It was mid July. A month had passed since he and I had arrived at camp and made it our new home, we had only left camp twice with Bob to go into town, and each trip took up our whole day.
The first time we didn’t even buy anything, we just went out to watch a movie and eat pizza because we wanted to do something different that day and I admit it was pretty stupid but well worth it, however our latest trip which took place last week was primarily shopping.
We were lucky Bob owned a large truck with a lot of room because we bought a lot, and by a lot I mean a lot. We had bought loads of food, mainly noodles because we loved them so much, candy, chocolate, some soup, and fruit. We also found that our little outhouse had some gardening tools so we tried our best to grow our own fruit and vegetables... but that wasn’t working out too good.
We also bought some flash lights, a few board games, a TV, and DVD player like we had promised and a ton of random movies. Apart from all the stuff we didn’t need, we did buy a few useful things, like I managed to get Bob to buy me a hunting knife which I might need, and Chris went to stock up on pens, paper, and anything else we might need. We also got ourselves some new watches to actually be able to tell the time and a new clock for the main hall. I also got myself a digital alarm clock because I might actually need to get up in the mornings.
We spent the rest of what we had left of our day putting away stuff, and I was busy checking out my new knife and sharpening it, did I mention I got something to sharpen knives?
Today was a Wednesday as our trusty calendar informed me and it was a good day. The skies were clear and the sun was shining nicely like it did on most summer days here. Chris was probably still sleeping. I glanced at my watch and shrugged.
1:48PM yeah he was still sleeping. Chris had been rather lazy other the past week and to be honest I didn’t blame him. After our first hunt together here when he nearly blacked out I decided to train him up whilst also training myself.
We had spent about three weeks of hard training and it had really paid off. We practised shifted everyday for three weeks. We fully shifted each day anywhere between twice and ten times depending on the weather, our moods and what we were going to actually do. Sometimes we would just shift back and forth twenty times just to practice.
Chris could now shift on the spot and all the hard work had paid off, it only took him a few seconds to shift if he closed his eyes and didn’t move, we had tried to make him shift whilst running but we didn’t have any luck so far.
I could now shift on the spot wherever and whenever, but most importantly not matter what I was doing. I could shift within seconds whilst running and Chris had insisted that if he pushed himself to new limits in shifting then so should I. Chris had also insisted on practising partial shifts so every now and then we tried to focus only one body part at a time, some of them didn’t work though, in the book I read it said we could shift our paws, eyes, ears, teeth, and even our muzzles if we tried hard enough, but partial shifts were a lot harder than full shifts because you need to try and peacefully have a part of each of your forms which your body didn’t like much.
Chris came up with a crazy idea that I should try to shift mid air, purely because it would look awesome. We started out with my jumping over logs, fallen down trees but the gap where I was in the air was always too small and I always shifted just before or after, I had gotten closer recently but Chris decided to make me do something else instead.
My mind trailed back to the day he told me his crazy idea.
“Ok, Tilyer, I got it.” He sounded hyper and almost high.
“Got what?” I said questioning him worried about what he meant.
“The mid air shift.” I watched him unsure about what he was saying “Ok, so maybe you can’t shift mid air over a fallen down tree because the gap is too small, what if we made the gap bigger.”
“You mean I need to jumper higher and further?”
“Yes... well sort of.” He smiled eagerly at me
“Sort of...” Ok now I was worried where this was going.
“Yes... what if you jumped off the roof and tried to shift.” He jumped into the air and had one of the largest smiles ever “C’mon, it would be perfect, you have to try it.” He seemed awfully proud of his idea but I must admit it kind of made sense.
I laughed to myself, not because his idea had been crazy and dumb, but because I listened and pushed myself, and I now could shift mid air as long as I jumped off something high enough, it was amazing but at the same time scary, the first few times I ended up crashing to the ground and on more than one occasion hurting myself, but even so I kept trying till I perfected it.
We had also worked out what the mysterious sense of power we had felt on our first hunt, well when I say we I meant I. I had found out about it one afternoon after training when I was reading the book Matt gave me. It talked about the environment and it said “If the environment you are in matches that of your animal you can shape shift into you can shift more easily and you are also slightly faster and stronger since you are closer to your true nature.” It did all make sense but I also believed that power and all that increased as you trained up for it, you didn’t get anything for free unless you worked a bit for it.
I entered the main hall and walked into the storage room where I grabbed an apple. Granny Smith were my favourite, I just liked how crunch and acidic they were. I kicked the door shut as I threw the apple into the air before catching it again and I repeated this till I got to the kitchen. I walked in and quickly washed my apple before walking back out of the main hall.
As I stepped out into the fresh and into the warmth of the sun’s rays something caught my ear, I wasn’t sure if I was imagining the noise or if it was real. We had also found out that when we got good at shifting our senses as humans improved slightly.
I took a large bite out of my apple before continuing to walk towards the dirt path that led out of camp and towards the roads and civilisation and sure enough the noise got louder and louder.
I chewed my apple ready to shift at any moment, I knew a truck was coming our way and we only ever had a truck come twice here and that’s because we asked for it, this time we hadn’t asked for anything. There was only one thing I would regret if I shifted, and that would be losing my apple, I liked fruit.
I let out a growl as a dirty truck pulled up in the middle of camp and stopped. Something was familiar about this truck. It was a big dirty 4x4 completely built for the off-road, covered in dents, scratches, and quick fixes on every part of it. As the driver door opened I put my right foot back a bit ready for a fight. A tall man stepped out wearing shades and some dark blue jeans with a white shirt.
“Long time no see.” He said as he walked towards me.
“Matt...” I stood confused but the realisation made me burst into a run and a smile to go greet him.
“How have you been keeping Tilyer?” he said pleasantly as he shook my hand
“I've been great, Chris and I have progressed in shifting and he can now shift on the spot.”
“That’s awesome.” He sounded both surprised and pleased with me “What about you?”
“Not much, I can shift in mid air though.” I smiled trying not to show off to the two girls who were getting out of the truck holding their bags and listening in to our conversation.
“Whoa, I'm impressed.” He wasn’t just impressed he was stunned, I was wondering if he even believed me.
Now I was paying more interest in the two girls rather than Matt, even if I should be talking to Matt.
One of them I guessed was roughly 5’8 and the other was slightly shorter 5’6 maybe, to be honest I didn’t care about their height.
“Care to introduce us Matt?” I asked as I looked at him then back at the girls.
“Of course.” He said smiling as he turned to face the girls “Ashley, this is Tilyer.”
The girl on the left took a step forwards and shook my hand.
“Nice to meet you, names Tilyer.” I said trying to be nice and not stare at her eyes.
“I'm Ashley.” She replied. Ashley had blonde hair down to her shoulders and bright blue eyes. She was wearing a red top with some black skinny jeans and converses.
“And this is Zoe.” Matt said as he pointed to the other girl who also stepped forwards to shake my hand.
“Nice to meet you, but you already know who I am by now.” I smiled nicely
“And you already know I'm Zoe.” She said as she stepped back next to Ashley, she was wearing some skinny jeans as well but with a blue top and some white trainers. Zoe had brown hair, a bit shorter than Ashley’s and had hazel eyes.
“Well, I have to go guys.” Matt said as he got back into his truck.
“Going so soon?” I asked kind of sad that we wouldn’t get time to catch up.
“Sorry Tilyer got some work I need to take care of.” He replied lightly as he turned on the engine.
“Fair enough, see ya Matt.” I smiled trying not to show I was annoyed.
“Ok, see ya Matt.” Ashley said as she waved
“Thanks.” Zoe commented back.
“No problem girls, just listen to Tilyer, he will show you around, tell you how things work.” He said as he looked directly at me before driving off leaving the new girls with their bags here with me.
“Right... time for a tour?” I said as I took another bite of my apple before throwing it into the forest and picking up both their bags.
“Sure.” Ashley said.
“Right lets go.” I started to walk towards the two cabins on the right of the main hall thinking the girls would want cabins next to each other. I hoped Chris would get up pretty soon because I didn’t want to go wake him up but something told me I would end up waking him up anyways.
“Who wants which cabin?” I asked the two girls as we approached the cabins.
“Which is yours?” Ashley asked as she turned round to face me.
“That one.” I said indicating the one on the end at the other side of camp with my head.
“I’ll take this one.” She said skipping up to the end cabin.
“Alright.” I said putting their bags on the ground and taking the keys for cabins 4 and 5 off the key ring which I had on me.
I handed the girls the keys to their cabins.
“OK... who’s bag is who’s?” I asked confused as I pointed to the two bags.
“Well, the awesome black one is mine.” Ashley smiled “And the red one is Zoe’s”
“Got it.” I said picked up their bags and walking up to Ashley’s Cabin as she opened the door.
“One awesome black bag for you miss.” I said as I put down Ashley’s bag in the front room.
“And one red bag you for.” I said as I walked over to Zoe’s cabin and dropped it off inside.
“Right, I’ll be back in like ten, fifthteen minutes to take you on the tour, give you guys some time to unpack and talk to each other, in the mean time I’ll be getting Chris and I need to sort out some stuff.”
“Sure thing Alpha, see ya later.” Ashley said biting her lip as she leaned against the door frame to her cabin.
“I’m not an alpha.” I smiled at her before turning around.
I was slightly confused to why she called me an Alpha but right now I had other things on my mind, like why she was flirting with me. I started running over to Chris’s cabin hoping he would be awake, and he’d better be up.