The Forbidden Sword

The Undead Werewolves were NOT on the Study Guide

(Wyatt)

It was during second period math class when the world as I knew it ended.

No, seriously. Nothing ends the world as you know it quite like a couple of emaciated humanoid corpses with oversized canines busting through your classroom window. (Others will tell you moments involving furies, cyclopes, evil pigeons, ect. are equally effective for turning your life up-side-down, but I still don't think anything can compare to the horror of the creatures that ruined our review of the quadratic formula.)

Anyways. Second period. The Friday before the last week of school. Right.

I'm Wyatt, by the way. Wyatt Atkin. Medium height, blue eyes, short brown hair, light skin, fourteen years old, nerd, try-hard. I'm that boy at school who gets perfect grades but is kinda quiet and doesn't have a lot of friends. I like to think I have a personality once you get to know me, besides being socially awkward and a bit of a know-it-all.

Oh, and apparently I'm a demigod. Long story. The demigod part explains my severe ADHD, which means I'm wired for battle instead of studying. My GPA tells a different story about the studying part, but that's because of my academic stubbornness and inexplicable lack of dyslexia. Being a demigod does not explain that other thing that I am definitely not thinking or talking about right now.

With that mess out of the way, let's get to the actual story.

It was second period math class, as I've already mentioned. It was a Friday, and next week was the end of the school year, when we would be taking our final exams for every class, which was a huge deal. My school is special like that.

I was sitting at my usual desk near the back by the windows, alternating between doodling on my review sheet and raising my hand to answer questions. Ms. Thompson was reviewing our geometry unit with very little enthusiasm, looking even more bored than her students. My best friend, Daniel Burr, had fallen asleep, his mass of curly black hair covering his dark eyes while he muttered indistinguishable words in Spanish. Daniel has many strengths. It just happens that school really isn't one of them. The rest of my classmates were either zoned out or on their phones.

Suddenly, Daniel sat bolt upright, his nose twitching. He yelled a string of curse words in Spanish that I refuse to translate, jumped out of his chair, grabbed my arm, and started pulling. Everyone stared. I could clearly see the animal-like panic in his eyes, but I had no idea what was wrong.

That's when the window exploded. Shards of glass flew into the room, followed by three large creatures unlike anything I'd ever seen or heard of. They were clearly undead, their bodies swollen and contorted, though not decayed. The creatures were hunched over, with inhuman proportions, glowing eyes, and protruding jaws with enormous canines. Also, they smelled incredibly bad, like compost and poo had been put in a blender with a dead vulture and then left out to rot.

After a moment of initial shock, our classmates screamed in unison and ran towards the door. I let Daniel pull me after him, too busy staring at the creatures to think clearly.

For some reason, the three beasties immediately turned towards me and Daniel, backing us toward the broken window. We were on the third story, so I wasn't sure how the corpse things had gotten up here. I was sure Daniel and I wouldn't survive the fall.

"What are those things?" I managed to ask.

"Bears!" one girl shrieked.

"Vrykolakas," Daniel muttered to me.

"Vryko-whats?"

"Greek version of vampires, except they eat flesh instead of drinking blood. Also, these ones were werewolves before they became undead."