The Werewolf [COMPLETE]

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There was a noise. Away. Far away. So far away that it was but a whisper murmured in the back of my head. It was ringing again. And again. And again. Echoing the same sound. Echoing the same tone. It was piercing through the darkness, stirring my senses and rousing my mind. My ears strained towards the ring; I tried to grasp the noise, I tried to hold it in my hands and stifle it between my fingers, but it always slipped away. The more I tried, the more I failed, and the louder it would sound. It buzzed. It burst. It became the only thing that I could hear.

I thrashed under the weight of sleep and the layers of exhaustion pulling me and drawing me under. I dragged my eyes open, heaving a wall of bricks and slitting through cement. I hauled my arm to the bedside table and swept my hand sloppily over the wooden surface for the light switch. Turning the lamp on, I blinked once or twice to give a shape to the indistinct forms and colours surrounding me.

I was in Aaron's house, in Aaron's room, in Aaron's bed— without Aaron. It was the middle of the night, outside the wind was storming against the window, whipping and lashing the windowpane with bare branches and dead leaves; but inside everything was still and silent, I was alone with no noise to disturb my slumber or wake me from sleep.

The blast of a ringtone made me jump ten feet up. My phone was vibrating on the bedside table, moving to and fro, repeating the same notes of the same melody, calling and blaring for me to pick it up. I grabbed my phone and brought it to my ear, frowning at the screen flashing Unknown Caller.

"Hel—" I hadn't even begun that the voice on the other side interrupted me.

"E–ly! They– a–ter me, Emi–! They're go–ng to ki–ki–kill me! Th– go–go–ing to kill me–e!"

I couldn't hear anything, the storm was drowning every sound, the pants, the sobs, the cries. The line was crackling, cutting words and sentences. I could only catch a faint voice, a woman's voice, or rather a girl's voice. She was a teenager, a hysteric teenager.

"Who is it!" I slammed a hand over my right ear to block the noise, "I can't hear you! Who is it!"

"It's Iv–! Ivy Conne–r! I nee– your he–elp! I nee– you–r he–he–lp Emi–y!

I sprung out of the bed and leapt to the window. I searched frantically for her silhouette under a streetlamp or a tree, for her shadow to be falling on the pavement next to the house. I begged and pled for her to be down there, talking to me and asking to me to open the front door, to let her in. She had to be to be there, and not lost somewhere in the Village. She had to be there.

She wasn't there.

"Ivy? Ivy, where are you? What's going on?"

"They sa–saw me! They saw m–e and n– they're a–ter me!"

"What do you mean, Ivy? What's going on! Who saw you!"

"The We–wolves!"

I froze and she babbled on, saying that they were going to kill her, that she wasn't ready to die, that she'd never gone to prom, that she'd never had a boyfriend, that she'd never even had sex, blubbing on and on. I was looking down. I was staring at my watch. There were only thirteen minutes left to midnight. Thirteen minutes.

"Ivy!" I cut into her, "What are you doing? You need to hide, you need to hide right now!"

"I–I'm runnin–ing away from them– I don't k–now wh–t— wh—"