Read Online Paragenesis: Stories of the Dawn of Wraeththu by Storm Constantine - Free Book Online Page A

I
could make out several figures. My stomach lurched; they were
Wraeththu. I closed my eyes again and sank away from the pain.
    The next time I opened my eyes
all I felt was tired.
    I blinked a few times and
gingerly tested my limbs. I was lying naked under a sheet in a
dingy room. From where I was lying on the floor I could see grey
light filtering through filthy windows high along the walls.
    “Wakey wakey newbie,” a voice
drawled.
    I turned my head toward the
voice. A slight figure in a dark hoodie sat slumped against the
wall opposite hugging his knees.
    “What’s your name?” he asked as
he shifted forward and peered at me.
    “Nolan.” My voice sounded
slightly slurred.
    “They call me Mouse,” he said.
“It isn’t my name, but that’s what they call me. How you
feeling?”
    I sat up cautiously, holding
the sheet tightly around me and peered around the dingy room.
    “I feel okay,” I said.
    “Consider yourself lucky. You
survived. A lot don’t make it through, you know.”
    “Survived? What the hell did I
have?”
    “Have?” His laugh was a short
bark. “You had inception. ” Mouse shook his head at my
puzzled look. “Dumbass! You were incepted. You mutated. You went
through ‘The Change’. You’re a har now. You’re Wraeththu. One of
us. Get it?”
    I stared at him for a moment as
his words sunk in. “A har?” I asked, blankly.
    Mouse nodded. “Har. It’s what
we call ourselves. It’s what you are now. Har. Wraeththu.”
    “But how?” This was
surreal.
    “How should I know?” Mouse
shrugged. “We found you in the dumpster. You must have got blood
from a har somehow at some point. It’s the only way I know of for
inception to happen.”
    I didn’t say anything, but in
my minds’ eye conjured up the scene in the garage; I could see the
Wraeththu gang leader and his knife. That must have been how it had
happened.
    I looked down at myself. I was
definitely different. What little chest hair I had developed was
gone, as was the hair on my arms. My hand came up to touch my face.
My chin was smooth, not a hint of beard stubble. I felt a little
different too. I felt slightly ‘wobbly’, as if I’d suddenly come
out of a doorway to find myself balancing precariously at the very
edge of a skyscraper’s roof. I felt a vastness and expanse that
both thrilled me and terrified me.
    I looked up at Mouse. He smiled
slightly.
    “Yeah, there are differences.”
He said in answer to a question I had not asked out loud. “Brace
yourself before you look under the sheet.”
    I dropped my eyes again to
where the sheet lay across my lap and swallowed hard as an uneasy
feeling twisted my stomach.
    “Wraeththu blood turns humans
into Wraeththu?” I was still trying to wrap my head around this new
wrinkle in reality.
    We humans had known the
Wraeththu were different and that they were enemies of
humanity, but other than that I did not know much else about them.
They were shrouded in mystery and suspicion. So many rumours and
wild stories about them were told it was hard to know what to
believe.
    “Blood and three days of hell.
Those are the facts of life, my friend,” Mouse replied, nodding
curtly.
    “So I’m Wraeththu now?” I asked
again slowly. This seemed very surreal
    “Mostly. There is one more
thing that needs to happen. To be completely har you’ve got to
spend some time with Dawson.” Mouse leered at me for a moment. “And
maybe a few of the others too.” He smiled an odd tight smile before
looking away quickly. “I’d better go tell them you’re ready.” He
scrambled to his feet.
    “Ready for what?” I called
after him, but I got no answer.
    Mouse and I often scavenged
together. We usually set out in the mornings and in the
mid-afternoon had hauled our treasures back to our home in an
abandoned warehouse by now unused train tracks. I was one of them
now; I was Wraeththu. To me, there seemed not much difference
between being human and being one of them. Life was still harsh