DYER - The Durban Wolves [discontinued - pending V2, someday, maybe]

.:7:. Trapped

The problem with humanity is that they endlessly demand what they are most terrified of: change.

There isn't enough food, so they start farming, but they're scared of spending their whole lives in one place. There is crime and chaos, so they create governments, but they don't appreciate being told what they can and cannot do. People are different from each other, so they embrace their uniqueness, but are terrified of anything different to them.

Quion heaved a sigh, tracing the grain of the fur on his cheek with a black-clawed finger.

Those poor South African souls. For the world to think that they were the first... Quion took a sip of his tea to calm himself. They would never know how many prisoners lost their lives in the development of the Dyer virus.

Quion lost the majority of his friends to the research of the now infamous pathogen. He had been the only one to survive his group's test viruses - the others would no doubt make excellent biological weapons, considering how quickly everyone died. The strain tested on him was administered to another group of five, and with their subsequent survival, Dyer was released into the world.

Quion was fortunate to overhear how the virus was spread. From where he was kept, news of the outside world was rare, so any information that he could get he eagerly absorbed. As if his captors weren't mad or cruel enough already, they were also creative. Placing samples of the virus in a number of delicate glass vials and using those vials as buckshot pellets in a dirty bomb that could be built in a kitchen, the waterborne concoction was guaranteed to infect anyone whose internal fluids came into contact with a shard.

Quion looked down at his rapidly emptying teacup, a grim smile on his features. Willing participation had granted him the privilege of one cup of tea a week. Of course he'd be a willing participant. Who wouldn't be when your fiance had just had her throat slit in front of you for your refusal.

Quion had nothing left to lose in his life.

"Stage two will begin as soon as enough Dyer Wolves have been converted to avoid notice when a few of them disappear."

Quion stiffened at the voice behind him. Turning slowly in his cell to see who spoke, the canine fought the fear rising in his gut as a crisp white suit appeared in his line of vision.

"You know what that means, don't you, One?" With a sickly sweet smile that never reached the ambitious shadows of his eyes, a pompous American voice fell from the slender businessman's lips.

Quion knew better than to speak. This was the man that had him turned into a monster.

"Humph. Your silence is admirable, One, but your eyes tell me how you are aching to kill."

"I will not be a Feral puppet of yours so easily." Quion said with all of the class and civility he could muster.

"Ha! Listen to the dog talk like he's the one holding the leash." The American slurred sarcastically. Quion resisted the urge to scoff at this chimpanzee in his royal robes.

"I don't know how you of all people didn't go Feral, One. Four of the five guys I turned after you did. They were my best successes. Mindless killers. Exactly what I am getting paid for. But you... heh, you're a waste of resources."

Quion took the last sip of his tea, fighting the urge to pull on his past experience and make use of the blissfully simple opportunity in front of him.

"If I am such a waste of resources, why don't you just have one of your thugs kill me?" Quion asked calmly. "You haven't had a problem giving that order before."