[Part 13]



   

   Have you ever realized how nothing else really seems all that
 important when you've lost the thing you think of as the most
 important thing in your life? After hearing that fateful news from 
the television, everything both inside and out seemed to've simply shut
 down. The television was off. I don't know when I'd turned it off all
 I knew was that the news that they'd found the body of the driver of
 the truck was the last thing I'd heard. Whatever else was reported was
 lost to deafened ears. My loss had made me almost God-like in my 
alienation of all things around me. Events came and went with no 
recognition on my part of their occurence. If I responded to even the
 needs of my body it was all done with a superfluous, instinctuality
 that it didn't register to me. 

  Nothing did.

 Light and dark faded into one another to mark the passage of time and
 about the only sensation I was even remotely aware of was that I was
 sitting down. And that was only done because even an idle body can
 only stand for so long.


  I was numbed by shock... Lulled into complete and total complacency
 by the effect of my ultimate hopes and dreams shattered before my ears
 and there was literally nothing I could do about it. But God must be
 an envious being for the living body will endure this total
 devoidation of living for so long before acknowledgement that you are
 still amoung the living slowly sinks back into even the thickest of
 shell-shocked minds and my head slowly panned around the room, my eyes
 finally registering details for my slumbering mind to slowly process.

  The grey carpeted floor was in dire need of cleaning, in fact the 
 whole apartment shows the signs of my neglect. I immediately assessed
 that my inactivity to regular matters had lasted me several days.
 Darker stains and dully aching feet brought me to the deduction that
 not only had I not bothered to clean up the broken shards in the
 kitchen from the glass I'd dropped but that I must have walked
 bare-footed through the area several times, tracking blood across the
 carpet from the punctures of glass in my feet. Discarded food
 containers lay strewn about, some with the partial remnants of
 whatever they contained still within them and far beyound the point 
 of safe consumption by a human. 

  Indeed if I were a human I'd most likely be sick to the point of 
needing hospitalization but humanity was as unknown to me in those
 regaurds as my shocked state had made me aware of anything else. For 
I was and am a werewolf and my constitution is different from that of
 a 'normal' human. More akin to a canid's I could consume practically
 anything and my body would process it. Even were I to regurgitate
 whatever I couldn't process I could consume it once more and find
 that the partially digested contents would thus be more agreeable to
 my system. From a few of the larger, darker stains and the foul smell
 it was quickly dawning on me that I had indeed done just that very
 thing while in my stupor. Following that train of thought unbidden led
 me to believe that the Were inside me may have even coerced me into 
consuming waste that I'd completely processed once before even but I
 shook such revolting thoughts from my mind. However instinctual such
 an act may be for animals I was definately not 'into' consuming my or
 anyone else's feces!

  But such revulsion did help give me further clarity of my mental
 processes and almost equally instinctively I got up from the couch 
and headed to the small hallway closet of my apartment and began
 removing various impliments for once more restoring my 'den' to a 
more suitable appearance, figuring that this would also be a matter 
to take my mind off of the resignation of my loss and hoping that 
this was indeed the first symbollic thing I was doing to being on 
the road of recovery.

  I threw myself into my cleaning with a dogged determination that 
grew into a dark fanatisism as I encountered the more stubborn stains.
 Growling at them in an inhuman manner even though my appearance was
 entirely human. Scrubbing the stains out of the carpet until they were
 cleaner than the surrounding areas even and sighing in resignation
 that the whole of the carpet was way over-due for a shampooing but
 that that would have to be a matter left for another time.

  Bagging up all the opened containers and wiping things down I was
 finally nearing the completion of my task as the apartment returned
 from the foul-smelling den of decadence into something once more
 passable by any other occupants as I gathered up the trash and made
 the trip out to the dumpsters nearby the building to rid myself of 
the last restiges of my neglect. I keyed open my small mailbox
 locker-type door and removed all the letters, flyers and other
 assorted junkmail that had accumulated since last I'd done the chore
 of checking my mail then returned to my apartment and once more 
closed myself off to the rest of the world.

 Absently tossing the pile of papers an envelopes onto the dining room
 table I went into my kitchen and pulled forth a can of cola to refresh
 myself from my labors, walking back to sit before my desk opposite of
 the television and beside the couch as I stared down at the blank
 screen of my moniter and gave a deep inhalation of doubt as to wether
 I was truely ready to face even the cyber world once more. I, like
 many others, tend to be far more sociable on-line than I am in real
 life, the security of the modern telecommunications an even bigger
 boon to masking my true nature and keeping my privacy and solitude
 which I so highly cherished. But the many friends and other
 acquaintances that I'd made over the years were perhaps worried over
 the period on my inactivity without giving any explanation and so I 
felt it was my duty to at least sooth a few troubled minds who might be
 even remotely concerned about me and who knew? Perhaps even this
 impersonal interaction would further strengthen my healing processes.

  And so it was that just as I was about to fire up the computer that
 a firm, resounding knock came upon my door that had an air of such
 urgency that I got up once more before I could get started, loudly 
telling my unknown visitor that I'd be right there and that they
 needn't break down my door in their attempts to get my attention. I
 pulled an over-sized shirt over my head, one that went down to
 thigh-length when it settled over my body and reached for the doorknob
 then gave it a brisk turn and opened the door without even checking to
 see who it was.

  So needless to say that when I found myself in the crushing, 
vise-like grip of a pair of huge, hairy arms and suddenly finding my
 mouth full to overflowing with a rough tongue, my mind was thrown once
 more into a state of shock so sudden that there really wasn't much
 else I could do but mentally say the name of the one I thought I'd 
never see again as long as I lived...



  ...Morise!...

  

[To be continued...]