"Sorina!" I vaguely heard my mother's voice calling to me, reaching through the thick curtain of my slumber. I groaned, taking the heavy, fluffy blanket I used as a comforter and pulling it over my head. Trying to settle back into sleep, I delighted in the quiet, slowly falling back into the soft hands of sleep. "Sorina!" Mom's voice shattered that fleeting moment of peace and I huffed, throwing the blanket from me.
"Okay, I'm getting up," I yelled back. Moving out of bed slowly, I blinked in the faint light of morning. Sighing, I reluctantly stood up and began my day.
I stared absentmindedly at the nook above my headboard as I pushed my arm through my shirt, my eyes skimming over the hundreds of eggs I had taken hostage over the years. Eggs that belonged to birds, snakes, lizards, and the occasional turtle were sorted precisely on the many shelves that were built into the wall behind my bed. I had sorted them by color rather than size, and the rainbow above my head as I slept wrapped me in a sense of security, knowing that nature was surrounding me even as I slept.
Standing in front of my full-length mirror behind my bedroom door, I looked at myself criticizingly. I had always thought of myself as pretty. My wide brown eyes blinked back at me, full lips smiling and my snub nose turned up ever so slightly. However, I had always felt something was missing. I had debated on a piercing or two, but didn't want the holes left behind if I decided against it eventually. I leaned in closer, scrutinizing my face for any new pimples or blemishes. Teenage hormones were a rollercoaster and I could not wait to get off of the ride.
I lifted my arms and ran my hands through my dirty blond, thick, waist-length hair, fanning it out, seeking to add volume and uncover any stray strands that had been buried between my skin and my shirt. I ran my hands down my front, smoothing down the off-white sweater I had adorned over a plain white camisole top. The sweater hung loose around my shoulders, exposing them slightly but not enough to break the dress code for school. The cargo pants I had paired with my first day back to school outfit were baggy and olive, color matching with my Nike dunks.
I made a quick nod at myself and hoisted my backpack onto my shoulder, moving into the kitchen where I was greeted by my mom with a kiss on the cheek and a notice that my breakfast was ready.
"Damned animals," Dad growled, throwing his newspaper on the table as I sat down with my plate of bacon, eggs, and two golden pieces of toast. I peered curiously over my plate, munching on a piece of just right, not too chewy, not too crispy bacon. Two Dead in Werewolf Gas Station Robbery, Four Pumps Explosion, the headline wrote. "Nobody is taking any kind of accountability here. These beasts are treading the very borders of the treaty. They play it off as accidents, but I think differently. I thought we moved here because it was safer."
"It is safer, dear," Mom sighed from the sink, taking a sip of her coffee elegantly. "Back in San Jose there would be tens of stories like that daily, remember?"
My father hmphed noncommittally and resumed his breakfast, irked. I ate quietly, making no move to join in the conversation. I had no room to talk, my best friend was one of those 'dogs' he hated oh so much. Although he would never tell Mako to his face, my father was one of many who did not approve of our fellow Earth inhabitors: Werewolves.
The precise details like where the wolves originated from and who had made the deal had been lost, apparently not important enough details to be passed down. According to my first-grade history teacher, and every teacher of bygone times after him, the wolves were pretty much the sole reason we won the Bleeding Moon war. They offered us their assistance some three hundred years ago, at a time when we had thought all was lost, and that there was no chance of winning against the bloodthirsty creatures that toyed with human lives like they were playthings. Humans against vampires wasn't the best matchup. If we knew nothing about the wolves, then we knew even less about our enemy.
All that was established among both species as cold hard truth was that vampires were heartless, frigid, cruel creatures, that cared for nothing but blood and allocating pain amongst the humans they looked down on. According to our lessons in school, vampires had populated the Earth for about as long, or even longer than humans. Soulless animals that strayed from the sun, slept during the day and feasted in the blanket of night, and were extremely difficult to kill. But, with the wolves' help, acting as an army, we outnumbered the leeches, eradicating the entire species in less than two months. Of course, it was not an easy battle. Thousands of lives were lost, human and wolf alike. After the bloodshed and turmoil, a peace treaty was signed, and the wolves were integrated into society as an independent species and treated as equals.
At least, they were supposed to.
Werewolves nowadays are treated more as minorities, though they take up most of the population. Even though their numbers amass a staggering fifty-two percent of the population, jobs for them were hard to come by. Regardless of how some of them acted, even my father could not forget or underappreciate our history with them, nor the sacrifices they made for us. Most people treat them kindly enough to their faces but talk down on them behind closed doors, and the lack of high-paying, respectable jobs reflected how we truly thought of them: less. Different.
They mostly settled on construction work, plumbers and janitors, or low-paying minimum wage jobs. They never complained, though, and did whatever work they had to do with pride. Humans just chalked it up to them being satisfied with not having to hide anymore, and being able to be out in the open without fear of death or prosecution.
I had been born in the busy metropolis and high glamor of San Jose, California, where my parents had been high school sweethearts and wed during their sophomore year of college. Shortly after they had steady jobs I was conceived, my father never letting me live down the fact that I was a 'surprise.' There was hardly any fooling me, and I knew the real word for what I had been: accident. I lived in California for seven glorious years before my parents yanked me out of school and away from what little friends I had managed to make in my short career of education and moved me across the country to Sabre Falls, Maine.
At first, I was frustrated and unhappy. I was perfectly happy living out my seven-year-old life in California. However, my seven-year-old self was highly unaware of the dangers that living in San Jose had presented. According to the treaty, werewolves were not to hurt humans. It did not seem to stop them from causing 'uh-ohs' that harmed humans, however. From fireworks to the gas station fiasco presented in my father's daily paper, any example I could fathom had probably, and more than likely, befallen at a human life's expense.
Sabre Falls had been kinder, much less dangerous. I was free to explore the forest after a few days of settling in and my parents becoming acquainted with pretty much the entirety of the town, werewolves included. The forest had become my safe place, a refuge as I grew older away from my parents and the stuffy, older than them put-together house they had shoved me into. I loved being outside exploring, discovering all that the earth had to offer, and accepting all of the dirt under my fingernails that came with it with happiness.
I pushed away from the table and set my plate gently in the bottom of the sink. "I'm off then," I said, trying to lighten the mood.
"Is Mako walking you?" Mom asked kindly, and Dad snorted. Gee, Mom, thanks for feeding the beast.
"Of course," I replied as if it was anything new.
"Shouldn't you be walking the pooch, not the other way around?" My old man called out to me as I headed outside. I quickly shut the door behind me as I spotted my bronze-skinned friend leaning on my mailbox. I walked up to him and he held out a fist, which I returned gratefully, bumping my balled-up hand against his.
"Mornin'," his husky voice said cheerily.
"Good morning," I sang back. He pushed off my mailbox and joined me as our feet hit black asphalt, stuffing his hands in his hoodie pocket. He was bundled up quite nicely, which was odd because I had never heard the boy say he was cold in the eleven years I had known him. Underneath his orange and black patterned plaid outerwear cardigan, he had on a plain gray hoodie sweatshirt. Baggy black cargo pants and black Nike dunks finished off his look for the day and I pointed at his lower body. "We almost match."
He looked between me and him and smiled. The chip in his canine tooth had never gone away, and I had learned that werewolves never lost their cuspids, instead they grew with them. Mako was forever stuck with a busted tooth, but it was just a little thing that added to what made him, well, him. When I looked at him I still saw the scraggly, rough-and-tough little boy I had met in the trees and grown to love as we grew together.
I couldn't deny that Mako was jaw-droppingly gorgeous for a guy. Beautiful bronze skin patterned with numerous scars accumulated from years of rough werewolf activities. Dark curly, unmanageable hair that he kept cut short, or more like razor clipped with maybe a size three or four on the sides. His build would make your average professional football player weep with jealousy. Arms that were as big as my head paired with a six-foot-two frame were not very common in our small town. I had seen many a girl, werewolf and human alike, ogle at his character.
Over the years Mako had added a few outside additions to his physical appearance. A curved barbell sat in his right eyebrow, and a few earrings dotted his ears. Thin facial hair lined his jawbone, connecting with thicker sideburns by his ears. With a straight nose and a perfect set of lips, cupid's bow highly defined, complimented his serious, dark eyes, which were just a wee bit big for him to look too severe.
"We are, aren't we? We've been friends for so long I guess our minds are now merging."
"Is that the next phase in my werewolf transformation?" I feigned fright and gasped, placing my hand above my heart.
"Yup," he nodded. "Next phase is the little puppy exploding from your chest."
We laughed and continued our friendly banter as we followed the path to school. Our journey took us through the forest, which cut straight through the town of Sabre Falls, Maine. A quiet little place with a lot of trees and not enough people to breathe in all the oxygen. The forest that we hiked through was the very same one I met him in, the one across the street from my house, the one across the street from his house, and the one you could see from every point in this town.
The woodland was massive, covering a staggering ten million acres of land. Sabre Falls wasn't that big, but the township was built around the tail of the woods in almost an odd-looking long 'U' shape. The town itself was old, and the buildings and houses seemed to take pride in the fact that it looked as if nothing had been updated structurally since nineteen-forty-two. The newer, bigger houses that were built towards the end of town were massive and expensive, and, of course, strictly no werewolves allowed. If Mako wasn't permitted I was not stepping within twenty yards of it. It couldn't be that welcoming or warm if his presence there wasn't wanted.
"How was your night?" I asked casually.
He made a face and glanced at me from the corner of his eye. "My family thought another 'experimental' dinner would be beneficial to my health." He made air quotes around the word experimental.
"Again?" I grimaced at his words. "And what, do pray tell, was it this time?" What should I add to the list of moose, elk, and even a full-boiled rabbit, fur and bones and all his folks had served him as 'food'. And that was just some of the catalog.
"Lion heart." I balked at his words. "Raw." I threw my hand over my mouth, pressing against my lips. "Illegal? Maybe, probably most definitely. Don't turn us in?"
I swallowed and removed my hand, nodding weakly. "What kind of lion?"
He shrugged. "Not a clue. I stopped asking where my parents got my hearty meals from after the elk."
"Was it.. good, though?" I asked meekly.
He looked at me like I was deranged. His partial diet wasn't all that strange from what a real wolf would eat, though the lion heart was a stretch. I supposed all werewolves around here ate the same things most if not every night. It was still a shock hearing it nevertheless. I couldn't wrap my head around eating a bloody, still-beating heart. Maybe it would have been more delectable in his wolf form.
Mako had never allowed me to see his wolf form. He had said once before "I don't want you to see me in any different way than you do now." At first, curiosity had burned me alive, and I bugged him every day about it, his unwavering stance on the subject as immovable as he was. But, eventually, I just let it go. A moment of clarity helped me come to the fact that I didn't want my best friend to do anything he was not comfortable with doing. That did not stop me from imagining his furry form, however. I envisioned him as a very large wolf because his human form was just big, black fur matching his almost black hair.
Eventually, the dreary white stone of Sabre Falls High crept into view behind the trees, and I groaned inwardly. One more year, that was it. One more year Mako and I could go, travel the world, and escape from Sabre Falls, together as I would not have it any other way, and I had a deep-rooted feeling he felt the same. We had talked many times before about the prospect of going out into the world on our own, adventurers extraordinaires, seeking out the world's most untravelled paths and conquering them together.
As I stared at the school, something felt off. There was a different air about it. I didn't loathe school, in fact I enjoyed it very much. The knowledge these walls held normally would welcome me and I walked into the warm embrace of the halls of literacy and expertise on subjects I had yet to encounter; instead, it loomed, the desolation oozing through the cracked stone like an invisible poisonous gas that choked me with its newfound vacant identity. It could be that this was the last first day of school I would ever have here, but the feeling made me feel sick.
"Gag," Mako voiced my inner thoughts, pulling me out of my head.
I smiled and pushed him playfully. "Get out of my brain."
"Can't. Our subconscious is one now." We emerged from the brush and headed to the teenage nightmare that was high school. No matter how hard I tried to shake my unnerving feeling, the dire apprehension in my stomach only blossomed larger with each step I took.