Canis Major

A Voice in the Darkness

Abduction was acceptable to them as a method to get someone like me to go to the moon for them. I was the first of my kind that they were sending this time. The activation of the dormant side of me had never been tested in such a way.

But as these things usually went, someone very powerful played Devil's advocate and the dangerous experiment went ahead. If I happened to meet aliens on the moon and they asked me about mankind I'd tell them the truth. There are some good people here and some really bad ones too. I'd tell them that if they're looking to set down their anchor on Earth they should turn around and set sail elsewhere.

I was approached by a representative of a private space agency to participate in an experiment. She said I would be paid and that my safety would be guaranteed because they meticulously accounted for all the variables and everything seemed promising. I went to their facility to start my astronaut training.

One of the scientists there took me aside one day and told me I was being bamboozled. He said no one there actually knew what they were doing. He said they were playing with forces they barely understood.

Next thing I knew, this guy was bolting out of the room and guards were chasing him. It seemed he wasn't supposed to be there. In that moment I was starting to think I didn't belong there either so one day I stopped going to training.

Then one night they invaded my home with what I can only describe as a paramilitary force. They dragged me back to their facility. That's when training took a little detour. They took all my clothes and left me naked in a room. There was no light but there was a sound. It was the sound of some kind of animal.

It all happened so fast. The roof opened and moonlight entered the room. I saw there was a buffalo in the room with me and I blacked out. I always blacked out whenever I transformed. When I woke up there were pieces of the buffalo scattered across the room and there was blood all over me.

Their rocket, Canis Major, blasted off one sunny day and I was its cargo. Apparently chimpanzees weren't available for this trip because they were running Mission Control. These people had the audacity to ask me how I was feeling. What the hell did these psychopaths know about sharing intimate thoughts and feelings?

When they were doing their countdown and celebrating a successful launch I was thinking about my daughter who I said some mean things to because of a silly disagreement. I wanted to say sorry and now I didn't know if I'd ever get the chance.

I wish I had apologised before all of this happened but apologising isn't easy when you know you're right. Let's just say I didn't like the extension she made to our family. That boy she claimed to be in love with wasn't good enough for her.

When my module landed and I set foot on the terraformed moon, Mission Control cheered. They had achieved their goal. When the light there on the moon hit me I started to change. The feeling is indescribable. I just felt power.

The strangest thing was that this time I didn't black out. I was very much aware of myself. This was the first time I changed and I wasn't just a mindless beast. It seemed being this close to the moon made me retain my sentience after changing.

But It didn't last. I got knocked out by something. I had a dream. In the dream I was running. I was chasing my prey. It was so familiar. That's because it wasn't just a dream. It was a memory of the first time I hunted and fed on a human. That was the night I gave in to my lust for human flesh.

When I woke up from the dream I didn't see any little green men. There wasn't even a black monolith like in 2001: A Space Odyssey. I was fine with that because I wouldn't have liked being a werewolf fetus orbiting Earth. Soon I knew my purpose for being there when an excited voice in the darkness declared that it couldn't wait to hunt me down, kill me and mount my head on a pike.

I had a feeling that I was to be hunted for sport. It seemed my captors on Earth were in the business of providing formidable prey for their customers in the Lunar Colony. I couldn't believe this was what passed for respectable private sector enterprise these days.

My son-in-law that I said wasn't a viable husband for my daughter was there in the Lunar Colony. We spoke to each other telepathically. We had never done that before. He had always said whenever he wanted to talk to me, telepathically or otherwise, I would make up an excuse and say I wasn't available.

But now I was finally taking my daughter's advice and opening up to him. I let him know how scared I was. I was supine in a dark room. I couldn't move. I felt like a rat on a glue trap. He told me an armed rescue team was in transit to come and get me.

"If I don't make it watch over my daughter like you've always done," I said.

"I assure you it's all gonna be fine," he replied.

Michael and his team broke me out. There were casualties, but not on our side.

My rescuers took me aboard their ship and we accelerated back to their base on Earth.

I asked my son-in-law, Michael, how he went from being an activist to whatever he was doing these days.

"James, some affairs need to be dealt with more forcefully, especially with the threat we're facing. There's a clock ticking. It's not an alarm clock. It's a doomsday clock," he replied.

I couldn't agree with him more. We needed to amputate the festering system that oppressed people like us. I had always been a pacifist but I came to appreciate the alternative view.

Michael was right. It was a doomsday threat. Our enemy was like an asteroid on its way to wipe out our species. I didn't want to go out with a bang. Before that happens I'd go berserk and rip as many of them limb from limb as I can. At least, I wished I had that kind of control to be able to transform at will. I had reached my boiling point with these people.

The ship was buffeted by turbulence as we entered Earth's atmosphere. I was so happy to see my daughter, Jaedann, once we got to the base. She seemed unwell. Probably because of prolonged worry. Worrying about me. How nice it was to see her beautiful chocolate skin again. We communicated our excitement by beaming pleasant thoughts into each other's mind.

My daughter suggested I needed counseling for my traumatic experience. I just brushed it off. A few seconds later she dropped dead. It was expected but not so soon. I stared in disbelief. Then I screamed. Then I cried.

Michael, in his own grief, tried to ease my sorrow by hugging me. I will never forget the expression on Jaedann's face as she died; the fear and loneliness she felt.

I hate funerals but not showing up to my own daughter's funeral wasn't an option. After it ended Michael and I drank some beers, watched football and ate some curried goat with rice. Then we watched an old horror movie called Hereditary.

"It was incurable, inoperable.... Whatever. There was nothing anybody could do about it," Michael said.

"I'm sorry for not being there when you guys tied the knot. I just didn't want my daughter to marry a half vampire. I was wrong. You're a good guy," I said.

"It's hard for me, you know. Being a hybrid. When I'm around werewolves I feel like I'm not werewolf enough, and when I'm around vampires I feel like I'm not vampire enough. Being treated like a mongrel..."

"It's quite an ordeal, I imagine. I can be very pig-headed sometimes. I'm sorry about that."

"The mind is like a tree, you know. It doesn't always grow in the ideal way. Sometimes you need to cut away dead or overgrown branches. You're definitely getting there."

"I propose a toast to my dead bigoted branches."

"Toast."

We knocked our beer bottles together.

"The Resistance could use a man like you, James."

"What's the penalty for sedition again?" I said.

"Death."

"You're gonna think this is the drunk version of me talking. But I think we should stop. I think we are way in over our heads. I just lost a daughter. I don't want to lose a son too. I don't want to lose you, Michael. Or any more of our kind for that matter. I can't support this suicide mission. Do you really think you can transform this country into a utopia?"

"Watch me!"