Finding a Companion
For Lorviane
By Draconicon









The old labs were considered a place for children, most of the time. Locked doors kept them away from the worst of the rotting place, and the nature-reclaimed segments had been long-since broken down, the technology damaged and the bits and pieces of history lost to the woods. Those that were curious about the deeper rooms, sealed off by thick pieces of steel and more, were casually discouraged by the rest of society to keep away. After all, what could be down there that they didn’t already have? What could be found that did anything but inspire nightmares of the past?

To Lorkos, it felt lazy, if not downright stupid, to not know what was in one’s own backyard. The forest that had reclaimed the lab was right on the edge of town, and it wasn’t like nothing happened out there. Strange things could be seen wandering from place to place among the trees at night, and more than one person had claimed that they’d seen something out of the corner of their eye while walking the forest trails.

As he looked at the vine-covered metal door, he shook his head. It was time to see just what the lab was hiding.

The wolf respectfully pushed the vines out of the way, bowing his head as he passed beneath the metal doorframe and onto the moss-covered floor tiles. The smell of rot and moisture filled the air, along with the bitter scent of rust, and he had to force himself to take his time as he walked forward. Small creatures, snakes and vermin, cleared a path for him as he walked by, and he nodded at them in thanks.

Here and there, an occasional spark leapt from broken consoles and small screens built into the wall. A sure sign that something still worked in this place, that reclamation wasn’t as complete as some people claimed. He gave them a wide berth, particularly the bigger holes in the wall. Who knew what had taken residence in there…

Little footprints guided him towards the edge of the damaged area, where a steel door and an intact console barred the way to further exploration. Little muddy fingerprints marred the keys, evidence of little cubs that had come running in here and tried to break in, only to be disappointed when the door wouldn’t yield to their ‘brilliant’ plans.

“Heh…looks like one of them tried to take a hammer to it,” Lorkos muttered, running a finger along the damaged corner. “Here’s hoping the little brat didn’t break anything. Let’s see…”

The consoles weren’t in wide use in the town, considering the distrust toward the old tech, but it wasn’t hard to figure out. The same lettering was used on them as everywhere else, and the start key was evident enough. As soon as it was pressed, the screen turned green behind a layer of dust. He wiped it off just as it opened up again.

“Password?”

Lorkos pulled out a piece of paper. After being curious for this long, he’d done his research on the old labs, talked to the people that had relatives that had been part of the project before it had been shut down. Passwords had been their way of protecting things, rather than posting guards. Using knowledge to restrict access rather than brute force.

He approved.

It took four different attempts before he found one that worked, and the doors slid open so fast that he jumped back in shock. Moss, vines, everything that had laid over the intact doors were shredded in an instant, and the quick, casual destruction reminded him of the reason these places were feared.

But nevertheless, the way was open.

Lorkos shouldered his pack, brushing his hair out of his face. A few purple strands fell off as he walked through the door, and he quickly found himself in darkness.

However, only a few steps past the barrier, the hallway began to hum. Soft clicks overhead made him freeze, only to heave a sigh of relief as the lights started turning on. Streaks of shimmering, fluorescent light illuminated the corridor, showing him the stark contrast between the room behind him and the room ahead.

No moss had touched these places. No dust lingered in the air, and no familiar green vines dangled from the ceiling or blocked off doors. The reclamation hadn’t penetrated nearly as far as the rest of the town had expected.

But that wasn’t to say that it was undamaged. Lorkos shook his head as he walked down the corridor, his paws making soft clicks on the metal as he looked from side to side. Broken doors, busted windows, and the occasional screen ripped right from the wall showed that something had happened down here. Something had gotten free, and something had done more damage than anyone would have wanted to admit.

Experiments, I’d bet, he thought. They were always trying to warp life in some way or another…

It was part of the whole reason that the labs were to be left alone. Life was meant to move forward at its own pace, occasionally encouraged through the druidic and shamanic works that were practised by those in the know, but not simply because one could. He shivered at the thought of what might have occurred this deep in the earth.

And it was deep. The floor was slanted downwards, just enough for him to feel the strain in his legs as he walked forward. Lorkos pressed one hand to the wall to keep his balance, the other hand wrapped around the strap of his pack as he went deeper and deeper.

The hallway connected dozens of small rooms, probably used for containment as far as he could tell. Each one contained little more than a bed and a few open panels – probably for food or water – and a hole for waste. Each one had a window, though most were broken by now, and each had a door. Some were sealed, others weren’t. Those that were intact…

Well, he only looked in one and turned away almost immediately. The sight didn’t bear remembering, and his stomach didn’t want to think about it.

He followed the hallway to the end and finally found a bigger room. Unlike the mostly-intact hallway, this room…

Careful steps, careful steps, the wolf thought, picking his path bit by bit through the shattered glass and rent metal. Spikes, shards, everything that could rip through flesh had been scattered across the floor, all waiting for someone to step on it by accident or spit themselves on it.

It was a circular room, he realised, with half the lights out and a number of steps leading up to a central containment unit. The containment unit itself was broken, shattered in a dozen places with holes in the glass, bits of fur and flesh left to harden on the sharper parts. The consoles around it had been trashed, with pawprints bigger than his head left in the metal and even on the steps.

He really hoped he didn’t run into that thing. He hadn’t come prepared for a fight, just to explore.

Still, I don’t think that thing hung around…At least, I hope not. Those doors hadn’t been open for years, so unless it could live without food for that long…

He shook his head. It was better not to hope for the pain of a living thing, even if it would terrify him. Even if it was an abomination of the highest order.

Shrugging off his pack, Lorkos searched for a computer console that was still working, if there even was one. The power supply still being on was something, but if there wasn’t anything working down here, he’d have to do a lot of detective work. Not something he looked forward to, either, considering that he wasn’t very good at it.

Just gimme something…just one working computer. No way that the databases themselves are gone, considering how sturdy those things were…

Broken computer after broken computer greeted him, either with the monitors smashed apart or with the towers broken to bits. He shook his head, continuing his search through the dust and the much and the shards…

Finally, he found one working monitor and one working tower. Rearranging them only took a few minutes, and when he was done…

Come on, come on, don’t do this to me.

The picture flickered until he smacked the side of the monitor. It stabilised, then. The old rules still held, it seemed. Lacking a chair, he started typing away, shaking his head as he began going through old files, old skills coming back to him the more that he used them.

“What did you have…what did you have…”

Not much, it seemed. There were experimental logs, databases on the types of experiments that they were running down here, but not much since the actual destruction. Not that he expected anyone to have written down what was and wasn’t escaping during that particular time, but he had hoped that there would be some sign, some footage, perhaps. The oldsters put lots of faith in old recordings, showing things as they happened all those years ago.

There wasn’t any of that here. Only text information. He sighed, instructing the computer to open up the information on the experiment that had been housed here.

Experimental Subject #301, Were-Type, Infiltrator/Warrior. Capable of taking on the species of any base biped, with genetics infusions of various hunter-predators. Flash-trained with combat tactics and techniques, capable of defeating four spec-ops in single combat, or in group combat.

“Geez…”

Regeneration issues. Unable to form proper cellular structures and repair the initial damage, instead forming new cells over the damage. Current project is becoming too lumpy and large to be able to move at full speed. Termination considered.

It was a decision that he wasn’t entirely in favour of, but what could one do when one had done that much damage, inflicted that much pain onto another being? He shook his head, closing the file before opening up a few more.

It seemed that Subject #301 had gotten out, from what few logs he could find. The creature hadn’t taken kindly to the whole idea of being terminated and had staged an escape. Whether
it was successful, he didn’t know…but the damage he could see around the room suggested that it had done a lot before anyone could stop it.

Lorkos shook his head as a chill ran down his spine.

Don’t think about it. If it’s still alive, it hasn’t come after you yet. And the creatures here were probably all experimented on by humans. You’re not a human. Not anymore. Just…relax.

He needed more information to be sure that there wasn’t anything left down here. At the very least, the experiment logs would be invaluable to the town when it came to identifying what was out in the forest, and setting up defences against anything that was overly aggressive. Lorkos tapped a few keys, bringing up more information, a summary of all projects that had been conducted.

It came up as a list, running from #0000 to #5024. He shook his head.

“How could you do this to so many…”

The idea of the warping going on, the pain, the discomfort…and the sheer number of red marks, reading ‘DECEASED’ next to the names…

“So many failures, so many dead people…”

He had to take a moment, turning away from the screen and holding a hand over his eyes. It was getting hard to see as his eyes watered, hard to focus.

Taking a few deep breaths, Lorkos slowly calmed himself down, wiped his eyes, and focused on the task at hand again.

The list was easy to break down. He filtered out the ‘DECEASED’ subjects right off the bat, bringing the list down to those that had been left alive at the time of the facility’s last loggings. Then, he brought the list down to the point of last recorded log, with the most recent at the top. The date surprised him enough to leave him staring at the screen.

Only…only six months ago? That’s impossible…

The forest had reclaimed the top part of the lab years ago, and nobody had gone in and out of it for more than two decades. He knew that; the town knew that. A watch had been kept on it during the entire reclamation process. It had to be a mistake. He rebooted the computer, making it get the information fresh from the database again.

No mistake. It still read the same information, still gave him the same data as before.

How? How is that even…

If they’d been experimenting this long, they were in complete violation of every agreement, every treaty between every civilisation that he knew. Someone had gone deep here and dragged everyone else along for the ride.

And worse, if they’d been working for that long, and that recently…there were probably still some subjects alive down here.

This would be a wonderful time for that footage that they were talking about, back in town, he thought, his forehead already damp with sweat as he considered Experiment #301 again. He thought that it had been years since it had been let loose, but if it was only months, then he could be in deep trouble. There were rumours about the bio-engineered creatures that could live without food for up to a year if it helped them fulfil their task. He doubted that a predator creature could, but if it was one of those weird ones that defied the rules…

He shook his head. He should leave, but this information was a gold mine. He needed to get as much as he could.

More and more streamed across the page, the massive list reduced down to a hundred different survivors by the time of the last log. Some of them he discounted, considering that their final logs were more than nine months back, which left him with fifty. He skimmed through them, checking what they were based on, whether it was a human start or animal.

The human starters to the experiments, he discarded immediately. They were short-term things when it came to bio-engineering, always had been. The shamans could make a human shift to something more animalian, and the change would take without harm, but when science tried the same feat, the results were bloody, at best, and torturous at worst.

That left a total of twenty. Experiment #301 was an outlier, and likely dead, so he sorted it at one end of the spectrum. Another experiment, #5021, was one of the most recent and looked like it was settled to be more of a scout than a fighter, so he settled that at the opposite end of the spectrum, something that could hide and make sure that it was safe as it did its mission. Harmless enough, but also very good at keeping alive.

The rest fell somewhere in the middle. He scrolled through them, getting their appearance burned into his memory so that he could recognise them quickly if he ran into them, and suddenly paused as he reached the second-to-last one.

“Hmmm…Experiment #5022. Also known as…Swilder?”

He cocked his head to the side as he brought up the picture, surprised to see that it was almost cute. Despite the curved horn on the top of its head, it looked almost like someone had taken a big, shaggy dog, given it a curved tail with a tuft on the end, and then given it big, intelligent eyes. The file said that it was more than that, but he couldn’t quite get the image of the creature out of his head. He kept staring at it, wondering…

The logs didn’t give much about its abilities, barely more than a little bit of information saying that it wasn’t immediately dangerous. There wasn't event a single hint about his function or the genetic material used to create it.

It was a thought, at least, and an interesting one, at that.

The logs also said that it was checked on, and its food and water filled, two days before the last recorded log. So…it could be alive.

Against his better judgment, Lorkos checked for the location of its cell. Finding that it was just down the south door of the circular room, two doors down, he got up and started walking.

It didn’t take long to find it. It was the only door that looked secure, and with a glass viewing panel that was intact. The wolf walked over, pressing his nose against the glass and tapping it gently.

Something stirred in the darkness, and the lights in the room – probably motion activated – clicked on. Green and white fur adorned the creature, and it was almost dog-like, though not in size. It had to be almost as tall as him, more than four and a half feet tall to his five and a half. 1.5 to 1.8 meters in comparison…

It rolled itself over, looking rather sleepy as it padded over to the window, looking at him with its head tilted to the side. A soft but curious whine escaped its lips, carried through some intercom…that it actually was pushing. Intentionally, it seemed.

“You are a smart little thing, aren’t you?”

It nodded. Well, if there was ever a sign of confirmation…

I wish there was more information on this thing, Lorkos thought as he looked around. There was little to be found in the cell, but perhaps –

A sleeper bed. He saw it in the corner, the raised edges around the smaller bed was a dead giveaway. He’d heard of those before, and some of the other logs had mentioned it. Almost like an enforced hibernation thing, it put a living creature in stasis, freezing their minds in a sleep state and keeping their body from degrading over time.

So…either it was dangerous enough that they needed to force it to sleep…or it was well-loved enough that they wanted to make sure that it lived for as long as possible. On one hand, dangerous, on the other hand, charming.

He shook his head. This was not what he wanted when he came down here to explore.

He looked back at the creature, watching it draw little circles on the window with its horn, almost like a child would use a finger to draw on a foggy window. Lorkos shook his head a few times.

“You are almost too adorable…”

“Ooowooo?”

“I said almost…”

He looked at the door. There didn’t seem to be any locks on it…and the console at the side looked the same as the one that he’d used to open the first door. The wolf didn’t have a weapon, but he felt reasonably confident that he could deal with a dog if he had to, even if it was a mutated one.

“If I let you out, will you be a good boy?”

The creature nodded its head rapidly, grinning.

“Alright, Swilder…I’ll get the door open.”

It only took a second, but it took less than that for the creature to leap through the gap and knock him right to the ground. The big guy was heavier than he looked, and Lorkos’s eyes went wide as he looked up, seeing that great horned head come down –

To lick the living hell out of him. He gagged and gasped for breath as that tongue swiped all over his face, squirming.

“Off! Off! For the love of all that is good, get OFF!”












The End

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Original story HERE
Original artwork HERE

This is the swilder's origin story I've commissioned to draconicon
I edited it a little (just added precision about swilder)
I've got the artwork from Ageaus patreon a while back


Artwork ©@Ageaus
Story ©@draconicon
Characters ©me