Indrik
I was scared. More scared than I had ever been in my entire life which was saying a lot because I had spent my entire life living in fear. Fear of never being more than a weak wolf who was the butt of everyone's joke. Fear of always being tormented by my half brother. Fear of dying from a simple cold. Fear, fear, fear, that had always been a recurring theme in my life. Something that I hated but could not do without anymore than I could do without breathing. You would think I would have mastered the art of fear by now. Wait a minute, is there anything like that? Forget that. My point is, now, I felt so scared, it paralyzed me. I had only just started to get my life in order, started to reach my dreams and suddenly, my master tells me she won't be training me anymore? My whole world seemed to be crashing around me and it really wasn't a pretty feeling. And then, Leon had come along again, reminding me of my weakness and that even if I had my wolf now, I would still always be that weak child who always had to depend on others for help. I had tried to put up a brave front but the truth was I had been scared. Scared that my younger brother would attack me again and as always, I would be helpless to do nothing other than to watch as he bashed my face in, the only difference that I would heal faster, giving him more room to cause more pain. I lay on my bed feeling tired and exhausted. I wondered if it was all really worth it. All these struggles, the pain, I could still recall how the poison had gnawed at my insides on that dreadful night. I had long healed but even now, I could still feel my gut clench in pain when I recalled the experience yet, I ended up being the loser. I once heard that one of the signs of a strong person is knowing when to give up. Perhaps it is time for me to give it all up? But then again, I was anything but a strong person. I was the epitome of weakness so even that rule could not apply to me. I laughed bitterly. My life was truly sad. My parents must be looking down at me with regret now ashamed to have birthed such a failure. "You are not a failure." A clear voice rang close to my ears. I sat up, looking around in confusion. Luna was not in the room. She had excused herself to go take care of some maid things. Besides, that voice had sounded nothing like hers. It had sounded dreadfully like the voices I had heard earlier this morning. I shuddered at the memory. I shook my head, trying to dispel the memory but it clung stubbornly, like it had been seared into my brain with hot iron. "Who is there?" I called out loud. I sounded crazy, even to myself but that voice... That voice had not been a figment of my imagination. That much I was sure of. As expected, no response came but I could not shake the feeling that I was being watched. Paranoia took over as I got out of bed and searched the room, under the bed, behind the clothes rack, the bathroom, everywhere but again, I saw nothing. I looked toward the open window and my heart skipped as I noticed a shadow. I scrambled over but it was gone before I could reach it. Looking out through the window, I saw nothing except trees and flowers. The sun was hot in the sky now but it did nothing to shake the chill that had settled in my bones. "I am going crazy." I muttered shakily and laughed, half expecting a voice to speak again but all that I got was silence. The fact that I even expected to hear a voice only served to prove just how far gone I was. I stumbled back to my bed and collapsed in it. I shut my eyes and tried my best to block out all thoughts but my brain had other plans. The voices that I had heard earlier started to ring in my head again. "End them." "You are the greatest." "Kill them all." "They deserve to pay for what they've done to you." These were among the many things that they kept whispering. The voices were broken and disjointed, hardly making any sense but they were hard to ignore. The way they kept echoing, each word seeming to be amplified a thousand times over. They made me want to tear my hair out and drown my head in water. "Go away." I mumbled, curled up in a ball and swatting at thin air. "Leave me be. Stop." I cried, over and over again but the voices seemed to be determined to drive me crazy. I grabbed a pillow and pulled it over my ears. I had no idea how long I remained there but it seemed like I blacked out. When I opened my eyes again, I was drenched in sweat, trembling like I had spent an entire night in a heavy rain but the voices were quiet. Before I could celebrate my victory, I saw the reason why I had woken up. Standing over me in her regal attire of a maid was my master looking down at me with what looked like pity. I turned away from her. I hated pity. What was the use of someone feeling pity for you if they were not going to help you? Over the years, I had come to see it more as hypocrisy than anything else. "Go away." I muttered. "Are you okay? Your clothes..." She placed a warm hand on my forehead but I slapped it away. "Stay away from me." I snarled. "That's too bad because I was just going to ask you to show me to our new training ground but I guess you don't care about that. I'll leave now." All my misery flew out the window as I sat up immediately.IndrikWords could not possibly begin to express how much joy flooded my heart when Luna told me that but another thought stopped me cold. "When you say that, you mean..." I gulped, not having the heart to put it into words. "Are you going to show me or not?" Her face was expressionless, leaving me dangling precariously on the precipice of uncertainty. "Uhh... alright." I muttered. It wasn't like I had that much to lose anyway. Well, except for the fact that I was taking her to someplace that no one else, not even my closest friends, was privy to. "So, should we go now?" I crawled out of bed. "No!" She made a gagging face as she looked pointedly at me. I looked down and would have crawled into the earth if I wasn't held back by my skin. I looked like a mess. My robes had become so soaked with dried sweat that white lines snaked across it like cobwebs. My hair felt like it had been glued to my head with tree sap. Everything about me felt sweaty and dirty. "You should go get yoursel
IndrikAs I led Luna through the winding paths that I had only ever walked by myself, it felt rather surreal. Like I was exposing a part of myself that only I had ever known. A part that I had been too scared to share with anyone else. And the most scary thing was that I did not care. If anything, I wanted to show her even more. Wasn't sure she would want to see more though judging by the hay straws that had threaded their way into her hair. Stepping out of the oaken door that led out of the other end of the palace, I stared at the row of tall, thick trees that formed a green and brown wall several feet away. I was hit, as I always was by the ethereal aura that filled this place. It had the ambience of a place that had been left untouched by anyone, both human and wolf for a long time. I could see signs of this place having been used by someone or some people before, a four feet wide entrance that was flanked by tree stumps that led into the heart of the trees. This entrance was easy
LunaWhen my master led me into the horse stables, I thought, "of course! What better place to have a hideout that no one else knew about than in the stables." (I mean, most people preferred their horses when they were outside, looking prim and proper and ready for a ride, not when they were here, reeking of hay, and well, horse. You would understand if I don't want to go into details about what the 'horse' part means. Not that I minded horses, I mean, I did stop by with Lea for a quick greeting.) Then, he had continued right on to the last stable and pushed in. I had hesitated, wondering if my master had meant horse fundament when he mentioned a hideout. Then, he had walked over to the wall and pushed a door open. I had been so shocked, I had gotten a mini vertigo. Sure, I hadn't really been a frequent visitor of the stables but I had taken in the compartment after he went in and could have sworn the door hadn't been there a second before. "You coming?" He had called, extending his
LunaI stared at Indrik like he had suddenly grown two horns before turning my attention back to the grove and studying them for any signs of them being damaged. I frowned as I noticed a break in the line of trees to the center of the grove. Where there were supposed to be trees, there were creeper plants instead. They had grown very thick and were barely moved by occasional gusts of wind but their presence still stuck out as what they were, a piece of skin that had grown to replace a wound. My heart bubbled with anger as I glared at Indrik, trying my best to keep my temper in check. "What did you do to the trees?" I growled. He stared at me in confusion but I was in no mood for that as I hissed in irritation. "Why did you cut those trees?" I asked again, barely able to hold back from hitting him so hard in his face as to send him back into a coma. "Oh, that." He started casually then froze as he realized I wasn't joking. "I found it that way. Promise. I have tried my best to not to
BlaireIf my chest were like a sack, I would cut it open and remove my heart. If my heart were not so good at serving two goals, pumping blood and making big deals out of nothing, I would have removed it and crushed it into a thousand pieces. If my heart could be removed, I would wash it clean, turn it inside out and wash it clean again before returning it into my chest. Maybe then, I would stop being hunted by these terrible emotions. Maybe then, I wouldn't feel so strongly about everything that I saw. Maybe then, I wouldn't spend every day stewing away in my own tears, but sadly, all of these are but thoughts. My body is made of flesh and bones, thoughts and feelings, things that were not so easily expunged. I sat in the swing, my legs dangling just above the ground, my head resting on its arm, my hand holding its weight. To say I was lost in thoughts would be an epic understatement. Right now, emotions were swirling within me like an overheated pot of thick soup. Each bubble sent
Blaire"What are you doing out here?" A voice asked, nearly sending me rolling out of my swing. For a very blissful moment, I thought that the voice was Indrik's. Maybe I wasn't so pathetic after all. My cheeks warmed as my heart started to beat like a drum being beaten by several hands in perfect rhythm. My lips curled in a brilliant smile as I jumped out of the swing and turned around certain that he had learned his mistake. His maid had shown him her true colours and he had returned to me, the only one who would ever truly accept him with open arms. I could barely hold my legs from knocking against each other in my excitement."Ind..." I started, opening my arms but the rest of the words died in my throat as I spotted the person who had spoken. I dropped my arms and my face froze as an involuntary scowl settled on my face. "Ulo!" I called coldly, the name rolling off my tongue like food that had undergone a major existential crisis in the kitchen. "Sorry!" He muttered, his hands s
Jamil"Are you sure about that?" Beta Green asked, his face looking even more tired in the nightlight. We were sitting in his study, a small room that smelled like books and oil and books. I held back the urge to sigh as I stared out the window and saw the moon beaming brilliantly on the earth. For the umpteenth time, I wondered why wolves could not be like the celestial bodies. Forever fixed in the firmament, not having to worry about having to fall from their perch in the heavens. Come rain, come sunshine, come winter, come autumn, you could always bank on them to be there. If perhaps, it was too cloudy and the sun or moon did not show, you could be certain they would be there the next day. There was no guile or pretense with them, just simple duty. It was not so with wolves. Unlike the animals which we take most of our attributes from, we seem to be more interested in our individual gain than the good of the entire pack. We didn't care who got betrayed, hurt or even died so long as
JamilThere is a saying that goes like this, "what an elder sees that makes him walk around naked, if a child sees such, he would lose his entire essence." This saying rang in my mind over and over as I watched the Beta fidget in discomfort. I thought to myself that I wouldn't want to face someone or something who could make the Beta this panic-stricken. I liked to think of myself as a carefree person who couldn't be bothered by burdens such as fear which only added to your problems but in that moment, I couldn't deny that I felt a huge blob that tasted an awful lot like fear surge from my abdominal cavity all the way to my oral cavity. The panic was so great that it very nearly crippled me. "There is no escape!" The creature had declared. At the moment, I hadn't thought much of it but now that I saw the man before me, I began to believe that perhaps, there was no escape. We remained frozen like that for what seemed like an eternity and a half before the Beta blinked and seemed to