12. Ylfa
I don’t speak a wordonce Patrick and Hunter tell me what they’ve theorized. It makes sense with the way Brianna, Andrew, and Theresa behave around us. The other day, Annabel tried to kiss Andrew, and he jumped ten miles in the air as if she were diseased...
Do we make the humans sick?
I try to wrack my brain around the possibility. I got close enough to Raven plenty of times, and she never flinched when she was in my presence. She was more welcoming than the other three, but other humans we’ve met have been hostile.
They were prepared to kill us from the start, already prepared to die when going up against us. So it didn’t matter to them whether they got infected.
This just sucks. Even if we make a pact of non-violence, we could still potentially kill the humans off, and I ball my fists.
I need answers. Now.
I storm out of the master bedroom, making poor Patrick startle. “Ylfa!”
I don’t pay him attention. My mind is on the three humans who are camped out around the stuffed shifter as I stomp down the stairs. I most likely look and sound like a child, but to hell with it.
We swore to be honest and open with each other. That way, we can build rapport and learn to get along. Yet it appears they have been keeping secrets from us.
I find them in the living room, sitting cross-legged before the stuffed shifter like it’s a deity.
Chelsea, Annabel, and Tiffany monitor the three, and it’s sad we still feel the need to guard them. We allow one of them to roam the house freely if they wish, but never all three of them together.
It’s time we had a heart to heart. No more secrets.
I stop behind the three humans, folding my arms, and a terse silence follows. “Be completely honest with me now. Do we make you sick?”
When I saw ‘we’, I mean shifters.
The humans stir uncomfortably after I ask my question. Chelsea, Annabel, and Tiffany tense; the former looks as if she wants to gut Brianna for daring to keep secrets from us.
Finally, Brianna speaks. It seems she’s the self-appointed leader of the group. “You did once. Not so much these days. But we’re not taking any chances.”
Her words reverberate through the spacious room. Patrick draws a breath and Hunter goes completely rigid. Chelsea sneers, baring her fangs as she flips her knife. Annabel is shocked, and Tiffany is neutral.
Patrick opens his mouth. “That’s what killed you all off in the end, wasn’t it? It wasn’t our increasing numbers, or our larger sizes. It wasn’t even our wanton slaughtering, but... disease. We were the carriers of a disease that gradually killed you all. Is that it?”
Brianna chuckles. “Exactly, smarty pants. And we are the children of the survivors who lived through that ugly pandemic. As you can clearly see, the disease killed off a number of our people. Not even the poor billionaires were spared...”
She spreads her arms, and my eyes scan the fancy paintings of the room. They must have been worth thousands once upon a time, but now they’re worthless. Wolves don’t care for human works of art any more than they do for human literature.
It takes a while before one of us is brave enough to speak again, and to my surprise, it’s Hunter.
“If a hundred years have passed, then surely you’ve all developed the antibodies you need in order to survive. The disease would have died off by now since you were the primary host. So why do you all still flinch away from us?”
Brianna shrugs. “I guess we’re just being cautious. New diseases are formed all the time... Did none of you have the slightest clue?”
All the wolves in the room keep their silence, and it appears we did not. It is odd that our scholars never shared this news with us. They always taught us we killed the humans off gradually, blaming it on decreasing resources. There just weren’t enough of them to around, basically.
But it turns out we were the carriers of an infectious disease that wiped out nearly all of humanity. I don’t know what percentage, yet it appears enough survived to produce the next generations or we wouldn’t be speaking with the three of them right now.
“How many of you are there?” I ask.
Brianna, Andrew, and Theresa fall still. I cross my arms, waiting for a reply, but I don’t get one. I suppose it can come at a later time, but we need to know what we’re up against.
I’ll ask Paddy later. He’s good at making educated guesses. I would have to estimate they are living in the lower millions.
It’s a pretty big planet, after all, and we still have much of the world to explore.
Brianna rises to her feet, exiting the room, and Chelsea falls in line behind her. I guess we’re done for the day.
I peer up at the stuffed shifter, wondering if the human who killed it had any idea that they brought a diseased cadaver into their home. I bet it was what killed the homeowner off, eventually.
Poor billionaire.