The last thing Miranda remembered before she passed out was a wolf man with a bent spine walking away with an orb that contained her unborn child. While she slept, a dream came down upon her like the angel Gabriel to the virgin Mary, the dream bore a message from the higher powers dwelling deep inside her subconscious.
It began with a question; how much sauce does a piece of dough need to be declared a pizza? That question then transformed into an idea; that a pizza is a pizza when all the required ingredients are present. The dough, then the sauce, then the cheese; afterward you can use any ingredient and call it pizza. That is what Miranda thought and believed for a long time, until she watched a horror movie. The movie itself was forgettable to her, but the very fact that it the movie began with a warning stating, "This movie is based on a true story," made her spine recline.
As she watched the movie her mind was racing, but her 14 year old body was perfectly still. The movie was unremarkable: the acting was terrible, the special effects were mediocre, and it poorly portrayed the actual real life events. Miranda knew this, yet she could not shake off that warning, "This movie is based on a true story." What does that mean? The events may not have been real, but the characters were somewhat similar to their real life counterpart. So why was it that an insignificant character, a child that was purely used as someone to scare the audience, so significant to this mother character?
Miranda guessed it was because the child was the mother's child. The child was possessed by the demon, their free will ripped apart, their face warping to the demon's, their empathy, sympathy, emotions, everything that made them human was ripped apart. Yet in the movie, even after the child killed people, almost killed the mother, scared the audience half to death; the mother still treated the demon like it was their own child.
The mother already knew definitively that the demon had completely taken over the child. There was no possible way for the child to return, the mother had already grieved and accepted that fact, that was the point of the movie. Yet she still treated the demon like their own child. This idea of the required ingredients suddenly was rejected out of the catacombs of Miranda's mind. It was tweaked, reworked, and reimagined to the point of near delusion. Before it became a delusion, a new question rose.
"If you remove everything about a person that makes the person a person, should I still treat them as a person?" It invaded her mind, like a stepfather moving into a family. It sat awkwardly in her mind, she played with the question, judged the question, then finally came to accept the question as an idea. This was the beginning of a delusion that formed inside her brain that was only enhanced by this new dream that came to her.
The dream manifested itself with a bang. A literal explosion that seemed to encompass the whole universe around her, the scorching heat made her believe her blood was boiling, but she felt no dizziness or any of the other side effects of overheat. In fact, the explosion felt warm to her, like a motherly hug embracing her with the infinity of the universe around her. Much like our own universe, the embrace felt mysterious and empty. Like at any time Miranda could slip right through the hug, and she would only be left to hug herself in the epicenter of the explosion. Or the embrace would be just as solid as her own beating heart, enticing fear as it beat in the arms of Miranda. But her fear was overshadowed by a looming presence. A presence that seemed to follow her every movement, cause shocks to electrify her nerves, make her cry with anticipation, and shiver at the very thought of it.
Curiosity plagued her.
So despite the infinity of the embrace, she squeezed as hard as she could. With a single thought running through her mind's mind. "Infinity can bleed like a human." Such was the results of her delusions. As she squeezed, she heard a voice call out to her. It was high pitched, the tones soft and gentle; confused in nature and fearful at its nurture. It was muffled with tears and sniffles, that left Miranda frozen. "Mama."
The words struck her like a hammer to a bell. The words echoed throughout her mind, filling up the empty universe and pushing her to the side. "I'm coming," she screamed out, "Mama's on her way," her breathing was heavy, it felt as though she was getting swept away by waves. She thrashed around, kicking as hard as she could, believed that maybe she could run on infinity. It was too much, in an instant everything went blank. Then she woke up.
"Good morning," a beautiful familiar masculine voice cleansed her of the memory of her dream. Miranda felt like she laid atop of cloud as she stared at a blue ceiling.
"Did I die," she asked.
"Unfortunately no, but can you explain to me why you might have died in the first place?"
Miranda turned her head toward the source of the voice, there sat William Adalwulf. His baby face was gone, replaced now with a perfectly kept black beard. His hair remained nappy, but he had cut it down to a buzzcut. His crimson eyes welcomed her as she stuttered: "They took our baby," she whispered. Suddenly the memories of her dream splashed back into her mind, as she repeated, "He took our baby."
She began to thrash around, kicking away at the air before slamming her feet down into the bed that she laid in. She screamed and hyperventilated. "Breath Miranda, calm down," a mother-like voice in her head told her. "I can't," she screeched out, making William jump. After a few more thrashes, her hair was disheveled and she jumped out of bed to rush at William. She grabbed him by the shoulders with both of her arms, and with her azure eyes she watched tears well up inside his crimson eyes, "What happened," William asked with breakage in his voice.
"The m-man with the bent spine. H-He came out of nowhere. It was dark, he was dressed in all black, terrible fashion sense by the way. He asked me about you and mentioned something about the Alpha and I got scared so I ran and ran and ran and ran and ran as fast as I could go. Then he caught me," her lips quivered as she tried to find her next words, "I can't! I can't! Miranda can't be calm right now!" She let go of William's shoulders and placed her hands on the sides of her head. She slowly backed back into the bed and sat on it.
"We can get your baby back," William said standing up and hugging Miranda.
"Our baby," she corrected him while letting go of her head.
"Miranda, before I can answer or ask any questions. I need you to calm down. I ordered some mcdonald's."
"Off from my credit card?"
"Yes, from your credit card," his eyes wavering, "6 piece nuggets, a burger, and fries, and um; a milkshake. You must be starving."
She nodded, William stopped hugging Miranda and walked away to grab her mcdonalds. Once he came back, he sat back into his seat by the bed. He watched her do nothing, but stare off into the some uncertain distance or location. Her eyes were still, but her mind was on a move, it took her about a minute before she finally opened the bag and began eating. After finishing 4 out of the 6 nuggets, she looked towards William, "Why are you a werewolf?"
"Woah, that's offensive. I was born like this."
"Werewolves find offense, good to know. How long have you been a werewolf?"
"I've been a werewolf my whole life."
"Oh right, you said you were born like this. Can anyone become a werewolf?"
"Yes, though your body has to be fit enough to withstand it."
"Hmm, interesting," she said finishing her chicken nuggets. "Why are you the alpha? Why haven't you told me about this already."
"Can you ask one question at a time please?"
"Can you only answer my questions and not question my questioning?"
They both sighed, as Miranda reached into her bag to pull out her burger. She began eating it as William put his hands together and leaned forward. "Werewolves date back to-"
"Boring! Start with you, then make your way up."
"You're insufferable," Miranda laughed as William continued, "Long story short, my father was the alpha of the entire werewolf race. By werewolf law, I must become the next alpha."
"But you were a pussy and gave it up."
"Thrusting my whole race into a civil war for the title of Alpha. I was 16, stupid and inexperienced. I was not fit to lead at all."
"Alright, understandable, so how are we going to get our child back," Miranda said finishing her burger.
"Miranda, I want you to tell me exactly how the werewolf looked like."
"He had a large nose, and a bent spine, and beaming red eyes."
"Did he do anything strange to you? Like did he mention using magic of some kind."
"He-" she put her hand over her stomach, then lowered her head slightly. As she remembered the events of when she was last awake, her eyes grew sharper. Her azure eyes dimmed as smoke started coming out of her body.
"What the fuck, you're smoking!"
"That damn bitch put his fingers inside me, and tore my baby out of me. William, I don't care about whatever attachment you might have for your people. I'm killing every single one of them," she got up and suddenly smoke poured out of every pore on her body. She became slimmer as seconds past.
"What about the fucking smoke," William coughed as he inhaled some of it, swiping his hand at the air in front of him to move the smoke away from him. He used his other hand to cover his nose, "This smell is terrible too. When was the last time you showered!"
"William! Focus on the important thing here, how do I get our baby back," Miranda stopped spewing out smoke from her body. Once all the smoke had dissipated, William saw her body was once again back to her thin shape. "What the fuck are you?"
"A werewolf hunter after I get out of this room."
"No,no, no! Before we go out to get our baby I want you to bundle up all your anger and finish your food. You still haven't had your milkshake right? I still need to explain some things, and you should save as much energy as possible to stay motivated and ready for a moment's notice."
William stared up at Miranda who couldn't stop her eye from twitching. "Fine," Miranda turned around and back on the bed, she dug into the bag and found her fries and milkshake. She grabbed a single fry, then dipped it into her milkshake and ate it. Which seemed to lift her face, "Mm, you got my favorite flavor! Thank you Willy!"
William sighed, "Alright. I haven't been personally- been you know, k-keeping up with my people for years. I don't know who could have taken our baby. For all I know they could have been some high ranking member in some new pack. Before you even stop eating your fries, a pack is essentially a gang of werewolves. Every pack has their own self appointed alpha. My guess is that the most powerful packs have started their move to make their alpha, the Alpha. They might even," William paused, "Never mind, shouldn't be too important right now. The most important thing right now is to get information, fortunately for us my pack is full of people who love gathering information. Even more fortunate for us, they are in the other room."
"Oh yeah, that reminds me," Miranda swallowed the last of her milkshake and fries before continuing, "where are we, I don't recognize this room." Miranda looked around her, the walls were stone grey, the ceiling a bright blue, and the ground wood. The walls were empty and the only prominent furniture were the bed that she laid in and the office chair that William sat in. As well as a desk to accompany the chair; on the desk was a computer, a monitor, keyboard, and mouse. All of them seemed to have RGB lights attached to them. "This decor is so bad."
"Well, I'm sorry! I literally just moved in here. Welcome to my pack's den. We call it Amadeus, we call ourselves Wolfgang, and yes we do play Mozart on the weekend."