The Last Mate on Earth

Part 1 - Chapter 4

* * * Hayden’s POV * * *

Today had been a ball ache, a total cluster f**k. Hope with her sudden urge to be rebellious. I had been unable to control her, as they would say. I felt like a total d**k, we were not just classmates. The others and I had been put here to get Hope to open up, convince her of the destroyed world outside and that the facility and its dome were the only things keeping us all alive. I was an arsehole and a shitty friend. It had seemed cool in the beginning, but now I just felt like a piece of s**t. I was unworthy of being in her presence. And then Miss Rita had mentioned the training room. I don’t even think she realised.

Every night over the past couple of years I found it harder and harder to fall asleep. Struggling to accept the lies we told her.

The alarms sound and wake Joven. He is my best friend here after Hope herself. It’s 3am and I was not asleep as per usual. “Probably a storm, they’ve been pretty bad lately”, he mumbles and turns back over to sleep.

He was right, there had been 80mph and above wind speeds during the last few storms and it had required all hands on deck to keep the illusion alive. The sudden sound of boots running down the corridor and passing our room signalled something more.

“Protesters”, I told Joven.

“Damn them, why can they just not stay at home?” Joven grumbled and again shuts his eyes.

Sleep.

What is sleep? I have had so little of it lately that I’m forgetting what it feels like. Joven has never had trouble in that area, he could sleep through a damn bomb attack. Even when we were younger and beginning our training, and I was still afraid of the dark, he would just switch off as soon as they called for lights out. He would be asleep in seconds. While I would be awake for hours, my mind spinning, trying to work all of this out. Trying to figure out my place in this madness. It feels good to know that some things never change.

The alarms are still sounding and the red pulsing lights flicker beneath the gap at the bottom of the door. If I had to guess, I would say that they would be pulsing for quite some time. I try to picture what is happening down below this fortress.

Hundreds, if not thousands of wolves and people braving the weather, knee deep in the freezing snow that had covered the land some weeks ago. The weather had changed drastically and it was frequently cold with either rain or snow. Most people have remained indoors over the years. But not these lot.

Some would call these protesters deluded, as once again they descend upon the facility site like locusts with only the fire of their anger keeping them warm. What they failed to understand was that this place was near impenetrable. The facility itself was built upon a large and 200ft high mound of earth. There were solid concrete walls and a thick steel gate around the entire mound.

So why would they continue their attempts?

It was obvious. It was her. Their only hope and their saviour. Hope.

The protesters were nothing new around here, the facility had seen millions of their faces over the years. Wolves, man and witch, their angry voices heard on the housing levels, their pathetic little cardboard signs picketed around the wall and held high as they marched back and forth. All wanting one thing.

To free Hope.

“Damn protestors. I hate them”, Joven grumbled, as he pulled his pillow over his head and went back to sleep.

Tonight’s protest will turn into a full-blown riot. They always do. And as always, they will get nowhere. The fire of their anger and the fire they create, will be quickly extinguished.

There have been a few close calls over the years, of course. But what else would you expect? They are passionate about their cause. She is the most important person on the planet, the most important in history, especially modern history. Her existence will make it break the world.

When she was a pup, there had been many kidnapping attempts, death threats and assassination attempts whenever she had been made to perform her public appearances. The good old days when she was young and the lie did not exist. She had been paraded around like a puppet, giving everyone a physical glimpse of the last she-wolf, a view of the last mate on earth. Giving hope to the hopeless, giving strength to the weak and attempting to convince all the non-believers.

The danger became too great and she was locked away in the facility for good. She does not remember any of it, not that she has ever mentioned it. And we are strictly prohibited from reminding her. It was a different lifetime ago, before ‘TWPA’ took over, The Wolf Protection Agency were basically scientists, engineers and the rich who were able to create the lie. She was given her own ivory tower within this facility and she never questioned it. She has not stepped foot outside the facility in 13 years.

I lay in bed and let my mind wander to the five floors below where the madness is occurring and to Hope, two floors above. This place had been rapidly modified and she believed her floor was the only liveable floor within the castle. It had been designed and built that way, with fake doors to areas that did not exist. With its high-tech dome screen around her. Her whole entire world was that damn floor. If this castle was a country, then the top floor was its capital. Population one.

Hope.

Nobody else was allowed up there, unless they were on duty. I wondered what she was doing up there. What is she doing right now? Of course, she can’t hear the mayhem below or the security alarms. Not up on her floor. But I knew her as well as I knew myself, and I knew she would not be sleeping. Her mind would be full of worry for her preparation day tomorrow and meeting the prospects at the weekend.

My bed rattles and shakes. Rocking my body and making my teeth chatter. I looked across and Joven was still asleep. One of the protestors must have used an explosive. The protest has now moved onto a riot.

Joven begins to snore as his mouth falls open. He is completely oblivious to the rage down below on ground level. He could honestly sleep through a damn apocalypse. Just as ignorant of the noise as Hope is. The only difference is that Joven does not have the privilege of having motion stabilisers, shock absorbers or the largest and most expensive suspension system ever made to keep him asleep. Sometimes I have to check that he is breathing to make sure that he is in fact alive.

Another explosive sounds closer this time. I can see the water in my glass rippling in its aftershock. The castle feels like it is shaking, and, of course, Hope will not feel a thing. The upper floor is a constant, always subtly moving, ebbing and swaying, like a boat on a calm sea. The system allows the shockwaves to pass around it without disturbing its previous occupant. The dome screen shows a perfectly calm night and if she were to look over the tower's edge, she would see a calm ocean rippling. They chose to make her believe that she lived by the sea. When the dome screen would show heavy waves, they would program the floor to shake as though caught in the wind. It was the perfect lie.

Another explosion sounded. The protesters must be having fun tonight. Knowing that I wouldn’t be going to sleep anytime soon, I decided to take a look. As I get out of bed and my feet touch the floor, a small and dim night-light switches on at the far end of the room, to provide enough light to navigate the room. As I walk by my work desk, my computer monitor springs to life, encouraging me to log in and work. I quickly turned it off, to avoid waking Joven. Not that it would anyway.

As I approach the window to our room, the sensors pick up my movement and activate. I find it amusing that they are still called windows. They are in fact mirror TVs. There are hundreds of tiny cameras on the outer wall which send the video to the screen. It really is like looking out of a window. These are just one of the hundreds of things that my father invented. He is a genius. Before the world went to s**t his company was the leading company in its field in the whole world. That is why he was invited to live here, despite being a human. That is why I am allowed to work alongside Eve, because I am a human and cannot mess this up for them.

I look out of my window, there is nothing but a perfectly calm sea reflecting the light of the moon, with thick dark clouds on the horizon. This is what hope will see from her window. I quickly press my fingertip to the corner for the fingerprint recognition software. There is a small green light that appears at the bottom left-hand corner to say I am approved. I slide my hands across the screen, mirroring opening a pair of curtains and I am blinded by flashes of red and orange. “For f**k sake Hayden. I am trying to sleep”, Joven grumbles and pulls his pillow over his face and instantly falls back to sleep.

“Sorry”, I whispered to him, knowing it was too late and he would not hear me. I slide my hand down the right-hand side of the screen to adjust the brightness of the display.

When the screen settles, I am no longer looking at the sea and the clouds. We don’t even live near the sea, for f**k's sake. I find myself looking down at what remains of the city below. Fires can be seen far and wide, a result of this damn protest. It still amazes me that people live out there by choice and refuse to join a colony. I place both index fingers on the screen and swipe them in a diagonal direction to enlarge my view. I can now see the protesters, their fires and their cardboard signs.

‘Free Hope.’

‘Stop selling a lie.’

‘She deserves to know the truth.’

‘Fly free, Hope.’

They should know by now that she cannot hear or see them. Their faces are angry, yet some are sad and tears fall as they look up to the sky where she is kept. The castle guards are stationed around the outer wall, trying to get rid of the group.

Surely they know that they will fail this time, just like last time.

And just like the next time that they try.

All the protestors are men, of course. The world soon became unsafe for women, no matter their race. Most of the men here may very well have never seen a woman before. At least not under the age of 50. The women that are out there are hidden. They reside in female-only areas and sanctuaries. I never met a single woman when I lived out there with my mother. It was only because the facility could not work with the technology that we were invited here.

The women out there are scared of life outside, scared of men and what the world has become. Werewolves became a critically endangered species, with the she-wolf being the rarest of all. They tried to reproduce with any female, whether they were a wolf, a witch, a vampire or a human. They needed saving and everything was fair game in their eyes.

My screen flashes blue, this explosive is one of the facilities. It’s a non-lethal explosion obviously. They dare not risk any life, just in case one of them is fertile and can help repopulate the Earth. The facility's explosives omit a high pitched frequency that hurts the ears and contains tear gas. Once that s**t gets in your eyes, you will scarper to get away from the lingering mist. It hangs around for hours. I watch as the protestors turn on their heels and run, while rubbing their eyes.

I zoomed my screen in on the sky to see storm clouds. There are always bloody storm clouds these days. This is what we have done to the planet. In our fear of extinction, we have almost destroyed the planet. That is what happens you see in a world predominantly inhabited by men, two world wars, using fossil fuel faster than the earth can heal. Causing global warming beyond repair. War and constant greed. Going to battle to demand access to a pack or cities women. The world was habitable, but the weather fluctuated something awful, the rain was heavy and relentless, while the temperature had risen. With no future generations to inherit the Earth, we abused it and abused the other races.

What we didn’t destroy the weather ended for us. Cities collapsed, rivers and seas flooded and swallowed the land.

This all happened before I was born. I should feel s**t regarding the circumstances of my birth. But my mother explained she had felt lonely and one thing led to another and nine months later I was born, neither of us knowing who my father is or was. Until he turned up to take me.

All of this happened before Hope arrived.

They claim it is the most severe and erratic weather conditions that the world has ever seen.

We are bloody selfish. The moon goddess was right to curse the wolves. I wonder if god also cursed humans.

Over the last year, my working hours have quadrupled, and it has all been in preparation for the prospects arriving.

As our ‘class’ size dwindled, more hours were needed. There were 30 of us working in close proximity to Hope, being fellow students of the facility. The last born children. If a class member developed an attraction to her, they were cast out. If a class member developed a wolf, they were cast out. If a class member almost told her the truth, they were cast out. And that is how things work around here. We were nothing more than props to help her feel normal and not alone. But she was more alone than they realised.

My role was to be her best friend, unlock her thoughts for them, influence her decisions for them, basically to help them control her. After all, there is nobody more influential than your best friend.

Over the last couple of years, I have found myself forgetting who I am and where my job role ends. I have become the Hayden who is her best friend, and that is probably why she gravitates towards me. Something shifted, and I had to be there, I had to make her feel not alone. She had become my own lifeline. I couldn’t explain it, and I wouldn’t. If the facility got wind of it, I would be cast out too.

I wonder what Hope would think if she looked out of her window and saw what I saw. How would she feel knowing she had lived a lie? That she was a pawn in their game, a pawn that gave them ultimate power over the world?

But when the fake sun rises through her window, she will look out on a glistening ocean, believing that the world is healing, and will become a peaceful and wonderful place. She has faith in the humanity of the wolves and humans, she believes the gods and goddesses will forgive us.

The fires below are extinguished, the sound of alarms has stopped. I draw my arms across the screens mirroring drawing curtains and the screen fades back into its default mode. I walked back to my bed, and climbed in, knowing that tomorrow Hope needs me. She needs someone to complain to, about how they will prepare her. She will be showered and scrubbed until her skin is sore and shiny, she will be waxed and moisturised.

I hate that they are trying to pair her off as if she is a zoo animal designed for breeding only. Do I think it’s right? No. Do I agree with it? No. Do I think it is necessary? Yes, kind of. Would anybody listen to my opinion? Only Hope.

The facility does not realise that there are more important things than genetic make-up. Emotion. Attraction. Sparks and love. Did I love Hope? I think I do, and I can’t tell a soul.

I find that I am smiling as my head hits the pillow, picturing running away with Hope and showing her the actual real world and not the one they created for her. Providing her with choice and control for the first time in her life. I smile as I am taken to a place that has become unfamiliar. Sleep.

She is ours.