Into the Night: Chapter 1

The air hit me like a fist to my chest. Instead of losing it, I was gaining it. And all of a sudden, I was breathing again. Gasping for oxygen as I looked around feverously.  Panicking, I struggled to remove the oxygen mask. I needed to breathe freely, unassisted. But with my struggle came new problems.

Something I had done had set off some alarm. I didn't know where it was coming from, but the sound was as a scream in my ear. Deafening and earsplitting. I grabbed my ears, hugging my hands against them. But even that couldn't save me. It pierced through my skin and traveled deep into my eardrums.

I couldn't breathe, my ears felt as though they were bleeding, and in my pain, I lay tossing and turning.

A nurse ran in the room. Grabbing my arms, she struggled to restrain me. For some reason, I was stronger than her. I easily pushed her away and again began to try and free myself from the bed.

Soon, other nurses came in. One was a man. With burly arms, he leaned over me and pinned me to the bed. He was yelling something, but everything was muddled into one loud noise. And my mind was focusing only on it to stop.

It was then that I felt something prick my side. It didn't hurt, but I could feel something being dug into me. I looked over to the nurse who did it. In a fit of rage, I grabbed her by her shirt and pushed her across the room. She landed against the wall, cracking the glass window behind her.

There was a moment of silence from everyone except the alarm. We all looked at the women who sat slumped on the floor. I couldn't tell if she was breathing. A part of me didn't care. But I didn't understand why or how I did it. I didn't understand what was wrong with me. Why was everything so loud? Why was I stronger than I was before?

"Give her a stronger dose!"

I quickly fixed my view on the next nurse that dared come toward me. She was hesitant even though everyone else was urging her to go. Another medical personnel grabbed the syringe from her, pushed her aside and started slowly walking towards me.

I stared. I began to calm myself down and I could feel the nurses who tried to hold me down, loosen their grip. Everything was quiet now. All I heard was the hollow footsteps of the person heading for me. My whole body told me to wait, but I didn't know why. I wanted to start struggling again, try and break free before they stuck me once more. But my mind told me no. It told me to wait.

So I did. I lay calmly as the man walked up to me. He held the syringe up, checking the contents, flicking it twice. He placed one hand on my arm and positioned the other right above my shoulder. He went slowly, looking in my eyes ever so often. But I didn't move, and I could hear his heartbeat slowdown as he began to believe I wouldn't try anything.

I felt the needle touch my skin. The cold steel was the spark that ignited everything.

The man with the needle was the first to die. I was able to free my right hand, snatch the needle from him, and stab it into he neck. I could hear the lowly beat of blood pulsing through his veins. I knew where to strike to cause the most damage.

Then I sat up and grabbed the man in front of me. My small fingers weren't big enough to wrap their way around his neck, but amazingly I was still able to keep hold as he struggled to free himself. When I finally let go and he had stopped breathing, I noticed puncture wounds where the tip of my fingers had dug into his skin.

I wanted to stop. I wasn't trying to kill them. I just wanted to break free, but it seemed as though every move I made was completed in a deadly precision.

All the other medical personnel started backing up from me. The hands that tried to restrain me let me go. They all stared, some with faces stricken with terror and others with amazement.

I slipped out the bed as everyone began to back up more. One nurse had her phone out. Some of the braver people started to circle around me.

A young orderly barged through the door with a straightjacket dangling in his hand.

A part of knew the young man would not be a threat, but another side of me, one I couldn't understand, urged me to attack. It convinced me that my life was threatened and I believed it.

Moving quicker than I even knew I could, I rushed the orderly. Grabbing him by the neck, I began what I did to the nurse who had held me down. But the others apparently knew my tactics now, and two men seized me, struggling to pull me off of him.

They succeed and I was restrained. Each held one of my arms to their chest. I tried to pull myself free, but it seemed my strength had escaped me.

The orderly walked closer and as the two men holding my arms slowly bended them towards the sleeves of the jacket. I tried to resist, but my arms mechanically moved towards the sleeves, and ultimately in them. The two men then situated themselves to the front of me while still keeping hold and the orderly scurried to the back to button up the jacket.

I wanted to scream out. Demand them tell me what was wrong with me. Ask them to who I was, why I was here, and what had happened to me. But my instinct told me to keep quiet. Wait. It told me to wait. But what was I waiting for?

My eyes darted back and forth, looking over every face that stood within the small room. There were seven. Two were restraining me still. The orderly had backed away towards the bed. Two nurses huddled around the girl I threw against the wall while the other was attending to the two men I killed.

Each of their heartbeats were regular. Their guards were down. They figured the worst was over. I was detained and rendered no danger. But I knew this was the perfect time to escape. I knew that if I broke out of my restraints, I could grab the orderly and use him as leverage to get away. I could threaten to break his neck. And if they didn't believe me, I would and then grab the nurse who was still memorized with the men I had killed near the bed.

What I was considering shocked me. I had already killed three people and I was planning on murdering another. But a part of me felt as though it was okay. My mind told me that I was provoked and it was all in self-defense.

The two men began to drag me back to the bed and I cooperated. My head was down and I acted as limp as possible. I could hear the orderly back up as I was coming closer. I counted his footsteps so I knew how far I was going to have to stretch to reach him.

As soon as the men let go to resituate me on my bed, my hands tore through the jacket, shredding it like paper as I freed myself. I dashed for the orderly. He tried to head for the door, but I was too quick for him. I wrapped one arm around his arms and stomach and the other around his neck. Thankfully his was skinny and easy for me to restrain.

He began to yell immediately. The noise pained my ears so I moved my hand up to his mouth to stop the nuisance.

Everyone's focus was on me again. The two men who tried to restrain me before approached me.

"Let him go," the one on the right said.

I shook my head no.

"Miss, we are trying to help. Let him go so we can help you."

I shook my head again and began to back up. The two men followed. The one on the left ventured further than the other. He smiled as he reached out his hand, gesturing for me to let go and come with him.

A part of me felt I was insane for doing all that I had done. I just wanted all the noise in my ears to be gone. I wanted the fire I felt in my body to be cooled. And most of all, I just wanted answers.

Slowly, I began to loosen my grip on the orderly. I could feel his heartbeat slow down as he believed I was going to let him go. And I would've let him go if it wasn't for what I heard coming down the hallway.

It was faint at first. Hollow footsteps that could've been going anywhere. But then they got louder and louder.

"Boston PD, let the boy go!" A police officer, dressed in SWAT uniform, barged into the room, followed by three others.

All the nurses left, including the two men who had tried to restrain me.

My grip soon tightened again as my eyes focused on the four hostile forces that were blocking my escape.

I really wanted to let the orderly go. Though instinct told me otherwise. It was primal with only one goal in mind: to survive.

At the sound of the apparent crack of the orderly's neck, the police officer opened fire. I used my victim as a shield as I tried to figure out how to get around them. The noise of the bullets clouded my mind. I wanted to just crawl into a corner and make all the noise go away, but I couldn't. I needed to escape.

I threw the orderly forward, into the police officers. As they were distracted, I grabbed the first one, disarming him and pulling the trigger as I pointed it his gut. He keeled over and I focused on the other three as the adrenaline began to build up within me.

"What is she?" I heard one of them mumble. That was a good question. I could tell something was different, but not even I knew what was wrong with me.

As my mind replayed the question in my head, my body went on ahead like a fluid machine and dispatched the rest of the officers. I was faster than them, stronger than them, and deadlier than them. I could hear their pleas, but it didn't register. I was cold and a monster.

I ran down the hall, frantically trying to escape. My fight response was over, now my body knew one action: run. And that I did. I ran from the police, the doctors, the nurses. I just needed to escape. Escape the building, escape the noise.

As I turned the corner, heading for the stairs, I found myself face to face with a man. He had round rim glasses, a clean-shaven square face with a prominent chin. His hair was a dirty blonde and it lay shaggy on top of his head. And within the next few seconds I realized he smelled of smoke, his heart beat irregularly, and his breathing was heavy. The last thing I noticed was a glimmer of a knife. The black handle was firmly in his hand while the blade was dug deep into my stomach.

For the first time since I woke up I truly felt pain. The constant noise that irritated my ears, the fire beneath my skin, nothing compared to this. I felt faint, I felt weak, I felt as though my life was being stripped from me.

"Hurry and chain her," the man said. "But don't remove the knife."

I slowly fell to my knees as I stared at the knife. I wanted to pull it out, but it felt as though I was frozen. I could hear the rustle of chains and the shuffling of feet behind me. They were coming for me. I looked at the man and then looked to my right into an empty room.

My mind told me to move. To run, to crawl, to try anything. There was a window across the door. A window I could escape through. I didn't know how far down the drop was or even if I would survive. All I knew was that I had get away before it was too late.

My feet were the first to move. I got up as quickly as I could. Then my hands felt fluid again and I reached for the knife. With every inch that I pulled at it, I could tell if I didn't dislodge it quickly, the man in front of me would stab me with another.

I removed it as soon as the men with chains approached me. I was still weak, still in terrible pain, but I knew what to do. Using whatever speed I had left, I dashed for the door. But I collapsed as I made it inside. Looking to my stomach I watched the slow, steady stream of blood. I shouldn't have been moving at all, but for some reason I was still able to.

"She's not a fully fledged lycan yet. Her regeneration is still slow so get her before she escapes!"

I could hear the man who stabbed me yelling out other commands, but his words didn't fully register. I was confused on what he called me. A lycan. I knew nothing of what the word meant or even its significance. There were still other questions that I wanted answers to, and for the moment, the question of what a lycan was could wait.

My opportunity for escape was fleeting and so was my strength. The men with chains had already entered the room and surrounded me. I turned around to face them. Looking into their faces, I wondered who where they and why they wanted to take me. I understood I had killed people, but these men weren't police.

I didn't have time to ask questions because soon they charged at me. My body was entirely too weak to confront them, but I remembered I still had the knife. I clutched it tightly as the first man came to subdue me.

It was a quick motion. An action I was even surprised I still had the speed to commit. I slit the throat of the first man and threw the knife at the second one behind the former. My actions stirred up enough surprise that the rest were distracted at the death of their two comrades. It was just enough time for me to turn around and jump out the window.

The glass rained down on me as I found myself on the ground, alive to my surprise. I looked back up to see the man with the shaggy hair standing in the window. Even in the darkness, I could see the whites of his eyes looking straight at me. He brought out a phone and said something through the device. Even at the distance, I could hear every word as though I was right next to him.

"'Capture her at all costs."

And with that, I ran.