The Alpha Prophecy- The Legend of the Alpha of War (Preview)

Prologue

My name is Alexandra Montoya Gomez, but you can call me Alex. Currently, I’m face down in the snow and ice, bleeding out, and listening to the whirring of helicopter blades above me. No, they aren’t here to take me to a hospital, in fact, they are the reason I’m here in the first place. I escaped from a laboratory they had me imprisoned in. They were doing some kind of tests on me but I decided not to stick around and ask about them. You see, I am a Taka, or more precisely, a Taka-Canis-Sapien. That is a rough translation from Wolf-Latin, but it basically means Wise Wolf Hybrid; a werewolf. Although it would be more accurate to say that humans simply based the stories of werewolves on us. I’m currently in the arctic circle somewhere and the reason I’m bleeding isn’t actually due to the experiments, but because I got caught by a blast from a bomb and flung into a huge wall of ice. Turns out these guys aren’t too happy about losing me, so they decided to carpet bomb the heck out of this whole area.

I know what you’re thinking, and you’re wrong. Those guys firing on me are actually Taka too, not humans. They call themselves, “The lookouts” and they are pretty much our equivalent to the army. You might be thinking I’m a terrorist now, but I’m not. Really, the reason they want me dead is due to this thing known as, “The Alpha Prophecy.” It’s this prophecy of doom that these guys think I’m the focal point of. It says that I’m supposed to bring about the destruction of the Taka and our way of life. How crazy is that? Last year I hadn’t even heard of a Taka before, let alone know that I was one. The whirring of the helicopter is getting closer, I guess that means it’s all going to be over soon. Dang, I can’t believe I’m going to die at seventeen, I really thought I would make it home. I live in Arkansas USA, kinda in the middle of nowhere. I recently moved a few times, once to a new school, then twice within a month. The helicopter lands in front of me and the silver fur of the Taka responsible for this whole mess steps off. I can barely keep my eyes open anymore. That’s probably the blood loss and pain working against me. The snow is making me even colder too, it’s like needles hitting me in the face. The last thing I hear and see before passing out is that silver fur covered monster staring at me and saying, “I told you abomination, I would track you to the ends of the Earth.”

Chapter 1:

The First Step

It’s true what they say you know, about your life flashing before your eyes when you die. I could see it all: my first loose tooth, my first crush, every hour spent playing video games and, of course, how this all led me to here; bleeding out on the ice and snow in the middle of the most inhospitable place on Earth. My life wasn’t always so crazy. One year ago, I didn’t even know what a Taka was, let alone that I was one. I lived a normal life, went to a normal school, had a semi-normal family, but nothing stays the same forever; one day I decided to go to the doctor. I can recall that day perfectly in my mind; the sounds of babies crying in the waiting room, the intercom making announcements and calling doctors to certain areas, the *Beep beep* of heart monitors, even the smell of rubbing alcohol in the air. It was an odd experience because I almost never get sick, my friends always joke that I have superpowers.

I was just lost in thought, too busy thinking about my friends Jake and Sara. They were dating at the time and had an argument about something or other; they were the couple that argues about something then makes up an hour later, but this one was kind of big. They were discussing the future and the topic of housing came up; she wanted to rent an apartment and he wanted to live with one of their parents before getting a place in order to save money… it was a whole thing.

All of a sudden, I hear the nurse behind the desk say, “Miss Gomez, the doctor will see you now.” It kind of jarred me.

“Back to reality I guess.” I said, under my breath, as I collected myself. I’ve always been a little jumpy. Pretty much anything could surprise me. Drop a pen; boom I jump. Close a door too hard; hey I needed a good heart attack anyway. So, I get up and go into the doctor’s little room and the nurses do their thing; my heartbeat is high (always is, it runs in the family), body temp is elevated to 100*. They just figured that was why I came in today.

“So, what is wrong that made you visit sweetie?” The Nurse asked looking down at the clipboard in her hand.

“Just feeling a bit under the weather, actually I haven’t felt great in a few days.” I replied.

“It’s probably just sinuses, but we will just take some blood to be sure. We want to be safe, there has been a bug going around.” She explained. I never liked needles much myself, so I had to look away while she drew it to keep from passing out. “All done.” she said. Gosh it felt like she had that stupid shot in my arm for ten minutes, though it was probably only one.

I knew I had at least forty-five more minutes before the doc came back to talk to me, so I just twiddled my thumbs and scrolled Twitter. Nothing much on today, just the normal junk; celebrities warring over something and the president insulted someone so now my feed was filled up with that crap. After a while, the door slung open, and my soul nearly left my body. It was the doctor. Lab coat, check. Tie, check. Glasses check. Good looking, che… wait, what?

He sat down in his little spinning doctor chair then looked at me and said, “Hi. I’m Dr. Williams, what seems to be the problem today?” His smile beamed like someone had put LED lights behind his teeth.

“Uhhhhhh… face... hurts.” Was all I was able to get out. Gosh he was pretty. After I stared at him just a second too long, I was able to pick my brain up off the floor, put it back in my head, and say, “Um specifically above my eyes and along my forehead.”

“Okay let me look inside your ears.” I could barely hear what he was saying, I was too busy kicking myself for looking like an idiot. “You’ve got some swelling and redness in your ears. Coupled with your fever I would say you have a sinus infection. Have you had a runny nose recently, or a cough?” He asked.

“No. But I forgot to tell the nurse that I do have this rash on my arm.” I said, suddenly remembering. He took my arm in his warm hand and examined it for a moment.

“Hmmm, it doesn’t look worrisome, but I’ll get you some cream for it also.” Said Dr… uhm, I forgot his real name already… was it Will? “Now let’s talk about your lab results. There are some discrepancies with the test, somehow foreign DNA got into the sample. Normally, we would want to retest you but honestly, I wouldn’t worry about it, your symptoms don’t match the virus that’s been around lately. We only did the test just to be safe.” We talked a few more minutes and he gave me some prescriptions for antibiotic pills and cream, after that, I was sent on my way. It may seem like a completely normal doctor visit to some, but that was the first step in a long journey, the first time anyone, outside of school, had ever mentioned nonhuman DNA to me. Of course, I didn’t think anything of it at first; it was just a funny anecdote to tell my friends.

“Hey guys, guess what. Turns out all those times that we joked maybe I wasn’t human, because I can eat whatever I want and still stay the same weight, might not have been too far off. The doc found foreign DNA in my blood! Hahaha.” I got home later that day and saw my mother was home. It was odd because she usually works at least another hour or two. Our home wasn’t anything crazy fancy or what have you. It was a single story, medium sized home with an okay sized backyard; the front yard was basically nonexistent though. The house has a white brick exterior with a red shingled roof. I knew she was home because I saw her little blue sedan in the driveway. Mom has to park in the driveway because Dad keeps his lab in the garage, so I park my red Jeep beside her and head on inside. Funny… I was looking forward to the rest of my day, but if I had known what was going to happen next, I would have never stepped foot in that house again.

Chapter 2:

Secrets and Lies

The inside of our house was nice enough, I guess. It was a one-story building; it had a tiled kitchen and bathrooms, but the rest of the house was carpeted. It wasn’t too big, at only three bedrooms and two baths, where a single long off-white colored hallway connected pretty much every room; except for my parent’s bathroom which was in their room. “Hey Mom!” I shout as I plop my bag down on the table.

“Hi Alex!” She replies and pokes her head out from another room down the hall. “How was your day Mija?” She walks up and gives one of her signature hugs, as if she hasn’t seen me in a decade. She has always been a hugger; there is a running joke in our house that she’s part python. My mom’s name is Amanda Montoya Gomez. She stands about six inches shorter than me, at around 5 ft 4 inches. (162.6 centimeters) A kinder soul than my mom has never before existed. She even volunteers at soup kitchens and homeless shelters on the weekends.

“It was good. School was school so nothing new there. Then I had lunch with Sara, and she told me Jake was a jerk for something, but I drifted off soon after she started complaining. Then I headed over to the doctor and he gave me some medications to take for my head.” I showed her the meds. “So, how was your day?” I asked Mom.

She replied, “ah Mija, you know, work work work, then I come home and cook. Not to mention putting up with your father is a full-time job.” She laughed. Mom is a nurse, so she has a set schedule most days. “What did the doctor say was wrong with your head?”

“Well, he accused me of being an alien in human disguise,” I joked. She got a look on her face like her eyebrows and her mouth were competing to see which one could impersonate a caterpillar better. “He said that the blood exam they ran was corrupted with foreign DNA,” I explained. Well, here is a piece of information about my mom. When she tells a lie or hides a secret her eye twitches. And when I said “DNA” her eye convulsed as if it was being tasered. Just then my dad came out of the garage wearing his signature lab coat and magnifying head gear. That was my dad for sure, Robert Joshua Gomez. Seeing my dad in a getup like this isn’t really abnormal. He is a microbiologist researching, uh… something… I think. Anyway, of course he had once again forgotten to take them off his eyes, so he ran into the door frame when he entered the room. *THUD*

“Ow!” We heard him yelp from the hallway.

“Glasses.” Mom and I said in unison.

“Oh, right. Hello my little cub.” My dad’s nickname for me; I used to like it, but now it kind of annoys me.

“Hi dad, how is work going?” I asked.

“Oh, you know, it’s uhh going.” Dad doesn’t like to talk about what he does, I never understood why though, because Mom and I both like to hear him talk about whatever it is he is researching at the moment. A few years ago, it was whether viruses could be used to rewrite DNA and cure genetic diseases.

“Mija,” Mom interrupted, “your father and I need to talk, can you give us a moment.”

“Sure, good luck dad.” I joked. Then I headed to my room and vegged out in front of the TV until about nine o’ clock that night. Dinner was quiet… like awkward quiet. Not a peep from my usually loud parents. So, I decided to break the silence. “Are you guys getting divorced?” Dad nearly spit his taco out and my mom almost started to choke on a tamale.

“What the heck makes you ask that?” She asked confused and at a volume equal to the time she caught me smoking a cigarette outside my window.

“Well, you guys asked me to leave the room earlier and now family dinner is as silent as a library.”

“No baby, we aren’t getting a divorce.” Dad reassured. “But we do need to talk to you about something.”

“We wanted to wait until you were older, but it seems we don’t have as long as we thought.” Added Mom.

“Listen.” Dad said as he cleared his throat. “Um… so … your body is at an age where it might be going through some… changes.” Fun fact about the human body; when your dad says those words in that order, it is possible for your face to turn over one hundred shades of red in less than two seconds.

“WOAH, NOPE, NO WAY!” I shrieked, “Do not start talking about this, okay!”

“Cub, it’s perfectly natural for this to happen. I imagine you’ve been finding hairs in strange places, or maybe you’ve been having odd cramps. I mean your mother and I have sure noticed the crazy mood swings.”

“Robert, maybe you should give Mija some context to what you are talking about before she flings herself out the window.” Mom suggested, while chuckling. For a second Dad looked puzzled, then he went beet red and looked like someone had hit him upside the head with a shovel; an action I was mere seconds away from doing myself if that conversation had continued.

“Oh! No! Not that,” he blushed and stammered, “um look cub, there is something we have been keeping from you. We are… oh how do I say this? You’re a… uh…” My mom cut him off; she may be the nicest person alive, but she doesn’t mince words.

“Honey, you’re not completely human.” She said it so matter of factly that I almost believed her.

“You’re probably about fifty percent human and fifty percent wolf.” Dad added after collecting himself. At that moment, I had this image in my mind of men in white carrying them out the door and to an insane asylum or carrying me to one, because clearly one of us had completely lost it. Then they tried to explain.

Mom said, “Mija, we are what’s called Taka, or as you know them better, werewolves. It is why you never get sick, and why you are so jumpy all the time. Young cubs are always a bit on the nervous side, eventually it fades as you get older.”

Dad looked like he was remembering something and said, “I remember when I was a cub, I was the most skittish kid you had ever seen. Once, some Nondeers tried to scare me from around a corner as a joke, and I almost hit the ceiling I jumped so high.”

“What are Nondeers?” I asked.

Mom said, “Oh, that’s what Taka call normal people sweetie. Personally, I think it’s distasteful-,” Mom shot Dad a look so icy it could freeze lava, “-but obviously some disagree.”

“So, you guys think you are werewolves, and you’re saying I’m one also?” I asked, with probably a bit too much snark in my voice. Now that picture of men in white was becoming a lot clearer and a lot more like a real possibility. Then they stood up, at first, I thought they were leaving when then left the table and pushed their chairs in, but then they started closing the blinds. Weird, they hate it when the blinds are closed, says it makes them claustrophobic.

“Follow us.” Dad said. He walked over to the old bookcase, it was just some old thing left over from when we bought the house, it was faded brown even after we tried to restore it a few years back. Then he put one hand on the side and pushed it away like it was made of feathers! This was not some decorative bookcase; it must have weighed four hundred pounds, and he just pushed it aside like nothing! Once it was far enough away, I noticed a door made of, what looked to be, steel bars; it also had a massive lock on the inside instead of the outside. Through the bars I could see that the room actually had a set of stairs in it.

“How long has this been here?” I asked.

“When we bought the house, we knew it would need some… modifications. So, we got to work every night after you went to sleep; first emptying out the room, then digging down to hollow as much out as we safely could at a time. The whole thing took about a month.” Mom said.

“Why?” I asked but I was no longer sure I wanted an answer.

“Come on, we will show you.” Dad said while reaching to get a key from inside the bookcase itself. He unlocked the door and motioned for us to go in. Upon entering, I noticed the incredibly pungent wet dog smell.

“Oh gosh, what is that?” I said as I plugged my nose.

“Do you remember last month when the water tank burst, but when you woke up all the water had disappeared? Well, it didn’t so much disappear, as much as, drained down here.” Mom complained.

“That still doesn’t explain the smell.” I added.

“It will.” Dad said not really making sense to me at this point. Just then Mom slammed the barred door closed, and locked us in.

“What are you doing?!” I asked, louder than intended.

“Mija, for our safety, this door has to be locked.” Dad flipped a switch and some lights leading down the stairs flickered on with a *zzzt*.

“Prepare yourself cub.” He said as we started down. I don’t know what compelled me to go; maybe curiosity, maybe I just didn’t want to be alone in a locked room, shoot maybe it was stupidity. All I know is, I was headed down a rabbit hole now. Down the stairs was a bigger room reinforced by steel beams, it had a dirt floor with cement block walls and the roof was reinforced with steel beams at least thirty feet high. (Or I guess that was really the floor of the house.)

“This did not only take a month; this is a year-long job at least!” I said, completely astounded at what I was seeing.

“Takas are stronger, and have more endurance than normal humans,” Mom explained “So what would take humans a year, we were able to simply work through in a month.”

“The supplies alone… this must have cost a fortune.” I marveled.

“We had some help with the payments and getting everything.” Dad said. “Okay, now for the hard part.” He said as he took off his pants and shirt.

“Nala,” Mom said, which I later learned meant good luck. Suddenly his eyes turned golden and brown, and veins started to ripple across his body like someone was drawing them on in marker. I stumbled back in surprise at what I was seeing, and almost hit my head on the concrete wall as I tripped all over myself to sit back up. Now, thick black fur was traveling down his body in a wave like motion. Then I heard a sound that could fuel nightmares in the monsters from horror movies. A long, drawn-out cracking noise followed but popping and, what I can only assume was, the gurgling of internal organs rearranging inside his body.

“Ahhhugggah!” He bellowed in agony. “Ahhaggughah!”

“What’s happening?! How is he doing that? W... why is he screaming?!” Shrieking, I asked my mom, who had now wrapped her arms around me both in an attempt to calm me down and to prevent me from hurting myself if I passed out.

“Turning without the strength of a full moon can be… uncomfortable. But we knew you wouldn’t believe us unless you saw it for yourself.” Dad continued his cries of pain for another few minutes, all the while all I could do was watch and listen in horror as he did.

Now his transformation was complete, before my very eyes my father had transformed into a huge wolf. He laid on the ground, obviously exhausted. All I could do was bury my head in my knees and cry. I didn’t want to be some kind of wolf... FREAK. My mom did what she could to comfort me; she sat beside me and tried to tell me everything was going to be okay. But how could it? Apparently, during this time my dad had been able to recover and walked over to me. He stuck his nose…snout… whatever in my face.

Then, in a now incredibly deep voice, said, “Don’t worry honey, you’re going to get through this. We all do eventually.” Him being able to talk like that surprised me. Although, at this point, should anything surprise me anymore? After another hour or so of crying and yelling into the ground I was finally able to calm down, or maybe I had just run out of tears.

“So… I’m some kind of wolf thing huh…” I said not really expecting an answer, but mom provided one anyway.

“Yes Alex, you are.” She said in a sweet calming voice.

“But it’s not as strange as you think.” Dad said putting a now human hand on my shoulder. By now he had turned back to his human form and gotten dressed; I had to turn around because his underwear hadn’t survived the change. “There are hundreds of thousands of us all around the globe.” He went on to say.

Life continued as normal after that, they spent the next week telling me what it was like to be a wolf, and how it was one of the most closely guarded secrets on Earth. Apparently some first world governments know about us and help keep the lid on it. Mom and Dad answered as many of my questions as they could about the Taka, but some stuff they just didn’t know. Then one day, my parents said something I didn’t expect.

“Mija, we want to take you to Lake Whiteclaw.” Lake Whiteclaw was a place Mom and Dad went to once a month, but they always said I couldn’t go. I’ve wondered what it was for years, my theories ranged; was it a secret society? Could it have been a part of my dad’s job somehow? They told me how it was actually a hidden Taka sanctuary where our kind could meet and get away during the full moon. The room got really quiet as I thought about it for a bit. A chance to see something I’ve always wondered about.

“Ok, let’s go.” Who knows, maybe someone there can answer more of my questions.