Wings of Eagles

Chapter 6 - Pain

"But Ari." I could hear the pleading in her voice. "You are a shifter."

I turned to Serenity so abruptly, she barrelled into my chest almost tripping the both of us over into the snow.

"And what is that supposed to mean, exactly?" She looked at me, large green eyes filled with hope.

"It's easier if I show you." A small smile tugged at her lips which made me feel much more frustrated than I already was.

Serenity stepped away from me and before my eyes she began to transform. Her bones began to crack, lengthen, shorten and change. I rubbed my eyes, trying to make sense of what was happening in front of me. Before I knew it there was a deer standing in front of me, golden fur was broken up with small white spots suggesting she was not fully grown. I looked around for Serenity, thinking this must be some sort of absurd joke but when I couldn't find her and the deer began convulsing, bones snapping in the same way Serenity's had, I began hyperventilating.

"How did you do that?!"

She sighed, obviously exasperated, and ran her fingers through her hair. It billowed out beside her in soft curls and its striking yellow blonde contrasted against the brown and white forest scene around her.

"I'm a shifter too, but I would like to explain this more somewhere warm. I am positively freezing." I noted that her cheeks were indeed quite pink from the cold.

"No, I want answers now. How did you do that? Are there hidden cameras? Oh I get it. Ha. Ha, very funny." I yelled out into the woods. "You can come out now, the joke is over." But Serenity just stood there, no hidden persons coming out with expensive cameras to tell me I had been played and this was all just an expensive ruse. Still, I wouldn't give up, "Okay, I'll admit this was pretty funny, you really got me there but you can leave now."

"I will give you answers, Ari, just turn around and we can go into your cabin for some warmth. Perhaps your grandmother will be of some help as well."

"Answers? You will give me answers? To what questions? I am over asking, this is all obviously some sort of stupid prank, a very elaborate one but stupid nonetheless. I am over it and you can stop now. I've figured it all out, it's done."

"No, Ari. This is all real, I can do it again if you'd like. Just to really solidify the idea into your apparently thick head." She looked fed up with me, golden eyebrows drawn together and hands on her hips.

Serenity's bones began snapping for the third time in ten minutes and the sight was truly sickening. I tried to draw in large breaths but was instead met with very short ones, blood rushed to my head and the last thing I remembered was falling face first in the snow.

***

An unpleasant bumping awoke me, my body rocking up and down as I was situated on something brown and hard. I let out a large groan and whatever I was on moved, successfully sending me into the snow.

"Oh good, you're awake", I looked up and Serenity's face was staring back at me, no sign of the brown thing I was on earlier. Remembering what had happened before I passed out, I moved backwards. Arms out, eyes wide and trained on Serenity.

"Stay away from me." At this point I wasnt sure what to believe anymore, I'd seen this so called 'shift' happen three times right before my eyes and my previous theory regarding a new reality tv show were pushed to the back of my mind.

"Ari, Im not going to hurt you. I want to help, honestly. There's this camp, a place where people like me and you can safely go to train our minds and bodies so that we can use our power to its full potential." She sounded as though she had rehearsed this a hundred times and I wanted to point out her grammatical error but refrained.