Ashton Irwin: The Werewolf Next Door

Chapter 18: The True Curse

When you are all done eating your dad suggests you go back to the house so he can tell you his story.

J: Alright 

He sits around the table, all of you by his side even your in tow. Luke sits on his left side and your mother on his right, next to Luke is Michael then next to your mother is Calum. Between Michael and Calum sit you and Ashton...(Your sister is at school and will never be a wolf just so you know)...

J: So now I guess it is time to tell you all about our kind and all that goes with it.

D: What do you mean all that goes with it?

J: Well we are only one type of our kind...there are other animals than just wolves

C: There is?

J: Yes, there are bears, big cats, and more but i will get to them later.

D: How many different types are we talking about here?

J: About ten including wolves...but like I said I will get to that later. It all started many years ago, a group pf people thought it would be cool to have animal traits to better protect their families and then they asked their all mighty,  I don't want to call it a God but whatever entity that they worshipped to give them these  traits. You know the saying be careful what you wish for?

All: Yeah.

J: Well they had asked for things like the strength of bears, the speed of leopards,  and instead, they got the ability to shape shift into these animals. And if they find one worthy of the great power to be held they may pass the ability on. It will not go to all in the family only the one with the purest heart. The great curse was to worry about controlling your animal before you knew what it was, to feel yourself in the new skin. If you see the animal before you run, you loose the ability to control the animal, you loose control to feel the animal and you loose the ability to ever become the animal again. If you see the animal before you hunt, you will be the animal for eternity without ever being able to return to human form again as well as loosing all human capabilities, like the way we talk in our heads the human language we hear that would go away too.

M: Why?

J: Well as you have all heard the saying with great power...

All: Comes great responsibility...we know.

J Exactly and with responsibility comes consequences, if you cannot follow two simple directions, then you cannot be responsible enough to be the animal, understand?

D: Yeah, so now that I have hunted and ran, does this mean i can see my wolf?

J: Yep

You walk to the big mirror in the hallway and drop to wolf form, you take in your snowy white fur, sharp green eyes rimmed with black like eyeliner, your one pierced ear, and one floppy ear, the whole package and you have never felt so alive. It is just how you imagined and you go back to the table where your family and friends are now resolving the earlier bet.

A: Told you I would win, it just felt so right in her dream, so prefect like she was just born in the skin.

J: Yeah yeah, we know.

D: So dad, what all other types are there? We know there are wolves, but what else?

J: Well, In Russia there are Bears, or Bersurker meaning were-bear; in Africa, there are tigers, elephants, crocodiles, snakes, and even nanque, which are sharks; in Asia there are leopards, hyenas and hippos; and in Europe and the Middle East and the Americas, there are wolves and Merpeople.

D: Wow that's a lot of animals...

M: Yeah it is...