Chapter 1 – A Cursed World

Julia POV.

FIVE YEARS EARLIER.

I remember it all like it happened yesterday. I remember each one of my pack members even though they are not alive anymore. There are times in your life when everything makes sense, you seem to have it all, and then things turn upside down overnight. Suddenly. With no warning or intimation.

But that is Life. You grin and bear it.

But what if things go wrong not once, not twice, but time after time? Within a short span of a few years? In the same cycle of life of an individual? What if the events are set in motion not by providence or destiny, but by our own species?

And by Mother Nature?

What if they both go on a rampage and end up cursing the beautiful world we live in?

That is exactly what happened to my world 5 years ago.

First to strike were the climate disasters. The drought and the storms. Back to back. First to disappear were the water bodies, followed by the vegetation, the greenery, the flowers and the bees. The fertile land turned into vast patches of lifeless desert. The brown soil turned into yellow sand.

It was a matter of time before the wolfpacks turned on each other and started fighting for control of the last remaining water bodies.

Next came the storms. Roaring and ravaging. Uprooting trees, buildings, neighborhoods and entire societies. Upturning lives for months on end. Leading to millions of homeless and rootless packs.

The wolves who had survived the drought now fought among themselves to take possession and control of the last remaining habitable territories.

The first to perish among the homeless were the pups. The next to go were the women, the omegas and the gammas. The betas followed soon after. And all hell broke loose when Alphas and Lunas perished by the hundreds.

Starving and dehydrated. Sick and weak.

Wolfpacks started dwindling and vanishing overnight across the world.

How could things go so wrong so soon?

“Don’t worry, we will be fine. We will survive,” my husband would repeat time and again after every natural disaster while embracing me with one arm and the kids with the other.

Luke, my husband, was a forever optimist. The Alpha of the Antumbra pack, he was a blessing straight from heaven. Always kind, eternally forgiving, perennially benevolent, Luke was not just my soulmate, but of the entire clan as well.

“How do you know?” I would whisper while losing myself in his warm embrace.

“We are the Antumbra, honey. We are blessed by the Moon Goddess. No calamity will ever befall upon us. We will live, we will prosper, and we will thrive. Mark my words.”

I would dream at his words, drown in his eyes, and heal myself in his faith.

Until the day I lost him.

Our lush green forest cover was long gone. The trees had stopped bearing fruits. Flowers did not bloom anymore, so the bees were not seen anymore. It had been 9 years since it had last rained. Cultivating the soil had stopped across the world as there was no soil left anymore.

Every inch of our territory had turned into vast endless stretches of sand and barren land. Nothing grew on the ground or below it, except desert weed. Toxic to touch, deadly to consume. Animals died by the thousands while trying to feed on those lethal weeds.

Our hungry livestock perished too. Extreme scarcity of water and the poisonous weed ensured their rapid demise. News would pour in everyday of humans and wolves hunting down the remaining wildlife all over the world to satiate their hunger.

Everyone was famished. Humans and wolves alike. They made no distinction between farm animals and wildlife. Everything that walked on four legs was a potential source of food. Everything that crawled or swam was also added to the list.

“Things will not remain this bad for long,” Luke would smile and reassure his entire pack. “Good days are coming.”

Good days never came.

What came instead were the Gladius, Claymore and Bokken. Wolfpacks all. Vicious and bloodthirsty. Traveled a few hundred miles in search of food and shelter. And attacked us from all sides after discovering our vulnerabilities.

We lost our turf to them. We lost our pack to them. But worst of all, we lost our Alpha to them. Luke was severely injured in an audacious ambush by the killer trio. He never recovered.

He died, bit by bit, of his infections and wounds every single day. While reassuring me all the time that nothing bad will ever happen to me and the kids.

“You will be fine. You will all be fine,” were his last words before he passed away.

Forever optimistic, eternally forgiving, perennially benevolent. Even to his last breath.

That was the day I last listened to him. That was the last time I looked into his eyes. But I could neither dream nor drown this time. I could not believe in his faith anymore.

I forgot how to heal.

Our home was torched by the invaders. Our house was ransacked. The entire neighborhood was burnt to the ground. 9 years of nonstop drought had not inflicted as much damage as those marauding wolfpacks did in a matter of days. They looted our supplies, plundered our food, destroyed my city, and reduced everything to rubble.

They massacred thousands.

They also took away my soul. Luke.

With two infants and a handful of survivors, I fled in the middle of the night. My sons, Damien and Pete, were still babies then. They had lost their father, their clan, their city. They had lost their childhood even before they learned how to walk.

All they had was me. And hope.

Hope that maybe, just maybe, things could turn around again. For the better. For peace. For Nature to smile on us again. For the mindless bloodshed and savagery to end. Hope that Luke would eventually turn out to be right.

Hope that defied the reality around us.

I wandered aimlessly all day and night, all over the scorched landscape, with two infants held tightly at my bosom, and a dozen survivors of the Antumbra pack following me like loyal dogs. I had no plans, no roadmap, no way of knowing which direction to go and which to avoid.

I just hoped against hope to find a patch of green somewhere with a tiny source of water to rebuild my home and pack. I hoped to find a place where my children would be safe. They were the last surviving babies of my pack. Every other infant had fallen prey to the merciless attacks of the invaders.

They were the only possessions I was left with. And it was my duty to protect them at all costs.

Everywhere I went, I witnessed death and ruins. Every direction I turned to was filled with unmarked graves. Rows upon rows of shallow graves, hurriedly dug up, with no tombstone or marking, as if the gravedigger himself perished before he could finish his task.

As if lives of innocents were meant to be forgotten and disposed of like trash. Never to be remembered again. Never to be talked about again.

My entire world had turned into an abyss of unmarked graves. And the light that Luke used to so fondly talk about seemed to have been extinguished forever.

Damien and Pete would have to grow up in that abyss of darkness and carnage.