chapter 3

Chapter 3

The sun starts to rise up over the mountain, shining in through the window waking me from a dead sleep. The words I had heard in the vision would not leave my mind, “Your awakening draws closer my child, and when it takes place you must remember the past, to fight the coming war before it starts,” what does that even mean, it doesn’t make sense, its gibberish. I just try to push the thoughts out of my head as I dress and leave the house. The mountain was alive as animals seem to be afraid of something. I continue up to the clearing, to find a very different sight to yesterday. The flowers were crushed, the trees had missing leaves and something felt strange, the place felt darker somehow.

As I sat there watching the sun rise, a grey form flashed through the clearing. I jump up off the rock and look around to see a huge dark grey wolf, but this one seemed real, not in my mind.

“This can’t be real,” I say as I pinch my arm, but nothing happened. The wolf rises to its full height and stares at me with ice blue eyes that seem to look straight through me. What sounds like static runs through my head bringing me to my knees? Then out of the static comes the words, “not long now, and you will fall in line, just like the others,”  with that the wolf walks over till it towers over me, shaking its head it drops something in front of me before spinning around leaving. I reach forward and pick up the object. It was a large silver chain with an amulet which   showed a wolf howling, with a full moon and stars in the sky above it. My watch starts to beep as I’m looking over the amulet. I quickly pocket the necklace and take off back towards the house.

Upon reaching the house I just walk straight up to my room, without saying a word to anyone. I quickly shower, still feeling strange about what had just happen in the clearing. I get out of the shower collect a towel and walk back out of the ensuite. Something in the mirror catches my eyes, I freeze, staring at my reflection. I see that my hair has changed colour, it looks like the water has washed out most of the colour. From the dark brown that I was used to seeing I was now confronted by a head of pale brown almost blond hair.

“What the hell,” I say to myself.

I rub my eyes hoping that I’m seeing things. But nothing changes.

“Great what else is going to happen today?” I say as I walk into my room and get dressed.

As I make my way down past Emma’s room I hear giggling from behind the door but think nothing of it and continue down to the kitchen. As I step into the dining room it goes quite as all eyes lock onto me.

“Don’t say a word,” I say throwing glances around the round the room. “Aunt Marie can you take Tom and Christi to school today?”

She nods as I grab my keys and leave the house. I drive around for about an hour before I pull up in front of the academy. I was alone in the lot for what only seemed like seconds, before more and more cars start to arrive. But I took no notice of any of them until I heard tapping on the window. I spin around to see Joe leaning down looking in through the window with Rachel and Leah stand about three feet behind him. I put a hand on the centre of my chest waiting for my breathing to return to normal, when it finally did, I took one last lungful of air before grabbing my bag and opening the door, stepping out to face them all. The shocked locks on everyone’s faces told me that I truly hadn’t been seeing things all morning and my hair truly had changed colour.

“No I didn’t dye my hair it just changed,” I say before any of them can speak.

Joe opens his mouth to say something but I cut him off with, “just drop it, all of you.”

I start to walk away from them all, only to be stopped just before the doors by John, a member of the Wolfgang. He just stands there unmoving but as I go to step around him, he raises an arm catching my shirt and throwing a punch. Something quickly takes over my body, I feel like I’m locked up inside my own mind as my body moves uncontrolled.

...

John’s fist flew through the air with great speed, Michael grabs John’s fist before it could connect with anything. John quickly drops Michael’s shirt and pulls his hand back before moving at inhuman speed towards Michael. Michael sidesteps around him, but John immediately keeps lunging again and again. It ends with Michael having his back to the parking lot and John standing in the hall of the academy. John threw himself forward one last time. This time he hits his target. Both of them are falling back towards the pavement below. When they land Michael is now on top holding John’s shirt collar and raising a hand up level with his shoulder. Releasing a loud savage growl he prepares to drive his hand it to a scared John’s chest.

“Michael, no!” Leah yells suddenly

...

I snap out of the trance as Joe grabs my shoulders and starts to pull me off of John, who just stands up brushing the dirt off his cloths. He steps aside letting Troy walk towards us.

“John what have you been up to?” Troy says with a smirk

“You have got to be kidding, you had to have seen everything,” Rachel says in a shocked tone.

I throw my arms back knocking Joe off me.  I jump forward to stand toe to toe with Troy and a look of shock and surprise spreads across his face.

 “Now, now, Troy if you want something done you should always do it yourself,” as soon as I finish a quiet menacing growl escapes my lips. He steps back with a stunned look on his face.

The rest of the day was a blur of questions and strange looks. I pulled the car into the carport at home. I walk over to the front door but I stop when I hear voices talking.

“Look, we can’t wait much longer, the Belron’s have gathered almost all of the new generation,” a familiar voice says.

“I know I know, but he’s not ready yet,” a voice I knew was my uncle says.

“Look Joseph called me earlier today and told me that Michael went in to an instinct trance, you know what that means don’t you,” a third voice adds in.

“Yes, he’ll awaken soon,” my uncle says.

“Yes and we will need him as soon as possible,” the first voice says.

“But, we don’t even know if he’ll be an alpha, when he does awaken.”

“That’s true but it’s a risk we’ll have to take.”

“You’d best be going, Michael will be home soon.”

I hear chairs move as one of the voices says, “Yes it’s time I was getting back.”

I dive around the corner of the house as the door opens and men I now recognise as both Joe’s and Rachel’s fathers walk out. I wait, frozen in place by both what I’d heard and who I’d seen. My mind was racing trying to make sense of everything. After maybe ten minutes I’m able to force my body to move once again. I walk over to the front door, pushing it open I see both my aunt and uncle sitting at the table both looking very solemn.

“Ah Michael can you come here please?” my uncle says rising sad eyes up to meet mine. I slowly walk over to the table and take a seat. He pushes a small box towards “This was given to your father on the day of his ... on a day that changed his life.” I open the box to find a large silver chain. My phone starts ringing. I excuse myself from the table and walk over to the middle of the lounge room and answer it.

“Hello.”

“Hello Michael, its Leah.”

“Hey, how did you...?”

“Rachel gave it to me.”

“Oh ok. What’s up?”

“You were meant to meet me after school to start my torturing.”

“Ahh crap, sorry I was preoccupied.”

“It’s ok I was just going to ask if you can help me out with something.”

“Yeah sure what’s the problem?”

“Its organic chemistry it’s got me completely stomped, could you come over to my place and give me a hand?”

“Sure I don’t see why not, where do you live?”

“Number 3 in the Shadowfall estate.”

Laughing I say, “you’re joking right?”

“No why would I?”

“I live at 18 Shadowfall.”

“Oh the big house down the end.”

“Yeah, ok can you give me ... ten minutes?”

“Yeah, sure, see ya shortly,” she says as she hangs up the phone.

I walk back to the table and say, “I have to go help a friend.”

“Ok are you going to be home for dinner?” my aunt asks.

“I don’t know, I’ll give you a call when I make up my mind.”

“Ok, have fun.”

I take the box off the table sliding  it into my bag, grab my keys and walk out the door. It took less than 2 minutes to get from my house to Leah’s. I pulled up on the side of the street and get out of the car. When I push the doorbell I hear running and someone yelling, “I’ll get it.”

The door flies open to reveal Leah and the man I’d seen at The Gateway.

“Come in,” Leah says with a huge smile.

“Thanks,” I reply as I step through the door.

“What are the two of you up to this evening?” the man asks raising an eyebrow.

“Dad we’re just studying,” Leah says suddenly.

“Is that what you kids call it these days?”

“You watch far too much TV, dad.”

“That may be, but, Michael was it? I’ve got my eyes on you, just remember that.”

“Yes sir,” I say as Leah grabs my arm pulling me up the steps and  into a room at the end of the hall.

I look around the room and  find  that there’s a small whiteboard on one of the walls. It  is  covered in a heap of chemical equations

“Sorry about all that,” Leah finally says.

Laughing I say, “That’s ok, so where do you want to start?” I walk over to the whiteboard.

“Um, anywhere and everywhere.”

I sigh and say, “It’s going to be a long night.”

“Sorry.”

“All good, we’ll start here,” I say as I pick up a marker and the duster.

We continued with the studying for the next three hours.

“Hey Leah can you grab me my biology note book out of my bag? It’s the dark green one,” I say while flipping through the biology text book.

“This is beautiful,” Leah suddenly says.

“It’s a notebook,” is my puzzled response.

“No not that, this.”

I turn around to see that she had picked the box out of my bag. She turns it around to show me the silver chain.

“Why don’t you wear this it’s beautiful?”

“I ah..., only just ah...” I manage to say.

“Is it the whole guy and jewellery thing?”

“...”

“Hello Michael, you ok? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Ok if I put it on will you drop any questions about the hair or anything like that?”

“Yeah, sure,” she says with a strange tone.

I reach out with shaking hands and pick the necklace up.  I fight to get the clasp undone. “I can’t get it open.”

“Here let me,” her soft hands brush across my own as she takes the chain from me, she  then unclips the chain. Her hands send electricity through my body as they brush along the sides of my neck. I feel something rise up inside of me and my heart rate starts to become frantic. The door swings open and we both jump back about eight feet from each other.

“Michael, you’ll be staying for dinner right?” Leah’s mum says poking her head in to the room.

“Um, no thank you, I better be getting back home,” I say as I move forward to collect my things.

“See ya, tomorrow,” Leah says.

I quickly hurry out of the house and to the car. I turn the car around and start the short drive back to the house. Upon arriving at home I take a few breathes to calm my frantic heart rate. I walk in to the house and find everyone in the family room watching TV.

“Oh Michael your home, mum put your tea in the oven,” Christi says walking out of the kitchen with a glass of water.

“Ah, thanks,” I say walking straight up to my room and close the door.

“What is wrong with me?” I say to myself as I get changed. I look across the room and the minute my eyes see the bed, they begin to feel heavy. I walk over and flop down on the bed falling right asleep.

...

The clock on the wall ticks past midnight, the moon reaches its full height shining through the window. Michael lays on the bed drenched in a cold sweet, tossing and turning. Suddenly his eyes fly open flashing a brilliant gold colour, his body then starts to convulse as he screams in pain. His chest lifts up off the bed as a louder, deeper scream escapes his mouth.

His screams wake the whole house from a dead sleep. His uncle and aunt run up the stair as their three children all come to their doors bewildered.

“Marie takes the kids to the family room.”

“George is you sure you want to do this alone?”

“Go Marie,” George says as he runs up to Michael’s door.

Marie quickly gathers the kids, hurrying them down the steps.

George opens the door to see Michael laying there, his eyes glowing like white hot embers, his body covered in a thin layer of sweet and breathing heavily. Out of nowhere his body convulses once more and he lets out a loud growl that seems to shake the whole room.

George says to himself, “The shifts all that’s left now.”

Michael continues to toss and turn with his eyes glowing brighter. His body convulses, his eyes return to normal and he falls silent on the bed.