3 weeks later
I just roam around and I mark everything on a piece of paper that I found in my pocket. I have found two libraries, two HUGE gyms, the kitchen, several hundred living quarters, about a fifty public bathrooms and the hospital/infirmary, when I realize that I missed lunch by about three hours.
Oh well, I'm not hungry anyways.
I decide to roam through the woods. I reach the clearing after about an hour of walking/running, and I bask in the warm spring sun and let my toes drift in the stream.
After a long while of singing and stacking rocks up around a person-sized/deep hole I've been working on, I get bored and head back.
Once I reach the packhouse, I realize that I still have an hour until dinner, so I head away from the packhouse in the direction away from my clearing, my town, my home.
These woods are lit up perfectly in the golden glow of the sunset, but the trees are black against it's glare, which is a bit foreboding. After wandering around in the exact same direction, I hear a nearby cry, a soft one, silenced immediately.
But the voice that uttered it belongs to Eric.
My throat constricts and I take off running.
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I crash through the trees until I am sure I am lost. I enter a clearing I hadn't ever seen before. In the center are two unnaturally large wolves.
One has a light brown coat and eyes as black as beetles, and it is crouching, but growling. The other holds his head high, and he has a shiny black coat and striking green eyes. Eric.
The two titans clash, grappling and swinging their claws and baring their canine fangs. They back away after the first round, circling each other.
I want to help Eric, to stop the fight before he can get hurt. But nevertheless, I can't move on account of my paralyzing fear.
The other wolf slashes his claw against Eric's snout, and he whines briefly before growling and snarling again and again.
I finally have the courage to move, and I run into the clearing shouting "STOP".
But they are rushing towards each other again, and when Eric and I make eye contact, I can see a fear, a panic that I have never seen before.
They can't stop the momentum, although I don't think the opposing wolf would care.
Suddenly we crash together, and I feel a paw knock me the head, hard.
As my vision fades out, I am brought briefly to the surface with agonizing pain in my shoulder.
I scream, and the sound rips through the silence of the forest. My nerves are burning and pleading to make the pain end any way possible. I barely hear the crack of a neck being broken, and that just makes me scream louder.
All that my brain can process is primal thoughts like Eric Eric Eric. Somehow I feel like this is my fault. When I feel Eric's arms around me I immediately felt more comforted, but I fell back into darkness as my screams subsided.
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I wake up with a needle in my arm and one of those face-masks that gives you oxygen on my face. I can't move or open my eyes, but at least I am conscious. My shoulder is soaked in something thick, and I feel lightheaded, complimented by my piercing headache.
I hear Eric and Racheal and some other guy, who I assume is a physician.
"The infection is spreading faster than expected. I'm not sure if she will wake up"
".This is all my fault" Eric says
I desperately want to comfort him, to show that I am alright. I desperately try to speak, to open my eyes, to do something. All I can manage is a low moan.
"Did you hear that?" Eric's voice is hopeful.
With extreme effort, I open my eyes a crack.
"Ali, are you alright? I'm so sorry"
"You have nothing to be sorry for" I try to say, but my voice is soft and muffled by the mask on my face.
"No, I do, please forgive me"
I look around and I see my bed is lined with those bars like in the hospital. A heart monitor beeps on my left. When I look at the heart monitor, I notice my shoulder.
It is mangled and I notice that it has several tubes poking out of it, but I cannot feel it.
The thick liquid it is soaked in is blood, staining the sheets.
I feel an extreme pain in my forehead.
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I wake up, except this time Eric is crouching over Racheal and the doctor is searching through a drawer.
I try to get up to see what is wrong, but my hands are tied to the little bars on the hospital bed.
"Eric?" I ask, and I see his eyes flick to me before the extreme heat in my head returns.
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This time I wake up on the floor, with the restraints ripped on the bed. My eyes flick around. Eric is looking at me with concern and the doctor has backed against a wall. Racheal has a deep cut on her arm.
The first thing out of my mouth is a random groaning sound of confusion.
The next thing out of my mouth is a bunch of questions that are mixed together without spaces.
"What'swrongwhathappenedwhatswrongwithRachealHowdidthathappenwhyamIontheground?"
"I don't understand why this happened" says the doctor.
"Ali, you're a werewolf now" Eric says.
YOU ARE READING
Why me?
WilkołakiAlice Shady has been an orphan for four years. At sixteen, she is allowed to walk around in her city for two hours a day. What the orphanage director doesn't know is that she spends her time in the woods, utterly forbidden. But when she is taken by...
