Chapter Two

I awoke in the hospital, feeling pain in my left arm as though I had a deep cut there. I tried to seat up when my face caught mum and dad who where seated, waiting for me to awake. I felt really bad about having treated them unfairly and shutting them out of a problem they had the right to know about.

Their faces showed deep concern and much pain. It was as though I was the one who had the wound, but they were the ones feeling my pains, even more than I did. I looked at my bandaged arm for a minute or two, wondering what the hell happened to me in my sleep and how they got me here.

“Daria. You are awake!” mother said, coming to hug me. “We were so worried. I have known you as someone who would take out an hour or so alone if you had an overwhelming problem, but you really scared us yesterday when you did not show up five hours later, nor did you open the door…”

“Mother, father, I am so deeply sorry for keeping you both in the dark. I had someone in school who tried her best to bully me and she succeeded, making me feel awful throughout the day. I so sorry, I should have told you.”

“That’s not the matter now Daria,” said father “we will settle all that later. Trust me. The main issue is that we found that you have used a pin to prick yourself as you always do…”

“I’m so sorry for that too.”

“But we found something far worse. At the place where the bandage is on your left arm, we found…” father lowered his voice and his face towards me as he said the last words. “We found the print of wolf’s paws on your arm soaked with blood.”

It was only then that it became all clear to me. I was wearing away from consciousness because I had a deep wound, and not a tiny pin prick. I was about to sleep after taking the pain from pin prick, as I normally do to clear my inner pain and my head before going out from my room, when suddenly the pin prick became so painful, that I had to hold my arm close to my sleeve for the pain was so much.

On grabbing my arm however, the pain only increased drastically. I was as a lost as to what to do when I gazed at the wounds. There were so deep and red, I couldn’t believe it. I had this lurking question in my mind ever since I was born as to who I was and why whenever I got angry, I hurt so much.

Then came the incident when Mum looked into my room at midnight in the full glare of the moon. I saw her clearly, but she had hardly entered the room when she let out a loud scream on seeing me, that she ran away. Father was not around on that occasion, as he had gone fighting a terror group with the members of his regiment. I asked mother about it the next day, but she said she insisted that what she had seen was merely a nightmare.

Severally, after that event, I found mother staring down at me with deep concern written on her face. She knew something about me that she just wouldn’t want to tell me. I knew her well, but I tried everything that I could not to force her to tell me what it was. But her pity, her continuous silence whenever she was alone, and a few times, her tears forced me to ask questions.

Of course, she had no answers as to who I was and all the strange things I did, but she called me in one day and showed me a birth mark on my bare childhood chest. It was not only a mark, if was a well patterned marking of crossed wolf’s paws. I asked the meaning of the mark, and why they had tattooed me as a child.

“You are special child, Daria. Several of your friends do not and will not be able to do half what you will do in your lifetime. You have been gifted with special abilities.”

“Which are?”

“Only you can find out. However, do your best to use your powers wisely. Do not fight unnecessary with anyone, for you are way better than whoever wants a fight with you.”

Father, who was unaware of this particulars before this incident, was particularly interested in the entire story. It seemed mum had told him a bit more than she had told me, for it seemed that he understood my entire plight better than I did. There must be something they weren’t telling me, but I decided not to press them. Mum said that I was different, what did she mean, and what exactly did my birth mark mean?

We were soon discharged from the hospital, and father took us all home. He was very displeased with me for not telling him that I had been suspended. However, I had my reasons. Father was a soldier, and that profession brought about different reactions to some situations that needed to be calmly handled. Father had this fire of love for me shut up in his bones that could escape and set ablaze any who hated me for any reason.

It was not surprising, therefore, that the very next day he took me along with him to my school to ask the principal why he decided to treat me unjustly. On seeing me with father in the office, his brows contracted into a dangerous curve. He gave me a sidelong glance that did not escape father’s notice.

“You brought your father along to beg your case, Daria.”

“Shut up, fool! I am the one in front of you. I need you to ask no such stupid questions to her this morning. And point of correction, I am not here to beg for anything.”

The totally baffled man sitting at the table was thrown aback by father’s fury, but braved himself to ask.

“Who the hell are you, and what do you want here, gentleman?”

For answer, father passed over his identity card across the table. Grabbing it, the principal looked at it for a second, and I could see the doubt creeping up to him as to having a fight with an army officer.

“Officially cancel the suspension letter right now and let her in yourself into the classroom if you do not want any trouble with me.” Father yelled, anger boiling up within him.

Father hated this man, and with very good reason. He knew that I would not hurt anyone on purpose. In fact, I always stayed absolutely quiet in class. I had very little friends in school, and I never went about talking to anyone. Maybe that was why Jessica found me a good target.

At that moment, the door opened and Roshan came in. He was so glad to see me, and he waved gently, murmuring a little “Hi” at the sight of Father’s furrowed brows. I smiled back at him and waved shyly too. Sensing the situation, he quickly dropped the books he was asked to bring to the principal on his desk and turned to the door.

“Roshan,” the principal called, “please tell this young man all about what happened on Friday.”

“Sir, is there any problem?” Roshan asked the principal, pretending not to know.

“Tell him what I asked of you.”

“Okay, sir, there was a little fight between your daughter and Jessica Brown. I will not say I know exactly why they were fighting, but there has been some rivalry between the two, Jessica being a bully throughout the entire school. Everyone knows that…”

“You heard him, Mr. Principal?”

“Sure enough, if your daughter had been ill treated, she should have reported...”

“To whom??? You inconsiderate creep?”

“I have told her, sir, her behavior has an improper influence on the others in this school. Everyone watched the fight. If I do not punish her, others will soon help make this a war zone.”

“In that case, my man of justice, how about the bully?” father asked with a false smile, as I knew him too well he was closing in for attack. What I wondered was what he would do when the principal said the truth.

“Can I have the children leave here?”

“Oh, why, yes. If that will make you say the truth. Mind you, I trust my daughter’s story of what happened as true.”

I left the office with Roshan, the principal looking mad at me at my exit. I was so happy at last I could speak with Roshan in peace

“So happy to see you, Daria. You look perfect!”

“Thanks,” I said smiling a little more than ever at his sincere comments, I never felt so good before.

“I’m sorry for how I treated you on Friday, despite the fact that it was only you that came to help me at my moment of sorrow.”

“No need to apologize. I’m so happy you are getting over it. I pray you can come back to class soon enough.”

“Please, let no one in the class know my father came today, okay.”

“Yeah, no problem.”

I looked around the corridor, not seeing anyone, I approached him, pure instincts it was, but I could not stop myself. I grabbed his face and kissed it. He was shocked at first, but a smile settled on his face. I looked into his eyes, and was about to tell him how I felt about him, the three magic words of course, when the sound of crashing came from the principal’s office. Oh, Dad! He had started a fight.

“Go, Roshan, I’ll handle it. Let no one hear about it, and meet me at the east library tomorrow.”

I rushed into the room, with Roshan’s gaze still behind me. Father and the principal were rolling on the floor in the midst of a vicious struggle. Father rendered several blows to the man before I could step in and intervene.

“Father! You promised...No violence.”

“Yes I did, Daria,” he said, getting off the limp, lying body of the principal, “but this man excited within me, the willingness to use my blow-hungry fists.”

“We must get out of here before the cops arrive.”

“Come on!” he said dragging me out of the office. We raced towards the car park as fast as we could.

Several students and teachers had began to rally around, but we had made it luckily to the car park before they could reach us. Father unlocked the car doors and asked me to get in when suddenly I felt anger well up within me.

No was coming from the third corridor, but I couldn’t imagine how I was able to see and hear everything as though they were just occurring right in front of my eyes.

I rushed down the corridors to see, as father began to call my name. I saw them in my mind

“ I’ve told you Roshan, to keep away from Daria.”

“I told you, Jessica, or did I not, that I do not want to have anything to do with you. We broke up, if you can’t still recognize that.”

“Really,” she said, stepping up to him and sending a slap across his face.

He flinched, but braved his face to her one more time.

“What do you want from me, Jessica?”

“Just a kiss on my chin, and I will be gone for now.” She said with an evil grin, “You can give me up that easily, you know.”

“I won’t do that.”

“Oh, yeah, because Daria kissed you?” she said her brows knitting.

He was taken aback by her statement, as he thought we alone knew what happened.

“If you don’t want to get beaten up, kindly give me the kiss, and that will be all.”

Roshan stooped to her chin reluctantly when I got to the scene. I was so mad, I would have killed everyone there. I came flying, taking Jessica along with me to the horror of all in audience. She screamed on seeing my face, but I cared less about her feelings now. It was only when I had her with me in the junior’s toilet, three corridors away that I finally realized what had occurred.

She had fainted, and I laid her on the floor, when I saw that my white hands had turned brown, and was thickly covered with fur. I rushed to the toilet mirror in horror, and I saw in it, a dare devil werewolf that I had only seen in most horror movies. I was so scared. I wondered what had happened to me. Then I remembered mum’s words.

“You are special child, Daria. Do your best to use your powers wisely. Do not fight unnecessary with anyone, for you are way better than whoever wants a fight with you.”

They had come hurrying after me. Students, teachers, and as I heard at the door, Inspector Stanley Peterson.

The sound of the pounding on the door frightened me. Glancing quickly round, I found the window open. Giving one last gaze at myself in the mirror, and seeing that my wolf had disappeared, I made through the window and scurried through the grassy area and over the school fence. No one was about, and having in mind that no one else saw my transformation when my wolf came upon me, I left for home, hoping that Dad, after not finding me at the toilet, will himself come home.