Read Genesis: A Soul Savers Novella for Free Online Page A

She rose and stepped outside. And blinked.
    How could the day still be so bright and beautiful after all that had happened? How could the birds sound so happy and the air smell so sweet when her heart felt heavy and tight in her chest? When loneliness like she’d never felt before weighed her down like a boulder tied to her neck? This world that was exactly the same, yet completely different to her, left her feeling disoriented. She no longer knew what to do with herself. There were chores to be done and food to gather, but everyday life seemed so irrelevant now. So she lay in the grass and stared at the sky, tears seeping down her temples and into her hair.
    Thin clouds passed over, shadows grew as the sun fell lower in the west and still she lay there. The tears eventually dried, but she still felt so sad. So empty. So alone. A small voice in the back of her mind told her to get up, to go on with life as Father would want. But she couldn’t bring herself to move.
    A crashing through the woods startled her to alertness. She shot upright and peered across the clearing. A large shadow moved within the trees, quickly coming closer. She thought of Jordan at first, but this figure was too large and too slow to be him. The wolf. Her heart picked up speed. She jumped to her feet. Then the figure emerged from the trees and she blew out a breath. It was her brother.
    His body looked misshapen, however, and he moved as if weighed down by something heavy. As he came closer, she realized he had a man draped across his shoulders. She ran across the clearing toward them.
    “Jordan, what happened?” she demanded as she neared them. Her brother’s face was smudged with dirt, but he appeared to be unharmed. The man he held, however, was covered in mud and blood.
    “Wolf … man,” the man said and though it came out as a whisper, she recognized the voice.
    “ Niko? ” she asked with disbelief.
    His lids slowly lifted, revealing the familiar olive-green eyes. His entire face gnarled with pain but his eyes sparked as he seemed to recognize her. Then Jordan dropped him on the ground with a thud. Niko grunted and passed out.
    “Jordan! He’s hurt.”
    “He’s probably dead,” Jordan said, collapsing to the ground himself.
    Cassandra dropped to her knees next to Niko. He still wore the torn chiton from yesterday, his muscular chest and torso exposed. Rather than the one superficial cut he’d had before, rows of long gashes covered his chest now, as if long claws had shredded his skin. Blood and pus gushed from the battle wound in his thigh. She pushed his sweat- and blood-matted hair from his neck and felt for his life signs. A heartbeat pulsed beneath her fingers.
    “He’s still alive. We must get him inside.”
    “He won’t be for long. Why bother?”
    “Jordan!” Cassandra admonished. “How can you be so cruel?”
    “ Cruel? I risked my life for him and he doesn’t even have the decency to live long enough to explain.”
    Her anger flared, but so did curiosity. “Explain what?”
    “That wolf. It wasn’t normal, Cassandra. Too big and too intelligent. As if it weren’t entirely animal.”
    “The wolf that chased me,” Cassandra murmured.
    Jordan glared at Niko’s unconscious body. “And now we’ll know nothing more about it.”
    “And what makes you think Niko knows anything?”
    “He keeps muttering, ‘wolf’ and ‘man.’ He’s trying to say something but always falls unconscious before anything else comes out.”
    Cassandra lifted her brows. “Well, he’s still alive. Even if you don’t have the decency to care for him as a human being, if you want answers, help me get him to the house.”
    “You really believe you can save him?”
    “I don’t know for certain, but I definitely can’t if we leave him out here. He won’t survive the chill of night. And what if that wolf returns?”
    Jordan shook his head and then jerked it toward Niko. “He got a good slash at it with his sword just before he