The Hunters

Chapter Sixteen

A New Era

I am twelve years old again. I remember running in the woods with Cyprian just like it was yesterday. I feel the happiness fill me and the words fall from my mouth. Being twelve is such a simple time, no drama, no weird feelings, no death.

    Cyprian and I went to our tree even though I was still afraid of running into another werewolf. He told me that it can't happen again because they're too scared now since they know about what we are actually capable of. I sat down at the trunk of the tree to retie my laces.

    Cyprian had asked me if I wanted to go swimming. I told him that it wasn't a good idea because of the currents. We could drown, I had reminded him. And he reminded me life was about trying new things and 'living on the edge'.

    So I got up and walked with him to the riverbank. He immediately got into the water even with all his clothes on, but I stood there and watched him as he swam.

    He shouted for me to join him. But I didn't, I told him I didn't know how to swim. I couldn't swim. So, he invited me in the water again. He told me that he'd teach me how to swim, that it wasn't hard.

    And I took off my boots and placed them on the edge and stepped into the water. It was freezing and I held my breath as I continued to walk further into the water. When I waist-deep into it my shirt started floating along the surface and I tried desperately to pull it down.

    Try to find me! Cyprian had shouted over to me and then dunked his head under the water. But I didn't try to find him. I stood there because I was scared. I didn't want to drown, to die. I was afraid of death, I realized, I had so much life left and so much left to accomplish.

    But then hands tugged me down below the surface and I made the mistake of trying to breath for air underwater. I was looking at Cyprian's blurred underwater face as the water filled my lungs. I tried to scream for him, telling him to let me go. But I didn't know how to swim up.

    I was about to black out when I was in the death trap of the waves, but finally he had realized what was happening to me and he pulled me through the waves. He swam up with me in his grasp and when he surfaced he apologized and said he was just trying to have fun. I told him that he was a foolish boy and he better never do that to me again.

    When we were sitting on the river bank in our soaked clothes watching the river as it pushed it's way through he told me that I was braver than he thought, I didn't cry or anything like most of the girls in our village did when he tried to play with them. He continued on and on about how I was stronger and then he said that we were the new era, the ones who would save the world from the beasts who roamed it.