.
Just then I found a sandwich on the counter. It has already been half-eaten but that didn’t stop me.
I grabbed it and eat it like an animal. Bread, meat, anything—I didn’t care. My hands shook as her shove the food into my mouth. My heart pounding, my eyes scanning every corner incase I got caught.
Then I heard the voice.
“Hey!”
I turned.
The store owner—an older human man—stood in the doorway. His face twisted in anger.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he yelled.
“I—I’m sorry,” I said quickly, my mouth full. “I was hungry. Please, I’ll go—”
But he didn’t listen.
He ran toward me and shoved me hard. I crashed into the shelf, knocking down cans and bottles.
“You filthy thief!” he roared, kicking me in the side.
I screamed, curling up to protect my belly.
“Please—stop! I’m pregnant!” I sobbed.
He didn’t stop.
He slapped me. Punched me. Called me names I didn’t understand. I tried to fight back, but I was too weak. My limbs were heavy. My body was broken.
Finally, he dragged me out of his store and threw me into the street.
“Don’t come back, you disgusting mutt!”
I lay on the cold sidewalk, shivering. People stared. Some walked faster. Others crossed the street.
No one helped.
Then, as if things couldn’t get worse, the sky broke open.
Rain poured down in thick, cold sheets.
I stood up slowly and stumbled away.
I knocked on doors. I begged people in alleys. “Please... just for one night. I’ll leave tomorrow. Just let me sit.”
They all slammed their doors.
“She’s crazy.”
“She’s on drugs.”
“Don’t let her near the kids!”
I wasn’t human enough for them.
I wasn’t wolf enough for my own kind.
I was nothing.
Eventually, I found a pile of trash in a small alley behind a building. It stank. There were rats. Broken glass. Rotten food. But no one chased me from there.
So I laid down in the filth, curled up in a ball.
And fainted.
When I woke, I wasn’t human anymore.
I had shifted in my sleep.
My wolf form had taken over because my human body was too weak. Too broken to carry the weight anymore.
I lay there, a gray, muddy-furred creature with barely enough strength to move.
And I wasn’t alone.
A cage surrounded me.
Bars of steel.
Humans gathered around it, pointing and whispering.
“Is it a dog?”
“No, look at the eyes. It’s wild.”
“Must’ve escaped from a lab.”
One man snapped a picture. Another threw a stone to see if I’d react.
I wanted to run. I wanted to howl. But my body refused.
Then I heard them.
Voices.
Two men walked toward me, holding tools and bags.
“This is the one,” one of them said. “Strong teeth. Aggressive eyes. Dangerous.”
They opened the cage door. My wolf growled weakly, backing into a corner.
“Calm it down,” one of them muttered.
The other man held up a syringe.
“Once we inject her with this, she’ll be powerless. Then we can remove her fangs and claws. She’ll be harmless. Just another freak to show off.”
“No... don’t,” I tried to say, but my voice came out as a whimper.
They didn’t listen.
The needle plunged into my neck.
I screamed.
The pain was like fire exploding through every nerve in my body.
My back arched. My paws kicked helplessly against the cage. I could feel something entering my blood—burning it, changing it, weakening me. It was worse than anything I’d ever felt. Worse than betrayal. Worse than starvation.
“Stop!” I tried again. “Please—you’re hurting my baby!”
But they couldn’t hear me.
Or they didn’t care.
They laughed. One of them pulled out a plier. “Let’s get those pretty teeth.”
I was trembling, my eyes could barely register any vision. My body paralyzed. And my pup, my sweet little baby— she was so scared. I felt her fear, her tiny heartbeat racing.
Then—
BANG!
The door flew open.
The men turned, startled.
And standing there... was Andrew.
He looked perfect, clean, powerful.
And full of pride.
“I’ll take her,” he said calmly.
“She’s yours?” one of the men asked.
Andrew pulled out a thick envelope and tossed it onto the table.
“She’s my pet.”
“No—no, don’t,” I tried to cry. “Don’t let him—”
But my voice was gone.
My body wouldn’t move.
They nodded, pleased. “All yours, sir. She's been injected. She won’t cause trouble.”
Andrew walked over to the cage.
He crouched down, his cold blue eyes meeting mine.
“Look at you,” he whispered. “So pathetic. So easy to break.”
I couldn’t speak.
I couldn’t move.
Everything was spinning around me. I was shutting down.
He reached through the bars and Pat my head gently but I knew he was mocking me.
“I warned you, didn’t I?,” he said softly. “But now... you’re mine again.”
I closed my eyes.
And let the darkness take me.
- Writer
