The Awakening prt 2

The memory of witnessing this many times reminds me they take them and pull the blankets free for the turning, laying them down to be blessed by the full moon, and logically, a part of my brain is telling me this is what is happening. It’s almost like I’m no longer attached to my limbs as warm sensation trails firmly across my cheek. A raspy voice comes through the fog at me.

“It’s going to hurt ... I can’t wait to watch it, Reject. Or maybe I might take advantage of you like this. Finally, get my way.” I barely recognize the voice, but gut instinct tells me it’s Damon, a boy from the Conran pack who tried to kiss me a year ago. He cornered me in the school hallway, pushed me against the wall, and tried to force me to kiss him while shoving his hand up my dress. I fought him off, leaving him with a nice scratch down his smarmy face, and he has been gunning for me ever since. Not that I marked him badly, we heal fast, but I left a dent in his pride and ego.

I can’t react, and as a hot invasive sensation moves down my shoulder, I can only squirm, wanting so badly to get his hands off me. He’s not that dumb, though, and with all eyes on us, he leaves me alone to my fate as I try to fight to come back to a sense of now. Suddenly afraid that he will be the one to tend to me like this after this is done. Responsible for ushering me back to my clothes and the concealed shadow of the cliff edge. Who knows what he will do? I don’t recall if the turning takes you out of the drug-induced stupor when it’s done or not.

I can’t dwell on it any longer as a burning light hits me hard over my entire body surface, almost like a blowtorch was turned on, and I spasm instinctively into an arched position on the floor. Every inch of my skin bubbling and blistering to searing levels of torture as though I have been set alight and I strain and claw the ground beneath me, gasping with effort. Breaking nails on rough terrain as I scramble for relief and yet can do nothing but scream.

Crying out in pain, writhing in agony, as an intense sensation rips my skin from my bones and engulfs me. My voice deepens, scraping and hoarse like I’m swallowing splinters, and cries become growls, my throat almost bursting into flames with the effort. For a second, it’s like I’m being strangled. I’m under attack. My body is being ravaged, twisted, snapped, and slain, but this isn’t another wolf ... this is the turning. It’s so much worse than I ever imagined it could be.

Cracking, convulsing, and devastating agony rip through me hellishly. Sending me rolling around to relieve the pain as grime, rocks, and dust scrape at my flesh and burn as I graze across them. I whimper and moan, but it eases nothing of the torture of my body crunching and shredding itself apart. I cry out, beg for my mother to save me, wail for the Fates to stop this, and claw at the rocks, breaking fingers with the sheer force of my fight and gouging what’s left of my skin on sharp edges underneath me.

No one could prepare me for what this feels like, and I’m being turned inside out while slow-roasted over an open bed of hot coals. I can’t breathe, I can’t scream anymore, and silently, I writhe and jerk and twist and turn as I am consumed by hell.

Our noises are drowned out by the stamping, chanting, and clapping of the packs, thundering through the ground and reverberating through my broken, smashed body, giving way to howls as the moon reaches its peak. They encourage us to make the final transition to become like them. Combining to howl, under strict orders that none are to transform tonight and break the ceremony. Only the new shall change tonight. Only our blood will spill as our human form is destroyed to build something better.

I want to die.

The pain is unbearable, driving me to the brink of insanity, and it truly feels like my human self is being tortured to nonexistence. Every bone in my body snaps and reforms as though it’s being done manually, one at a time. My flesh tears free and pulls away from the muscle. I’m wet, a hot pouring out as blood drains from the hellish self-inflicted wounds that seem to last forever, covering me in sticky warm heat, smothering me, and leaving a vile metallic scent. I can’t tell what’s sweat, blood, or maybe other kinds of fluid. I howl and strain with all my might, so I extend my face up into the air and gasp with relief as my lungs inhale and I finally take a breath. Barely holding on, reaching a pinnacle where my mind is on the verge of collapse, and the dregs of sanity teeter on a cliff edge.

And then ... everything is still.

It all stops. Like having a cold drink poured over scorched sunburn, instant soothing hits hard and intensely as my noise becomes silent, my burns become cool, and my breaks become one.

I stop fighting my body. I am aware of the immediate cease of all of it and the eerie quiet that surrounds me so suddenly. The unnatural silence. Hazy and blurry as my head spins, and I grasp for some sense of reality. Catching my breath, gulping in cool air, and calming ambiance as the fog clears, my vision returns only slightly.

I try to get up, right myself, although it feels different and stumble sideways with a disorientated sense of uprightness. I’m on my hands and knees even though I don’t know how I got this way. I can’t stand or push myself up as I would because it all feels strange, and I blink and shake my head to clear my eyes enough to see which way up I’m facing. I blink, my eyes watering, as finally, dry is restored to moist, and I see forms and shapes and shadows which then define details and more. Confused, yet there is a calm taking over me, a sense of serene with heightened senses in every way.

I gaze down, and I see paws that startle me at first. Gasping at the closeness and realizing they are mine, where my hands should be, flat on the ground. Large, clawed but strong paws, bigger than I thought they would be. I lift one and shake it, almost as if I need to convince myself that I can use and control this limb. It’s genuinely connected to my body. My legs are solid, with thick silver-gray fur up my muscular chest. I have a streak of purest snow white that travels as far as I can see. I stare at it, lean back, and pull my chin in tight to follow it until I can’t strain any further to see.

I have very little memory of my mother in her true form, but I know this is from her. She was a white and my father a silver, yet it’s rare to combine both in such a way. Most wolves are brown or gray ... white is a mutation that’s almost unheard of, and my mother used to try to hide because it brought only stares.