We were werebears all along?!

It was just another normal morning in her normal, boring life. She sluggishly opened her eyes and immediately went into automatic mode, following her ever dull and uneventful daily routine. Brush teeth, get coffee (at least 2 cups for her to actually start functioning properly and even then she wasn’t exactly an entirely operational human being), get changed and so on and so forth. She made her way to the bathroom, registering in a wee corner of her brain that walking was proving to be more difficult than usual (which was saying a lot considering her obvious aversion to activities that require any degree of physical effort), and that her body ached all over for some reason, but she decided to pay it no mind. She also tripped a few times, and had that chair always been there? Whatever, she could ponder about that after she’d had her (un)healthy dose of caffeinated goodness.

And so, teeth successfully brushed, warm, delicious cup of coffee in hand, she sat on the living room couch, hoping to kick back and relax for a few minutes before having to finish getting ready for college. She closed her eyes, with a small sigh took a sip of her coffee, and opened her eyes again. Did a double-take. Followed, of course, by a triple-take for good measure. She then proceeded to gracefully spit her coffee, now very much alert and aware of her surroundings (and no, not due to the caffeine in her bloodstream. Apparently a good ol’ bit of an adrenaline rush does a much better job at waking you the hell up. Go figure), and then promptly fainted.

It was just another normal morning in her normal, boring life. Except it was not normal. At all. By Jove, how on Earth had she taken so long to notice? Really, it was quite frightening how much of a zombie she was unless she was allowed to sleep in and rejoice in the warmth and comfort of her cozy bed ‘til (at least) noon. When she regained consciousness she was, at long last, able to fully notice the tragic state her house was in.

To say that it was a disaster was an obvious understatement. It looked as if a dinosaur had had her living room for breakfast, chewed and then swallowed, regurgitated, swallowed again, puked- okay, now maybe that was an exaggeration. Just imagine something in between. Chairs lied on the ground haphazardly, a good number of tables had been flipped, the trash can emptied of its yucky contents which were now decorating most of the kitchen floors and, blimey, who had deemed it appropriate to take a curtain and tear the poor thing apart? Whatever had happened, it had left behind a massive mess (one that she wasn’t sure she felt like cleaning up).

She wondered for a fraction of a second if there’d been a party in there the night before. However she soon remembered, much to her chagrin, that no, she wasn’t a fan of parties (but rather a stick in the mud and a bit (very) socially awkward) and there was no way she could’ve hosted one. A shame, really, as it would have provided her with a plausible explanation for the annoyingly incessant nausea and the intense throbbing of her head (again, how had she not noticed earlier?).

There was also the possibility of this atrocious ordeal being solely the result of having eaten too many scrambled eggs. More often than not, those damned, albeit delectable, little balls of calories ended up giving her quite the hair-raising, spine-chilling nightmares. Alas, that theory was pretty far-fetched as well, since it all felt incredibly real (her imagination usually couldn’t be arsed to produce such vivid pictures) and her nightmares tended to revolve around giant food trying to eat her (god only knows why) but, unfortunately, there was no giant food in sight.

Now, it was perhaps likely someone had broken into her home. Regardless, there were no signs of forced entry and all her most precious possessions (the Xbox, basically) were safe and sound where they belonged, so what would their motive be if not to steal her many treasures? Boy, all those years watching Criminal minds and CSI were really starting to pay off (or so she liked to believe). Although, she had to admit, she wasn’t exactly bursting with joy at the prospect of having to put that knowledge to use, especially when she was pretty much the victim.

As you may have noticed already (if you’ve been brave enough to endure the bizarre rambling up to this point), joking appeared to be her only means of dealing with stressful situations. Like a defense mechanism of sorts. “I laugh so as not to cry”. There was a saying along those lines, right? Very wise saying indeed. She wholeheartedly agreed. All joking aside, though, on a (hopefully) more serious note, we shall have our dear protagonist go ahead and take a look at the backyard. Who knows, therein might lie the source of all her recent misfortune.

Sure enough, as luck would have it, near the door to the backyard was a barricade that had been rendered useless (who in their right mind set up a barrier only to destroy it from the inside later? Why would there be a need for a barricade in the first place?), and the garden was rocking a new look, adorned with hundreds of holes and what looked like… paw prints? Two sets of prints, to boot. Or at least that seemed to be the case, since some of them were moderately larger than the others. All right then, there went all her CSI knowledge down the drain. This was starting to give off some very unnerving X-files-esque vibes and, regrettably, that was far from her area of expertise. Jimmy would sure go nuts if I showed him this. He’s such a sucker for all things paranormal. Forced me to spend a week in the woods, the little rascal, claiming he had seen Chewie swimming in some lake or whatever, she thought grimly (needless to say, their thorough investigation had been for naught).

Ah, speak of the devil. Just as she was about to head back inside she saw Jimmy jumping over the backyard fence (did she have summoning powers now? That’d be a tad bit too weird for her taste). He was sweating bullets, looked weary, haggard, a bit tense and skittish.

“Hey, Jimmy. You look like crap.” Perfect way to summarize all of the above. She patted herself on the back.

“Thanks. We need to talk.”

“Sure. Come inside. Is this about us being like, bears or something? Oh, fancy a cup of tea?”

“Tea would be great, thank y- Wait, what? What?! How do you know that?”

“Well, I mean. I just put two and two together. It’s elementary.”

“Don’t go all Watson on me! This is serious, you know!”

“Actually, Sherlock is the one who-” She decided to stop talking there for her sake because wow was he glaring daggers at her. Crikey, if looks could kill.

“God, how can you be so calm about this?” He said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You do realize you’re gonna have to make all this mess magically disappear, or come up with some explanation when your parents arrive from their trip in… yup, less than an hour from now. By the way, you still haven’t told me how you figured the bear thing out.”

She leaned on the wall, staring at the ceiling. “I guess the reason I’m so calm is I’m still finding it hard to believe all of this is actually happening.” She took a deep breath. “Also, I’m no Sherlock but your bear ears and claws were kind of a helpful clue.”

“Huh?! Oh. Oh shoot, they just sorta come out when I get too nervous.” He blushed, smiling sheepishly.

“You know, I’m feeling a very huge urge to scratch your ears right now. They just look so fluffy! May I?”

“Please refrain from doing so. Thank you very much.”

“Boo, killjoy.”

“Oh for Pete’s sake, could we please, please, focus on the matter at hand?”

“Right. So, were we um, werebears, if you will, all this time? And I just so happened to learn that tiny detail last night? How come you never told me before?! I thought we were best buds.”

“What, you wanted me to just randomly say “Oh yeah, guess what? I can turn into a giant bear”? Firstly, I didn’t think you’d believe me, and secondly I- well…I was afraid if you did believe me you’d freak out and stop talking to me or something” He mumbled under his breath. “And to answer your first question, I’ve been a werebear from the very beginning. You just turned into one last night, but the author of this story thought we were werebears was a cooler title than I was a werebear and now you’re one too. Anyways,  you really took me by surprise there, I’m not sure why it happened, but since it was your first time you kinda lost it and I had to prepare a makeshift barricade to stop you from hurting others or, well, yourself.”

“I see… Good thing you were around, then. And, uh, sorry for destroying your makeshift thingy?”

“Not your fault, really. And luckily, after you were done going crazy you got pretty playful and we just horsed around in our bear forms ‘til you got tired and fell asleep. Problem is, I was gonna let you rest a bit and then wake you so we could take care of all...this,” He said, gesturing at the room “before your parents came back, but I got carried away and next thing I knew I was in the woods running like mad, chasing rabbits and stuff. Probably ‘cause I hadn’t transformed in quite a while. Got super tired, passed out and by the time I woke up it was already morning. Which is why I rushed all the way back here. So, what’re we gonna do now? Think we could talk to your folks about it? Maybe they’re also werebears but they were hiding it until you became one yourself.”

She tapped her chin and hummed, deep in thought.

If, god forbid, this was not an incredibly unpleasant dream but an incredibly unpleasant and very real situation instead (which, come to think of it, wouldn’t surprise her in the slightest, seeing as lady luck seldom chose to be on her side), she would most definitely need some time to wrap her head around the whole thing. And what better way to do that than by sleeping? She mused.

“‘Kay, I don’t know ‘bout you but I’m gonna make good use of my newly acquired bear powers and hibernate. Talk to you in a few months.” She said proudly, more than pleased with her smart decision.

Fin.

...Sorry, were you expecting an adventure-filled tale, with the thrill of new discoveries, friendship, bonds of trust, love and all that jazz? Too bad, our protagonist (the author, actually) is much too busy (lazy) to concern herself with such trivialities.

So, with my most sincere apologies, I now bid you readers farewell.

Also, since you’ve somehow managed to make it this far without being consumed by boredom, I believe congratulations are in order.

Mayhaps we’ll meet again in the future, the moment the valiant hero of this story decides to awaken from her slumber (Not that she’ll get up to much when that time comes, but still). In the meantime, this story will be left to collect a bit of dust and a bit of cobweb.

Author's Note

i'm not all that satisfied with the dialogue in this one, I changed it a few times but still not quite happy with it lol. I guess this is what happens when you start writing a story based only on the idea that it might be fun to have a character become a werebear and just sleep. It's most definitely what I'd do if I had the chance, to be honest.

Reviews

[SRMarx]

It is an interesting concept. If you were interested in strengthening the piece, I'd focus on more showing and less telling. It can help slow down the pace of the story and let the reader really engage with the actions as they happen.

[zanymaybee]

Thank you!! I'll keep that in mind next time I write and if I decide to change this one c: I guess I usually have a hard time describing scenes n stuff. Dialogues and jokin around come more naturally to me haha