Werewolf The Apocalypse: Beast Behind The Glass

TW: RACIAL REMARKS/DISCRIMINATION AND COMMENTARY!

***

Monday Night, October 1st, 2125. Fauverde Illinois. South-Fauverde Police Juvenile Detainment Center, Aka, SFPJDC.

Amaru sat in a cell for the last six hours. Fresh off of a loss. Fresh off of being kicked off his team and out of his school. To add insult to injury, his thirty days were up.

He was about to be removed from his foster home. And due to his age and background, he wasn't likely to find another family. He'd be sent to a group home. Also known as hell on earth. Where kids go to compound inhuman amounts of trauma and delve into all things corruptive.

The anger swelled like a viper in his stomach. He fought off the anxieties with his fifteenth set of sixty push-ups, one hundred jumping squats and forty pull-ups on the cell bars.

He lost himself in the push and pull. In the exhaustion. In his mind he won the game on his own merits. On the skill he knew he had. He didn't see the angering swarms of demonic bugs. He didn't see the roaring black tentacles swatting at the clouds.

He didn't hear kids his age throwing obscenities his way all day.

More importantly, he wasn't dropped into a family of uncomfortable eyes and judgemental actions.

No locked cupboards.

No missing doors.

No favored sons or daughters he had to aspire to be like in order to be kept. In order to be respected as an equal. Like he was some dog in need of training.

A baton cracked against his cell.

He was ripped out of his mental musings on his fifty-eigth push-up.

"On your feet, meathead."

Amaru got up and found himself facing a police officer. The usual type. Overweight, smelling of nicotine stimulants, alcohol, sweat, donuts and cruelty. He was pale and pudgy with an unwashed mustache as thick as a squirells tail.

"You know the drill. Don't look at me, red-boy." The officer said.

Amaru turned around and put his hands behind his head. The pump in his arms from his hours long workout made the action difficult.

The officer fumbled with his keys until he was sliding the cell doors open and stepping inside.

Only, it wasn't just him.

It was him and three other beefy officers crowding the doorway.

"Hey, kid. You're famous around here, you know that?"

Amaru didn't reply. Even as the officer prodded and pushed him with the baton.

"You're a real piece of work." The officer spat as he grabbed Amaru's arm and cranked it behind his back so hard his shoulder popped.

Amaru groaned.

The officer continued, "….Not destined for much beyond this. Act like an animal, live like an animal. In a cage. That's where you belong." He tightened the cuffs.

"Stop resisting." An officer behind them both said.

The leading officer continued, "Honestly, that's the best outcome. A cage. If it were up to me, I'd do you like my ancestors. They were great men. Brave. Adventuring heroes. Yours? Well, you showed exactly what type of men they were today. Savage."

The word rang through Amaru's mind like a struck pinball, hitting every corner of cruel intention he had in him.

"You wanna know something, red-boy?" The officer said in his ear.

"What?"

"That boy you battered on the field was my nephew."

Amaru clenched his jaw and shut his eyes, "Ahhhh shit."

When he heard the body cams click off, he got to work. If he died in the cell he didn't give a single damn. He had nothing. He was being sent into endless adversity. He was just so angry. So tired of people like the officer. People who couldn't wait to harm. Couldn't wait to speak of their own superiority and his own otherness.

Immediately, he raised his foot and stomped the police offer's booted foot behind him.

The reinforced metal worked into the leather mesh split, busting open the whole shoe and allowing Amaru's heel to crush his toes.

"OUUUUUCH!"

Amaru threw his head back, feeling the officer's teeth sink into his scalp.

He snarled and shook his head, ripping out the officers teeth that were now lodged in his scalp.

That was all he had.

He was already exhausted.

Already depressed.

The toothless and toeless officer struck him in the back of the neck with his baton.

Amaru went down like a sack of potatoes.

Immediately after, a cloud of spicy pepper spray swallowed his head. The teeth lodged in his scalp allowed the spiced vapor to fester there. His eyes burned. The air was lined with ghost pepper essence. He tried to scream and only threw up prison rations as another officer kicked him in the gut so hard one of his ribs broke.

"STOP RESISTING!"

"STAY DOWN BOY!"

"DO NOT RESIST!"

Amaru guarded himself.

"SHOW ME YOUR HANDS!"

"Why? Why wouldn't I resist? You're trying to kill me and I'm wrong for defending myself. You're all trying to harm me— but I'm the animal for fighting back. WHY?"

His gums itched again.

His bones ached.

His eyes—

"Don't."

It was weird.

There was someone else in the cell.

But also not really.

He was in Amaru's minds eye. Like he knew he was there. He could see him. But not physically.

He wore a dark longcoat with a black hood. The shadows focused around his face like a mask, leaving only his mouth and lower jaw visible.

He crouched beside Amaru. Somehow.

"Don't. I know it's an impossible ask, but please, do not maul three beloved….. bigoted, police officers after you just brutally assaulted two football teams hours beforehand. One of which being your own. The optics are terrible. And that's the game we play. Don't give in. Don't play into their hand. Not yet. Not when they expect it."

"Why….." He repeated in a daze as unconciousness welcomed him.

"Because. Every dog has its day. Their's will come in due time. But it won't be at your hands. Your hands are of much better use on much bigger foes. Leave this one to us. Help is on the way. But we need you to trust us."

"Who are you?"

"You know, years ago, Fire-tongue asked the same question. We didn't really have an answer then. Not one that would please a Theurge. But we do now, and we'll tell you. We'll show you. But first, you have to trust us. You have to survive. You've been doing it your whole life. Keep on, killer. Just a little longer. Soon enough, you can join the fight."

Amaru faded.

All the while, he wondered.

"Who is Fire-tongue?"