The Bare Truth part 2

Chapter 4

Nightmares plagued Sierra's sleep that night.

She dreamed she was back in the woods near Sleuth. Joe was gone, but she could smell him somewhere, that lovely, musky scent of him. Beneath that smell was the sharp smell of fear. Fear of strangers in the dark.

There was no moon. Sierra ran naked through the woods, branches cutting into her skin as she whipped past. The shadows were pressing in on her. Reaching out to her with grasping fingers that would snatch her up and never let go.

She had to shift. If she could shift, the strangers wouldn't be able to get her. She could find Joe then, and she could save him from whatever was making him so afraid.

But try as she might, her body would not shift. She willed it as hard as she could, all the while staring up in vain at the absent moon.

The shadows were catching up.

Sierra pushed her mind harder, trying to conjure up the exact feeling of being a bear. Something in her mind was holding her back, telling her not to shift. Sierra screamed in frustration and drowned the little voice out, focused entirely on shifting.

Just as the shadows started to grasp her, the electric feeling started. She was going to shift! She could get away now! Sierra embraced the feeling, letting her body change as she fought back the shadows.

BAM!

The deafening bang woke Sierra with a start. Dazed from the dream, her mind spun wildly trying to make sense of what had happened.

She was laying in bed, staring up at the ceiling, a ceiling which seemed somewhat further away than she expected it to be, with the chain on the ceiling fan dangling several inches out of reach instead of the usual grasping distance. The mattress beneath her was cocked at the strange angle and something was poking into her back. Coming out of her cloudy state now, she realized that the bed had collapsed underneath her.

It had collapsed underneath her because she had shifted into bear form in her sleep.

And with dawning horror, she heard Molly running towards her room.

"Sierra?! What was that?! Are you alright?" she shouted.

Molly tried the bedroom door. The handle rattled, but remained mercifully in place. Sierra took a moment to thank all the gods that she had remembered to lock her door last night.

On the other side of the locked door, Molly was frantic. She was banging on the door now and continuing to rattle the handle.

"Sierra?! Are you okay?! Answer me!"

Reflexively, Sierra tried to answer. Instead of reassurances, what came out of her mouth was a strangled sort of moan produced by her deep, bear vocal cords. Sierra cursed herself for trying as the noise sent Molly right over the edge into a tailspin of panic. The door banged on its hinges as Molly tried unsuccessfully to knock it down.

"Why is your door locked?! So I spilled a can of paint on your laptop one time! If you die in there over a can of green paint I'm never forgiving you!"

BANG! BANG! BANG!

"I'm calling 9-1-1!"

Molly ran off. Sierra could hear the muted sounds of her panicked phone call to 9-1-1, and some kind of crashing noise. Sierra tried to move off of the wrecked bed. What little of the bed structure that remained groaned beneath her weight. Her claws sunk into the bedding, shredding it beneath her. Cursing and wondering how on earth she was going to explain all this, she tried to shift back into human form.