Ferocious

Chapter 11

New Discovery

The acrid smell of urine and dung filled Astro's nostrils, then the smell of fur as he gradually came to.

Little sounds filtered into his ears; a little fluttering here, mewling there, a bark, a whine, a voice!

His eyes snapped open and brought in a world of pain as the bright light hurt his eyes with a searing pain, burning so much that he had to shut them closed back again.

Then slowly he opened them, thus letting his eyes adjust better of their own volition.

With his eyes opened, his other senses also reluctantly started to work.

At first he could feel the cold metal of the table he was laying on and then there was a continuous pain across his spine as well.

That got him panicking and he tried to get up to his feet,

He did all but slid off the table but he couldn't fully support his own weight yet so he had to still hold onto the table for support.

His vision was still blurry, he couldn't really see anything clearly 'why can't I see clearly?' He kept thinking fearfully.

Then he stood upright, half leaning on the table with an arm. He stood still and listened.

It was still the same muffled sounds he heard,

'wait, a new one, a door opening, footsteps receding?, no approaching!' He thought and panicked.

"Hey you shouldn't be up yet, are you ok?", came a muffled voice.

He felt an outstretched hand reaching for him and his instincts kicked in immediately,

He reached out for the hand in a bid to grab it, spin around and fling the person across his shoulder thereby slamming the person on the floor.

But instead he found himself just grabbing the hand and falling to the ground with new pain flaring all over his body as he was still weak and not fully healed yet.

The hand now grabbed him sturdily and helped him back up on the table with the help of another set of hands,

'wait there are two people?' He thought in a painful haze of other jumbled thoughts.

"Lie down... heal some more... this will help" another deeper voice said still muffled and not getting any clearer.

Then he felt a sharp piercing pain join the other ones he was having but to be followed by relief this time then murkiness and the lull of sleep took him off into unconsciousness.

***

'I am in a veterinary clinic'; this was the clear thought and realization that came straight to Astro as he once again came back to awareness.

This time though, things were much clearer and he knew for a fact that he was indeed in a hospital for animals.

The sounds came to him clearer and the smell was as well stronger,

He could smell dogs, cats, birds, reptiles even,

His skin hairs stood on end as he discovered through his senses that even wild animals to include a cougar and an hyena were present there.

'Just where is this place?' His conscious self asked his subconsciousness but none had the answers yet.

He finally opened his eyes slowly and they adjusted to the intense brightness,

'Are hospitals always so bright?' His mind asked yet another rhetorical question.

He looked around at where he was and could only see steel shelves and cabinets,

He was alone in the room, but not in the building as his senses reported to him.

The he sent his senses to probe outwards even further than the animal details that surrounded it and he found out there was human presence in the building as well and not just one.

Someone was on their way to him at the moment though so he closed his eyes and pretended to still be unconscious.

The man entered - he knew it was a man not by sight but by his countenance, his senses told him that he was well built because he carried himself well and his gait was sturdy -

'Just come a little closer' he thought in his mind and he readied himself to take the man on.

No matter how huge he might be he was confident he could take him because he gave off no supernatural aura, so he believed he had that against him.

But instead of getting closer to him, he heard the man say "I've been a doctor long enough to know when someone is faking consciousness, I hope you ain't planning to jump me though, cos that's absolutely unnecessary".

'Ouch the gig is up' Astro's mind stated.

He whirled around and rose up to a crouch on the table very fast with his eyes flaring their red wolfish glow that made the man take a step back with his hands raised up as if in surrender.

But he was calm, not freaking out at Astro's appearance at all,

Astro was sure he had his claws out and his canines were baring at him as well as the glowing blood red eyes,

so why was the man so calm?

This was not what he was expecting at all.

"You look surprised" said the man who indeed was well built, tall and had neatly trimmed beards, but he was bald headed,

He had a tan but his tan was a product of aging rather than of quality time at the beach and from the look in his worn brown eyes, it showed this man has had various encounter with the supernatural in the past, Astro could tell now.

"You're probably thinking 'he's the one who's supposed to be surprised not me' right?" He stated in which he was right, that was exactly what Astro had been thinking initially before he had measured the man.

Astro decided to calm down and got down from the table though he didn't revert yet,

He felt he still needed to know if he was safe here before going back to his human form.

Although deep in his subconsciousness, his mind was already telling him that he wouldn't be alive if he wasn't safe, yet he needed more confirmation on that.

"Well" the man continued "my name is Darlan, I'm a veterinarian and I've had a lot of encounter with the supernatural, werewolves especially and that's because..."

as he said that the door behind him opened once more and Astro's eyes widened at the rush that his senses sent to his brain.

His skin felt her before she came into view and his nose smelled her right as he laid his eyes on her.

She was startling beautiful with auburn hair flowing around her past her shoulders,

she was in tight fitting clothes that showed her curves perfectly.

He decided it won't be cool to explore her body with his eyes 'that will be obvious and most probably rude' he thought.

So he switched his eyes back up away from scanning her body and looked right at her eyes only to find another surprise,

They were glowing an eerie orange, almost the colour of fire.

Astro just couldn't take it anymore and his mouth dropped in surprise as he reverted back to human but only left his eyes glowing as well.

"...this is my daughter Aubrey and she's a werewolf as well" Darlan finished.

Two things went across Astro's mind in a flash;

first, 'was she named Aubrey because of her hair colour which was Auburn?' A totally pointless question that was besides the point.

Second, 'how is it possible for a human father to conceive a werewolf daughter I'd never heard it happening before in the clan'

And at that second thought a sharp pain went through his skull 'ugh what's wrong with my head?'

The pain must've shown in his expression because Darlan stretched out his hands once more in a placating manner,

"You should've healed up completely by now, but we can't be so sure cos your wounds were so numerous,

I'm sure there would be some internally as well, hence you still need to rest and let me examine you" the veterinarian said to Astro.

"First I need an explanation, what happened to me?, where am I?, How did I get here? Who are you people?"

He still had more questions but those were the first to come to his mind at the moment.

"Sit back on the table and let me examine you as I answer your questions as best I can, please you have nothing to fear from us" Darlan said to which Astro found himself doing as he said because all of a sudden he now believed him,

Astro guessed he'd finally listened to his subconsciousness.

The doctor brought a little penlight and started by checking both his eyes for reactions

"What do you remember?" He asked Astro.

"Close to nothing, just flashes, a lot of water..., probably a battle..., a white wolf... Argh" he grabbed his head as the sharp pain flared across his skull again.

Darlan looked at him with genuine concern in his eyes as Astro winced at the pain in his head,

Then he stared using two fingers to gingerly add pressure to parts of Astro's chest then his neck then the back of his neck to which he winced in pain once more.

"Ok anything else?" Darlan asked as he brought a stethoscope to check Astro's heartbeat.

"nothing else except my name Astro, oh and the knowledge that I'm a werewolf"

he actually remembered that he was something called a demonwolf but he decided to hold that back for now because he had no recollection about the circumstances around it and he didn't want to freak out his hosts just yet.

Darlan packed up and went across the room to stand beside his daughter who was already seated on a steel chair with her model-like legs crossed.

Astro had actually been trying hard not to look towards her direction and her father just made that job harder as he now stayed next to her.

"You're suffering from partial amnesia, I believe this is from the head and spine injury you had which really gave me a cause for concern as I believed you might not survive without being at least brain damaged, but you survived it with just partial amnesia which means you're one heck of a survivor" Darlan said.

"Wait how did I get head and spine injury?" Astro asked still trying to get a clearer picture of his predicament.

"Beats us" Aubrey spoke for the first time with a sweet voice so gentle and stern at the same time which led Astro to believe she had the gentleness of a woman mixed with the sternness of her father.

"I fished you out of the river thinking you were dead, you had so many wounds on you, you were like one giant open wound" she continued,

"but when I got you out, I felt your heart still beating so I brought you here" she finished.

"You carried me here?" Astro didn't know why that was all he could be concerned about out of all she said, but he felt a bit embarrassed at just that fact.

"Yes I did, else you'd have died" she said matter-of-factly.

"So you practically saved my life... Whoa... Thanks" he said to her "and thank you too for treating me" he said to her father.

"Well its my job to save lives be it animal or human or werewolf, but you still need to heal, your spine and your memory, partial amnesia is treatable and half the time patients who have it recover their memories back if they want to" He said.

"Half the patients?" Astro had to ask.

"Yes, if they want to" he answered then continued to explain further,

"sometimes the events that leads to partial amnesia are so traumatic that patients would rather not want to go through the whole thing again as it is an important process to regaining said memories,

and judging from the little you remember and that pain you get from recollecting the bits and pieces, I believe such is your case too, a traumatic event must've led to your injuries and might as well prevent you from gaining your lost memories back".

Astro processed this really slow, then heaved a deep sign.

"Aubrey, why don't you take Astro here out to get something to eat, he's been out for so long I'm sure he's starving by now" he said to his daughter

"Sure thing" she answered.

"Give him some clothes in the drawer of my office on your way out"

"Wait!" Astro said as they got to the door and were about to leave,

"how long was I out?" He asked already dreading the answer.

"Two weeks and five days now" Darlan replied.