Dehumanized
Release Date: July 24th, 2013
Blurb: Ryan Zachery lived his life the
way all high school teenagers should – carefree. Until he was
attacked by an unknown assailer and awoke in the hospital with
lycanthropy. Taken by armed guards and dragged away from everything
he held dear, Ryan was thrown into a US camp made for those
‘suffering’ from lycanthropy. They caged the beast, but now he
will show them that he will never be dehumanized
Michael Loring
Authors Bio: Michael Loring was born in
Bristol, Connecticut, but has lived in a variety of places such as
Florida and Tennessee. He likes to think of himself as an amateur
Lycanthropologist, studying werewolves ever since he was eight years
old when he first saw An American Werewolf In London. He spent most
of his life switching between home school and public school, always
focusing on his passion of writing no matter what. His interest in
writing was sparked in the second grade when his teacher encouraged
him to write short stories for the class, earning him more than one
award at school assemblies for Creative Writing.
He currently resides back in his
birthplace of Connecticut with a house full of women who like to
drive him up the wall until he finishes his chores. Though they seem
to avoid him during the night of the full moon for some unexplainable
reason…
TAGLINE - We will not be caged.
Website - http://www.michaelloring.com
Author’s Links
Twitter:
https://twitter.com/MichaelLoring
The Writers Voice:
http://ourbooksourvoice.blogspot.com/
Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/Michael-Loring/e/B008OACK24/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_2?qid=1374211565&sr=8-2
Buy Links:
Smashwords:
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/178755
Excerpt:
Chapter 1
Present Day Unknown, Canada.
There was nothing quite like being
attacked unannounced. The surprise of being hit without seeing it
coming made it just a bit more painful. There would be a tiny moment
of pure shock, when your heart nearly burst and your brain halted in
an attempt to look back on what had just happened to determine what
exactly it was. The shock, the confusion and the pain, made the
experience all the more unpleasant. Ryan spat out the grime and muck
that had entered his mouth as he was slammed down face-first to the
ground. The man who had performed this very unpleasant act was
standing over him and smirking smugly, holding up his fists in
preparation of Ryan's countermove. He had caught the boy off guard,
and had slammed his fist into the back of his head, sending him
tumbling forward into the mud. Ryan growled, agitated at having been
attacked unannounced and for no apparent reason. He jumped to his
feet and charged the larger man head-first, tackling him to the
ground. A crowd began to brew around the fighting pair as he drove
hisfists like hammer into the ugly man's face. Anger was bubbling
beneath the surface, and nothing could stop him now that he wasin
motion.“Hey! Quit it!” The guards were trampling through the
small crowd, their body armor giving them great leverage. Twomen in
black armor with tasers strapped to their hips restrainedRyan,
pulling him into a lock and yanking him off the bloodied
man lying in an unconscious heap on the
ground. Two others tended to the unconscious man as he was dragged
off to await punishment. Ryan struggled against the guard's grasp. He
hated to be manhandled, and he knew that whatever punishment they
dealt out would be unjust and cruel. It wasn't his fault the fight
had started. The other man had thrown the first punch. He was just
staring listlessly out through the barbed-wire fence at the silent
forest when he was attacked. “Let me go!” he cried out, snarling
and flailing about. The men had a firm grasp under his arms,
hindering his general movement. Anger was stirring inside his gut,
and it only angered him more to think he was not going to win this
battle. He never did. The guards stripped him down and threw him into
the Dungeon, a dark murky room with no lights or windows and only a
bucket to use as a bathroom. They tossed him into the cold dark room
and locked the door behind him before he could turn and try to run.
He shivered, his naked body reacting to the temperature. The room was
made specifically to be cold in order to 'properly' punish the
delinquents. But due to the prisoners' increased body heat, they had
to adjust the conditioners to an extremely low temp for it to truly
effect the punished. Ryan slammed his fist into the metal door with a
bark, not caring that he'd most likely broken a finger or two. It
would heal in an hour, as would the gash on the back of his head. The
wounds always heal. Be it an hour or two or three they healed to near
perfection. Not a scar marred his flesh, except the mangled mark that
ran between his shoulder and neck. He tenderly touched the scar on
his neck as he turned and slunk down against the wall, ignoring the
hot pain grating against his back as he did so. The scar was a large
red gape in his flesh that ran from the end of his shoulder up to his
neck and down to just a few inches above his nipple. It was all he
would ever keep in this hell. He lost everything the day he gained
this mark. His family, his friends, his home; they were all gone. He
had been taken away from his family nearly two years ago. After being
attacked by a large animalistic creature he was brought by a team of
those bastard guards to this horrid place. At the time, neither he
nor his family understood why he was being taken away, and were
outraged to find out he was to be taken. He had fought tooth and nail
to escape the men in black armor, but they had tasered him and left
him unconscious until he found himself on the inside of a white van
speeding across the country to this camp. Confused and terrified, he
had tried to reason with them – telling them he shouldn't be here.
He'd run up to every guard or scientist he saw and pleaded that it
was a mistake. He wasn't one of those. He was just attacked by
a...That had eluded him for a time. What he had seen that night was a
monster, a terrible creature that was unfit to walk this earth. It
had bitten him, leaving behind this glaring scar in the crook of his
neck. His lips peeled back in disgust. It was confirmed the next full
moon that what they believed him to be was what he really was. He had
been locked away in a cage under the building alongside other cages
filled with the other men and women of this place. Ryan had yelled,
cried, and begged to be let free. He knew what was to come. The
people around him were resigned to what lay ahead, some looking at
him with interest, as if they had seen this a hundred times before.
He had feared he'd be in danger with all of these monsters around
him. But he shouldn't have worried, for when the moon came around he,
too, fell and began to Change. Limbs and skin ripping and tearing
into something that he could never accept. Something he'd fear for
the rest of his life.
A werewolf...
As he adjusted his weight against the
cold, hard stone wall he scowled at the memory of waking up to find
he had gone on a similar rampage as the rest of the room's occupants.
He was a werewolf. Infected by the disease that had swept the Nations
in a flurry of fur and fang .Forever cursed, forever alone. Ryan
sighed as he closed his eyes and tried to sleep. But itwas too hard,
for his skin prickled and his nose caught the scent of the bucket in
the corner. He groaned and slammed his hand
against the wall again. They called
this place a rehabilitation center, but the camp was more a prison
than anything else. The dark room he was trapped in was a common
punishment in prison systems, known as the “Hole.” The guards
outside fondly referred to it as a“Dungeon” for its similarity to
the prisons they kept people in under castles in medieval times. He
had only been thrown in this place three times, excluding this one.
The first time was upon his arrival when he punched out a guard in
shock. He hadn't known why he was here, and he had still believed
strongly that he wasn't a werewolf. They threw him in here and he
puked at the strange smells that invaded his nose. The second and
third times were both because of fights. Here in the camp there
wasn’t much to do during recess – a designated time where the
subjects, as the scientists preferred to call them, are allowed to
roam a confined space outside to keep themselves in shape – other
than fight. He had been, and still was, a favorite among the crowd to
fight for the simple fact that he was so young. Most of the men were
in their thirties or forties, as well as the women. He though was
only nineteen, and as such was seen as an easier target for their
brutality. Ryan ran his hand over the stubble of shaved hair atop his
head and snorted, half in spite and half to try and get rid of the
foul taste of dirt from his mouth. What had he done to deserve this?
Of all the things he had done in life, what was it that sent him
here? What made him what he is and why?
I'll never know... and that's my
downfall.
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