~ 12: Figuring The Answer To The Unknownst - Part 3 ~

I stepped back from the silhoeutte I had so easily bashed into. My eyes couldn't take the terror of having to control my fear now that two of those creatures had appeared right around me.

'Just how did they sense this poor creature would be there and they would have a nice wholesome meal together?' I asked myself, staring at the two of them where they both seemed to be having a staring contest. 'What are they going to get by eating a thin thistle or by turning me to their side? I would rather die than become one amongst them who have no control over themselves.'

"Step aside, Riya," said the person in front of me whose eyes still gleamed gold under the moonlight, but he didn't transform into the vicious beast yet.

I batted my eyes twice, wondering what had come over me. I stared at the man in front of me whose phone light now shone on the wall beside me.

"Gean?" I whispered in horror with exclamation written all over my face. "H-How...?"

I couldn't figure out how he had traced me out or come to my rescue without having stalked me. My mind turned around trying to figure if I should be running in the other direction or if I should stand with him.

"Step. Aside. Don't make me repeat," came his curt words that felt like scissors cutting the bond of friendship we had maintained since high school.

My shaky legs gave him the way he needed. I turned to watch his broad back move forward to face the creature that had come at me. I leaned against the dark wall, wondering if I had any right to be there and for what reason I had ended up in this place.

"Change back," he ordered the creature who continue to growl at him.

A sword appeared in the man's hand and the creature immediately stepped away. But the werewolf's pride was too much for it to step away instead of tackling the intruder of his precious meal. It pranced around the man now that its attention was completely taken off me.

"Turn around, young maiden," he uttered to me as the beast took a dangerous step towards him. "Unless you are perfectly fine with seeing murder and gore."

"Huh?" I asked back, wondering how he could be thinking of doing that here when killing was considered a crime.

"Don't worry, I'll erase it from your memories so that you won't have to remember any of it. But it would be better if you didn't have trauma for an unknown reason. That would be terrible, don't you think?"

'Do I tell the truth or do I keep silent?' I asked my brain for some ideas so that I wouldn't;t get in trouble for being frozen on the spot and watching the two of them tear the other apart and bleed till the other died.

'What do you think, you idiot?' it said back in a snappy voice. 'Do you think he'll spare you once he finds out the truth about you? He is after all not what he looked like to you.'

'But he is my friend, surely he will spare me or do something about it.'

'Suit yourself. I told you what I needed to. My job is done.'

I didn't want to look at the scene in front of me so I covered my eyes since my legs had forgotten to work. Even then my curious mind couldn't keep itself away from not seeing what was happening as I heard slashes in the air. So I had to peek through the slits between my fingers.

I saw a blood trail on the floor and flow towards me even though I was rather far away. The stench of it filled the air and I gasped. I saw that the expert swordsman had been injured by the were-creature near his legs apart from his arms, where his sleeves were dangling from his muscled arms.

His arms had tattoos, something that I had expected his previous self to have back then but hadn't since he was too young for it. The symbols on them made me curious, but the flashes from the sword's metal brought my attention back to the fight that I couldn't stop at any cost without getting torn apart.

His phone had been left at my feet and blinked from an incoming call. My hand itched from thinking if I should receive it or not but I thought better of it. I had no right to touch his things when I was going to be in great danger.

In a few minutes, the man in his black suit had gotten the better of the were. The beast was down on the floor, heaving heavily for air as the silhouetted man's leg found its throat. The sword pointed at the beast's heart, where I thought it was going to be, and it make me quiver in fear although I couldn't bring myself to cover my eyes.

But he seemed to have some other idea because the next second, he brought the sword right over his head like he was going to chop something. My heart leapt at the realisation of the action. I couldn't control myself from reacting quickly to the reaction.

"Wait!" I yelled when he was about to bring the sword down on the beast's head. "Don't do it! What if he's really innocent and had just become because he couldn't control himself like you?"

"It looks like you know about the existence of such creatures as us from before this time," he uttered in a soft tone that held a threat in them. "You should have been killed yet you're still alive. Fancy to know how that was ever possible."

"Don't tell me you're going to end your friend right here and right this instant," I exclaimed with wide eyes. "That would be a huge betrayal."

"A betrayal it would be if I don't stop the news of us beasts and the case of its rise from spreading. My loyalty lies with where I come from and belong to, not with the humans."

Something pushed me to go towards and stop him myself, like I had forgotten what he had warned me and I had forgotten the fact he was ready to kill me with a second's thought. I pushed my weak legs to make their way towards him and pulled him and his arm away.

"Why is he like this?" I asked him. "And why are you in such a hurry to kill him when I thought your loyalty lied with them?"

"You have no need to know that," he answered in a tone that held much fury for being stopped. "I make a decision based on what I am ordered and based on what I see."

"You're going to kill me anyway. You might as well tell me so that I can leave you any clue that I know. Who knows what help it could be to you?"

"What could you possibly know, Riya Denver? There's no way you have come across any knowledge except what you have read in books and seen in movies."

"That makes me more knowledgeable. And do you think I know about your kind without having been in a situation similar to this before?"

He turned around to face me with a serious and wary expression on his face. He had stepped away from the beast and it gave me just enough time to inspect the beast and see if I could trigger the voice at the back of my mind to get some clue out.

"Why is your loyalty different?" I asked him. "He's your kind itself. Why do you despise him so much?"

"He's not my kind at all," he spat out. "The bastard had been turned by a regular werewolf and it makes him belong to the filthy type. It was not any type of werewolf, but the ones who were turned themselves. And the reason we stand here fighting them is that they aren't supposed to be here to injure any person though they are very much allowed to hunt."

"Are you saying that you were always a werewolf, ever since you were born?"

"Yes, but I was only properly able to become one right before I graduated high school, but that was to be in the service of the King of Lycans. That is something that you need not bother yourself with. Your life is too short for that."

"Does that mean your true name was never Gean..."

"It isn't, indeed. How can a wolf pup be given such a human name, young lady? You should use your head."

"Then what —"

"Don't even bother with that. I shall make your life so short-lived that you wouldn't even have to think of such things. Either people didn't erase your memory or you survived it. But there is no way you'll survive against me."

"Gean, I trusted you," I uttered as my back touched the wall when I made no move to resist him killing me though I felt rather frightened. "If this is how you want it to be, instead of killing that werewolf first and getting to your phone call, you might as well do it."

He narrowed his eyes before removing the sword from my throat and piercing the beast's heart. I shut my eyes but some invisible hands got them bound right over my head so that I couldn't move to my will. I couldn't run anywhere as my legs felt like they had been shackled by chains that I couldn't see.

"I would rather give you fitting punishment for trespassing an area that clearly said that you aren't allowed to step into. Even after the instructions given out by the government, this is how the people will see it.

"So I shall seal this in your memory before sealing you behind the bars from all eyes. And I shall make every close person of yours forget your very existence."

And thus, I was made to watch the heart of the creature bleed until it neared its painful death. I had to hear each of its whines and was made to think of how my very own family had suffered in a similar way because they had come across knowledge that was not supposed to come into their hands at all. I was made to see each type of torment that they were made to suffer, starting from sending shocks of electricity to the very end of their life as the man in front of me was doing to the wolf.

My mind screamed to stop this agony as tears blurred my vision only for a few seconds. I couldn't shut my eyes for even a moment as that sent an electric shock down my very body and a scream out of my mouth. I sobbed as the vision passed before my very eyes although it had been long enough for me to have made peace with it.

"Riya," I heard their voices tell me. "You must get to the bottom of this and save the people of this land. Promise me you'll find these creatures and give them what they truly deserve."

'I had made a promise that I had forgotten,' I said to my heart and brain. 'How is this possible, that I wasn't able to avenge their very death?'

'It had eaten so much of your insides that you eventually forgot all about it, like it never existed,' answered the voice in my head. 'A part of that is due to the memory serum that you were given in high dosage. But ever since that time, you have become resistant to that very serum and you couldn't forget anything unless your brain wished it.'

The region near my neck suddenly turned warm when the voice stopped speaking. A sudden pulsing made me clutch the top of my heart with a pained expression as I felt like it was being torn apart in the same way the sword twisted inside of the were's heart.

I fell to my knees and gasped for air. The shackles around my wrists didn't let me off to even clutch my heart and open the space in my lungs to start breathing again. I felt like I was nearing my certain death sooner than I thought.

"Stop," I gasped out in a voice that I was sure didn't belong to me and my knowledge. "Let go of the creature. He has to be innocent who didn't wish to be turned. It just happened to him."

"What makes you say so?" he asked giving another twist to hear it let out another howl that hurt my heart more than my ears.

"Because..."

I didn't get to finish when I saw the purple glow surround me and glow brighter. I was so blinded by it that I shut my eyes without receiving any shock in return, surprisingly.

The next moment, I saw the body of the hooded man lying on the ground. My quivering hands and legs were released instantly and I fell to the floor, sobbing for either my dear life or from the memory that had been triggered.

"What are you?" asked the man to me.

"I don't know," I told him. "I don't know what I am to have such an effect on your kind and how I am able to do such things since yesterday."

The phone rang in the distance again, blinking with a brighter intensity than before even though its flashlight had already been switched on.

"Your Majesty," I heard the person I had called my friend say. "The Saviour of Guadalupe is here."

After hearing those strange words, I passed out with a strange dream.