Untameable

Chapter 1

The night goes by slowly as I continue to stare up at my bedroom ceiling. My best friend Celeste and I have been spending time together in silence for the last couple of hours because we have no idea what to do with our last night of summer. Celeste has always been beautiful even as a child. Her straight strawberry blond hair and fair complexion make her bright blue eyes sparkle. Sometimes I am jealous of the way she looks but I will never tell her that. I on the other hand look more like a plain jane than anything. I have wavy brown hair and I am slightly tanned with deep brown eyes. I never focused on appearances too much but sometimes I feel like an ugly duckling compared to her. The two of us have been close since we were toddlers. Our parents used to be best friends when we were younger, but they drifted apart after my father passed. He was the glue that stuck the group together.

"What are you thinking about Atlas?" Celeste asks, snapping me back into reality.

I turn towards where she is seated on the floor. "Oh, nothing really. I was just thinking about how bored I am," I state.

Before she can reply, the police scanner sitting on my desk comes to life. "Unit 6 this is Unit 10, a body has reportedly been found in the woods." I bolted up from my bed and looked at Celeste with excitement written all over my face. She turns up the police scanner so we can hear what else is reported.

"Unit 10 this is Unit 6, where is the body located?" The line is clear for a moment before a response is heard. "Unit 6, it was reported to be somewhere in the woods. I am heading to the high school to meet with the caller and gather more information before moving forward." Not even a second passes before Unit 6 responds, "Unit 10, I will meet you by the entrance to the woods near the high school to assist." With that, the scanner falls silent.

I jump up from my bed with joy after learning where the officers are starting their search. Our neighborhood is right next to the high school so it will be easy for Celeste and me to go searching for the body ourselves. When I look over at Celeste, I see a knowing look in her eyes. We have been doing stuff like this for a couple of summers now but have not had any luck finding anything ourselves.

"Well Celeste, are you tagging along or staying to monitor the scanner and give me updates?" I ask knowing that she prefers being behind the scenes.

"I'll stay here and monitor the channel if that works for you?" she proposed.

"That works for me. Just call me if anything changes over the radio," I advised. I scramble to get ready for a hike through the woods. I grab a pair of jeans and a hoodie to ensure that I do not get attacked by bugs or scratched by any foliage. After getting dressed I begin to gather other supplies that I feel I may need and toss them into my backpack. I make sure to grab a flashlight and my phone before pulling on my boots.

I looked back at Celeste and hinted, "If you don't hear from me in an hour come look for me." With that, I turn and walk out of my bedroom and head to the back door of my house. My house hugs the same woods as the high school, which will make it easy to start searching before the officers. As I enter the woods, I pull out my flashlight and start heading in the direction of the high school. I am sure the police are already at the school considering the police department is close to it. Not long into my journey through the woods I received a call from Celeste.

Picking it up I ask, "Hey, any updates from the scanner?"

"Yeah, the officers said that the body was spotted about a mile into the woods. They are currently waiting on canines to arrive before going on their search." She explains.

"Great, so I have a head start. I will let you know if I find anything. Thanks, Celeste!" I exclaim before hanging up the phone.

I started to walk in the direction that the body was spotted. I have no idea what I am expecting to see when I find it but that is part of the mystery. After walking for about twenty minutes, I started to see signs of a struggle on the ground. Grass is patted down on the ground and in some spots clumps of dirt and grass have been torn from the ground as if something or someone kicked them up. The further I walk ahead I begin to see spots of blood and torn clothes as if someone were fighting.

'What the hell happened out here?' I think to myself as I follow the blood trail.

SNAP... I tense. There should not be anyone out here with me. Looking around I began to panic. They never specified how the body may have been injured. SNAP...CRUNCH... Something is out here with me, and I am not planning on meeting it.

I turn and make a dash heading in the direction back towards my house. As I am running, I hear noises behind me and cannot help but look back to see if anything is following me. I do not see anything behind me, but that does not mean it is not there. When I turn my head forward, I do not notice the tree root in my path and trip falling down a small hill. Quickly I checked myself over to ensure that I did not hurt myself. I then placed my hands on the ground below me to help stand up when I felt something stiff and cold. I look behind me and see the torn-up of a female.

Her body has multiple deep claw marks along the arms and torso. There is dirt and blood caked over her skin and twigs are stuck in her hair. Her eyes are the unnerving part that I cannot seem to look away from. They stare lifelessly at me and appear to have a film over them, but that is not the part that scared me. It was the fact that they looked golden and inhuman. I do not know what is wrong with this girl, but I know it is not normal.

Faint footsteps and voices catch my attention and I look away from the body and towards the direction that the noises are coming from. Without thinking I get up and start running away from the body. I do not want to be caught around the body and have to try and explain myself. As I run through the woods, I pull out my phone to help gather which direction I need to go. After seeing that I am heading in the right direction I text Celeste to let her know that I am on my way back. Just as I begin to see my backyard, something rams into me from behind and I fall forward.

Before I could catch myself, I hit the ground with a loud thud. The air was knocked out of me, and my head hurt from the impact. When I tried to catch my breath, my chest tightened in defiance. After a few more painful breaths I was able to breathe normally and flipped myself onto my back. I sat up and searched my surroundings in the hope of spotting what pushed me. With the low amount of light and the dark foliage, I was unable to see any movement near me. Suddenly I felt a sharp sting coming from my arm and looked to see that I had four deep scratches through my hoodie and on the skin on my upper arm. The skin was red and irritated as blood flowed freely out of it.

Upon seeing the wound, I pushed myself from the ground and headed to the back door of my house. As I entered through the back door into the kitchen, I scared Celeste who was looking through the fridge.

"Ah! Atlas Darrow, do not scare me like that!" She yelled while placing her hand over her heart and turning away from the fridge. I internally cringe at the use of my full name but decide to ignore it.

"Oh my god! What happened to you?" she asks as she rushes up to me while I clutch at my bleeding arm.

"I got attacked by something on my way back to the house," I say through gritted teeth.

"What attacked you?" she questioned while leading me towards the sink where the first aid kit is kept.

"I honestly have no idea. One minute I was running towards the backyard and the next moment I was rammed into and laying on the ground." I mumble as I watch her pull out peroxide, ointment, and gauze. She pulls my hand away from the wound and her eyes widen.

"These scratches are too deep to have been from any sticks. They look like they came from some type of animal, but I am unsure what kind of animal would have done this to you unprovoked." She says as she begins to clean them. I flinch away from the pain as she puts a cloth soaked in peroxide on the scratches.

As I look at the scratches, I can tell that they have already stopped bleeding. Soon Celeste places ointment over my cuts to help prevent infection and covers them in gauze. I can't help but think about how they are going to scar. I can slowly feel the adrenaline leaving my body and it's then that I realize just how exhausted I am. I look over at the clock on the wall and see that it is almost midnight. I didn't realize just how late it had gotten.

"Alright Celste, let's head upstairs and go to bed before we regret waking up in the morning," I say while slowly making my way through the house and heading up to my room. I can hear Celeste not far behind me. Once we make our way to my room, we both grab our pajamas and change before collapsing onto my full-size bed. Almost as soon as my head hits the pillow, I drift off to sleep but I swear I could have heard a howl somewhere in the distance.