A Wolves World

The Full Moon

Erica

The next morning, I felt sluggish and had a bad headache coming on, but I got up and out of bed anyway. I go into the bathroom to grab some ibuprofen. After taking it, I head into the kitchen to grab a disposable travel mug and fill it up with coffee because, as my mom always says, ‘when in doubt, coffee’. I get dressed and head out the door half expecting Brett to be there to try and convince me one more time not to go into the hospital today, but to my surprise, he was not there. I continue my walk but the further I get the worse I start to feel. I try to shake the feeling off as it is probably because I took ibuprofen and haven’t eaten anything and have only had some coffee.

As I went through the first several hours, my headache just got worse and became extremely painful to the point where it felt like my head was about to explode. By lunchtime, I couldn’t take it anymore, so I let the head of the volunteer program know that I wasn’t feeling good, so I was going to go home for the day. As I left the building, the headache hit harder and it seemed to become 10 times worse, so I walked to the woods, stumbling a little as I walked.

Brett

The next day, I followed Erica to the hospital to watch out for her. She seemed to be, getting affected by the moon quite a bit already and I knew it would only worsen as the day went on. Again today I stayed near the hospital and just as I was about to go catch something for lunch, I caught Erica’s scent heading this way, so I waited for her to come into the woods, and as she did she was stumbling and about fell a few times. I shifted to human form and walked to her and I got there just in time because she tripped over a log and was about to fall flat on her face when I caught her.

“Brett, what are you doing here? What’s wrong with me?” She sounded as if she was in a lot of pain, so much so that I could feel it too.

“I will tell you, I promise you that, but you need to come with me first, you are not well.”

“Take me to my house,” she says, grimacing from the pain of speaking.

“My place is closer and it will be easier to tell you what you need to know there.” she nods and I pick her up bridal style and carry her to my den, placing her on her own feet at the entrance.

“I thought you were taking me to your place.”

“This is my place.”

“But this is a cave,” she says, leaning on me a little to stay standing up.

“Yeah, but I prefer to call it a den.”

“Now what is going…ahh” what she was going to ask is cut off as she cried out in pain. I gently grab ahold of her arm and take a deep breath and focus on what I want to do. I work to take some of her pain away. A few seconds later, the pain was leaving her and coming into me before disappearing.

“Your eyes, they just turned red, and my pain is somewhat gone. What did you do- how did you- what are you?” Now having the strength to stand on her own, she takes a few steps back away from me.

“Erica, it is okay. I am not going to hurt you. I took your pain, didn’t I?” I raised my hands to show her I didn't mean any harm.

“Then tell me what is going on.”

“The thing is Erica, that wolf that you have been seeing around the woods the past several days.”

“What about it?”

“I am that wolf.”

“Don’t turn this into a joke, Brett. Tell me the truth. Why do you live in a cave? How did you do that?”

“I am telling you the truth. I am a werewolf.”

“Seriously, Brett, stop messing around!”

“I’m not lying, please just watch.” She doesn’t respond but she doesn't move to leave either, so I take this as my chance and shift to my wolf. I looked up at Erica. She was standing still looking like she was in shock before she could run or possibly faint. I shifted back.

“I told you I wasn’t lying.” I take a step toward her and she doesn’t back away. I hope that is a good sign.

“But if you are a werewolf and the wolf that bit me, does that mean that I'm…”

“Yeah, it does. That is why you are experiencing this. It is a full moon tonight. It will be your first and the first full moon is always the worst, especially for those who are bitten.”

“Holy crap. Is that why you didn’t want me to go to the hospital today?”

“Yes, I was going to tell you about everything today. We would have had more time for me to try and explain everything, but now I don’t have as much time because soon after the sun is down and the moon rises we will shift for the night and won’t shift back till the morning.”

“Tell me as much as you can then.”

“Well, there are many other supernatural creatures out there, for starters. Werewolves exist, mainly by either being a born werewolf or being bitten by an alpha. I was born a werewolf, the son of an alpha.”

“So if you were the son of an alpha, does that automatically make you an alpha?”

“Nice that you realized I was an alpha, but no it doesn’t.”

“Then how do you become an alpha?”

“You either kill the alpha or the alpha dies and passes on its Alpha power to one of his descendants.”

“So your dad is dead.”

“Yeah, but my former pack thinks I killed him.”

“Why would they think that?”

“There was a legend that came around that my pack believed in.”

“What did it say?”

“Long story short, the son of the alpha would grow power-hungry and kill his father for his power and become a merciless leader and killer. So, when my father died suddenly due to an illness and my pack saw that I had become the Alpha, they came to hate me and fear me a bit too much, so I left.”

“So you became an Alpha without a pack.”

“And became vulnerable to attack from other packs or rogues searching for power.”

“Oh, and a rouge is a wolf without a pack, I assume."

"Yeah, that's right."

"How were you able to take away my pain and why did your eyes turn red?”

“Werewolves have more powers other than just shifting into a wolf. We have superhuman strength, speed, hearing, smell, and we can take others' pain away if you have been taught how to. We also heal super fast. That’s why the spot where I bit you is already healed. Just to name a few things.”

“Okay.”

“As for the red eyes, there are three colors and each represents something. Red for Alpha, yellow for most everybody, and icy blue if you have taken an innocent life.”

“So mine will be yellow. And yours are red to show that you are an alpha.”

“Yes. Unless you have murdered someone, which I am assuming is not the case.”

“Obviously, I'm not a murderer. So what else do I need to know?”

“There is a lot you need to know but I am going to try and teach you how to control it, so when you go through your day you have less of a chance to shift in front of people.”

“So I could shift at any moment.”

“Well, not exactly. It is more when someone or something angers you.”

“Is there a way to get around shifting on a full moon? If it can be done other times, why not on a full moon?”

“I have heard that it is possible, but it takes a lot of work and a lot of control, practice, and patience, because it is hard to do, and I've heard only the most advanced wolves can do it and, mainly, only Alphas can learn. The pack didn’t want me to learn how, but I have been working on it on my own. It hasn’t worked yet.” For the next several hours, I try to teach Erica how to control her wolf without having her shift and I teach her how to take away people's pain and about some of our other powers, and in no time the sun started to set.

“I have one question for you before we turn.” I turned to her while getting to my feet.

“What?” She looks at me and I can already see her eyes starting to take on their yellow hue.

“Why aren’t you freaking out about everything you just found out that supernatural creatures exist and that you are now a werewolf?”

“Well, I guess some part of me has always wanted to be a supernatural creature of some sort, to have a reason for being different and weird, and I guess since the day you bit me I have felt different and when I met you I thought you were different and weird and I guess this explains it.”

Erica

When I left, I went to walk home through the woods. I tripped over a log but was caught by Brett. He said he was going to explain things. He then took me to his place, which was a cave in the woods or, as he called it, a den, what kind of human lives in a cave in the middle of the woods.

Then he grabbed hold of my hand and made the pain I was experiencing go away for a while. He also tried to convince me that he was a werewolf and that he was the wolf who bit me. That's not possible, is it? But then he shows me that it is and shifts to that black and white wolf. He goes on to tell me everything he can about the full moon tonight and the powers that werewolves have and he answers the questions that I have. He also tries to help me control everything before the sun sets and we shift. A minute before we shifted, he spoke.

“Sorry in advance for the pain, the first shift always hurts the most and takes the longest.” Before I could respond to that, I fell to the forest floor in pain from starting to shift. I managed to cast a glance at Brett who was already a wolf and was sitting near me in case I needed anything.

After an agonizing few minutes, I look to where my hands were and see that they were now replaced with paws. I was a wolf. I look to Brett, who was in a wolfish way smiling at me.

Brett

As I finished speaking, I started shifting and it was soon over for me, but for Erica, it would be longer and more painful. In the middle of shifting, she glanced over at me. I felt bad for her for the extreme pain she was feeling. I remember the first time I shifted when I turned ten. It was horrible. Back then, I was just a little kid, which made it ten times worse, even though our whole life leading up to the first shift we are prepared for it and do things to increase our pain tolerance.

I also felt bad that I didn’t have time to tell her that she wouldn’t remember anything from tonight, one of the byproducts of being a bitten werewolf and not a born one. When she was fully shifted, she looked down at her paws and then over to me and I was smiling in my wolf form because she was a white wolf practically the opposite of me, she was beautiful.

I walked closer to her as she hadn’t really moved or done anything, seeming as if she was about to panic. I nudged her with my mussel, which made her alert. I made a move that signaled for her to follow me and started running. I looked behind me to see her right on my tail quite literally. Once we got to the destination, I stopped. I had led her to the lake that is deep in the woods. I look at her to see what she thinks but as I turn, a white blur runs past me and suddenly there is a splash in the water. I turn to see that Erica was already in the water and happily swimming around.

I join her and we play around in the water for a few minutes, swimming and splashing each other. After a while, we climb out of the water and go to sit in a small clearing to dry off a little. As time goes on, I begin to get hungry since I haven’t eaten anything since early this morning. Now being mostly dried off, I lead Erica on a hunt where we catch a few rabbits. I was surprised by how fast Erica learned how to hunt. Usually, it takes bitten wolves a long time to learn. It is almost as if she was born to be a wolf.

After our hunt, we take our catch back to the den and eat it, leaving only little scraps of meat and the bones that I will have to clean out in the morning. The rest of the night, I try my best to teach Erica how to fight in wolf form just in case we are ever attacked by another pack or a lone wolf.

Later, I can tell that she is getting tired and is slowing down, so we stop practicing and go into the den for the night. I lay on my side on a few of the blankets that are along the wall of the den and because there are not many places to lay in here yet Erica lays down next to me and is soon fast asleep.

Erica

I wake up not remembering that I had even fallen asleep only to see that I am in unfamiliar surroundings, but then things from the day before start coming back to me, although nothing much from the night comes to me. It was then I realized my head was resting on something hard but it was also moving up and down slowly, breathing, Oh gosh I am using Brett as a pillow. I slowly sit up to see how we were lying. He was flat on his back, eyes closed, still asleep, looking peaceful. Looking around, I noticed that one of his arms was around me, and from what it looked like I was curled into his side.

I sat all the way up trying not to disturb Brett’s still sleeping form, but my attempt was futile as he moved slightly and opened his eyes. He sits up a little, resting on his elbows, and his eyes land on me sitting next to him.

“Morning.” He says groggily.

“Morning,” I said, my voice a mix of shyness and embarrassment.

“Everything okay?” He tilts his head to the side in a manner like you see dogs do on videos online.

“Um yeah…” I started, not wanting to ask the question I had been thinking about since I woke up not remembering last night as well as the position we were lying in.

“Something is wrong, I can tell. What is it?”

“Uh well, I don’t remember anything from last night. I only remember seeing you as a wolf and then maybe being at a lake, but I don’t remember anything else.”

“That happens to bitten wolves. Nobody really knows why, but they never really remember anything from the night of their first transformation, almost like they were extremely drunk that night. But you seem to remember the lake, which is odd for a bitten wolf.”

“Okay...” I think processing what he said before continuing. “We didn’t do anything when we were in our wolf forms, did we?”

“What do you mean?” He asks, genuinely confused.

“We didn’t, you know… do anything last night,” I repeated, not wanting to say exactly what I was worried about.

“Oh, that’s what you mean. No, we didn’t do what you think. You were in your right mind last night, you just don’t remember it. Even if you weren’t in your right mind, I would never take advantage of you like that or anyone for that fact.” he speaks with sincerity evident in his voice.

“Okay, thank goodness,” I breathe a sigh of relief.

“Should I be offended by that?”

“Oh no. It's nothing against you, it's just that-” He cuts me off.

“I was joking, I know what you meant.” he turned as my cheeks turn bright red, prompting me to grab a pillow from behind me and swat him upside the head with it.