Across Book 2

Chapter 4 : Claws

Once he reached home, the first thing Jacob did was cut his nails, regretting how he could have done it way sooner. He opened his laptop to browse some YouTube videos and relax his feet on the bed. Soon after it turned into an afternoon nap. Evening had struck the clock way before he woke up. Jacob stretched his body when his mom yelled out to everyone for dinner.

Jacob closed the laptop which was running in the background for more than an hour, and went downstairs hurriedly. Surprisingly everyone was home today, even his Dad. After he had his dinner, when Jacob made his way back to his room, he noticed something peculiar - his nails had grown back, as if Jacob had never even trimmed it thoroughly. "How was it possible ?" Jacob murmured. Upon closer examination he noticed that indeed it had grown back to its previously seen length.

Confused, Jacob held the fingers as he trimmed his nails again, and he felt like they were much harder to cut. With a bit of complication, he managed to trim them to the surface of the fingers and sighed. Jacob went to complete some assignments for the next day and not so later, he went to bed.

The next day was what Jacob was waiting for. It was Friday, the weekend was almost here. Just the last day of classes for this week, Jacob thought. He went to meet Conor, to join him on the way to college. Jacob felt a little dizzy, maybe because he was still sleepy.

Both made their separate ways to their classrooms. When Jacob reached his locker room and was trying to open his combination, he noticed that- damn, his nails had grown back again. Jacob, if anything else, was flustered and astonished upon what he saw. He felt dizzy again. Not knowing what to do, he tried to calm down and deal with this later. He kept himself busy with the upcoming classes.

Jacob tried to figure this out and remained distracted in the classroom, for most part. He noted down the essentials quickly because he was feeling uneasy and feverish. Jacob had this feeling that he was going to fall sick. He wondered why he felt feverish. The last time he felt this way was on a December night when he was away on a family trip and had too many ice cold deserts.

Wait, a thought passed by Jacob, didn't his brother Acton ask him just a few months ago if he was feeling something "out of the blue" health wise? Did Acton know something? However the case maybe, Jacob had one last class before he could finally do something about this. A good twenty minutes later the class ended. Jacob was gradually becoming very sweaty and he felt really sick. It was time to go home. While he walked the ten minutes distance to his home, Jacob realised he should have called a cab instead. Nevertheless he reached home, but quite late.

The first person to say "you look very sick" was Jacob's mom, to which Jacob responded, "Yes I do feel sick, I'm going to rest a bit" and he headed to his room. He threw his lifeless limbs on bed covering himself with blankets and counted the stars in his head as another wave of feverish heat took over his body.

Few hours later his brother Acton was up around his room. He was back from his job early since it was the weekend. Jacob grabbed the cupboard near his bed unconsciously, still sleeping and murmuring some random words. When Jacob took off his hands off the cupboard, and shifted his position on bed, Acton noticed that Jacob had left behind some marks on the cupboard. Acton's eyes widened as he knew it was time. Acton immediately went down to search for his Dad.

Minutes later Jacob woke up to his mom who handed his son some medicines and a glass of water and asked him to keep resting. Meanwhile the chatter between his Mom and Dad went on downstairs, that apparently led to a big argument. Jacob woke up again past dinner time when he couldn't help but notice his palms until the wrists were burning from the inside.

"What is happening?" Jacob slowly whispered when he saw Acton passing by his room.

"Your claws are coming out" Acton replied.