Belgrave University was supposed to be Rebecca's fresh start. It was supposed to be her chance to escape her controlling parents, her lying ex-boyfriend, her extremely eventful past. The promised fresh start turned quickly into a nightmare as she le...
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I was already beginning to question the friendship between me and Jack – a friendship that had hardly began a couple of days ago. Ever since telling me and Cassie about being a pledge for The Order, Jack had thought it wise to talk about everything they did. I and Cassie were stuck hearing stories about the society, and to make matters worse, Jack thought of us as a great asset for his initiation or quests he had to go through; now me and Cassie were standing in the middle of a graveyard, ready to intervene in case Kyle had something sinister planned against my newly found friend.
"I can't believe we agreed to do this stupidity."
Cassie angrily whispered as I simply nodded, focusing on my nails which I desperately needed to re-paint. With a sigh I looked up, seeing Jack ready to dig his mom's grave up. What kind of messed up society forces their pledges to do something like that? As hard as I tried, I couldn't understand why Jack was so desperate to get accepted. I never would have pegged him as a fraternity kind of guy. Guess that only proved my point: I didn't know anything about him or my blonde roommate.
Suddenly I could see Kyle emerge from the forest. What caught my attention first was a quick flash before he appeared. It seemed that Kyle had taken a picture of Jack digging on his mom's grave. When she noticed him, Cassie crouched down beside me, her eyes glued at the scene unraveling in front of her.
"What are they saying?"
She questioned, perhaps a little too loud. I quickly shushed her as she apologized; I could only hope that the two boys didn't hear us. They didn't seem to, since the two of them continued their conversation which I could hear nothing of. We were simply too far off, and even though it was a good location for observing, it was definitely a bad one for eavesdropping. The two boys were in a heated conversation when something suddenly caught my eye. I couldn't understand what it was, but someone – or something – appeared behind Kyle. Jack seemed to notice the same thing I did, because he suddenly stopped talking, taking couple of steps back.
I quickly exchanged glances with Cassie, who seemed to have frozen in fear beside me. We could hear loud snarling from where we were standing, yet the two of us could hardly move. I couldn't believe what I was seeing, and neither could Cassie. The animal – or whatever the hell it was – approached Kyle from behind him, who quickly made a run for it, hitting himself unconscious with Jack's shovel. The thing approached Jack, and when it did, its eyes flicked over to us. I quickly pulled Cassie behind the large headstone covering us, hoping that I was quick enough.
Our hands were covering our mouths as both of us were afraid to even breathe. I could only hear rustling and footsteps running away from us before silence came. Now I could only hear the wind blowing and an owl somewhere in the distance. I wasn't sure how long we sat on the ground before either of us dared to move. When we finally gather the courage to peek behind the headstone we saw no one in sight – both Jack and Kyle along with the animal had disappeared. And as soon as we saw that the coast was clear we bolted up and ran away from the graveyard as fast as we could, not stopping before we had reached our dorm room and locked it behind us.
"What the fuck was that?"
My blond roommate practically yelled, frantically walking around the room from the window to the door. I ran my hands through my hair as a way to calm myself down before peeking through the curtain to make sure that we weren't being followed. I was exhausted from the running – mentally reminding myself to pick up running again – but what I was more worried about was about Jack. He was either lying dead in some bush, or had ran away from the beast, either of those two options.
"I have seen American Werewolf in London, and that looked exactly like a fucking werewolf!"
Cassie continued loudly, panic evident in her voice. Not that I could blame her though; I felt the same that she did, yet the only difference was that I didn't voice it out loud.
"Cass, take a deep breath and calm down."
I said, my hands relaxing on her shoulders as she did so; I too followed my own advice, and while it seemed to work on her it certainly didn't work on me. I was too worried about Jack, and when Cassie finally calmed down I took the opportunity to text him. A reply never came, and needless to say, neither I nor Cassie got any sleep during the night.
***
The next day, I and Cassie were practically glued together. When neither of us was in class, we were together. The first thing we did in the morning was go to Jack's dorm, hoping to find some kind of evidence that he had returned to his room yesterday evening. We weren't that lucky, and even though we continued to search for him we still needed to attend classes – it was the last thing neither of us wanted to do since we both were worried to death along with exhausted.
After accompanying Cassie to her class I set my sight to my own lecture. I hardly paid any attention to anything around me, practically running into people after every five seconds. From the corner of my eye I could see I passed an empty classroom where two figures were in a deep conversation. I didn't pay much attention to them, yet after passing the room I realized that the two figures were Alyssa and Jack. I quickly walked back, entering the room and not caring at all that I disturbed their conversation.
"Jack, what the hell? You couldn't send me a message or call?" I practically yelled, walking over to him. Jack seemed to be surprised at seeing me standing there, and Alyssa was simply staring at the two of us.
"I'm gonna leave you two alone." She awkwardly said, taking her leave. I crossed my arms as I glared at the boy in front of me. He didn't seem to realize why exactly I was mad at him.
"You couldn't call or text to let me know that you're alive? I thought you were lying dead in some ditch." I frantically said to which Jack simply rolled his eyes.
"I lost my phone yesterday. Did you see..?"
Jack stopped, and I didn't even need him to finish his question before nodding. Just before I was about to question what had happened yesterday the bell rang. With a final apologize he left me alone in the classroom before I left after him, sending quickly a message to Cassie to let know that Jack was alright. I passed Randall on my way to class to whom I sent a smile which he returned.
Sitting in the back row of the classroom, my mind wandered around yesterday's events. I paid no attention to the lecture, drawing instead of my notebook the beast I had witnessed before my eyes. And when I finished, I realized that what Cassie had said was true, even though I couldn't begin to explain how it was possible – the thing, the beast, was definitely a werewolf.
