All Chapters of THE LAST SHIFT: A Werewolf without a Wolf : Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

198 Chapters

CHAPTER 21: The Cage They Built

The drones located us.I rested my back against the wall of the cave, and there I saw three silver machines that floated over the treeline. And their eyes were red, and they moved back and forth like searchlights, sprinkling the rocks with red blood.“Don't kill; prepare to change over." The metallic voice chimed in the forest.My heart was beating on my ribs. “They would like to have me alive now?” Malek grasped my arm in his hand.Somebody interfered with the orders someone was giving them." I stared at those shining eyes, and the wolf was pounding in my chest. She was just about to fight, and something held her back. It is not right.We have to go. Malek used his hand to point to the nearest drone. "I can…""No." I caught him by the wrist. And when you kill one, they will come with troops, plenty of them."One drone beeped. And then it shot. A web of glittering fibers exploded against us like a spiderwebof light.I threw myself on one side and hit the stone. At the spot where I had

CHAPTER 22: Reclaimers in the Dark

The stars started to die out.This time no clouds. There was something keeping them out, something that made the air heavy and unnatural.And I sat at our dying fire, with my back to the stone wall of the riverbed. There was no possibility to sleep. The strange force of the last episode was still playing tricks under my skin like electricity that wants to find a fuse.It was not the wolf. Nor was it the shadow. It was a magnified, stronger, more me.“Do you get the feeling?” I whispered.Malek sat up in a straight position. "Yeah. Something's coming. Not dead, nor alive."On the alert, I was standing. Inside my breast, the wolf shifted and fidgeted. Not afraid but ready.After that I heard it. a droning, as it were, in all places at once, that pounded in the ground, that rose in my bones.What? What is that? Malek breathed.I already knew the answer, and I was cold with blood."Reclaimers."They sprung up spontaneously.No ships. No noise. No light brightness.And there they suddenly

CHAPTER 23: A Name That Was Buried

For a time, there was silence everywhere. Twitching like dying insects, the fragments of the Reclaimers ignited all around us. They were motionless and heavy with metal. However, I sensed that they were still there. Not at all. They were studying and learning in order to come back stronger. Once more, the woodland was silent. Too silent. Malek sat with his eyes hollowed out from exhaustion, hugging his knees by the fire. With one blade in her hand at all times, Tyra was surveying the area.Additionally, Kieran was still staring at me. He crouched next to me, and he murmured softly,"Are you okay?" Although I nodded, that wasn't true. My hands were still shaking. My mind was still racing.I responded, "They said I was rewriting the code." "They claimed that I am a key.""You are," he said. "You were always." However, the lock is now terrified of being unlocked. I turned to face my hands.Something inside me still hummed, like a second heartbeat, even though the violet light had dimmed.

CHAPTER 24: The Memory Chamber

Inside the vault, the temperature was dropping. All around us, machines hummed softly, some long dead, some still flashing. Our flashlight beams were filled with dust. The fragrance was a combination of rust, ash, and an additional, ancient scent.My face, younger and softer, untouched by everything that had happened since, was still displayed in the final frame of the video as I gazed at the frozen screen.Sloane, Kaia.Now that name reverberated throughout me.Finally, I turned a key I didn't realize I possessed.I mumbled, "She knew." "She was aware of her own change."Tyra examined the panel next to the display. This vault was off the grid. They concealed it. Most likely also from the Council."It implies whatever was here, back then, was dangerous." Malek said.Kieran moved to the opposite side of the space. He removed a cracked vent cover and looked into the shaft behind it, which was dark. An inferior level exists there. An additional chamber.I joined him.My heart ached as I

CHAPTER 25: She Who Wears My Skin

I didn't get any rest that night.Tyra rested one blade over her lap, Kieran sat close to me, half-awake, half-alert, and Malek snuggled against the wall. However, I was unable to close my eyes.Not after what I had witnessed.Subject Zero wearing my face, though not me. She was not Echo. Echo was the ideal weapon; she was smooth and icy. Zero, however, was something different; Not made to follow orders, it wasn't even made to be copied. She was… released... Her smile was different from Echo's.She didn't make any threats.She just walked with confidence as if she had already won.And what frightened me the most was that she didn't feel out of place. I felt like I was missing her, a part of me that I can't even recall losing.I stepped out of the vault as morning broke and inhaled the abrasive mountain air.Silently, Kieran joined me a moment later. "Don't you feel her too?" I inquired. He didn't have to inquire who I was referring to."Yes," he said. "Like a storm that has yet to p

CHAPTER 26: A Mirror That Breathes

As though sensing her approach, the tower let out a moan.Subject Zero. She didn't interrupt. I, she wasn't obliged to.She crept inside the building like a shadow, humming through the broken wires, slipping through wall cracks, and seeping into the circuits.Malek stepped back from the control panel. He shook his voice and said, "She just killed the system." She isn't working on it. She is growing into it.Tyra stood by the steps, eyes hard, blade out. “She's still not quite tangible. She will be, though.”Kieran shifted to my side. “Kaia. Don’t confront her alone if she is attempting to take over your head once more.”I gave a nod. But I knew in my heart something that none of them knew. My mind was no longer being invaded by zero. She made a knocking sound. It was me who unlocked the door.Then the room grew dark.All became motionless. As if waiting, the dust in the air also froze.Next…a sound, not footsteps.Not dialogue. Something whispered inside my skull.“There's no need for

CHAPTER 27: Half of Me, Half of Her

We kept running until the city was no longer visible behind us.Smoke continued to rise from the tower, snaking into the night sky as a signal. It was not a scream for aid but a warning that something had changed.Something had entered the system—and lived.We went through the ruins quickly and silently.Malek led the way, a map flickering in his hands. Tyra remained behind with knives ready. Kieran has never left my side. And me? I was still shaking internally. Not for fear. But from her. Starting from zero.Because even hours after we left her company, I could still hear her voice in my thoughts.Faint…..Echoing…. Like someone humming a lullaby in the next room.Not attempting to harm me. Not even attempting to follow. Just... waiting.In the hollow of an old railroad tunnel, we set up our camp.A rusted steel beam curved overhead, yet the air was cold and damp. But it served very much as a shelter.I held my legs to my chest while sitting close to a flaming fire. Kieran squatted ne

CHAPTER 28: Not All of Me is Mine

It was a different world by morning. The directives from the Council were no longer heard. We heard an interference broadcast spread throughout the sky as if it were coming from the earth's very bonesTowers of communication hummed and went out. Red symbols flashed on screens, which I didn't identify but somehow comprehended.There’s no longer control over the system. Subject Zero had flipped the switch,Chaos had set in. She also got more adept at slipping through the gaps the Council had made, the more they attempted to keep her in check.We moved quickly without slowing down through shattered landscapes, amid rumors of dismantled labs and villages.We were no longer under pursuit from the Reclaimers. They were reprogrammed and disoriented, they stumbled like drunk troops without orders. The world appeared to have gone wrong.I held my chest. The violet pulse, that peculiar brightness, had persisted since the tower. I could sense her in the quiet. She's not after me… not going hun

CHAPTER 29: Her Breath, My Bone

When the sun was setting behind the mountains, we arrived at Hollow Base.It was nothing but a jumble of shattered rock and twisted iron, half-covered by dry vines. But Tyra replied that it was safe. Well, we were buried away somewhere in the cliff where the Council could not get us.Where Zero had no access to us. Not for now.Malek punched some code, and a secret door clicked open. The stale air of the interior seemed to be of a forgotten odor, as if no one had ever breathed it for years.“We stop here tonight,” said Tyra.Nobody argued. I could not really feel my legs anymore.The rest dispersed in the bunker. Tyra looked round twice. Malek discovered an old computer and began exploring it. Kieran helped me to sit on the wall.His hand was close to my shoulder as though he wanted to touch me but wasn't sure if it was safe for him to do that.I don’t blame him.I did not know exactly.The light that was in my chest had not ceased to shine. Now it was beating to my heartbeat, violet

CHAPTER 30: A Name Like Mine

I woke up shaking.The floor beneath me was cold stone. My body ached like I’d run for miles. My breath came in short gasps, and for a moment, I didn’t even know who I was.Kaia.That name felt unfamiliar on my tongue. I whispered it aloud, just to feel it settle inside me again.“Kaia.”It still sounded like me.But deep down, something was shifting. Something quiet, but certain.Kieran hadn’t slept. He sat on the other side of the room, back against the wall, arms crossed, but eyes locked on me. Watching me like a fuse about to blow.“You were screaming again,” he said.“I don’t remember doing that,” I muttered, though part of me knew it wasn’t true.He stood and walked over, crouching in front of me. “This place isn’t safe anymore. Whatever she is… she’s already inside.”He didn’t need to say her name. We both knew who he meant.Zero…And he was right.Something had shifted last night. The invisible line that separated her thoughts from mine was thinner now. I couldn’t tell where I

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