#FlashFiction The White Wolf
Title: The White Wolf
An intuitive sense of danger engulfed me, my heart was sensationally pounding in my ears as the white wolf ran up to the car and looked me straight in the eyes.
She had pure white fur, her gaze was fierce. We held eye contact as if we had been deep and intimate friends our whole lives. Our energy embraced like a mother embracing her child after years of separation, and then within a blink, she ran back into the black forest highlighted only by the cars lights and the moon.
Thoughts began flying through my head. How could my father have done these things? All of those people, their privacy, their information.. sold on the black market. Might as well been their livers, but we sold something worse.. we sold their minds, their emotions, their interests. We packaged them into categories and boxes and allowed the advertisers to define their wants and needs.
The radio cracked through the silence of the car as we flew down the mountainside.
"Heightened instinct in the public realm has occurred. No longer will the sale of information be hidden. The public knows all, the tech company's can no longer hide. We will find justice! Your family will no longer manipulate our minds, we're coming for you!"
The voice faded as I ordered my driver to change the channel.
White snow was everywhere and for the first time, I was painfully aware that all the backward business my family had been a part, was now my responsibility. The world knew we were responsible for making billions off of emotional manipulation and they were thirsty for blood.
The sound of the white wolfs howl sent spikes down my spine as the car hugged the hips of the mountainside.
We robbed millions. We said in our policies and agreements that we could protect countless families and keep them safe. Then behind their backs, we robbed them, we peered into their lives, documented everything and then sold it. To black markets, to governments, to corporate empires, to police departments. We stole and sold it all till every person's interest and likes were drained from the system and packaged for resale.
An outward crescent moon hung in the sky. I was, if only for a moment surrounded by pure defined insight.
It would be I, the only one held responsible for my fathers criminal legacy. For harming a total of 2 billion people. It was all our fault, and justice was cooking to be served. The hillside shot up from the earth as we twisted around another corner. There I saw the wolf for the last time. Glowing hues of white flashed like the light of the moon. She howled a terrible cry and I wept for the first time in 20 years with the weight of 2 billion people on my back.