Sunrise

Chapter 8

Margaret waited.

Her husband and Alisha, who were outside by the bedroom door, waited.

Montana waited.

Time stood still for the quartet as their hearts did somersaults. Deafening silence shrouded the house like a dark cloud as apprehension rained acid on them. It was the moment they had been waiting for long, the moment they wanted to experience desperately. They held their breaths as they listened in on AJ's bedroom, their nerves tight with worry.

Margaret held onto AJ's hand as she watched his reaction. She glanced at her watch to see that ten minutes had passed. Nothing.

Come on, baby, she thought to herself. You can do it!

However, there was no response.

Margaret's heart dropped a thousand feet. She couldn't believe it was happening, especially after all they had been through. There was no way.

She whispered the wolf's name again, this time with more urgency.

"I command you to show yourself to me," she said. "Please."

She couldn't hold herself any longer, and hot tears began to cascade down her face. A heavy load pushed down on her chest as she realised that her worst fears were definitely true. That her grandson was no longer a werewolf.

James and Alisha decided to enter the bedroom, seeing that waiting was of no use anymore. James put his hand on his sobbing wife and brought her to his waist. The hammer of disappointment had come down on his heart, shattering it into a million shards. He swallowed the lump in his throat as he watched his wife cry her heart out; all the while, AJ stared at them with blank eyes.

"Margaret," he said as he rubbed her back. "That's enough."

Margaret sniffed and looked up as Montana entered the bedroom. She had changed into her house clothes, and her face was weary.

"Grandpa was right," she whispered. "This was all pseudoscientific mumbo-jumbo."

With that, she left her brother's room, leaving her distressed grandparents and Alisha in her wake. She went into her bedroom and slammed the door shut before throwing herself on her bed and shrouding herself with her blanket. Part of her wanted to cry like her grandmother, but another part told her she had cried enough already. Ever since witnessing her parents' and sister's murder to dealing with her invalid brother, she had shed tears, and for what? Her parents weren't coming back, her sister wasn't coming back, and her brother was no longer a werewolf. Deep inside, she had hoped her brain was dead like her brother's, for she wouldn't have to deal with these successive defeats. She wanted to shut the whole world out and be left alone in her thoughts.

A soft knock came at the door.

"Montana, may I enter?"

It was Alisha. The last person she wanted to talk to.

"Go away," Montana replied from under the blanket. "I don't wanna talk with anybody."

Despite her protest, Alisha entered anyway.

"Hey," she said.

"What do you want?" Montana spat.

Alisha stood beside Montana's bed, where Montana had shrouded herself with her blanket like a cocoon. She swallowed the lump in her throat and pursed her lips as she tried to think about how she wanted to express the melange of emotions she was feeling. She knew Montana was upset about the bleak discovery, and that made her feel guilty. After all, she was the one who suggested the whole hypnosis thing to her family. She had given a false sense of hope without any guarantees that would it would succeed.