The People's Alpha ✔

12: Agoraphobia

The song for this chapter is I Am The Actor, by the little-known but brilliant South African band, Falling Mirror. 

The toll currently stands at fifty-eight dead, with six still missing. Crews have been working into the night, clearing debris and searching for possible survivors in thick forest nearby. And now we cross live to Helena Brown, who is at the scene. Helena, what can you tell us?

The screen flickered with endless reruns of footage from earlier in the day, interspersed with live reports from the scene. The figures on the screen momentarily blurred out of focus as drowsiness took hold, my eyes still glued to the screen.

Fifty-eight.

Fifty-eight.

The number repeated in my mind, over and over again. It felt like just an arbitrary number.

A volunteer crew of four of our people were there helping out. They probably wouldn't be sleeping tonight.

The entirety of the Highlands was on high alert tonight. I had just returned from a shift patrolling the pack border, and Laura had a shift later in the night. Through the curtained bedroom window, I could hear the faint sound of conversation.

Laura nudged me.

I briefly shifted my eyes from the rectangle of rapidly changing color before us, to the contents of the letter from yesterday, spread over the bedsheets.

"What are we going to do? Academic Probation says there's nothing they can do now that he's officially dropped out from all of his courses, and he isn't answering my calls."

"That's precisely it. We do nothing. Give him some time. He'll figure it out. He's probably safer staying in Corviston anyway. He'll find a job. Plenty of jobs there. Young people still have a future there, you know. I've got plenty of contacts if he needs references."

"He should come home. I want him to come home."

"What now? You're scared of him doing a bit of hard labour? When I was his age I was working in a bar in West Berlin, trying to scrape together enough for an airfare back."

She sighed. "I want to talk to him. Face to face. I want him to come home in time for the next full moon. The one after this coming one."

"He's old enough to make his own decisions. I can't tell him what to do."

"What do you know about what he wants to do? You don't even know him anymore! He hasn't even talked to you in nearly eight years. You were always too busy. You never had any time. You just paid the school fees. It was always my problem."

I continued to stare at the screen, too ashamed to reply.

Community leaders from around the island have unanimously condemned the attack. The issue of security will be a hot topic at tomorrow's Pan-Lycan Congress in Port Mirabel.

The perpetrators are still at large. Comparisons have been made to the acts of terror during the 1990s...

Laura shifted the subject. "Well. That pack meeting went well."

"You can't please them. You'll never please them. They want action. They want to see stuff happen. They want blood spilled. They want the good old days, when packs fought to the death over literal spilt milk and the word of the Alpha was law. The good old days.""

"Most of their criticisms were justified, to be fair."

"Maybe they should have listened a little closer to what you had said. You had some good points."