Twelve - Second place winner: Dominique-Payne

The Secret Of Woods Challenge - Day 2 from Werewolf Week 2021

"October 31st, 1985"

"Twelve years old. Twelve o'clock. The full moon was shining bright and the two silver hands of my wristwatch aligned with the small XII meticulously painted in a silvery color on its face.

Every Halloween, since the year I turned seven, we have a tradition. The 31st of October is the day Ember was born. Our parents claim the house for themselves, from mid-day up until seven in the morning on November 1st. Luckily, my brother and I are exceedingly independent.

One of the others, I couldn't make out who in the overwhelming darkness surrounding us, grabbed the branches of a nearing pine tree to release them briskly behind them. I crouched down to avoid getting smacked in the face and pinched my lips together.

"Ember" is my second mother's name and what I call her when I need to stay wary of my words for my moms' sake, which is basically any time I'm outside our home. In a similar way, my half-brother Patrick uses "Sherri" to refer to my biological mother.

My paper bag made crinkling sounds as it hit my legs with each of my steps. We were all following the unofficial leader, aka Patrick, down a path that spiraled into the forest that spread out behind the houses of our street.

The four kids that ended up tagging along with us throughout the evening are all werewolves who live in our neighbourhood. Therefore, they're our friends. Well... They're Patrick's friends, anyway. The DNA I share with him comes from our father. I like our unusual arrangement, but my family situation is definitely not the type of information one shares with people. Especially, Ember swore she would, and I quote, "clobber" me if I ever told anyone.

I was careful to remain behind my older half-brother, or at least never end up last in the short file we had instinctively formed. As the only human of our small group, I knew better than to lose track of them. Needless to say, straying away from them in the middle of the night would be the pinnacle of idiocy.

Ember is a werewolf, something she passed on to Rick, and the polar opposite of my birth mother. Whilst she can behave with worryingly minimal politeness, a traumatic childhood and several years in jail rid her of her more human side. She is aloof, incredibly smart, cunning and undoubtedly dangerous. But first and foremost, my werewolf mother is fearless.

The trees seemed to bend inward, molding themselves into a natural tunnel. My black leather boots were beginning to hurt my toes when we reached a fork in the road. Our first option was climbing out of the trees and onto a moonlit trail, our second was to descend between bushes that had more thorns than leaves.

Our mothers are avid readers, a passion that they had no trouble gifting us with. My interest soon blossomed into a love of writing. Hence this diary's existence. Other Mom, as anyone who reads this could interject, has... "Tendencies" is what Sherri describes them as. Those inexplicable urges to live dangerously are multiplied by her innate werewolf intensity, too. There's also the famous "rush", that I have yet to experience with my more stable mental condition. A true, realer than real, "rush", in Ember's mind, is when an electrifying mind-boggling strength activates all of someone's abilities and the beast inside is entirely freed, enslaving any obstacle in its path. And then there's me, a redheaded human whose only manner to attempt to raise to their level is learning sorcery, exactly like my birth mother.

The path we chose led us to the bottom of a sky-high cliff. An ominous dent, roughly the size of a doorway, slashed the stone in its center. I thought that it looked suspiciously convenient, yet I went along with the gang when they excitedly decided to explore it. I would've rather been in physical danger than be seen as a token weak annoying human.

As a younger child, I once mentioned that bats were scary. Ember's reaction to my display of fear was to lock me up inside a chest filled to the brim with wild bats for five hours. To this day, I bear twelve tiny scars scattered along my jawline, gifted by a particularly deranged bat. The wooden prison was more than lacking in size, however, and I hate to hand it to her except... She relieved me of my crushing claustrophobia.

The inside of the grotto had a cement-coated everything. A few neon lights, attached to the ceiling with metallic strings, flickered to provide lighting. Sleek, clean, bright white counters lined the walls. The others appeared disappointed by the simple scenery. While they ran around trying to find a secret passageway or something, I surveyed the bland immaculate display. I didn't know if it made sense, but this place was too empty to genuinely be empty.

Ember treats me as if I was her own daughter, that includes teaching me every single piece of knowledge about werewolves she can feed me. Additionally, I've taken various extracurricular classes, most of which I still attend, such as ballet and martial arts. She also insisted on teaching me how to fire a shotgun, but Mom eventually joined. The same scenario repeated itself when they judged I was old enough to carry a switchblade on me. I was four.

An awful premonition chilled me to the bones. Unfortunately, before I could share this unease with my brother, something elongated and sharp stung the nape of my neck. I froze, as the realization that someone was inserting a needle under my skin dawned on me. I stretched out an arm, which seemed increasingly heavy, towards Patrick. I never gathered enough strength to fight whatever poison was quickly shutting down my senses, to holler at him. The cement floor rushed to meet me and I stared at our friends' scrambling feet for a second, as a veil of silent obscurity swooped over me.

Patrick and I have slightly less than a twelve months wide age gap, since our mothers thought that overlap between their pregnancies would be unwise. Mostly considering that Sherri Winston and Ember Oak were suspiciously roommates, a decision they justified with their careers. Both my mothers, not without a few supernatural nudges, managed to become detectives for the New York Police Department.

When I awoke, only Rick was there in the strange laboratory-like room, unsurprisingly. Without warning, though, a piercing buzz hammered my eardrums. Letting out an involuntary squeal, I started to hear something, despite clasping my palms over my submerged ears. Wind blowing in the trees. Animals chittering, howling, flapping their wings... Industrial humming and liquid pouring down drains or pipes... Two discordant - but steady - thumping sounds. Dozens of unidentifiable noises were the components of the unbearable buzzing. Simultaneously, unrecognizable smells were being identified by my nose, which I could feel was twitching. We soon figured out that I was a lycanthrope now, being aware of practically every werewolf research conducted since civilization invented writing. One of the basic principles of lycanthropy is the immensely supported theory that all humans on Earth possess ancestors who were werewolves. It's widely known that werewolves can be transformed into plain humans, so why would the opposite route seem so uncanny? All considered, sorcery knows no limitations. As the morning advanced, we decided to head back to the mysterious cavern, to be certain of its position if our parents wanted to inspect the location. "

The young werewolf ceases writing. She glances down at her prey, the human squirms and moans in pain. Her eyes stick to the blood streaming down the deep gash across the Adam's apple. She raises up from her seated position on the cement. She inhales, the irresistible and enthralling smell of warm blood attracting her. Her nostrils flare and her fangs grow abruptly, pricking at her lower lip. She lunges forward and digs her newly acquired fangs into the nearest arm. Then a leg, the flank, the neck... The promise of fresh blood hypnotizes her and leads her movements. She sucks whatever amount of blood is left inside the body, smearing some of the heavenly liquid around the bite marks. The human lets out a final groan and she swallows with an exhilarated sigh. Her whole being is throbbing with an energizing flow of pure, untainted, untamed satisfaction. It feels like a benevolent comforting growl churning in perfect harmony, entangling itself with the farthest confines of her soul. In that moment, she believes she could do anything. With a blood stained smile creeping over her face, she flips a page from her journal, leaving a wet ruby red thumbprint in its corner. With trembling fingers, she grabs her favorite pen, which is lying next to her manuscript. She pops the cap off, sensing the blood under her nails already setting, and jots down: "THAT's the rush".