Meta and the Marines II Part 4

A different take on the traditional M/M werewolf romance topic: less romantic, less traditional, more disturbing and with conniving wolves, vampires and submissive marines.


Comments or requests for more of Meta (& the Marines) can be emailed to Meta.JohnAR@gmail.com or check out www.amazon.com/author/johnar.

Depending on reception, I will post more chapters. 


And if any military boy wants to start a MetaPack, let me know ...

John A.R.

Meta & the Marines II

(Meta Origins)

CHAPTER 4

When the Latino policeman stopped their van, Sam lowered the window taking off his sunglasses. "What's the problem, officer?" he asked politely, noticing immediately he had a shifter in front of him.

"Sir, we had a landslide up the hill. The interstate is blocked for the next hours. I need you to take detour on Smith Ranch Rd. In 10 miles, you can get back on the interstate."

"Here to the right?" Sam pointed to a dirt road leading into the hills.

"Yes, just follow the signs, easy to follow."

"Thanks, officer," Sam said after having briefly looked at Prime behind him.

"No problem, have a safe journey, gentlemen." The policeman with the black moustache and too big a hat for his head nodded briefly and went back to his colleague, who was still working on the warning lights and sign, indicating the blocked highway. No other car was on the highway.

The men were silent.

The ranch road was cutting through modest hills but barely wide enough for two lanes. It didn't look as if many cars had traveled it recently.

The unattractive forests around presented themselves in a dirty dry brown, which was sadly unappealing despite the charm of the landscape itself. Colt smirked. He had always like Alpine forests, tall fir, spruce and pine trees around majestic mountains. Not surprisingly, he had fallen helplessly for a guy who sported that scent. Compared to such majestic forests, half-desert bush forests were highly disappointing to all his senses, but particularly to his nose.

When Sam drove the van carefully down a little hill expecting a sharp right turn thereafter, Prime said calmly: "Slow down a bit, Sam."

"Yes, Alpha," he acknowledged the order and brought the car to a crawl. They could observe most of their surroundings, looking from the little elevation, while the land around them was still exposed to the hot sunshine of an early Arizona evening. Under different circumstances they would have enjoyed the view as innocent tourists. However, as they didn't have the leisurely time of visitors, they had to be quick now. In half an hour, the light would change making their plan even more difficult.

Prime looked approvingly at Brian, who started to undress like his Alpha. "CE, you can get up and undress as well," he said as if talking to an invisible person sitting in the last row of the van.

"About fucking time, it hurts down there." CE got up from under the seats and stretched himself a bit, before he took off his brown T-shirt wiping off the sweat from his forehead with it.

For the first time in months Colt didn't get a boner looking at his naked men and taking in their strong natural scents of pine, wheat, soil and lake. Maybe even his dick knew what was going to happen and had for once lost interest in sex.

When the three men had removed all their clothing and shoes, Prime opened the door. Late afternoon humid heat entered the car, strange noises welcomed them. Without hesitation, the marine jumped out of the moving car, rolling over, as a good stuntman would have done. Despite the fact Sam was driving very slowly, the jump must have still hurt as Prime landed on dry ground and gravel with his back.

Quickly afterwards, Brian opened his passenger door and jumped out as well; same roll, and within seconds the naked man had disappeared into the bushes.

"Sam, you are our last defense. Protect the Meta with your life," CE whispered as if he was just wishing a good night.

"Yes, CE," Sam answered with all the sincerity he could muster, in his mirror observing the chief enforcer jumping out of the car like the two men before him. CE landed further afar than he had planned and rolled down the hill.

Colt was relieved seeing how the big guy came to a stop rather quickly to get up and run away from the van. He closed the back door swiftly. He bent forward to close the passenger door as well. With all doors closed, the air-conditioning in the car immediately went into overdrive to reestablish a cool climate

Colt returned to his seat nodding encouragingly to Sam, who accelerated a bit now that the three men had been dropped off. He reached for his backpack finding what he was looking for. Carefully he put the black leather band, the most precious Christmas gift he had ever gotten in this life, on his left lower arm, tightening the leather bands as much as he could using only one hand and his mouth. Normally one of his men helped him to put it on properly, but they were gone and Sam was busy driving the narrow bendy road avoiding the wheel ruts. He had to manage by himself, despite the van now shaking on the rough gravel.

He barely had finished tying the strings and shifting the band in its proper position, when Sam said with a hoarse voice: "I think I see a trunk across the road over there."

"As expected. Do you smell something?"

"Barely, they are far away."

"Okay. Let's pretend we are innocent tourists ... turn the car, let's go back to the interstate," Colt suggested caressing the soft leather on his arm.

"Aye, Aye, Sir." Sam had to maneuver quite a bit to turn the big van on this narrow street using a little indent at the hill. After five times backing up he was driving back into the direction they had come from originally.

Once they passed the stretch, where Prime had left the car in a stunt man like act, Sam slowed down, allowing him to take off his own shoes and tank top. He put the cruise control in place, quickly shifting off his shorts and underwear. At the end he drove the car naked, unless one counted the lock and the cage.

He accelerated again. Maybe they had been wrong; maybe they could make it back to the interstate unharmed.

Colt closed his eyes and touched the soft leather band with his fingertips, as Prime had showed him, feeling the structure of the material. He focused on Prime, touching the first of four, the black, strings with his fingers.

The vortex appeared. He let it happened and tried to float in it, with it, through it, until the picture became clear. He saw a golden wolf prowling vigilantly through the hills, picking up scents, assessing his environment. When Colt followed the eyes of the wolf, he thought he recognized something on the other side of the little valley.

He disconnected, trying to find Brian. Through the vortex he got a picture of the whole area. It seemed that Brian's wolf was on top of one of the hills around Colt, trying to get an overview, trying to understand where the enemy might be hiding. He felt Brian smelled where his pack members were.

When Colt did the same exercise with CE, the vortex was so violent he dropped the connection immediately. "What the hell?" he asked, trying it again.

This time it worked. And he knew why he had gotten pushed back: CE was already fighting another wolf, now two other wolves. Both in dull gray, but both strong with vicious fangs. Colt quickly assessed that CE would win this fight, but only if nobody else joined in.

"It has started," Colt told Sam, who stopped the car. "Two have already attacked CE."

Sam nodded. He suddenly looked so grown up. Where was the boy who got bullied in a toilet? "Please lock yourself in, Meta," he said through the open door after he had gotten out of the van. He closed the door without waiting for Colt's answer.

"Okay," Colt said more to himself than anyone else and pushed the central lock button next to the gear stick. Now he was a captive in the belly of this iron beast, hoping this would protect him from his wolf assassins.

He saw Sam shifting into his stunning anthracite wolf form, the noise thankfully muted because of him being in the car. Sam's wolf was bigger than he remembered just from some days ago during their ritual. Sam hid behind one of the rocks up the street, with the car with Colt in it in his view.

Colt tried to calm itself.

They had known this detour would be a trap. They had assumed their enemies expected them to travel back home to California. When checking his father's Nokia, Colt had seen that this scumbag had made a phone call to an unknown number the minute Colt had rung the bell at home. It was obvious somebody paid Mr. Parker for informing him about Colt's whereabouts. And Colt being in Texas was exactly the information these people were looking for.

It seemed the Shaman had her part to play in this as well. At the end he had concluded that her insistence regarding his father to be West, to be close to his home, was to make sure they traveled home immediately, leading them directly into this elaborate trap.

The closed interstate and detour through a poorly maintained side road confirmed his thinking. They had quickly debated whether to turn around and make a run for it, maybe flying from Phoenix back home, but at the end they concluded that being fugitives for hundreds of miles in a van was not the smartest of moves. Instead they had agreed to try to turn the trap against the people who wanted Colt and his pack killed.

It would have been quite difficult to convince Prime and CE to run even if Colt had wanted that. They needed this fight. And Colt couldn't think of any argument to deny it to them. In the alternative route of action, they still would have had to face the risk to be ambushed on their way to Phoenix; at least here they knew roughly where and how the fight would take place.

That's why Prime, Brian and CE had left the van before. They would shift and start hunting the hopefully unsuspecting assassins. And CE was already in the midst of it. They were banking on the assumption to be underestimated. Their pack was young, inexperienced and small and held back by a human, as little as Prime wanted to concede that last point.

He again closed his eyes, touching the leather band with his fingertips, bracing himself for what he would see.

Prime was chasing a wolf. The other wolf sported a not very elegant dark-brown color with shades of black; but the wolf was fast, not as big as Prime, but impressively fast. It seemed he tried to lure Prime away as far as possible from his pack and the van. For some time he seemed to succeed. Prime was always a hint too far away to jump on his weaker opponent.

Finally, when the brown wolf slipped on a bit of gravel, Prime saw his opportunity and pounced. With a jump Colt had never seen before on a wolf, he did catch a hind leg of the running wolf, bringing him to a fall with a loud howl. Colt could hear it outside the car despite being focused in the vortex.

The fight afterwards was short. The brown black wolf was neither an alpha nor an enforcer wolf and too easy to slaughter for Prime, who was full with adrenaline.

Colt could see how the dead wolf turned into a human after the last breath. He was a fit, lean, bald but quite hairy man, maybe in his late 30ies. He looked as if he had been a passionate runner, given his long thin muscles and flat chest and belly. He guessed that's why it had been his assignment today to lure one of the wolves away from the rest and outrun him. Colt didn't want to think what would have happened to Prime or the pack if this runner wolf had succeeded.

Prime raised his nose to pick up other scents and dashed off with the determination of an alpha. He had picked up the trail of another wolf shifter.

Colt disengaged again, trying to check on CE.

CE was still in a fight. One wolf seemed dead, having turned into a stocky gray haired man, much too old for such a fight Colt thought. But the second opponent had been joined by two more wolves, even if they were a bit smaller than the dead one. CE was keeping up with the three smaller wolves, but he felt soon CE would start to get tired. He had to finish those annoying bastards quickly to get a quick rest.

Colt didn't know whether it would help, but he tried to send his fresh waterfall scent to the enforcer, reinvigorating his energy, disturbing his enemies. Most likely it was in vain. How should his scent reach CE if he was locked up in this iron monster?

And then he felt something. He quickly checked for Brian.

The picture was dizzy.

He saw two humans on the ground, a young dark haired woman with a bit too much love handles, and a good looking young man, with full muscles of long hard manual work. Both of them had terrible wounds all over their bodies.

But Brian was hurt, severely hurt. He tried to escape a third wolf, which was chasing him relentlessly. Brian attempted to put some distance between himself and his pursuer running up the hill. When he felt he had enough of a gap, he stopped abruptly, turned around and jumped on the grayish enemy wolf with wild desperation. The impact of the fall/jump pushed both of the wolves to the stony ground, making them roll downhill amidst loose rocks and thorny bushes.

Colt didn't dare to breathe. They rolled, and rolled, across gravel, bushes and another road. Finally they came to a standstill, first the stranger and then Brian further down by some 20 yards. And none of them got up, beaten unconscious by the fall.

Colt's heart started to beat faster. Brian was even more injured by the fall, bleeding at his head, his neck and some of his legs. If he didn't regenerate and wake up faster than his opponent, he would be dead within minutes.

He interrupted the connection. Something was going on outside the car. He looked around. He couldn't see anything, but he felt there was something. The sun was setting right now, and soon it would be dangerously dark. Wolves could see in the dark, he barely could. Seemed it wasn't enough to be a human amongst a hostile wolf pack during daylight.

And then he knew CE was hurt. He didn't have to use his wristband anymore, he felt CE had just killed a fourth wolf but was severely injured himself. He tried to hide behind some bushes to allow himself to heal. But even in his wolf state that would take hours, during which he was vulnerable. In his current condition he wouldn't survive another fight.

Prime was trying to close the distance between him and his Beta and Enforcer, he had been lured away a bit too far. He ran. He ran overlooking a wolf standing on a spur of rock above him. It was only in the last fraction of a second that he evaded the wolf jumping off the ledge landing on his back. Prime seemed to assume it would be easy to kill his opponent, which was smaller and had just hit the dirt in front of him, when he smelled two more wolves closing in from behind.

This would be a long fight, even if he was convinced he would be winning it eventually, as he was an alpha wolf. But it would cost him time. Time he didn't have as Brian and CE lay vulnerable while recuperating; in this time Colt was without sufficient protection allowing a wolf shifter to kill him within a second.

He had no choice, though, he had to fight. And he had to rely on Sam protecting Colt, and that Brian and CE could fend for themselves.

Another noise outside.

This time he saw what was causing the noise.

Three wolves approached the van. The middle one looked like an alpha. He wasn't as big as Prime but nearly a foot taller than the other two wolves. All of them had the typical gray shade of this wolf shifter pack. For a second he realized that only his wolves had those unique colors: golden, silver, brown shades and anthracite; if they got out of this alive he would try to find out why. He hoped those colors weren't the gay wolf equivalent of the LGBT rainbow flag shades.

The enemy wolves smelled him. They were salivating, their yellow fangs exposed menacingly. Nevertheless, they took their time to approach the car with caution. They knew they wouldn't be able to get into the car in their wolf form.

The tallest wolf, presumably the alpha, stopped and started to shift. After the bones were healed and the head had fully assumed its human shape, Colt recognized the man: it was the policeman, who had sent them on this detour. `What a bitch,' he thought. This was the second time in months that a policeman wanted to kill him. He would never ever find a police uniform attractive anymore; he would stick to USMC MARPAT.

The man started to push his elbow against the window of the door opposite of Colt. He wanted to break through it to open the lock, to get to Colt at the end. Of course he wasn't worried about hurting himself too much. He was a shifter and would heal quickly when shifting back. And even as a human he was stronger than non-shifting humans.

Colt got ready. He wanted to kick this son of a bitch with his feet into his ugly mustached face, but he knew he wouldn't last very long.

The window cracked, but it didn't break. Yet.

The guy made the final push through it.

Colt saw a black mass jump effortless over the van, landing on the naked policeman. It took only few seconds of screams, and the policeman lay dead on the ground with a huge gap in his throat. He had had no chance in his human form against a young and trained enforcer like Sam.

The other two wolves recovered from their shock eventually. It was clear they hadn't expected another shifter close by protecting the human in the car.

Colt smiled for a second. CE hiding between the seats while the policeman stopped them and looked in the car, was a nice little way to trick the enemy. They were counting on the cop reporting three wolves and a little human to his `pack friends.' Given that three wolves were already engaged in fights, the attackers couldn't expect another wolf was protecting Colt in the van leading to this reckless attempt by the alpha wolf to break into the car in his human form.

Sam growled: `Over my dead body,' towards the two other wolves, which wouldn't leave, but tried to box Sam in. Colt saw the young enforcer was very swift, smartly escaping the not too sophisticated attempts by the other two wolves to lock him in. And Colt assumed the enforcer had more stamina, he could outrun and outfight the other two any day.

Colt closed his eyes, reaching out to his pack with his mind, taking in the subtle changes in their scents.

Brian was moaning, but so was his opponent.

CE was slowly recovering but one of his wounds was deep and kept bleeding.

And Prime was still fighting the three wolves. Problem was the wolves didn't really want to engage him: They just wanted to keep him occupied, again luring him away from his pack.

He felt Prime got desperate. He was worried his Alpha would make some stupid move to get back to his pack instead of playing the game patiently. Colt in a last attempt tried to send waves of grape, reassuring Prime of his wellbeing, allowing him to focus on his fight completely.

For some reason it started to look like a stalemate. CE had killed four, but was severely injured and couldn't fight anymore. Brian had killed two but was unconscious because of the fall, in danger of being killed by his opponent. Three more wolves kept Prime busy, and two other Sam. Colt calculated quickly. 12 wolves, 6 dead, 5 fighting, 1 unconscious. Were there any other wolves?

He knew the inner circle of a pack had a maximum of 9 wolves. 12 meant that either outer circle pack members were fighting or two packs were involved.

He remembered the old man, the woman with the love handles. Those weren't enforcers or fighters, or betas, and definitely not alphas. He concluded that this could only have been one pack, and the alpha, the policeman was dead. Killed by a courageous Sam.

Something was off.

Sam continued to fight off the two smaller wolves, keeping them away from the van. They had given up on attacking the big anthracite beast properly, but just tried to keep him busy.

Why?

Colt discovered the reason soon, when another one of the mouse-gray-colored beasts approached Sam carefully from behind. Wolf number 13, he counted.

Shit, Sam was so full of adrenaline dealing with the two wolves in front of him that he had didn't even smell the third wolf at his back.

He was being boxed in without noticing. If this third wolf came too close to him, he could deliver a decisive blow to the young enforcer. And three of those smaller wolves could finish him off.

Colt had to do something. Without thinking about options, he opened the door, jumped out and ran to Sam shouting: "Sam, careful. BEHIND you!"

Sam quickly spun around and acknowledged the third enemy. He saw Colt standing unprotected outside of the car and ran into the opposite direction, hoping the three wolves would follow him, leading them away from his Meta. This would give Colt time to get back into the safety of the van.

But the wolf at Sam's back didn't follow the anthracite wolf. He stopped instead and turned to Colt with a respectful expression.

`Respectful? Why that?' Colt thought for a second.

He had a very bad feeling.

He turned around. The respect hadn't been for him, but for someone else.

The policeman hadn't been the alpha wolf. Maybe an enforcer, maybe even a beta.

The actual alpha wolf stood between him and car. He even seemed to smile, content that his plan to lure Colt out of the car had been successful. Sending another one of his wolf shifters in human form to break into the van would have been too dangerous, so he had decided to trick Colt into leaving. And Colt's desire to help Sam had been his downfall.

The wolf was nearly as tall as Prime, maybe a bit heavier, somewhat more experienced in battle it seemed. He growled. Not loud, not rabies infested, not stereotype crazy. He growled nearly professionally, as if killing Colt was part of his regular job like exterminating cockroaches.

Nobody would save Colt now. Sam and Prime were kept away from him by three wolves each; CE was recovering from a deep wound, and even if fully recovered, it would take minutes until he could come to help, and Brian lay still unconscious too close to an enemy wolf.

And this was not an old, sick policeman wolf shifter from the campus police. This was a seasoned alpha, who wanted to kill him with as little emotion and effort as possible. This was an alpha, who had a job to do.

Colt walked backwards, the beast matching each of his steps, keeping the distance constant. Blood rushed through Colt's head, what to do?

"So you are going to kill an unharmed scrawny human? Is that an honorable fight for an alpha wolf shifter?" he asked hoping to tease the wolf into shifting back, gaining time and reducing the disadvantage.

The wolf seemed to laugh. He was obviously much too smart to be teased into doing something stupid because of his pride.

"You know my wolves are going to find you in the end. If I'm dead, you'll be as well," he tried another angle.

But again there was no reaction.

"And I'm under protection of the Chestnut Pack as well. Lots of enemies you're making for yourself," was his last attempt.

It had no effect.

Colt was out of options.

The wolf smiled with satisfaction.

It nearly smiled when it prepared to pounce.

And it jumped with a smile.

Colt smelled pine trees in the middle of the dry Arizona half desert, he smelled rich Mid Western wheat fields, dark fertile Northern soil and Alaskan lakes. His senses became clear as if he was looking via his leather band on one of his wolves.

Noises died down, the wind stopped, a feeling of cotton wool surrounded him, and everything moved slowly.

He would never fully understand why he suddenly felt out of this world, why time seemed to have stopped; but he would always remember reaching for his dagger, designed to kill vampires; holding it out in front of him with both hands like Merlin would with his wand towards his witch nemesis.

In the future, every warm shower would remind him of blood covering his body, when a surprised alpha wolf, losing his smile mid-jump, sprang directly into Colt's dagger, which went through his vulnerable throat as if through jelly.

The beast fell to the ground in front of him blowing up sand and dried leaves.

Exhausted Colt collapsed next to him, trying desperately to stay conscious.

And then the noise was back, the humidity was back, the wind was back. He was soaked in blood. Dirt sticking to the blood covered skin and clothes.

The dead wolf shifted back silently to his human form, revealing a tall man, covered in coarse black hair from his chest, heavy bush and furry legs down to the little hairs on each of his toes. Pushing away his repulsion, he couldn't help but grabbing the hair of the dead beast man's head and turning it around so he could see his face ... He moaned because of the realization.

Noise. Despite his exhaustion he grabbed the bloody dagger from underneath the dead man, got up and looked around.

Another wolf.

Immediately, he smelled pine.

Prime.

Prime was back. He was injured but not severely it seemed, and his wounds were already healing.

Colt's head cleared in seconds. "Prime, I'm fine. Help the others. Brian is unconscious and in danger, and Sam is fighting with three wolves. Help them."

Prime growled in acknowledgement, picked up the closest scent and ran.

Colt sat down and leaned against the car trying to get his nerves under control, ignoring the blood and dirt on him. He didn't understand what had just happened. How could he, the scrawny little nerd, have killed a fully grown alpha? Only now his hand had started to tremble and it took him a dozen of breaths to calm down again.

Fifteen minutes later Sam came back. He didn't have a single scratch. Colt petted him with his dirty hands. "Prime's fine, he's trying to get the others. What happened with you? Did they run when they felt their alpha was dead?"

Sam looked at him with surprise. He showed him his bloody fangs. Seemed that at least a second wolf was on Sam's list.

"Thanks, Sam. Thanks for everything."

Sam's ears twitched.

The other three wolves returned as well. CE still a bit frail, flanked by Prime and Brian, who seemed to be fine.

Colt reached into the car fetching a water bottle. When CE dropped to the ground still weak, Colt let water flow into the big wolf's mouth. Somehow he hoped that the blood on his clothes would not raise some primal instincts in the big enforcer wolf.

Sam and Brian instinctively took positions on the two ends of the street protecting them from potential new attackers, but with exception of some loud insects it stayed quiet.

When Prime's wolf had convinced himself that CE was recovering he approached the dirty Colt. He growled. Colt smiled realizing Prime hated the smell of the other alpha on him.

And then Prime started to lick him.

"Please, stop," Colt said weakly.

But the big wolf didn't listen. He licked the dirt, the blood and Colt's sweat, from his hands, his arms, his calves, even his face to make sure he got most of the blood on Colt's exposed skin. And only when Colt took off his hopelessly messed up T-shirt to throw it on the ground so Prime could lick his chest, was the animal satisfied.

"You know, Prime, that was really weird. I like your golden wolf, but this was a bit too close to be comfortable."

The golden wolf growled, licking his own face to clean the remaining blood off himself, as if to say: `Who fucking cares. We just killed half a dozen wolf shifters.'

CE got up. Prime touched him with his muzzle kind of asking: `You okay, bro?'

`Will be aching for days, but yes, Prime,' the big brown wolf seemed to answer.

Colt wondered whether he understood `Wolf' now or whether he could read their minds. But maybe he only had a weird imagination.

He knew what would come next. He put his hands over his ears like a little boy who didn't want to hear that his best friend had moved away, when he realized the wolves started to shift. He closed his eyes tightly, and nearly whined due to the thought of breaking bones.

Only when he felt a warm caring hand on his neck, did he drop his hands and open his eyes.

Prime smiled at him and embraced him, hugging him tightly. The other men joined in, and Colt was surrounded by a hot bundle of deliciously smelling naked male flesh. It wasn't a surprise but a pleasant relief for everyone that he instantly sprang a painful boner.

After a minute, they separated, grabbing water to hydrate, as Prime called it marine-style, and chocolate bars to get some energy.

Prime went to the dead alpha male staring at him with little emotion and looking up when he heard Sam clearing his throat.

Sam approached the Alpha with his eyes on the ground. "Alpha, I need to report that I have failed to protect our Meta. I will accept any punishment you deem appropriate."

As calm as it just had been after their group hug, as tense the pack became now.

"What went wrong?" CE asked.

"CE, I fought two wolves, but I missed that a third one approached me from behind. Colt needed to get out of the car to warn me. And that would have killed him."

"But he is fine," Brian asked confused.

"Yes, because he killed the alpha here."

Prime growled. He pushed his head against Sam's forehead like an angry bull. The young enforcer fell to the ground. "What did you say? You allowed the Meta to be attacked by an alpha wolf, you shithead?"

Colt got up, but Prime's rage was too intense for somebody to approach him. "Didn't you have orders to protect Colt?"

"Yes, Sir. I failed." Sam cried. He got on his knees, put his hands on his back and lifted his head exposing his neck. With one movement Prime could kill the young man by breaking his neck. And it seemed that the young man thought he deserved it.

"I took you into this pack. CE spent all his time training you. Brian fed you like the father you never had. And that's how you repay us? We entrusted you with the most valuable we have, more valuable than our own lives," Prime continued, grabbing Sam's throat with his right paw.

The pine smell was threatening. Like burnt after lightening. No strawberries whatsoever. Sam's lake smell became faint like a distant memory.

"Alpha, I deserve to die."

Prime took Sam's neck now with both of his hands and started to squeeze.

Sam cried, but didn't offer any resistance.

Brian and CE stared, but didn't make a move.

Sam wheezed, his head changing color for lack of air, whispering: "Thank you."