The house smelled like he remembered. The kitchen table remained as meticulously white as it had been when his mother bought it back when he was a teenager. She sat across from him, leaning over her coffee wearing a sly smile. Miles knew that smile well. It was the face she made when she felt smug about something.

He supposed she had reason to be smug. She’d warned him about Quinn years ago. She’d told him she could recognize her type. The sort of girl who lives for fun, won’t choose to settle down and wouldn’t think twice about cheating... and with Miles’ lifestyle, it was a toxic recipe for disaster.

“Fine, mom,” Miles said. “You were right.”

She wore a look of faux offense. “I didn’t say anything!”

“You don’t have to. You birthed me. I know your expressions as well as you know Dad’s.”

“Honey, everything will be fine,” she said, leaning across the table. “Take it as a learning experience. Just because she has a pretty face doesn’t mean she has a pretty heart.”

When he’d met Quinn, it was at a grad celebration after he’d gotten his degree. She was the older sister of one of the alumni and a year younger than him. Pretty, blonde, and the type of girl who knew how to use her looks and personality to get what she wanted. At the time, she wanted Miles, and Miles was okay with that. Unfortunately, he recognized a part of him knew it would never be as serious as he wanted, but he still held hope that she might settle down with him.

But of course, she’d been cheating on him almost the entire time they’d been together. Miles had been too distracted by his burgeoning military career to worry about.

It wasn’t that he didn’t notice. He saw the signs. He just had more important things to focus on, like his assignments. Thinking back, he realized the chemistry they’d had was more artificial than anything else.

But he’d still asked her to marry him, to which the answer was a firm no. That’s not what hurt so much, really. It was more the condescending way she talked to him afterward.

I view you more like a best friend than a lover right now, she’d said. I’m just not the one for you.

He’d specifically requested leave to propose to her in Montreal. He’d planned a huge day, spent several thousands of dollars to make sure everything went right.

And to add insult to injury, she asked if she could keep the ring. Miles may have been naive, but he wasn’t stupid. It went back to the jeweler.

The encounter had facilitated something Miles hadn’t done in years. He called his mom just to talk. The next morning, he was on a plane to Victoria to ride out the rest of his leave with his family, whom he hadn’t seen in years.

“Listen to your mom, Miles! She was a bitch!” called his father’s voice from the living room.

“Oh that’s not helpful, David!” his mother exclaimed. She turned back to Miles. “Look, we’re just happy to see you. So how was Colombia? Did you catch any drug kingpins?”

“I don’t do that, mom. I’m a translator,” Miles said.

“Well did you interrogate any drug dealers?”

Miles laughed. “I don’t do that either mom. I’m not a soldier, I spend most of my time listening to telecom-- phone taps, translating, communications and code-breaking. That sort of thing. I spend more time with the cook than I do with bad guys.”

“Yes, but you make it sound so cool!”

“He’s not a soldier, Honey! He’s a translator!” his father’s voice offered from the next room.

“We’ve covered that already dad!” Miles said. “Thanks!”

“Any time,” he responded earnestly.

He’d tried to explain to his parents several times over what it is he did for a living. Since he’d been promoted to Corporal, he’d been attached to Operation Carribe, the Canadian support operation for the US-led Operation Martillo. His mother had concocted a strange image of him in her head where he was a dashing spy or war hero in the coca fields of Colombia. The reality was that he sat in an office and translated what he’d heard on recordings. His field work mostly consisted of making supply runs for paper and toner for the printer.

Which wasn’t to say he was useless. Rather, Miles was recognized for his ability to translate codes used by the cartels and had several commendations on his record. His work had led to the capture of several high profile targets within the cartels. 

Prior to that he was working with Operation Artemis counter-terrorism unit in the Arabian sea, but he’d requested a transfer to Central America. In his circles, they called him Click. So named because he had learned to speak conversational Sandawe, one of the Khoisan clicking languages, in less than a week.

From a young age, Miles was fascinated with language. By the time he was five he could speak French as fluently as he spoke English. By the time he was ten he could speak Cosmopolitan French and Spanish. In high school he added Punjabi, Farsi and Cantonese to the list.

Learning new languages just got easier and easier the more he had access to friends and acquaintances. That was his strength. Certainly he’d been trained to shoot, but it was unlikely he’d ever find himself in a position where he was forced to defend himself.

“So what are the girls up to?”

“Well Miranda and Daniel are buying a house up in Ladysmith. Ivy’s in Scouts now, and Milo’s playing video games on the internet,” she explained.

“Youtube. He’s gaming on YouTube. Minecraft or something!” his dad added.

“Right, and Marissa…” his mother sighed. “Is still Marissa. Trying her best. Seeing a new guy, he seems… nice. You know your sister.”

“Mom, you’ve never liked--”

“Holy shit!” his dad’s voice exclaimed from the next room. “Hey you… hey you better come see this!”

Miles looked to his mother and for a moment, their eyes met. Together, the two of them got up and walked into the living room. His father was leaning forward in his recliner, turning up the volume on the television.

On the screen, what appeared to be a tree was growing rapidly. The camera shook violently.

His dad pointed at the TV. “They saw some light, caught it on camera for just a second then there was this god awful noise and now…”

“Is this a show?” his mother asked.

“It’s TTV,” his dad said. “They were interviewing the guy who owns Bishop & Rook then…”

“Faye, can you tell us what you’re seeing?” a voice spoke over the footage. Miles recognized the voice instantly, it was Alice South, one of the news anchors with TTV News. All they could hear on the other side was people scrambling and yelling. “Faye?”

“I… I’m sorry, Alice I’ve never seen anything like this,” came another voice. The camera swung toward a young Asian woman looking somewhat panicked and stammering into her microphone. “I’m awestruck. A.. a tree is growing out of the asphalt on Cliveden Avenue. It’s… it’s growing so fast and tall.”

“Cliveden Avenue? That’s out in Delta, isn’t it?” Miles asked.

“New Westminster,” his father corrected. “Just southeast of Vancouver.”

“A tree, you said?” the anchor asked her reporter.

Miles took in what he was seeing on the television. It was definitely a tree. But it didn’t behave like one. It looked like timelapse footage of a tree growing over the course of a year… maybe fifty years. His mind cast doubts that what he was seeing was legitimate.

The tree started to slow its growth suddenly and the camera grew more steady. The image zoomed into the trunk of the tree, which was suddenly… inverting? It was forming a depression in the trunk and Miles’ jaw dropped when he first noticed it start to shimmer.

“What the hell is that?” Miles asked.

“It’s gotta be a publicity stunt. That’s all CG,” his father added. “Trying to make a viral video or something to sell beer. Gotta be. There’s going to be a punchline.”

“I would like to take this moment to reassure our viewers that… from what we can tell, what you’re seeing is actually occurring on Annacis Island in North Delta. We cannot confirm whether or not this is a stunt of some kind, but--” she suddenly trailed off when something moved within the shimmer.

Miles sat down next to his father. Suddenly, something burst forth from the shimmer. Something big, four-legged. A wolf? Something was on its back.

No, not something. Someone. The wolf was massive. So massive that at first glance, the rider on its back appeared to be a movie prosthetic on a regular-sized wolf.

The wolf and rider stepped out of the tree, then paused, surveying the area. From behind him, two more came out. Then a fourth.

Then a fifth. Miles felt a hollow pit forming in his stomach.

“Jesus, they need to get away from there,” Miles said.

As if on cue, the first three wolves took off at a run. The camera followed them as they bore down on two people standing outside their cars. He watched as the first wolf leapt and caught the man in its jaws, shook him violently, and then tossed the body up into the air while a second wolf did the same to another. Screams began to erupt from the live feed.

The feed suddenly cut over to Alice South. She stared at the camera, wide-eyed and slack-jawed. Behind her, the feed continued.

“That wasn’t real,” his mother added. “Right? That’s not real. Can’t be.”

“Uhh… I must apologise to our viewers regarding what we just witnessed. The feed is still running, but consider the-- ah-- subject matter. I’m sorry.” She leaned to one side, speaking to someone off-camera. “I don’t care, we need to air this,” she argued. “Put it back up. Call them right now.”

Miles couldn’t believe what he was seeing.  A part of him still nagged, telling him to look for any other option. Publicity stunt. Movie shoot. A hologram or other illusion. But the urgency with which it was being treated in the studio felt too real.

Miles stopped to consider everything as he watched what was happening. A tree had grown. And giant wolves had emerged from it complete with riders.

No, not giant wolves. He’d seen Game of Thrones. Those were Direwolves.

And the men riding them appeared to be wearing half-plate armor.

Suddenly, the feed picked back up. The cameraman and his crew, to their credit, had retreated to the interior of a building and were keeping the camera trained on the outside. More people were coming out of the tree. They took a moment to regroup once they’d emerged, and then fanned out, staying back. They held sticks--

--no not sticks. Longbows. They held longbows and were loosing arrows at the people running from the wolves.

The camera suddenly shifted over toward one of the wolves which was violently shaking some poor soul in its jaws on the ground when suddenly a forklift veered out of nowhere into the frame and slammed into the wolf, impaling it with the forks and knocking the rider to the ground. The wolf yelped in pain and the forklift operator hopped out and started to run toward the camera crew inside the lobby of a building. The wolf’s rider was quick, though, and hopped back up to his feet, chasing the driver down, then ran him through with a sword just outside the glass door.

This was real. Whatever was going on on the other side of the screen was real. He’d seen movie deaths before. This wasn’t one of them. He’d translated several videos of beheadings while on Operation Artemis.

That poor man was run through.

And the soldier that did it now looked through the window the camera crew was hiding behind, took the butt of his sword--

--and shattered the window.

The feed suddenly went dead.

“What happened?” Alice South asked. “Where’s the feed?” She remained silent for a moment. “What do you mean it’s gone, they--” She turned to face the camera again.

“Again I must apologise for what you just witnessed. We… we don’t really understand what’s going on, but to all viewers, I encourage you to stay away from the scene until the authorities have confirmed what’s happening. We will continue to follow this story when we come back from commercial break, so please stay tuned.”

The screen went black for a few moments, then a Coca-Cola ad started to play. Miles and his parents sat in silence.

“You know,” his mother said. “I’m not so sure that’s a stunt.”

Both Miles and his father just stared at her.