Brotherhood

First Mission, First Run

Here we go, the night of the mission. 

Levy came to pick me up at 11 pm. I was wearing stretchy skinny khaki green jeans paired with a grey cotton top and already geared up for action. As soon as I received his text, saying he was waiting outside my apartment building, I grabbed my keys and my leather imitation jacket and went out to find him leaning against a black SUV.

After a forty minutes ride, we arrived at the forest where one of the Brotherhood's hideouts was supposed to be.

As I got out of the car I found myself surrounded by gigantic pine trees only lit by the car headlights. As soon as Levy turned off the car I found myself in complete darkness for a moment as my eyes adapted to it. The trees were now slightly lit by the moonlight.

The night was cold, the moon was beautiful, big and full, making all of this scenario even creepier.

Levy told me that he chose this night to be strengthened by the moon. Sometimes I forget he is a werewolf. He never shifted in front of me and now that I think about it I wonder what his wolf looks like.

We started penetrating the dense forest as soon as the rest of the team arrived. Two male werewolves that I've never met, Olivia and Igor, the ogre that I fought during a training session. Only Levy and I would actively enter the Brotherhood hideout while the other four agents would secure the surrounding area.

We walked for half an hour until we reached the biggest tree I've ever seen. It was larger than Levy's big SUV. There was a hole spacious enough for one person to enter the tree trunk. 

Levy raised his fist to sign us to hold our stances. "Something is not right," he whispered.

Suddenly I felt nervous and my heart started pounding fast. I tried to breathe in and out slowly to calm me down, but the nerves and adrenaline were giving me a hard time.

"Maybe they gave us false intel," Igor whispered, breaking the tension a little bit.

Levy started walking towards the hole in the trunk and from the corner of my eye, I saw all the other agents silently take their guns. I took on of the silver stakes from the holster without moving my eyes from Levy.

He disappeared into the darkness of the hole.

There was nothing but silence. I could feel the tension up in the air.

After waiting a minute, that seemed more like an eternity, he came back out of the hole. I left out a sigh of relief. I turned my head to look at the others and saw Olivia with a clear expression of relief. She must really be fond of him.

Levy approached us, and we gathered in a circle.

"The intel is true which makes this whole situation even stranger," he said in a low voice. "This is a hideout, there should be at least one person guarding it."

"Do you think it's a trap?" asked one of the male werewolves.

"Maybe... But we still need to do what we came here to do."

The others instantly got into their positions to secure the area as Levy took me by the hand to lead us through the hole in the trunk. I felt the heat coming from his body as we stood so close to each other. My hand was burning, and my pulse was racing as we entered the trunk.

There was a dim light coming from a room below the ground level. There was a ladder leading to it. We climbed it down to what looked like an infinite corridor with earthen floor surrounded by rock walls and ceiling. The corridor was illuminated by torches fixed on the walls. I felt a chill flowing throughout my whole body despite the corridor being surprisingly warm and dry, unlike the weather outside.

We walked through the immense corridor until we reached a spacious room with. It was surrounded by three other infinite corridors and the walls were covered by gigantic wooden shelves filled with books, parchments, metal boxes and loose papers. At the center, a big round wooden table filled with more papers.

We started to search the documents to see if there was something linked to the company. 

Levy extended me a folder. "Look here. Is it related?"

I read it trying to find anything that could be relevant, but nothing.

"No. However there is the name of a smaller pharmaceutical company located in the north. I can't even imagine why they would be interested in it. They only employ about a hundred people there and they don't develop important medicine, nor do they have a high capital."

"Hmm. Let me take a picture of it just in case."

Suddenly we hear voices coming from all sides.

Shit.

My eyes widened as my body froze. I felt Levy's hand on my arm pulling me towards the corridor where we came from, but it was too late. We were surrounded.

"Elisa."

"Lisa."

"LISA!"

Levy growl shook me out of my frozen state. I took one of the silver stakes, but I didn't even know what I was fighting. I looked around and I was able to identify two ogres standing in front of the left corridor, a werewolf and a vampire in front of us, one male and female creatures that I couldn't identify on the right, and two vampires behind me.

Everyone stopped for a moment waiting to see who was going to make the first move.

"Lisa, run," Levy whispered over his shoulder without looking at me.

"What about you?"

"Don't worry about me. I'm a werewolf, I'll be fine. Wait for my signal."

"You really think any of you can escape?!" asked the vampire in front of us with a disgusting grin on his face.

I analyzed the situation quickly, thinking about the choices I had and trying to calculate the probabilities of us getting out of there safe and sound. I slowly put my hand in my waist bag to grab something.

"GO!"

I quickly turned around and aimed the lighted flashlight on my hand to the faces of the two vampires. They immediately covered their eyes screaming in pain.

"THROUGH HERE LEVY!"

"YES. GO!"

I started running as fast as I could without knowing where I was going, without knowing if I would find an exit. I knew those vampires would probably catch up with me soon whether I ran or not, whether I was fast or not, but I kept running. Why? Survival.

Survival was the only real instinct I knew I had. The fight-or-flight response to danger that every creature has whether human or mythical. My body knew the odds were against me, so it chose to flee. But then again, against vampires, no matter which response our bodies choose the odds are always against us.

I finally saw the end of the corridor and another ladder. I climbed the ladder as quickly as I could to a new dark room. The ceiling there was much lower than in the trunk-hole room, I didn't know that of course so I hit my head hard on a rock as I got up. I grunted in pain.

God, it hurts.

I crawled towards the moonlight I could see in front of me. 

The light at the end of the tunnel, how funny...

I got out of the tunnel safe and sound but for how long?