War of the Races Ch. 23

(Dear Readers,

If you're a new reader, I suggest you stop and start at the beginning. If you aren't new, awesome! Thanks for coming back for more story about this Emerald-eyed Druid and his harem of Animal-girls and horny priestesses. I hope you enjoy the read. -Pinkender)

Chapter 23- Remembrance

Turning to look off toward the north again, a black cloud of pure darkness shadowed the land. It moved through the forest at a slow walk. Trees, brush, and grass touched by the darkness yellowed or browned with sickness and death.

"I guess I should cover your fine little derrière," Quebracho whispered as a coat of burnished red Alfari-styled clothing grew from the bracer. Woven of vines and bark, covered with green leaves, and finished off with golden sequoia wood trimming accenting the shoulders and chest. While in my new hare-form, and standing on hybrid-hare paws for feet, Quebracho wouldn't make boots.

Gazing at the monstrous thing in front of us, and then down at my arms and hands, I really wished I had my 'Claws of the King'. Taking a deep breath I looked from Coella to Shahad and asked, "Are you ready?"

"At my King's word," Shahad transmitted in a purr.

Coella smirked at Shahad before nodding and saying, her tone droll, "Yes, at my King's command."

Shahad took flight as I leapt down and ran toward the dark figure. Coella was hot on my heels. Where we saw the darkness must have been nearly a mile away. It took us barely five minutes to cover the distance.

We drew closer and I could see a small dark figure walking just ahead of a massive shadow with three black tendrils connecting them both. As we got closer I could see it was a tall woman with skin as dark brown as rich black fertile earth. Curly black hair that would have nearly reached her ankles whipped above her head like it was caught up in a windstorm. She had a beautiful face though gaunt with a broad nose and a wide, overly plump mouth. She had a long elegant neck that met slim shoulders. She was long waisted with a slim chest sporting proud breasts that were not even handfuls. Her ribs gently curved down to an almost impossibly slim waist before swooping out to hips that were several inches broader than her shoulders and a buttocks that was thick and round enough to safely guess that every ounce of fat on her body had gone there. Her legs looked like an elegantly curved mixture of thick and slim hinting at strength, agility, and speed as she walked with a slow sure purpose.

This had to be Gaia's Oracle...

Stalking to each side of the woman were four great hulking Animals, all of them abnormally large monstrously ugly wolves...

----(!)----

December 24, 1989 - Midgard Time

Helena Reas walked into her son's room. It still stank of burned flesh and hair. She would never be able to get that image out of her head.

Coming home. Calling for Daniel to help with the groceries, oh, and why hadn't he taken out the trash yet? The house stunk!

He never appeared. She had to unload all the groceries herself. She grumbled as she set about putting them away, and all the while growing angrier and angrier. If he wouldn't help out then he could find his own damn place to live!

She shook her head adamantly. No! Not that! Never that!

Her husband had skated on her shortly after Daniel was born. Now, he was all that she had. She had no sisters or brothers, her father died of a heart attack and her mother had early onset Alzheimer's. Her husband's parents were dead and she had no relationship with any of his siblings. Daniel was all that she had. He... was her everything!

Her everything or not, she was going to give him a piece of her mind! It was about time he started being a man! The man of the house... this house!

Please god!

Please don't let him leave me!

Reaching the door of his room it registered faintly in the back of her mind that the horrid smell was stronger now. If he had left food in his room again to rot! Turning the doorknob she pushed the door open as smoke bellowed out into her face. The stench was an overpowering, sickly sweet putrid smell mixed with that of burned meat and hair.

Her eyes burned. Her nose burned. When the room cleared she saw him. No hair. His skin blackened and crispy. The computer in front of him eerily silent.

The scream that ripped through the house was heard halfway down the block was a high pitched shriek that should have shattered glass. It was the scream of absolute horror and turmoil. The scream of a mother finding her son, her only child, dead. Horribly burned while still sitting in his computer chair. The sound went higher and higher and then ended, strangled off to be followed by a thump on the floor. When she awoke again she was in an ambulance and EMTs were giving her oxygen as they asked if she was alright?

If she was on any medications?

That they would be at the hospital soon.

The police visited her in the hospital and asked questions. She answered them robotically, but she couldn't remember them, the questions, or what the answers had been.

A few days later she was allowed to go home. Her son's body had been removed. Someone cleaned the room, but she could still smell the stink. The door to Daniel's room was closed. She kept expecting him to come out and ask what was for dinner. She kept thinking of things that she wanted to say. She found herself, her hand on the door knob, about to open the door, and then she would remember. Each time it sent her staggering to her room wailing in grief to curl up on her bed until sleep overcame her.

Hours drug out like days. Days felt like weeks. The house was silent. The silence was deafening. The loneliness... unbearable!

All she could think about was how horrible a mother she was. Why had she gotten so upset at such a little thing? Not coming out to help her unload groceries was nothing. Why had she gone to the store at all? If she hadn't, then Daniel would still be alive. Why had she taken so long at the store? If only she had gotten back sooner! If only she had stayed home! Oh god! She was a horrid mother! Why was she even alive? It should have been her! Whatever had happened, however it had happened, oh god it should have been her!

She stayed out of her own kitchen as much as possible. Every time she saw the knives. How sweet it would be to cut an artery in her neck or in her left thigh. She had seen that once in a movie. Or, maybe a quick plunge into her heart. It would be so simple... so easy... she would simply go to sleep.

She shook herself and growled. It wasn't what Daniel would want, but... oh god... there was nothing worth living for anymore!

The phone rang.

She ignored it.

It was work. It was only work anymore. She hadn't been back since... since that day. There was no one in her life now that would call her. Talk to her. Love her. Need her.

The bed. Sleep. Those were her friends now. That and a photo of Daniel when he was ten pressed against her breasts as she lay there curled up in a fetal position.

----(!)----

"I will deal with the wolves," I yelled to Coella and Shahad, "You two distract the woman. Don't kill her though, and don't let her touch you!"

They nodded.

In three strides I transformed into my bee-form, launched into the air, my wings transparent with the speed of their flapping, and I screeched, howled, and roared all at the same time. It was a strange harmonic sound, and then I streaked forward faster than their eyes could see. To Coella and Shahad he appeared to turn into white light that shot straight for the woman until at the last second when he veered left toward the furthest of the black, twisted, monsters...

----(!)----

Helena woke up.

Dammit!

Glaring blurry eyed at the bottle of wine on her nightstand and the prescription bottle of sleeping pills, she moaned. Next time she would drink whisky or tequila, wine filled her up too fast and made her nauseous.

Her head was splitting, but she was sure she heard a knock on the back door. Or, maybe it was just the throbbing in her skull. Another run of rapid knocking confirmed its existence.

She rolled out of bed and barely remembered to pull on a robe that she could care to close before leaving her room and making her way to the back door. Glancing at a photo of her and Daniel on a beach vacation, she ached for that day again. It was a picture of her standing on white sand in front of an emerald ocean. She was draped on Daniel's arm like he was her boyfriend. She still remembered how that had embarrassed him so much his cheeks blushed bright pink. They were smiling so brilliantly for the photo. He was in long blue board shorts while she posed in a bikini that was dangerously close to being too small to be proper for a mother with a sixteen year old son. Her reflection in the glass of the picture reflected back at her a woman that was only a shadow of the woman in the picture. Her hair was a mess. Her face was a mess. She was naked for all but the robe. She stunk of too much wine and of not having bathed since Daniels funeral. Despite having slept, her eyes were red and bloodshot with dark circles below them.

Yep, she was a mess...

Another run of knocking, and then she was pulling the door open, the noonday light blinded her. As her irises remembered how to dilate the world came into focus. Standing on the step below her was Jerry Flannagan.

"Um, hello Missus Reas," He greeted as his eyes opened wider and wider as they looked down her body at everything exposed by her half open robe. He nearly choked, she expended a little effort to close the robe at least enough that Jerry would stop staring at her sex and get on with why he was on her back porch. His gaze almost returned to her eyes. He fell short, stopping at the generous cleavage that was still exposed.

"Good morning Jerry. What do you want?" She asked in a nonplussed tone that said "get with it!"

She wanted whatever he was here for finished so that she could go back to her room with a bottle of something alcoholic and take the rest of her sleeping pills.

"I'm sorry to bother you Missus Reas, but um, I left a game over here a few weeks ago," He explained nervously, "Daniel and I were playing it together. Do you mind if I go in and retrieve it?"

She didn't want him coming into the house. She didn't want him going inside her little boy's room. She didn't want him touching anything!

With a heavy sigh she took a step back and let him in as she said, "Get your game only. Don't touch anything else!"

He darted past her and headed straight for Daniel's room.

Sighing again, unable to muster the energy to care for much of anything, she turned from the door and let her robe fall open again as she shuffled into the living room. Turning on the stereo she switched it to the record player. Joni Mitchel's Blue album already sat on the turntable. Picking up the tone arm off of the arm elevator and set the stylus needle on the edge of the record.

Walking to a table where a picture of Daniel sat, it was of him at his college graduation, she picked it up and held it to her breasts as she slowly danced in circles... and silently wept...

----(!)----

The first grotesque monster fell to pieces in short order. In a heartbeat I was upon the second. Coella and Shahad engaged the woman where blackened dead earth roiled at her feet before moving up her body in ever thickening layers of mud and rock until a massive golem roared and swung at Coella and Shahad.

It was large and slow whereas Coella and Shahad were small and quick.

I landed on the second monstrous wolf. Claws rent flesh. Chitin sword arms sliced hamstrings. Howls of pain and rage rung out across the land.

With a snarl the black wolf's claws and teeth slashed and snapped, seeking flesh to tear and puncture.

----(!)----

The first song ended and she realized that Jerry was taking too long. Pulling the record needle off and setting the tone arm back on the arm elevator, she listened. Silence filled the house. Panic struck her.

No! It could happen again. No! Oh dear god!

Running to Daniel's room she pushed the door open and saw Jerry sitting at Daniel's computer. The monitor showed a round ring gateway filled with a rainbow of colors partially blocked by Jerry's head. Above the gate was the title of the game, 'Dimension'.

"What are you doing?!" She shrieked as she stomped over and pulled the chair and Jerry backwards roughly, wrenching him around so that his big, surprised, eyes were whipped around towards her, and she could see that he was still okay, that he was still alive!.

He looked up at her, his eyes wide open, her robe had fallen wide open revealing everything. This time though, she grabbed him by the chin and pulled his head up until he met her angry glare. His mouth opened and closed several times before he finally cried, "I sorry! I accidentally bumped the mouse, and the computer just came back on! It must have been on standby. This game just started up. This must have been what Daniel was playing when he... When he..."

"Go home," She snarled.

"But," He objected as he tried to look back at the computer monitor then back at her, "Don't you want to know what it was that he was doing when he died?"

"Go! HOME!" She screamed, her face red, tears falling down her cheeks as her body shook with fear, rage, and pain. The fear for what might have happened, the rage that Jerry was in her son's room, and the pain of her heart being crushed by grief.

Jerry jumped up and ran clutching his game to his chest as he flew out of the house. She followed close behind, slamming the door closed at his exit as she wheezed for breath through body shaking sobs. Pushing away from the door, she staggered to the kitchen. Pulling a drawer open she found a long sharp knife and pressed the point against her throat...

She cried.

She wailed.

She closed her eyes, and pressed it deeper into her skin...

----(!)----

I leapt from the second monster that was still falling in slow motion to the ground. It was already dead. Really really dead.

Streaking around Coella, Shahad, and the dark golem of death I ran for the closest of the last two wolves. A slice through the knee. Another pass and slicing through the other knee. Claws ripping flesh. Entrails falling to the ground. Two slashing chitin swords upwards. Arms falling away from the shoulders. A spinning kick to the chest. Zipping out and up at the speed of white light. Diving down and slashing, removing the head from the shoulders, sending it off on another trajectory.

And then there was one monster left...

----(!)----

Blood rolled down Helena's neck. Just a little more pressure and she could see her son again. She giggled through sobs at the thought as tears ran down her cheeks. But, her skin already hurt from the knife point digging into her skin.

What if she somehow lived through it?

What if the priests were right?

What if going to join her Daniel this way sent her somewhere he was not?

She might not get to see him again, ever! The fear of the unknown stayed her hand.

Setting the knife on the countertop she ran to her room, grabbing the picture off the wall of her and Daniel on the beach vacation as she went. Throwing herself across the bed she cried herself to sleep with the picture clutched tightly to her bosom.

When she woke up again her robe was halfway off, but she couldn't remember moving at all. The picture of her and Daniel on a white beach in Florida was still clutched tightly in her arms. Looking over at the pills on the side table she resolved in her heart to join her son, wherever he was.

Standing up, she walked to her bathroom and started the shower. She washed her hair and body. Shaved her pits, legs, coochie, and then she got out and dried off. She dried and styled her hair, put on makeup, painted her nails, and brushed her teeth.

Crossing her room to the closet she found the black dress she had worn to Daniel's funeral. She pulled on thigh-high stockings, a garter belt, thong panties, and a matching black-lace bra. She pulled on her dress, and then she walked over to examine herself in the standing mirror. She looked like what she was, a mother in morning.

At least she would look presentable when the police finally found her.

Tying a red ribbon around her neck to hide the cut she had given herself, she left and walked into Daniel's room. It still stank of burned flesh and hair. She would never be able to get that image out of her head. It overrode all her memories of looking in on him and seeing the back of his head as he carefully put a model car together when he was ten. Or the time he was so engrossed in his science fair project she had to walk in and flick his ear to get his attention when he was twelve. Or the time she caught him looking at his first Playboy when he was fifteen. She still didn't know how or from whom he had gotten such a thing. Then there was the time when he bought his first computer with lawn-mowing money he saved all summer. So many memories!

Now all she could see, all she could smell, all she could remember was the blackened husk that had been her son sitting in the chair in front of her!

Sitting in that same desk chair, she scooted herself closer to the computer. The thought of what she was doing hadn't been her own. It had come in a dream. A faint feminine voice promising that she might see her son again if she did this.

He had died while playing this game. So, maybe, if she played it, it would kill her just as it had her son. It wouldn't be suicide then, and maybe, just maybe she would be sent to wherever Daniel was. Heaven or Hell, she didn't care as long as she was with him!

Moving the mouse and tapping a few keys on the keyboard, the monitor illuminated as the computer woke up. That game was still running. A rainbow filling a circular gate made of iron and stone with runes and sanskrit covering its every inch. Above it was the title, 'Dimension'. Below the gate, a gray stone button meant to be selected with the mouse with the word 'Next' etched into its face. She moved the mouse and watched the cursor move over the button before clicking.

What dimension would you like to visit? Random.

What sex would you like to be? Female.

Your Race will depend on your Dimension. Would you like to choose your Race? The only option she saw that wasn't a question mark was Random.

Would you like to choose your Class and Professions? Also Random.

What would you like to name your Avatar, or have a name randomly generated? She sat and thought about it. Then with a smirk she typed; Hlina Reas.

Moving the mouse across the screen she hovered the cursor of another rectangular stone etched with the word 'Launch', and double clicked...

"I'm coming Daniel! Please, wait for me!" She whispered fiercely as the CPU fan revved up, the gateway with the spinning rainbow colors reappeared, and then everything went dark...

----(!)----

With only one monster wolf left I transformed into my lion-form. Quebracho quickly covered me in a long coat of burnished red wood platemail. Turning to the wolf I unleashed Intimidating Roar. The sonic blast pushed it backwards as its clawed feet rent the ground as it leaned into the assault. As soon as my roar was finished we ran at each other. Crashing and clashing, claws swiping, jaws biting. I was too furious to remember my martial arts, and instead became a contest of brute strength.

The wolf's claws sought my flesh. I caught his arms at the wrists. My hands tightened until I heard bone snap, but the monster was unfazed. Changing tactics I reversed and pulled, using its momentum and mine to pivot and throw it into the massive golem. The wolf shattered the earthen construct on impact revealing the woman's head just below where it had crashed through the upper body before flying several more yards and landing in a crumpled heap.