Sakura Souls

Chapter 1

Shell's POV - Aita Realm

"What are you doing this weekend?" asked a girl walking beside me in the hall. My entire school was making their way through the building to get home, and the hallway was buzzing with excitement. Somehow, I was able to tune out all the noise and focus on the random girl's conversation.

"I don't know." Replied her friend. "I think I'll go to Kage's party tomorrow! Wanna come?"

Before the girl could reply, I groaned in annoyance. The two students glared at me awkwardly before speeding away, but I didn't care. I was just tired of hearing about parties and boys. Mostly because it was something I couldn't do.

Ever since I left the safety of the forest and my wolf pack, I managed to enroll at the high school close by. It was exciting at first, but quickly became an exhausting task. Not just because of the school work, but my classmates too. It wasn't as easy as Keaton and I originally thought.

Human high school students were way different than younger humans (and not in a good way). They were full of themselves and did whatever they wanted to do, despite what the adults thought. In my wolf pack, the adults were always highly respected no matter what. For humans, it didn't seem to matter. So going to a party with my classmates over the weekend would be a huge risk. One way bigger than the one I was already taking by going to school everyday.

I pushed away the unsettling thoughts that plagued my mind and continued to walk through the halls. When I opened one of the doors to exit, a huge breeze of chilly November air shot by me. I took in a deep breath and enjoyed the biting cold.

I made my way through loud students and annoyed teachers, before finally reaching a path in the nearby forest. It was the same long path that eventually led to Keaton and I's cabin deep in the woods. Living in a place away from the busy city made us safer from the humans, since they were afraid of us. If the humans found out we were hybrids, it wouldn't be a pretty situation for us.

But why did they fear us? What did we do to make them so scared? Well, according to my father, it was all because of the random outlashes we had. Sometimes as hybrids, we would go crazy savage and try to do terrible things. All of my wolf pack had experienced going crazy at least once. I would just sit and watch them try to pry out of my family's grasp so they could attack us. It was terrifying everytime it happened.

My mother--who's had more than one outlash--said it was uncontrollable, and that they happened randomly without prior notice. But I'd never had an outlash before, so I wouldn't have known whether it was true or not.

I walked down the path silently, with those annoying thoughts in the back on my mind. They were always there, but I had learned to forget about them and focus on other things. Like in that moment, when I heard a weird sound from beside the path. Noises happened all the time in the forest, but the one I heard sounded... human-like.

I pulled down my the pink beanie I was wearing, and cautiously stepped off the path, only to hear a faint groan from below me. I looked down and saw a boy around my age. He had soft brown hair and eyes, but one of his eyes was covered by a bandage. Also, he was wearing a weird outfit. A blue suit with a white cape draped behind him. It looked like he was a king or something, which was weird.

"Hello?" I greeted.

The boy opened his eyes a little and saw me standing in front of him. He gasped a little, then wasted no time standing up to look presentable. "Sorry about that. Did I worry you?" He asked. His voice was soft and sweet, which made me blush a little bit as he spoke. I tried to push away any thoughts like that and focus on the problem at hand.

"Yeah a little bit... is everything okay? You're just lying in the middle of the forest, and you seem hurt."

"Everything's fine! In fact-" he looked up at the soft blue sky with a smile. "I'm more than okay. You have no idea."