Millennia by Raven Slake (free books to read .txt) 📕

Follow the river; you will always have water to drink and it always leads you to food. That was how everyone was raised. Except for me, I had to teach myself after getting separated from my family. Even if I did not have a steady hunter to teach me how to kill better than anyone else, I was one of the best. While I was lost I learned the best techniques just by experimenting. Sure, it sounds cruel but that is where my story takes an unusual twist. I am not human but like everyone else I can understand them as if they spoke the same language as we do. Technically, we do speak the same language but our dialects separate us form talking to one another. Not to mention humans cannot do what my kind can. We can sense their feelings and our senses our slightly better than theirs. Just to clear things up, I am not some freak of nature and neither is my family. I am a wolf, born and raised in the wild. However, I have seen what humans do and my hatred for them increases the more I see. They abuse animals that are half of their own size and throw them out of their homes because they made a mistake. Humans also leave their garbage on the ground to poison everyone else and they destroy the atmosphere with their ways of transportation. Then they overpopulate the world and kill every other creature in their way just so they can dominate. However, there are humans that I like. These are the ones that help us, protect us from the guns that kill us.
Kaire’s grey fur began to ruffle. The odor in the air was heavy and dangerous. Human hunters were nearby and they had fired one of their guns. They were close, and they had been following us for a while now.

“How many days have they been following us?” I asked cautiously. Kaire looked back at me and he shook his furry head in reply. Nobody seemed to know anymore. The same humans had been driving us out of our territory repeatedly and we were getting fed up. My alpha was about ready to permanently move us to somewhere else for our own safety. The nearest area that had not been claimed by other wolves was miles upon miles away. Many would die in the trip, and that is how it always has been.

Gunshots rang out all around us. They were here and they were upon us once more. By the sounds of it this time, we were going to die, all of us.

Sprinting down the river, the humans fired more shots at us. Some stopped to reload their weapons. Running was not an option anymore; we needed to fight back once and for all.

“Stop! We need to fight! They will not stop until we are all dead!” I could hear my voice echo off the trees that surrounded us. With a direct order that I was not authorized to give, I waited for Zeke to turn around and rip my throat out. Then something odd occurred, everyone turned around with a growl rising in their throats.

“It is about time that these humans learn what we are capable of,” Zeke said as he ran past me in a hurry to lunge at one of these murderers.

None of them saw us coming. Humans believed that wolves ran when startled and attacked when threatened. They were right with one thing, we do fight when we are threatened, but never do we ever run from a fight that we could win. Even with any amount of casualties, we take on our attackers headfirst with killing them our main objective. If they lived, they would tell the world what violent creatures we are and we need to be exterminated. It happened once and it will happen again but not anytime soon within my lifetime.

My paws left the ground as I leaped towards the back of a human. His blood left a metallic taste in my mouth. With enough force, I felt the vertebrae in his neck. Using a swift movement, I snapped his neck with the power of my jaws. One down, four more to kill.

Penelope fell to the ground at the same time a hunter fired his gun. She could be dead but she could also have an injury. Either way, the hunter was going to die within a matter of seconds. Revenge was a dish best served cold, but I was serving it piping hot with a side of my jaws slowly crushing his windpipe.

Spotting the hunter that killed Penelope was easier than I thought. He had run out of bullets when he shot her and was reloading. His hair was grown out long and was a dark brown color. He looked so dull for a human. Creeping slowly in his direction, I set my eyes on my target. The bulge in his throat was jutting out as he gulped. The wolves attacking his friends were teaming up with one another, taking the humans to the ground. They would not last for much longer.

Abruptly, a female hunter sprang up from the ground after frantically pushing the wolf off her. She sprinted in the opposite direction and grabbed a gun with no ammo left in it. Does she really think that I am scared of a metal stick that fires small metal pellets? I have no fears, except for losing my pack and Kaire. They are my family and all that I have. This is the same with every wolf, only the cowards fear more than this.

“Get her! We’ll finish them off here!” Zeke, my alpha ordered. With that, Zeke went after another human as I chased the female. She was still running and was not paying any attention to the tree root that her foot would catch on in a matter of seconds. Once she had fallen, I picked up my speed and pinned her arms to the ground. Staring her in the eyes, I recognized her face. She was not a hunter; she was one of the few humans who despised the killing of animals. Her own features were remarkable and hard to forget. With jade green eyes and her hair was spun shiny gold. Taking actions into her own hands is what she does best. She took the gun so that they would not kill us. This human left them for dead.

I needed to talk to her. If only she could understand my dialect like I could with hers. Maybe, just maybe, I can force my voice to sound like a human’s. It seemed impossible but it was my only choice and I really wanted to tell her something.

“Stop…talking.” My throat was being strained as I attempted to change my dialect temporarily. The look on her face told me that she had understood what I said. (An improvement to trying to communicate to humans to report to them that we only attack because we do not want them on our territory) “You…despise…hunting of…animals.” She nodded with a star struck look on her face. “Dialect separate…communication…of species…We are…smarter than…you let on.” The strain was starting to hurt.

“Holy crap. You can talk,” she mumbled. I could tell that she was thinking that she was crazy.

“Listen to…what I say…we speak the…same language…My dialect…is why I…have never…spoken before…Hurts to use…your dialect.” The pain was throbbing by the time I finished talking.

“What’s your name?” She was reconsidering her idea about her being crazy, which was good. The saner she thought she was the more likely she was to hold a secret. Humans hold a lot of them, especially the government.

“Millennia.”

“What about the wolf that died?”

“Penelope.” She was surprised that wolves would name their young a human name. We understand them perfectly fine, which is where we get our names. My mother told me that I was beautiful and that it would last a thousand years, so she named me Millennia. Kaire was named after the African country Zaire, but my mother thought Zaire was too feminine so that was how she came up with Kaire. Zeke was named after a human that had saved his mother while she was pregnant with a litter of pups. Penelope got her name from a TV show her father had seen while he lived in captivity. Lefty got his name from always having a limp on his entire left side. Lilith was named after a flower that did not even grow where we lived. Bes was going to be Bessie but her father hated humans and believed it was too human. Moose was named really late in his life, not too long ago actually. He had been lost for a few years, nameless. Moose had returned to us with parts of a moose carcass hanging from his mouth. That gave us a good nickname for him. Okami is a strange male pup, he's young and crazy. He's a hunter like me but his name is actually translated from Japanese into wolf. Zeke had mentioned it once or twice when he had been in captivity. Suki, Okami's oldest sister, was also given a Japanese name. This one meaning beloved. She was one of our best and most beloved wolves in the pack. Preston so happens to be a female with a male name, it was her mother’s mistake when she thought that Preston was a boy, nevertheless, the name stuck. Teva Hali was a nice girl. She was named while her parents were dazed, thus leaving it to a couple pups to name her and her litter. They agreed on the nonsense name of Teva Hali. Nanook was an outsider, like Feline. He was pure white, comeing from a human zoo. He originally was born in some really cold place I never planned on going to. His mom had named him after some mythological creature. Buddy, another strange wolf. He was caught by a human child while he was a pup. Thinking he was a dog, the child gave him a domestic dog name. He was released when they learned he was a "wild and crazed creature". Bailey  is Buddy's daughter, named after the human girl he cared so much about. Then there was Feline. A canine named after a cat. She was never too happy about her name.

“Millennia! Are you alive?” Zeke was calling. The human needed to leave or we were both dead.

“Go. I will tell…Zeke that you…got a severe concussion…and you ran away…rambling.” The human nodded and hugged me briefly. She appreciated the fact that I had not ripped her guts out or crushed her windpipe like with the other hunters. Quickly, she got up and ran before Zeke could get here.

So many humans had died. The small hunting group turned out to be a hunting party. There were at least ten to fifteen humans that would be searched for. Everyone would frame us for the deaths. How could we ever fight off helicopters and snipers that fly over our heads? Say goodbye to a happy pack life and our beloved family members.

Hiding the bodies the best we could, we kept on moving alongside the river. More trouble awaited and I could smell it. Some sort of mix between a human and a wolf. What kind of creature smelled like that? Not even my mind could wrap around the idea of a hybrid coming to wipe us all out for good. It sent everyone to the edge. After losing Penelope, we were saddened but we had to move on for the sake of the pack. The weird hybrid creature was coming for us and it seemed to have its sights directly set on us. The feeling in the air made it feel like there was more than