‘So, this is how we die, not fighting, but allowing ourselves to be driven insane by a little noise?’ Even though all he could hear was the maddening buzzing sound the voice cut through it to ring clear and harsh to William’s ears. He felt a shuddering of his body, a deepening of the darkness around him and then silence.
At first William didn’t know where he was. The darkness was absolute, and the sound of the terrible buzzing had stopped. William felt solid ground under him, that and total darkness around him were the only things solid in the void.
‘You were right about the Plain. You did, however, underestimate how badly it wanted to win.’
The voice seemed to come from all directions at once. The black around him was total and nonmoving. Right in front of him seeming to come out of nothing a form slowly materialized out of the black. It was a sharp contrast to the void. His other moved with powerful steps with an upright and proud stature.
‘How many times must I save you from your own stupidity?’ he said as he stopped in front of William. ‘Your friends need your help and you have allowed your mind to be so easily attacked and overwhelmed by the Whyte Plain.’ He stopped and walked around him. William found that he couldn’t move. His other moved around him and came to stop directly in front of him. ‘Thank the Lunar Mother you have me, right?’
The creature thrust his two claws forward into William and pain erupted from his sides. He had never felt agony like this. William tried to get away from this thing that was doing this to him but he could barely breathe, much less move. William wanted it to stop. He tried to get away, to fall. But the creature held on to him somehow making the pain even worse. William tried to make it stop but flailing his body around only made it worse. There was nothing in his world except for the agony that this creature was making him feel.
After eons of time his other finally let William fall to the ground. William didn’t feel any more pain and for that he was grateful. He placed his claws to his sides and found that there was no blood. William looked up at his other. The other werewolf stood there looking down at him sprawled on the floor.
William jumped to his feet as he remembered where Aceso was and that she was counting on him to be there to get her out of the trap those shadows had set. William stood up facing his other. “I have to get back.”
His other stood there regarding him. ‘Yes, you do. We’ve been here before but as you already know, this place has become even more dangerous than you remember.’ His other began to disappear into the total darkness of the void. Before he disappeared completely William heard his voice drift back to him. ‘I told you, you would need my help. See you around, William.’
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William wrenched himself out of the void so violently that opening his eyes into the pure white of the Whyte Plain was more than a little disorienting. He had to blink several times hard and slow to accustom his eyes to the brightness of this place.
The buzzing sound did not meet him as he looked around himself. He looked at Charles who was standing over Katherine. Katherine had a mad look in her eyes. She was laughing with her whole body bent over. Her eyes were wide open, staring but unseeing. She was holding her head and digging her claws into the flesh around her ears. Charles was trying to stop her but it was no use. Katherine was digging her claws into her skull. William could only guess that she was trying to drive the sound out of her head with her own claws.
William shoved Charles out of the way. William stood in front of Katherine. She looked like a caricature of her true self. Blood was running down her face collecting on the tip of her nose. Her eyes were beyond wide, they were bulging out of their sockets. William plunged his claws deep into her sides, the same way his other had done to him in the void. The warmth of her body and the blood that flowed out of the wounds was grotesque. Katherine’s eyes stopped bulging and they receded only to bulge forward once again with the pain of William’s attack. William silently apologized for having to do this to her but held on. Katherine couldn’t even scream. William knew the intense pain she must be feeling, and he laughed and cried in sympathy for her. After a few moments William let her go and she in very much the same fashion as he had done, fell backwards unceremoniously onto the floor of the Whyte Plain.
Charles rushed forward and did what he could for her. They had all been trained in first aid under Efraim’s instruction. The wounds in Katherine’s sides were deep but thankfully he hadn’t pierced any of her major organs. The blood was red, not black. Charles helped Katherine to maintain pressure on the wounds. Thankfully her werewolf body would heal quickly, how quickly was always a question.
William looked up and around at the Whyte Plain. There wasn’t any buzzing anymore. He couldn’t smell the predator that Charles had sensed earlier. There was nothing but the swirling white of the mist covered plain and the feeling of Aceso who was somehow still moving away from them. The silence was broken. The sound was so harsh and cruel that it took him a moment to identify it. The sound collected into a form. It was laughter, the coldest and most malevolent sound that William had ever heard or probably would ever hear in his lifetime.
William looked down to see that Katherine and Charles both were hearing the same thing that he was hearing. They looked between each other and back to William. Charles claws were soaked in Katherine’s blood and the wounds that William had given her didn’t seem to be healing, just one more surprise that this place offered.