THE LOST SON OF THE ALPHA

Chapter Four: MY AUNT IS A WOLF!!!

FATUMA’S POV~

I reached in Mwanza four days after Tony’s birthday party which happened to be the worst I’d ever experienced. I expected it to be dope and shiny, with Tony’s wonderful new experiences such as introducing her girlfriend, me, to his community. But what they say: expectations don’t always vary to reality, so sometimes one has to be prepared for anything.

But I was not prepared for that. I was not prepared to see my very own boyfriend feast on his friend’s head instead of a cake we had prepared for him!

In Mwanza I had my family there and I would hide from Tony for a while until he was resisted. This city, Mwanza was far from Dar Es Salaam where we once lived and where I left Tony. I knew by then that he was now either arrested or taken somewhere horrible, like in the circus? No! No wolf ever been taken to circus. Wolves are evil, so they couldn’t make the people at the circus happy at all.

When I reached in Mwanza, my aunt, Mariam received me very warmly and did not care to ask me what had happened to me. What she asked was why I grew thinner than the last time she saw me. African aunts really act like grannies!

I stayed at my aunt for two days trying hard to hide the fear expressions from my face, which seemed not to work. I did not want to tell anyone about Tony, because I was afraid if he was safe and I said anything, his safety would be in danger. Because people are not to be trusted.

But on the second day, Aunt Mariam discovered my hidden fears and decided to ask me when we were having breakfast.

“Fatu,” Aunt Mariam said, “you don’t look fine since you got here!”

Oh crap! So she realized that from the first day I arrived!

“What do you mean?” I asked, laughing sheepishly.

“Tell me. I know there is something.” My aunt insisted.

“Yeah,” I said, quickly making something in my head that would match my fear expressions and calm her down, “my friend had a car accident.”

“What?! Your friend? Who?!” My aunt was really worried.

“Umm… Salma!” I said quickly before I calculated to realize whether the name was male or female.

“Oh! Is she your classmate?” She asked me.

“Uh… yes!”

“Hmm!” She looked in my eyes suspiciously.

“Where does she live? She was in vacation too?”

There I had to make the story look more real. I had some friends who lived in far places and they were also my early classmates when we were in high school. And my parents knew very little about them, so did my aunt. So I was able to make up a quick story.

“Yes, she is in the vacation. She lives in Kilimanjaro.” I said.

“Oh!” My aunt couldn’t put down that story, “I think it will be better for you to go to Kilimanjaro to see her.”

“So now you are chasing me away?” I asked jokingly.

My aunt snorted in laughter and answered nothing. Instead she stood up and headed for the kitchen, then she came out with two plastic bowls and two glasses. She put them on the table and arranged the glasses, putting one glass right in front of me. Then she took a remote control and changed the channel on the TV.

Just then I was pouring myself the mango juice which my aunt brought in my glass, and as she changed the channels, she stopped at the National Television which by then had the prevailing news going on. I filled Aunt Mariam’s glass too and she sat back and lifted it up and immediately started drinking.

I was about to drink when I saw a little dead ant in my juice and started getting it out using my pinky, and hooray! I got it out at last. Then I took the glass to my mouth and was about to take a sip of my aunt’s tasty home-made juice, when the other news came on:

It was about a strange man who was able to turn himself into a large dog (being a wolf – it’s that they knew but was too afraid to get it right), was arrested and controlled by the Special Mutant Unit of the Tanzanian Army, and was to be taken to the special laboratories in Mwanza so as to investigate him and find out if he was a human, or some other alien creature trying to turn itself into a human!

My juice never went in. I spat it all and the glass dropped from my hands and soaked a big deal of Aunt Mariam’s carpet! I shrieked and I was really freaked out. I stood up and ran to my room.

I felt nothing about getting crazy, but this was happening.

My wolfish boyfriend was kidn*pped by the army and was to be brought to Mwanza, where I was! Was I dreaming?!

To be honest, I was very, very afraid. Since I knew his secrets now and now he was no longer a human. He was a killer, human-eating wolf. I ran to my room and shut the door. I was trembling. I was really afraid. Suddenly I started to regret. I wished I had never had known him. All this was happening because I dated him.

Then my aunt came in the room since the door was not locked. She stood for a second and watched me cry and tremble. Suddenly her eyes were full of tears too. She began to cry. Then she walked and sat beside me. She hugged me and held me tight. This made me feel at least comfortable. At least she cared.

“Honey,” said she in a very soft, sympathetic voice, “is that Tony? Your boyfriend?”

This got me! I suddenly stopped to cry and looked in her eyes. How did she know Tony was my boyfriend? And how did she know Tony?!

“Yes!” I answered, “It is Tony! My boyfriend.”

“And that is why you came in Mwanza!” She said.

“Yes aunt! I’m sorry for hiding this from you this long.”

“No, honey. It is okay, Fatu. You are fine. But seriously, what got into him?”

“He turned into a wolf, aunt! He is a wolf!”

“A wolf?!”

“Not an actual wolf. He is the werewolf! The first werewolf in Africa.”

“How do you know this?”

Then I explained to my aunt everything, about Tony’s birthday party and the diary I read, and told her how Tony himself did not know his real identity. And he was getting arrested and controlled and locked because not many people knew werewolves. And Tony was in grave danger.

When I told her that, my aunt just shook her head and smiled sympathetically. I did not understand her smile. It was a mixture of sympathy and happiness.

“Sure you did not know that he was the wolf?” She asked again.

“What are you talking about? I told you I KNEW even before he, himself, knew!”

“Oh, right! Sorry!”

“How did you know I had him as a boyfriend? I never told you that.”

Aunt Mariam laughed. She now started to frighten me. There was something terrible that she knew and she was happy hiding them from me.

“You posted him in w******p! You don’t remember?” She said.

Oh, now I remembered. A few weeks ago I announced on w******p and f*******: that I had a new soulmate and I wanted all my friends to be aware of that. And that is when she probably saw that and she was now telling me.

“I didn’t think you’d know about it!” I said sheepishly.

“No, Fatu. There is something you should know.”

“What is it aunt?”

“Tony is here!” My aunt said so surely that it sounded real.

Now I knew aunt was trying to play some games so as to either soothe me or freak me out more to have more fun. I didn’t like the idea of her playing with me like that. Telling me Tony was there was bad enough. So I waved her point away and immediately changed the topic:

“You didn’t stay up to finish the news?” I asked her.

She did not answer my question, and her expression really frightened me. She looked serious all of a sudden and she started sniffing in the air. Then she turned towards the door of my room and then turned toward me again.

I was too surprised to ask her what was going on.

“I told you he is here!” My aunt said more seriously.

“What do you mean?” I asked, now feeling that something was really wrong.

Then suddenly there was a loud knock on the front door. The knocker knocked loudly for the first time, and then knocked again abruptly.

“There he is!” Aunt Mariam said and walked to the front door.

It made no sense at all to me. A minutes ago I heard in the news that Tony was taken to the laboratories, and placed under arrest by the special unit of an army. How could he have escaped? So I decided in my head that Aunt Mariam was making that story in her head.

Aunt Mariam opened the front door, and with a great rush. When she opened, guess who got in.

I didn’t know what to decide; I felt like my heart and head were suffering of too much emotions and shock! My aunt was right: the one who entered the house in the great hurry was Tony, my boyfriend!

I ran to my room and quickly shut the door and locked it. I quickly jumped on my bed and crawled under my duvet. I took a pillow and covered my head with it, and I tried as hard as I could to be very still. The thing which was happening was really a nightmare. Tony was loose and here he was. He had followed me to my hideout!

What I was thinking of was him transforming into the wolf and eat my aunt away and then eat me too. I was terrified.

The door of my room opened, and I did not bother to look who entered. But I was sure it was my aunt coming to tell me that Tony needed to see me. I was afraid now. And for some reason, I began to feel afraid of my aunt too.

When the door opened, I could hear everything which was going on despite my head being covered by the pillow.

“So, Fatuma is your girlfriend?” My aunt was asking intimidatingly.

I wondered why she was asking such a rhetorical question and who she was asking. If she was asking Tony, that was totally rude. Tony was NOT supposed to be in my room for any reason. I wanted him away from me, away from my aunt and away from that place. He was not my boyfriend anymore: he was some ravenous beast who ate people and drank their blood.

“Look, Mariam, I told you I can explain this. But not now please. I want to talk to her. Please!” Tony sounded really sad and concerned. He sounded like he was going to start sobbing any time.

Wait! I thought, He calls my aunt Mariam?! Do they know each other? And why is he promising an explanation?

“I know everything.” Aunt Mariam said coldly, “She explained everything to me. And I saw it on WhatsApp.”

“What?!” Tony shouted and suddenly realized he had done a mistake, so he cleared his throat and said, “Ok, I know, she wanted the world to know about us. It was just one of the ways!”

Now I was confused by a number of many strange things:

One, they just came in my room where they exactly knew I was hiding from Tony and started talking with their voices higher enough to wake the dragon; two, they were talking about our relationship (me and Tony’s relationship), in a jealousy manner. They were like blaming each other on our own love; three, they neither talked about Tony’s escape nor his transformation to the wolf and him eating a couple people in Dar Es Salaam. However, I stayed under my duvet and my pillow still uselessly covered my head.

“Ok,” My aunt said, “you should now put it clear to us! Either it is me or her!”

Now I tolerated no more. I jumped from under the duvet and stood between them as they stood face to face like fighting married couple.

“What is going on?!” I asked in a louder voice which passed theirs and made them look at me in shock.

“Fatuma!” Tony called me and made came closer to hug me.

But I was not ready to be hugged by some human-eating wolf. I made a step back, so she missed me and ended holding Aunt Mariam’s hands.

“Tony, you are the wolf!” I told him in a shaking way, also in the voice of alarming my aunt about that. But she seemed not afraid.

“I’m sorry Fatuma,” Tony said, still holding Aunt Mariam’s hands. That confused me even more. It made me think what I was seeing was either a dream or some illusion.

“Ok, honey,” Aunt said after some seconds of weird silence, “I must tell you now.”

“What?!” I asked.

“Let us both sit and talk, please!” Aunt ordered and we all sat on my bed.

When we sat on my bed, Tony could not handle that. He stood up again and started to pace in the room. He looked very troubled and weird.

He wore a fine t-shirt which I was sure it was a special cloth provided by the Mutant Control Unit which was responsible for holding him. He looked very handsome and his hair was different from the way I knew it. It was not a regular hair. It was kind of smooth and longer, it looked like a white man’s hair. His pants were a little bit loose but still they made him look gorgeous. But the fact did not get me away from feeling afraid of him and being confused of what was going on.

“Aunt,” I called, “do you know what is going on? Did you have any clue Tony was the wolf?”

I was now starting to worry that my aunt was on his side. If that was the case, I was in big trouble. All the negative thoughts flashed through my mind: my aunt would hold me and tie me for Tony to make me his dinner.

But when aunt spoke, I was more confused than afraid.

“Fatuma,” my aunt called me, “there is something you need to know. Tony is not a real human.”

“I knew it!” I said with a shudder.

“And,” my aunt continued, “It was destined to him that he would realize his true form when he turns sixteen. So I technically told him when he was younger, told him that he hadn’t have to have a girlfriend before twenty years of age.”

“WOW!” I cried.

The story my aunt gave us was scarier than the way I expected it. So before I freaked out the second time, I managed to ask a question:

“So what are we going to do now?” I asked.

“Tony here was wondering why he is like this.” Aunt Mariam said, “So to answer his and your question, I have to take you both to Kilimanjaro where there is someone who can answer your questions.”

Well, great. And now I was required to go to Kilimanjaro, the place I always wished to reach. For a second I didn’t think of what we had to do in Kilimanjaro, but how Kilimanjaro looked like. I was going to experience the most mesmerizing view in the world.

The next day we were in the trip to Kilimanjaro. We boarded the Air Tanzania, which was the fastest plane in the internal Tanzanian planes, and from Mwanza, it would take only ten minutes to land Kilimanjaro.

When we were in the plane, Aunt Mariam told us the whole truth, which to be honest, it was terrifying, but also touching.

And here is the story she told us:

When Tony was born, his parents died. And that related with the little experience I had. His parents were the leaders of the park, The White Moon Pack. Before Tony was born, there was a great war of the thrones between the White Moon Pack and the Black Moon Pack, where each pack claimed to take over the whole area of dominance: the great forest in Congo. By then Tony’s father was the Alpha, and his mother was the Luna of the White Moon pack.

There was a big war, so as the war was going on, Tony’s mother gave birth to Tony. But he was totally not safe in the middle of the war ruckus. So, Mariam – Aunt Mariam was the one whom Tony was handed to. Tony’s mother was handed to Aunt Mariam and Mariam fled to the human world with Tony and handed him to the orphanage where he would be raised.

“Wait!” Tony interrupted, “You were in the war? When I was born?!”

“Yes.” Aunt Mariam said.

So she told us more. After she fled from the battle, Tony’s parents died. Although she was given the responsibility of caring for him, she was afraid any time the wolves from Black Moon pack would come in the human world to search for him. So what she did was immediately sending him to the orphanage, where it could be difficult for any wolf to find him. And there, Aunt Mariam kept an eye on Tony always, although Tony never noticed if she knew about him. What he knew was she was his girlfriend’s aunt and no more.

When she was about to finish up her creepy story, we landed in Kilimanjaro.