Chapter 1 Alyssa

Happily ever after… That’s how it was supposed to be. Unfortunately that is not the ending of my story…

 

“Come on Mom, unlock the door it’s freezing out here!” With the cold that was crawling up my back, I was shivering wildly. This year October feels like December and I was already wanting summer to come back. Standing outside the locked car door I peered inside the window, mom was sitting with the heat turned to the max and turning on her heated seat. A warm tushee would be really nice right now.

I looked up at the dark, thin clouds covering the entire sky, it reminded me of soft snow covering the ground as far as you could see. When I looked back down mom was knocking on the window, signalling that the door was unlocked. My face flushed with embarrassment as I slowly got in the car. I prepared myself for when she made fun of me.

“Geez, honey I thought you went deaf for a moment there,” she joked.

“Ya, ya, I was just… umm… thinking about this winter,” I lied as I turned up the radio and listened.They were already calling for snow. I could not believe it! Snow in October! Last year it didn’t snow until early December.

I thought about telling mom what I was really thinking of. When it gets cold these wolves come into the forest behind my house. Every summer the wolves disappear and only come back when it gets intensely raw outside. I grew attached to these wolves when I was seven, and every summer I would always watch out the window longingly waiting for them to appear, waiting to see a flash of dark gray to know they were watching me without being seen. Though I wished, it never happened. There was one wolf that I especially loved. He had yellow eyes and a coat of grey, soft, thick fur.

 

Just then, out of the blue, I was aching to see my wolves yellow eyes in the

forest staring back at me. It hurt so much, it felt like a kick to the gut.

“ Honey, are you okay?”

Imagining in my head what I looked like right then, scared me.I stared into my mother’s worried eyes and knew that she wouldn’t understand what was going on with me. She didn’t know how important that one wolf was to me.

    Then I saw her and dad, standing there, watching me as I was dragged off into the woods by a strong, intimidating wolf. The snow was cold on my back. The teeth digging into my ankles hurt so bad that I wanted to scream… But I didn’t. I just watched my wolf’s winsome lemon eyes as he watched my hazy green ones. When I stopped moving, the wolves gathered around me. I knew I was going to be eaten alive, but I stared at the way my wolf stayed behind as the others inspected my body. But I must’ve been hit in the head because everything turned black. All I remember is being carried across the yard to the door and then waking up in the hospital to the sound of my mother’s soft sob.

“Sweetheart, are you alright? You don’t have to come if you are feeling sick,” hearing my mom, I slowly came back from the past .

“Oh…No I-I’m fine.” I stuttered trying to remember why we were in the car.

“It’s just a shopping trip. It’s not like you have to come,” She sounded worried. A shopping trip that’s what it was. I was sort of wanting to stay home, but that would just seem selfish, so I decided to go. It would get my mind off of the wolves.

As we were driving I watched out the window. Upon the forest floor lie trees of yesteryear, fallen in storms long forgotten. The seasons have been harsh, stripping away the bark and outer layers, yet rendering them all the more beautiful. They have the appearance of driftwood, twisting in patterns that remind me of seaside waves; even the colour of the moss is kelp-like. I tilt my head upward, feeling my hair tumble further down my back. The pines are several houses tall, reaching toward the golden rays of the sun. Birdsongs come low and dull as if they are getting farther and farther away, as winter gets closer and closer.

 

Chapter 2 Grayson

I watched her. I lay in the damp underbrush, my tail tucked close to me, sore and weary. I did not know why I was a wolf, none of the others have turned yet, so why did I? I clamped my chin into my front paws, and laid my ears back against my head. The breeze carried her scent to me. I knew it, everything in me knew it.

I wanted to be found.

I needed to bolt.

The girl’s voice was soothing as it sang words that I did not know as a wolf. At some times the girl moved closer, but sometimes she moved so far away that I could only hear the low hum of her disembodied voice. I rose slightly, thinking of following. Then the birds would grow quiet as she approached again and I would hurriedly crouch back into the leaves that hid me. At one point the girl came so close that I could see her clearly from where I laid, hidden and motionless. I thought, for a moment that she saw me, but her eyes were focused on something beyond me. Something far more amzing then I was. Eventually she became disinterested in what she was looking for-- me. I watched as she turned around and headed back inside a warm area that smelled of meat. I needed to go and find some meat of my own, so I steathily got up and started to walk back into the safety of the trees. Stopping in my tracks I smelled the air, something dangerous was near.

 

I lost that scent and thought as my muscles started to ache. I whimpered in pain as I slowly stood up on my back legs. My shoulders started to uncoil and my muzzle had disappeared, and with my human face I started to scream in pain. I watched as my paws extended and turned into fingers and my fur turn into cold skin. 

 

 

 

Chapter 3 Alyssa

 

When my mom and I got back from our shopping trip, I went out back and walked the treeline. I looked through the trees to find any sign of my wolf… Any wolf. The ground was covered with brown, rotting leaves. The sky above the was pink as the sun slowly set. The bushes a few metres away from me rustled, and I stared at that area for a long moment.  I really wished that my wolf’s eyes would pop out of the bush and I would stare at them until nightfall.

But, it turned out to just be the wind. I looked up into the sky. A cloud I saw looked like a running wolf. It made my mind tumble over my wolf’s eyes and the look on my dad’s face when I was pulled of my tire swing in the backyard.

“Alyssa! Time for dinner!” Mom yelled. I snapped out of the trance that I was in and headed back inside.

“It is freezing out there honey, aren’t you cold?” My mom asked. I never realized I was cold until my mom asked me. I was so worried about my wolf that I didn’t feel the cold.

“Y-ya… I am, actually,” I stuttered. My mom seemed surprised when I came over and gave her a hug. Although I do hug her when she wants me to hug her, but never on a moment like this. I guess we were never really that close. Today, though, I felt closer to her than I’ve ever been. The last few days she has been making me love her more and more, but she is also making me dislike her more and more. To help me my problems is a big thing for my mom to do and I appreciate her doing that but, she knows that don't like it when she's gone all the time and she still goes away all the time. Although having a mom this cool should be fun and exciting, I mean, she is a beautiful artist, I feel that she is just pushing me down in life. She always tells to follow my dreams and stuff like that, but she has never, not once, helped me pursue those dreams. Like, I want to become a clothes designer, except when I need help getting materials she tells me to go get a job and pay for it myself. The thing is, I don't what job I want to get first. I want my first job to be amazing, I want to be a great story that I can tell my kids about, to inspire them to pick something amazing for their first job. I also want to fix up my life so my mom can tell my kids what a great child I was.

 

 

Chapter 4 Bedir

 

Don’t shift now, don’t shift now. I need to be here for Grayson when he comes back. The outside world was getting colder by the second. Standing on the porch waiting for Grayson to come back, did not seem like such a good idea anymore. It was dark and I couldn’t see very far anyway. I took one last quick glance at the forest and went back into the house. I found Dante sitting on the couch, pair of headphones on nodding his head to the beat of the music.

“Dante” I said. I knew he wouldn’t hear me, but I said his name anyways. I jumped as he lifted his head. Dante slid his headphones off his head and set them around his neck.--- Dante was one of those people, that even if they couldn’t hear you, they knew you were talking--- “Hey, what’s up, you don’t look too good,” he said.

“Ya I don’t feel too good either,” I told him. “ Grayson shifted and ran off. I don’t know where he is.” I explained. I saw him hold his breath.

“This is not good,” He sighed. “Kenzie’s out there,” 

I jumped and ran back outside one last time to see if Kenzie just stayed near like she always does. I searched and searched but there was no sign of her and I could feel my heart racing as I thought about what could happen to Grayson if he gets near Kenzie.

As you can tell Kenzie is not the sweet type. Like at all. When she was young, I saw her outside on the porch and I went to see what she was doing. She had a pigeon in one hand and a pencil in the other. I listened as she whispered under her breath.

“This is what happens when you take a crap on the railing of our porch,”

I shielded my eyes as she stabbed the sharp pencil into the pigeon’s chest. She laughed an evil laugh under her breath as she watched the birds eyes open wide, then with another swift movement, she stabbed into his eye and pulled the pencil out with the eyeball still stuck onto it.

She slowly turned around with an evil smile on her face. I was about to say something when she dropped the pencil and let the eye roll away and threw the bird in the bush and pick up a flower she had on the deck.

“I picked this for you Bedir!” She said sweetly, trying to act like nothing happened. I took the yellow daisy and slowly walked back into the house. I closed the door behind me, ran to the window and opened it up just so I could hear what Kenzie was doing. I watched and listened as she rustled through the bushes to find the bird, she lifted it up and triumph and laughed evilly.

“Let’s get back to our little chat shall we!” she said as she sat back down on the porch.

After that incident, I have never looked at Kenzie the same way.

 

 

 

Chapter 5 Kenzie

I can be so quiet

Haste ruins the silence. Impatience squanders the hunt.

I take my time.

I am silent as I move through the darkness. Dust hangs in the air of the nighttime wood. The moonlight makes constellations of the particles where it creeps through the branches overhead.

The only sound is my breath, inhaled slowly through my bared teeth. The pads of  my paws are soundless in the damp underbrush. My nostrils flare. I listen to the sound of my heartbeat over a gurgling creek nearby.

I hear rustling in the bushes nearby. My stomach is tight and empty. I push farther into the darkness. Slow. I tell myself.  My ears prick; The panicked animal is close by. A deer? A night insect fills the the long moment with clicking sounds before I move again. How large is the animal? If it’s injured it won’t matter that I’m hunting alone.

Something brushes my shoulder. Soft. Tender. I want to flinch. I want to turn and snap it between my teeth. But I stay still, I don’t move… until the soft feather touch comes back. It tickles my ear. I turn my head to see what it is. Only, it is something I do not understand. It floats in the air, moving with the breeze. It touches my ear again and again as my mind burns and bends, struggling to name it.

Paper?

I don’t understand why it is there like a leaf hanging from a branch when it is not a leaf. Beyond it, scattered on the ground, are items imbued with an unfamiliar, hostile smell. The skin of some dangerous animal, shed and left behind. I shy away from them, lip curled. And suddenly there is my prey.

Only it is not a deer.

It is a girl.

She is struggling on the dirty ground. She looks like one of the fish that I caught yesterday at the lake. I notice that she smells like wolf.

I smell danger.

I smell fear. I can tell that she is uncomfortable.

Startled by her sudden movement, I jump back as she sits up shaking terribly. She looks up at me and stares into my eyes. I step close, and as I do she curls back. I take another step closer, and she falls onto her back.

She is scared, I can smell it.

I keep taking more and more steps until I am hovering over her. She is breathing heavily and I can feel the soft wind of her breath on my face when she exhales. I slowly lower down, and my nose skims her cheek. I watch her, waiting for something to happen. Her eyes dart from me to the trees beside her.

And when she screams.

I kill her.

Chapter 6 Grayson

 I slowly walked back the way I came. My legs are like jello. They kept giving out on me. A single golden leaf pirouetted down an invisible spiral of breeze, spinning through the air as it let itself be carried down. It shook slightly, as if it could have been whisked away any second by the grip of an icy wind, but it kept floating down the twirling course. It blew past my face and landed lightly on the ground, the shiny, vibrant colour standing out against the ambers and bronzes beneath it. It was so delicate, I wanted to reach down and pick it up and hold it close to my heart, smoothing out any creases, but something told me that it belonged there, this corpse of what was once summer. Cold licked at my face and crept over my skin like the lacy tide on a frigid winter beach. 

I needed to get back or I might shift again. I started to jog, thinking that it might get me warmer.  But, my legs gave out and I fell into the mushy soil. I froze when I heard a rustle in the bushes behind me. I knew something was wrong, but I couldn’t wrap my brain around it. I heard the leave crunch behind me. Whatever it was it was getting closer and closer. I remembered something that Bedir had told me before I shifted. Kenzie. Something about Kenzie.

Kenzie’s out here! I whipped my head around and there she was. The white she-wolf.

There was a sudden shot of adrenaline through my body. I leaped up and started to run. Luckily my legs did not feel like collapsing. I ran so fast I felt like I was flying. I could hear Kenzie following me. Her soft paws landing on the ground making a soft thud. She seemed to be running slow. My guess was she ran here and now she is losing energy. I was getting close to a to a tree. The branches were low on the ground and close together, so I may be able to climb to safety.

When I was about a metre away I jumped as high as I could and climbed for my life. The branches were slippery was last nights rain. The bark was rough and scraped my bare skin. I climbed to the top. This tree was shorter, but large. The trunk was uneven and wide like two people trying to huddle under the same umbrella. All the leaves had fallen off. That meant I was in plain sight to Kenzie. I looked down and saw her staring up at me. Her eyes looked guilty and hungry. Her sleek body paced the ground beside the tree. When she turned to face the sound that was coming from the bushes, I noticed a hole in her back leg. It was red and purple with black around it. I assumed that she got shot. That wound  was why she was running so slow.

Who could’ve shot her? People rarely came into this forest, because they knew that wolves were everywhere. But what they didn’t know, was that we were not just wolves. We were also humans.

I remembered what had happened the year before when Liam Taylor was attacked. It was winter and all the wolves were out on a hunt. We stumbled upon a peculiar scent. We followed the scent to a large house. 

There, we found a boy outside in the yard. We watched him through the trees. Bedir smelled the air for any sign of other humans. He flashed a image at me. An empty house, it is large with many windows. I followed Fernando slowly and cautiously as he walked up close to the boy. I could tell that the boy had heard us, because he suddenly froze as I stepped on a dry stick. He slowly and cautiously turned around. Fernando and I froze in our slowly moving tracks and stared into his eyes. He was petrified.

I remember running back to the safety of the trees when Fernando pounced at the boy. I wanted to go to Bedir and feel his body rub against mine. But, when I started to walk towards him, he ran towards Fernando and the boy. When Bedir went…  Everyone went. The wolves had dragged the boy into the forest and I followed, I was hungry after all. I shoved my way through everyone and took a bite. I was about to take another one when a woman came out of the house screaming. We all ran away and left the boy there. It was that one moment when I didn’t trust Bedir. He said the house was empty and it was not and after what happened a few years ago, he said that he would never attack another human, but, he did.

I suddenly understood. Liam’s father was out for revenge.
        

 

Chapter 7 Alyssa

Like may parents always do on Thursday nights, they went to karaoke at the bar. I’m like, 90% sure that my mom can’t sing and like 100% sure my father can’t sing. I think all they go there for is to make fun of the people who can’t sing. Usually when they go out, I invite some friends over and then they invite some of their friends over, after that more people come in and apparently  they are my friends, friends, frends. So, after all those people show up, I have to kick everyone out because it gets way to crazy and I do not like to clean up other people’s messes. I stopped throwing those parties 3 weeks ago. Although it was only nine o'clock, I was laying in bed, I mean, I had nothing better to do. Wondering what time my parents were going to be home, I jumped when I heard a gunshot outside. Hearing these gunshots made me jump out of my skin, because it’s a law that you are not allowed to hunt after the sun goes down. Behind the curtains, I saw a dim light shining from the trees. As I jumped up to go downstairs and check outside, I heard another gunshot and someone coming up onto our patio.  

I walked down the stairs, my legs weary. I stumbled through the dark, cold, kitchen and into the dining room. My heart was beating fast, my legs wouldn’t move and my mouth was as dry as a desert. I reached over to the cupboard to get a glass for water, but I stopped in mid-air as I saw a dark figure shift outside the sliding, patio door.  Piece by piece, I slowly walked over to the door and pulled back the curtains. It was a boy laying against the window in the fetal position. But the particularly unusual thing about him was that he was naked. I gasped as I saw blood dripping from his shoulder blade. Careful not to hurt him, I slowly slid the door open. Tiptoeing over him, he shaked and cowered away as if I was going to hurt him.  I crouched down in front and examined him. He was beautiful. Broad shoulders and muscular arms had brown tanned skin and his fingers were long and smooth. The curled fluffy hair on his head was a wonderful shade of brown and his eyes… His eyes were piercing yellow and they were filled with horror. Reminding me of my wolf I looked at his feet, they were bruised and swollen. I was about to say something when I heard him whisper in a croaky voice,

“Help”

I quickly looked up at his face and saw that his eyes were slowly closing.

“No, no, nnnooooo. It’s going to be okay, just look at me, stay awake. Please… stay awake for me!” I told him trying to keep him conscious. I peered back into the trees and saw a dark figure holding a flashlight start to back away and jog through the trees. That’s right, you better run you disgusting bastard.

“Come on, you gotta get up… It’s freezing out here you’re probably getting frostbite laying on this cold wood!”

I didn’t want him to get any more hurt than he already was. Once again I looked at the wound on his shoulder, it was a hole that wasn’t that deep, but still a big deal.

“You were shot!” I screamed, “Haven’t you realized this? I can’t have you lay here, what if you get hurt again?” I asked sounding hurt and trying to bribe him to get up and go inside.

He looked me in the eye and slowly started to get up. Even though I was quite petite, I slung his arm over my shoulder and helped him limp into the kitchen. His wound needed to be treated, so I struggled with him to get into the living room to lay down. Light filled the room as I flicked on the switch and set the boy on the couch. He looked my age, maybe a bit older.

“Lay down and I will be right back with some stuff to clean up your wound." I told him.

I ran down the wide, long hallway and opened the closet at the end. I grabbed all of the medical supplies I could find, and then ran back to the living room with my arms overflowing. I couldn’t believe that I was going to tend somebody’s wound, I barely knew how to put on a band-aid! He watched me as I searched through the medical supplies. I began to get embarrassed, so I thought of something to ask him and talk about. I searched and searched for something to say, but all I could come up with was,

“So, what’s your name?” I asked trying to sound smooth.

I know, I know it was dumb to say, but what else was I going to do? Sit there and blush while he stared at me? I don’t think so!

Before answering he shifted around and grunted a bit.

“I’m… I’m Grayson.” He answered. “How about yours?”

“My name?” I asked already knowing the answer, he nodded his head at me. “Well my name is Alyssa Alvarez,” He didn’t even say anything back and just stared at me the way my wolf does.

 

Okay… this is pretty awkward. Should i say something or should I just help him heal the wound?

“This might hurt a bit,” I said as I poured some rubbing alcohol onto a clean rag. When I touched the wound with it, he flinched and I pulled it back. I slowly put it back on and he flinched again, but soon relaxed as the alcohol seeped in and soothed his bloody shoulder.

“Should I be calling the doctor or ambulance?” I asked. He got a look of worry in his wide eyes before saying, “No, no, no! You can’t!” I jumped and put a confused look on my face.

“Why not? I don’t know how to care for a wound like this one!” I said (Very and I mean very, confused).

“Some stuff happened when I was a kid okay. I don’t go near doctors anymore… Or else they will find out.” He told me as he looked away. I wanted to learn more about what he was saying but I didn’t want to get too personal.

“Well… if you die…” I said, getting an idea. “It won’t be my fault! It will be Aubrey’s”

He looked up at me.

“It will be who’s now?”

   

             

Impressum

Texte: Mircaydi Kuzio
Bildmaterialien: Mircaydi Kuzio
Lektorat: Evanna Peterson
Übersetzung: No one
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 16.12.2016

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