Façade (DISCONTINUED. Revised and redone as a webcomic)

Chapter 16: Salvation

-----------------------
Day 007 5:10pm
----------------

It had seemed like an eternity before I'd been allowed to go turn myself in. What happened was, I was to go to the CEL, say that I was sick of hiding from society, and that I'd like to be taken away. At first, the soldiers in the CEL headquarters building were skeptical. That immediately changed when I showed my wolf eyes to them. I was handcuffed, put in the back of an armoured truck, and taken away somewhere. Right now, I was sitting on the floor of the cargo hold where I was kept.

They...didn't doubt my disguise. That was both comforting and discouraging. I mean, it was good that it worked, but I kinda didn't like the fact that I looked so feminine. Nothing against it, but I knew I was firmly male. Well, that's enough of that. You probably want to know how I look, right?

I wore a low-cut black-and-white striped t-shirt underneath a thin pink hoodie. There was a silver necklace around my neck, as well as a charm bracelet on my left wrist. They'd dyed my bangs again so that the white was gone, pinned them to the side with pink hair clips, then brushed and styled my hair so that it looked like the feathery hair of a girl. There wasn't much makeup on my face, just some eyeshadow and lip gloss. They wanted to give me winged eyeliner, but I wasn't that comfortable with the idea. I wore beige and white converse sneakers of Distance's, and skinny jeans. There weren't any skirts, which left me relieved. For 'extra realism', as according to River, they made me wear a bra stuffed with cotton balls. Yeah, that was a weird feeling. I couldn't get the bra on by myself, which made me marvel at the struggles women go through. Putting on a bra every day? Makeup? Damn, I'd never be able to do that or be forced to go through childbirth.

As I thought again about how amazing women happened to be, the truck came to a stop, jolting me back into harsh reality. I rose to my feet before the cargo doors opened, waiting patiently at the doors for my captors. With a shriek of protest, the steel doors opened up. Snow still fell lightly over the thin coat that had just covered the grass as the sky began to grow dark. I was escorted out of the truck and stepped lightly onto the snow.

Now that I was able to get a good look at my surroundings, I noticed that thick trees, some dead, some alive, pressed in on all sides. Cottonwoods, pecan trees, and a few dead conifers were twisted together in a near-impenetrable wall of foliage. Overhead, thick, dark, clouds blotted out most of the sunlight. A chilly wind seeped through my jeans and hoodie to form goosebumps on my skin. I now looked ahead to the ominous gates and electric fences of the hell that awaited me. Guard towers rose up from the fences every hundred yards or so, and one stood on either side of the gate. Harsh white spotlights glared down on me and my little entourage as armed soldiers kept a watchful eye on us.

A chill ran down my spine as I took my first step into the camp. I hesitated for a split second, but moved before I could be hit by the soldiers around me. Everywhere amongst the rows of buildings I assumed were sleeping quarters, dead-eyed Felynes and wolves alike watched in eerie silence. Children, the elderly, and everyone in between. None of them wore shoes, and all wore the same striped outfits Distance had worn in Edge's call. At the far end of the camp, a massive, five-storey building made out of red brick loomed ominously over everything. That was the building Distance was being kept in.

Now that I thought about it, I'd never seen young wolves. I'd only seen adults, and the youngest one I'd seen had been Echo. Almost all the children I saw had wolf ears. That made me wonder whether or not I'd looked that way as a child.

"Pick up the pace, mutt."

A soldier behind me snapped, jabbing me in the lower back with the barrel of his gun. I winced but did as he asked.

I was escorted up to a building from which steam rose out of a chimney. I stopped dead at the door, remembering something I'd seen in one of Distance's social studies textbooks. Gas chambers. Was this a gas chamber?!