"I am no longer a soldier, and what is up with you if I wanted to I would've shot you already" he growled at me and I pulled him back a little further making him yelp in pain. I noticed that I didn't feel armor, or skin, but fur, I felt fur all over this man. His arms, hands, legs, back, and his eyes seemed to glow a little in the moonlight when he looked back at me, or tried to. It made me hate him even more because all wolf-men did is kill and destroy anything that they wanted to. I could tell that he was a little younger than I thought he was, maybe twenty, or twenty-four. 

"How are--were you a soldier for the emperor's personal guard" I asked a little calmer now that I knew that I was safer than I thought I was "your a--" 

"I know what I am, and I like it this way, no one will make me feel bad about this body...my body" he snapped growling a little at me "and I was found as a young pup in the streets by the emperor and he thought that my coat and skills were interesting, so he brought me in and treated me like a son that he never had. He was the greatest man that I knew until last night when someone killed him and framed me for it. I was on duty of watching his room while he slept, and a person had snuck into his room and mauled him in his sleep, and they taped his mouth and ripped up his chest so savagely that you would've thought an Insane did it. I smelled the intruder a little too late, and the other guards heard my plea, but they didn't believe that I didn't kill him. They would've killed me if I hadn't lept out the window, and escaped them, and I don't think that they would've believed me anyways. The only thing I took was my gun, and his diary which is a sacred thing to all, and not even the highest in the social class were allowed to even touch it, but he trusted me with it, so it is the only thing that I took with big meaning to me. Can you let me go now" I was shocked that he would tell me his story, and I could tell that he wasn't lying so I got off of him, but I stood in-front of his gun still not trusting him fully, after all he was a wolf-man, and all they do and want to do is kill. Then again my cat side wants, and needs to kill sometimes so I guess that it was more normal. 

"How in the world can you move so fast, and you hurt" he whined

"I have eleven species of cat in my body, and I am not happy about it because it makes the urge to kill something even worse, and the next time I go into a crazy rage I don't think I will be able to stop till I am dead or my cat sides are satisfied" I added the last part a little quieter, but I think that he still heard me "that is why I can move so fast, and why I am so strong, but I am still getting used to having paws as hands with six inch long claws, also why did you tell me your story?" he recoiled and then a saw his move his hands and yelp when he got to his wrist. 

"I'm sorry if I hurt you, but all I've seen your kind do is kill, and hurt things and people, and you speak of a person as being Insane in a rather odd way" I said

"I am not talking about a person being insane I am talking about the Rabid animals out there that we now know as the Insane" he said and I put my hands on my hips in annoyance, and I'm guessing that he could tell what I was doing because he gave a loud sigh and walked to a bench and started to lick the cuts on his arms. I could see that they healed like my cuts did, but his self-healing had to do with his saliva, and mine was just my body. 

"Let's hope we don't meet one, but I told you my story because I didn't have anything else to do that would make you trust me. Even if a little" he said and he was right, I did respect him a little more after he told me what happened to him during his life, so I stepped away from his gun and went to the end of the table. He got up and went over and I herd a slight crunch. 

"There it is" he said 

"Can you not see in the dark" I asked a little amused 

"No I can see in the dark I just can't see as much as you" he said and then he said something that surprised me "my name's Daniel, what's yours" 

"I didn't have a name, well besides experiment one, but I thought of one for myself two years ago" I said "Shadow is what I chose" 

"What's your story" 

"I'm not going to tell you my story" I looked at him and then got on all fours "I'm not going to wait for you, but if you want to when you get to the fence go right and there will be a space big enough for you to fir through unless you can jump over the fence that is" and then I took off and I was at the fence by a couple of seconds, and then I got on my hind legs and lept over the fence doing a front flip and landing on all fours on the other side. I heard some vibrations along the fence and figured that he decided to go around, but I climbed a tree just in case it was someone else. Then I smelled wolf and jumped down from the tree making him yelp, but I cut it off halfway by putting my hand over his mouth. 

"We don't want to let them know where we are do we" I said slowly taking my hand off his mouth "we are going to travel west to my home, I want to see what happened to it" 

"How are we going to do that" he asked "were on an island" 

"I hope that you can swim well then because we are going to be swimming for ten miles, and I do not want to have to save your ass from drowning" I said and he gave an annoyed and tired sigh "we can rest once this is over, but then we will be moving again. We don't need them coming after us, and we need to stay ahead of them" 

"You aren't going to like what the world has become you know" he said "at least twenty percent of the world was ravaged by nukes in World War three and now at least sixty percent of all land on Earth is made up of forests, then there is at least twenty percent of it is made up of desert, eighty percent of it is made up of water, and another twenty percent is made up of empires" 

"Good then we'll have an awesome time in the ocean then huh" I said making his visibly frown, and for the next three hours the sun was just starting to spring up in the horizon when we were at the foot of the water, and I took off my skirt showing my chest covered in black fur, and Daniel looked away before looking at my chest again lowing his hands and having a curious facial expression. 

"What" I asked

"You don't have--" he started

"NO!" I yelled turning away from him "I am not a fan of those things, and besides cats don't have them so why should I. Because I'm still a little human?" 

"I'm sorry I didn't know you would be so sensitive to that" he said and I glared at him, and then I closed my eyes and jumped into the ocean. I heard another splash while I was swimming and I felt that Daniel had entered the water, but I followed my heart because that was what would lead me home. It took a while, but after a day we were on the land of my home, and I looked around and noticed that it was still the same way I left it. Daniel didn't drown or start to unlike I thought, but he smelled like wet dog and he glared at me as he passed me to go warm up in the sun. I scoffed and went towards the camp, and I noticed that it was a-lot quieter than it used to be. I noticed that the fire wasn't lit like they usually have it going all night and all day for as long as we could get it to be. I went over to the nearest tent and looked into it, and I saw that it was my friend Nancy's because I saw the sculpture that we did together, and it was still warm so they were still here somewhere. I next went to my families tent. It was one of the bigger family tents because my family was one of the higher respected ones in the tribe, and it seems like they hadn't lost their power even if I had disappeared on them and probably given them a rough and lonely, saddened life for the past three years. I could feel the familiar warmth as I went through out it, and I went to my room, and saw that they had left it exactly the way it was when I had left a big mess.

I went around my room using my duster and wiping, dusting, and fixing things that were out of place until everything fit where it should be, and then I went to my sisters room, but something felt off. I stopped just outside of her door and slowly pushed it open, and a waft of cold hit my skin, it wasn't the cold of the wind but it was a more emotional-physical cold of death. I walked to her bed which was covered in dead-black grass and I looked over at the corner of the room by the vanity and I saw a patch of golden flowers, Sunflowers, and they were new in a flower pot. I noticed a similar thing in my room on my wooden nightstand that I had build myself when I was ten, and I fell to the floor crying. I cried for half an hour before going to the bathroom, getting a pot of water from the well and dipping my hands in it before spreading it across my face. Then I dumped the water in the water drain and used the towel to dry off my face, and then I thought of my father and how lonely they must've been without both of us. I went outside and grabbed a couple of sunflowers from the garden which they still had growing wild, healthy, and free unlike I had been for three years. I bunched up the flowers and grabbed a pale of water and a flower shovel, and then I went to the tribe grave yard which was behind our tent. He didn't believe in the superstitions about a random soul going into your body because the bad and evil ones we burned and put in the dark forest in black and red painted pots made of burned clay. 

I walked throughout the graves looking for my sisters and when I found it I got the shovel out from the water and dug a small three foot deep hole and then filled it with clay, and poured the water in it, and then I carefully put the flowers in it and grabbed my things and left the grave after saying my apologies to my sister. I went back to our tent and put the materials that I grabbed back and then I went to find Daniel. It took a little while, but eventually I found him on the beach lying in the sand, and I figured that he was fine, so I let him be and went to find the meeting tent that we usually go to when we know that there is an intruder on the island. In that tent we made sure that we had enough safety and enough food to last for years if needed, and then when it was safe or when we could fight well enough we drove out the intruders with everything we had, and barely anyone died in the process. When they did we gave them a long and respectful burial and gave them weapons for the afterlife. 

I walked over to the doors, and I could smell and feel the amount of heat in the tent, but I looked at myself and then I looked at my claws and the wooden log locking the large doors. I sighed and wondered how I could get in, and then I figured out something and decided that I could try it, but they wouldn't take it well. I looked at my paw and then I spread my fingers into a V shape, and only the middle claw popped out just as I wanted it to. I laughed and messed around with different things to with my claws and different ways to get different claws out, and then I noticed that I had sat down. I quickly got up, spread my fingers so that they middle claw would only come out and then I did the same for the other finger and I swiped at the crack in the middle of the doors, with both claws doing a twirling motion with the rest of my body to get more momentum and then I pushed on the doors. They didn't open, and I was confused I went up to the gate and peered through the hole, and then I went along the opening looking through all of the other cracks and I found out that they had overdone it this time. They had put up large beams of wood against the doors on the inside of the place and I guessed that everyone was in the lower level to be safe with all of the warriors in the top section just in case. I didn't want to force my way in but I might not have had a choice unless I wanted to wait here for a couple of years in boredom, and I just wanted to see my family. I decided that I wasn't going to blast open the doors with a kick, so I went around the tent and then found a good landing to go on and I jumped. I didn't know that I could jump so high, but I let my cat instincts take over and I seemed to levitate over to the ledge and I landed silently on it with grace. 

I quickly and quietly scaled the tent's roof and when I got to the top I looked through and I saw ten warriors looking at the door standing with their weapons ready, and then I looked directly under me and I saw that there was a large hole directly under the top of the tent. I looked at the sky and saw that the sun was at it's highest, and I decided to go in at dark. I climbed back down and then I jumped off and ran through the forest to find something to eat. I climbed a sturdy tree and then used my claws to carve a piece of the branch off into the shape of a bow, and then I went around and found some strong vines and tied them to the ends of the bow. Then I tested it's weight and made a couple of quick arrows using my claws to carve the shaft, arrow head, and fledglings all out of a single plank of wood, and attached together already. Then I knocked the arrow and went to hunt, I wasn't going to be an animal tonight unlike they had me do in that island research facility, they made me eat raw flesh testing my humanity, and even through it was very good I didn't want to turn into an Insane, whatever it was anyways. I found a rabbit and decided that rabbit would be good for tonight, I aimed and let loose the arrow, and I short squeal answered my perfect shot. I walked up to it and saw that the arrow had gone through the rib-cage, lungs, heart, and was sticking out the other side. 

I bent down and took the arrow out quickly making a spray of blood and a little red stick out from the wound. Then I went and made a fire to warm up while I used my claws to gut and filet the meat for cooking, and then I ate the cooked meat, and even through it wasn't cooked all the way through it was still fine for me.