The Awakening-1

After everyone shuffles quickly into place and settles, the booming voice of the Shaman breaks the hush as he gestures for us all to sit while he raises his staff. I do as I am told, slide down quickly, and sit cross-legged within my blanket on the cold, hard, gritty ground beneath me. Trying to get enough of the covering underneath me to make it less uncomfortable. I’m aware of the penetrating stares from all around, and I try to blot them all out.

“Drink.” Something hard shunts me in my ribs from behind and I strangle a yelp, sitting upright sharply and spin my head around to see a wooden cup held out to me. Another Santo shoving it into my hand as I unravel it out to take it.

“What’s it for?” I ask innocently, always wondering when we watched from a distance and stupidly naïve to think I’ll get any sense from one of them.

“Drink it and find out,” he smirks, walking away with no actual answer. I sigh, internally irritated at his attitude, before staring down at the dark amber liquid contained within, its heavy scent of herbs and perfumes wafting up into my face. I spot the others drinking it down fast, without question, and I follow suit.

It tastes like thick gloopy honey, laced with all sorts of chemicals that burn my throat as I take it down and almost choke on its thicker consistency. I gag but manage to claw myself into staying still and swallowing hard with multiple gulps. Closing my eyes as the taste turns bitter, spreading down my throat and into my stomach and immediately warms them both. I can feel it disperse into my veins and limbs, knocking the cold of the rocks away from anywhere my skin touches and almost immediately, I get a little woozy. The ground around me moving and swaying softly, like the sea coming in on the tide.

I shake my head, but it’s completely pointless. Hunching forward so I don’t fall over, I now understand why every time I watched this, the newest to awaken would sit the whole ceremony slumped down and immobile until they turned. Seemingly oblivious to all the ceremony and its stages as the light faded to dark. They have drugged us for the pain, and I start to lose track of everything around me as a veil of surreal sweeps up like a warm fluffy fog and devours me whole.

I don’t know how long we are this way, or what’s happening, as all I can hear is the chant of the Shaman as he dances around, shaking things, singing, and clapping. Vision blurry and coming in waves, my body heavy yet detached and I no longer feel like I am really here or even conscious. Time passes, but I have no clue how fast or slow, and all I know is it gets dark so quickly around me and I can’t seem to stop myself drifting into space or losing track and fading away. Cocooning me into the little bubble of black space around me, where the smell of fire and incense makes me giddy and sleepy. It’s peaceful, yet somehow it’s not, and there’s a stirring of awareness and fear almost out of reach.

There are warm hands on me, maybe, but I’m not sure, the sudden breeze, although it does nothing to cool my eternal warmth. Lulling into a weird state of semi-sleep, and can no longer open my eyes or really understand what is going on around me. It’s almost pleasant.

Cold liquid and wrinkled hands, as something is smeared across my forehead, making me flinch with a second of reality and I grasp to focus on the dancing form in front of me. Rattling, blowing smoke, chanting a song as it runs down the bridge of my nose and I pull from memory that the new turns are marked with a fresh blood kill to prepare for their own turn. My face will bear the mark of a wolf with an animal our Alpha will have slaughtered.

The roughness of something pulling across my skin startles me slightly, and then suddenly I’m levitating out flat or floating, or maybe just lying down. No clue anymore. I’m too wasted to have any sort of idea about what my body is doing, and the heavy, loud tones of the wolf song, echoes across the mountain as the packs sing to welcome our moon. I’ve never felt anything close to this, not even being drunk for the first time a few months ago when we found some booze in the orphanage storage cupboard.

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 and 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 obviously left a dent on his pride and his ego.