John O'Brien - Dissension

She rounds a corner and leads her pack even closer. The houses and trees suddenly give way to rubble and destroyed buildings. She stops and gazes out over this sudden change in their surroundings. Glass and debris are scattered in the open areas in front of each building. Large chunks of the structures lie in the streets before her. She sees wisps of smoke rising from some places where the buildings once stood and an acrid odor permeates the area. She recognizes the scent as similar to that emitted after the two-legged ones fire their guns. Caution grips her as she continues to survey the scene. She feels the restlessness of her pack standing still both behind her and to the side. They all remember the image sent by Michael of the danger above and they all felt the loss of packs last night.

She turns her gaze upward half expecting to see the lights she was sent in the images. The night is silent. The droning she heard last night absent. A shriek from afar carries over the night air. One of the packs has found food. She hears a call from even farther away. A call from one of the larger four-legged ones that also hunt in the night. The stillness returns.

Feeling like she is stepping over a boundary from one world to the next, she takes a cautious step out from the tree-lined street. She feels an increase in tension within those around her. Nothing happens. She steps again and then folds into her customary trot. The others follow. She keeps a constant eye and ear on the night sky. There is only the bright twinkling of the night lights high above.

Farther into the demolished area, she hears faint squeaks and scurries of smaller creatures. She picks up their scents and notices how prevalent they are. There is more than enough here to feed her pack. She turns into one of the open areas in front of the smoking remains of a building avoiding the small and large chunks of scattered debris. She still wants to look at the lair, which she knows is not far away but her pack comes first. And they must feed.

She sets them into the smoldering rubble to pick out the small, furry creatures. As they appear, many run into the small crevices but there are many in the open areas that they run down. Shrieks from her pack fill the night. Quieter squeaks from their prey fill in the gaps of silence. Several members sit amidst the rubble and snack on their catch. Sandra grasps one of the furry rodents in her hands. She feels it squirm and wriggle to get away. A brush from the two-legged one that has haunted her all this time enters her mind.

She feels him nearby. The food she had in her hands drops to the ground forgotten. It squeals and runs away but is unnoticed by her. She detects the other and it fills her. The tug and intrigue increases until it’s all she can think of. She stares into the distance, through the intervening ruins, directly toward the lair where she senses the two-legged one. Noticing her change, the others of her pack halt what they are doing and look at her questioningly. She shakes her head and sends them back to catching their food.

She glances down at her hands, surprised to see the food she had in them is gone. Looking around, she sees other prey across the street and, with startling speed, starts to run to catch it but is brought up short after only three steps. She feels the one again only this time, there is a difference. She sees an image of another female — a two-legged one. She senses the feelings for this other female the one has for her. Anger and a feeling similar to what we would term jealousy fill her. These raw emotions surprise her.

She heads immediately toward the two-legged lair calling to a few of her pack to join her. She has the others wait to gather food, instructing them to feed themselves and kill enough prey for the others when they return. Without waiting for the others join her, she sets off knowing they will catch up. She wants a look at the lair now. She wants to find a way in and kill this other that she now sees as a competitor. Startled by how she now perceives this other one that has periodically brushed her mind, deep down, she knows this is how she always felt. The surge of these new emotions adds to her surprise. Other thoughts and emotions, unknown before this moment, surge into her mind.

She hears the feet slapping on the pavement to her rear as the others catch up. Her long, brown hair, dirty and tangled, flops behind her as she picks up her pace. She winds through more scattered debris with the smell of smoke and the other acrid scent following her. The sense of the other one leaves but she still can pinpoint where it came from. Before long, she comes to the end of the burnt and destroyed buildings. Before her lies a large road. Across it, high walls tower upward. She knows this is the place of the two-legged one and the lair of others of his kind.

The smells of the two-legged ones rise about the smoke and ash smell of the buildings around her. Other scents of large prey filter over the high walls as well. Her stomach rumbles reminding her that she hasn’t eaten and thoughts of feeding her young one rise to the surface. She will scout the lair and return to feed. Killing the other female and having the two-legged one for her own are not far below the surface and have become the foundation for her thoughts and emotions. How she will get the other one is beyond her. She only knows that she wants him.

She leads her pack across the dark strip of road and up the far embankment, stopping just short of the top. The light-colored walls stretch high above her. Looking to her left, she sees the wall stretch off into the distance out of her line of sight. To her right, the wall continues a short distance before stopping. She heads along it and sees that the wall makes a corner and continues past her sight in this direction as well. Looking at the wall, she doesn’t see anywhere that she can scale it. It appears to be too high to leap to the top but she sends an image to one of her pack to make the attempt. The one she sent the image to starts a run at the wall.

A flash of light and explosion fills the night. The blast knocks her off her feet and she finds herself on the ground without knowing how she arrived there. Her mind is stunned from the concussion and her only thought is to flee; flee and safeguard her young one. Her mind is still too shocked to even know how to move let alone rise. Her senses gradually return with the exception that her ears are ringing loud enough to be painful. Sandra pushes herself up onto her elbows and spits dirt and pieces of grass out of her mouth. She feels the grit in her hair, on her face, and covering her body. Looking around, she sees the rest of her pack slowly rising from where they were blown to the ground.

She rises and shakes the debris off her. Looking to the source of the concussive blast, she sees wisps of smoke rising from a large hole in the ground. The night air is infused with the acrid scent she encountered earlier around the demolished buildings. She searches the immediate area for the one she sent to the wall and locates his body covered in clods of dirt. Not sensing his presence, she does see shreds of clothing lying about. Looking down at the ground close by where she is standing, she spots a foot. Sandra takes a step toward the crater and the body of her pack member but she stops, not wanting to go closer in case there are other things that caused the explosion. The protective instinct toward her young one takes hold and she shivers in fear. She turns and flees with the rest of her pack close on her heels.

Captain Leonard lies on his bunk cradling the back of his head with his hands. He flexes his sock-clad feet trying to ease some of the tension he feels while staring at the myriad of pipes affixed to the ceiling overhead. These mostly go unseen as his thoughts race. The information he gathered from the radio conversation today still seems so unreal. He can’t push away the images of what he saw on his journey through the straits and sitting here just offshore from the base. The buildings still stand but the complete lack of movement or people still baffles him. There must be a more plausible explanation than what he received even if it was indirectly verified by the SEAL Team leader.