Ever Stray

Ever Stray Thalai was a pretty normal fourteen year old girl, (all things considered) she went to school with her friends, she had her own style (a cross between Goth and tomboy) she always argued with her mum and brother (mostly about who had eaten the last slice of ham) and she always tried to get out the house early so she wouldn’t be forced to do the cat litter, It was the abnormal things about her that really caught the eye, like the way she dressed (black and red striped leggings a pair of stretchy black short gym shorts on over top a black short sleeveless dress fingerless black leather gloves and black boot-like trainers. Or the way her hair was a mix between dark brown and grey, Or the way she whimpered like a dog when she had a bad dream or the way that she growled when she got annoyed and the way she always wanted to howl when there was a full moon, she never did obviously due to the fact that it would probably land her in a ‘nice cosy room made of yellow sponge’ not that most people didn’t think she’d end up there anyway. Thalai lived in a medium sized house in a small village nestled at the foot of range of small mountains. It was a relatively friendly place, once you got used to the suburban chav wannabies. It was the cat meowing that woke Thalai up (as always) he started by purring then he climbed on her stomach and meowed pathetically in her ear, gently needing her stomach, he walked in circles over her letting his tabby coloured tale brush against her cheek “Uuur turnip, not now” “Meow” the cat responded as turnip was his name, no matter how much he despised it. “Meow meeeooow meow “ The cat prowled around her flicking his tale in to her wide open mouth until she was forced to throw the covers off and carry the doped like creature out of her room and down the stairs. “Morning” Thalai nodded and blinked in unison as she entered the room. Her younger brother jimmy was wearing his usual mix of grey track bottoms and a blue t-shirt. She sat on the chair furthest away from the toaster as her younger and she thought slightly brain dead brother was making toast his usual way (this normally involved the toaster jamming with four pieces in it, him stabbing a knife into it and the toast burning a hole in the ceiling.) “Hey sis” “Uum?” “Schools been cancelled again” “Uum!” Thalai lifted her head from the table and blinked at him the way she always did when she couldn’t decide on whether or not he was lying “They said it was miss loony again” Her brother continued absentmindedly while getting a plate out of the cupboard, her real name was miss lunar but she was so bonkers that all her students just called her loony. Thalai paused before she decided to believe him “…what did she do this time?” “Duno really but I think it was something to do with wol…..Aaaaaah!”

1

He stopped and ducked under the counter as four pieces of charcoal like toast sprung out of the smoking toaster and attached themselves to the ceiling like limpets. “Because of wool”? Thalai repeated questioningly, peeling a piece of toast off the ceiling and spreading it with butter. “No! Not wool WOLVES” She looked at him somewhat bemused “Wolves?” He nodded his head spilling crumbs from his toast filled, hamster-like mouth. She paused and thought for a moment before saying “But there haven’t been any wolves around here for…years! Jimmy, are you sure you’re telling the truth?” He nodded vigorously “I know what I heard” “What you were told you mean.” “It’s the same thing” “Is not” “Is too” “Is not!” “Is too!” They sat in silence for awhile scoffing down the toast and watching turnip scratch at the glass as a bird washed itself on the outside windowsill. Thalai was the first to speak “Where’s mum and dad?” Jimmy shrugged “Shops I guess.” Thalai shoved the last piece of toast into her mouth and got up “Right-” she said brushing the crumbs off her top “I’m going for a walk tell mum and dad I’ve got my cell phone with me” “I thought you couldn’t find it?” “I can’t but they always freak out if they think I don’t have it.” Jimmy smiled and tapped the side of his nose accidentally covering it with jam Thalai chuckled and walked out picking up her leather jacket as she did so. “If I’m not back before seven you’re doing the cat litter” Thalai yelled as she ran up the road towards the hills which slowly ascended higher and higher until the small mountains merged with the sky. She slowed to a walking speed as she left the houses behind her and entered the rocky mountain terrain slowly slipping into steep grass and mud engulfed slope filled with the fresh scent of pine needles and tree sap. She knew the path quite well and remembering that it turned into a very very steep drop even though it was the smallest of all the mountains she didn’t think on her own it was a good idea to climb steep slopes, Thalai sighed, she guessed that the shops would have to be enough of an adventure. She turned and was just about to go back when two hands clamped around her shoulders on either side “Yeeep!” She yelped as she turned to see two figures emerge out of the shadows “Gocha!”

2

said a girl about her own age the boy next to her came forward and his face broke out into a grin, the girl was about Thalai’s height with mostly blond slightly brunette coloured hair in two long plats down her shoulders, freckles and dark brown eyes, the boy was about an inch taller than them with a blue cap on covering up his hair and blue eyes Thalai grinned back at them “Annabel, Ken you guys have no idea how badly you scared me” They grinned at her for a minute before they all burst out laughing and they all walked side by side up the slope. Thalai walked slightly ahead of them as she always did whilst Annabel and Ken walked a few steps behind giggling, Thalai knew that there was something going on between them even if they would never admit it themselves. “So where are we headed then?” Ken said walking up beside her and swinging his arm around her shoulder as Annabel ran up on her other side “Duno really just around I guess” “Around?” Annabel repeated twiddling a piece of grass between her thumb and forefinger “are you ok?” Thalai asked turning to Annabel, she was never this quiet “Yea…my mum’s rabbit ran away again” “oh…sorry” Thalai looked down, Taffy, Annabel’s mums rabbit was always running off, but they normally found it by now, they walked along quietly for awhile stepping only on the big rocks scattered about the path until they reached the top of the first tiny little peak, it was quite flat and small, but it dipped down to a sharp drop on the other side “Wow” Ken stopped, looking at the network of rocks and tangled vines that led towards the patch of forest at the bottom, He took out his camera that he would never be caught dead with out and began taking snapshots “Come on!” Said Annabel running past Ken grabbing his hat by the peak exposing his sandy coloured brownie-orange hair to the mid-day sun light “Come on wolf girl” Wolf girl was Thalai’s nick name because of some of her dog like habits. She ran after them grinning they ran down hill laughing and stumbling until they reached the steep part. “Now what” Ken asked looking down, the drop was at least forty feet and none of them much felt like committing suicide. “I guess we go back up as always” Thalai said looking down yearning to be there. This was not the first, time they had done this they always climbed down this far and had to go back up, they’d checked all over the place but there wasn’t another way down so none of them had ever been inside the forest no matter how much they wanted to. “Oh well I guess one day we’ll find a way down” Ken said trying to sound positive “Yea right Kenny not unless we grow four legs over night” Annabel said dumping his hat on his head “why would that help?” Thalai asked staring down into the enigmatic trees “ you should know wolf girl”

3

Annabel laughed “Wolves always jump off things its what they’re made for unlike humans we’d never survive a jump like that” Annabel got up and brushed the grass of her dress and white trousers leaving grass stains as she did so and started climbing the steep hill tugging on weeds in an attempt to pull her self up, Ken followed doing the same, Thalai stayed behind for awhile staring at the forest, wondering so much what was down there, so far out of their reach for something so close, before turning to her friends “hey guys wait up!” they ran up the hill pulling them selves up ripping out grass and flowers as they did so “Come on wolf girl Annabel called getting to her feet and turning around “Last one to the top’s a squashed tomato!” Thalai grinned and ran after them, she started leaning forwards and running up as fast as she could (which wasn’t very fast due to the steep slope) but then something strange happened she leant forwards and started pulling her self along by the grass putting more and more weight on her hands until she was running flat out on all fours. And as she felt a chill go down the back of her neck She noticed every tiny little detail in the grass every twig every tree root and every leaf in her way she ran up without slipping once, she passed Ken and Annabel who just stared at her with there mouths wide open and reached the top in seconds, she stood up expecting to see her friends right behind her she was surprised to see them only half way up the slope she stared at them in shock until they reached the top ken grinned at her “What the hell was that wolfy?” Thalai shrugged “Duno really I mean it was like instinct or something” “And people wonder why we call you wolf girl” Annabel smiled at her, although Thalai knew what she was thinking ‘crazy girl’ at least it wasn’t her mum, every time Thalai did one of her weird dog things her mother would just say ‘keep on with those and people will think your nuts’ “Not that I don’t like you how you are” she would go on “All your…traits are what makes you who you are I just wish you wouldn’t be so… wild” thinking about her mum she reached into her pocket and pulled out a silver watch, “quarter to five what time did I get up?” Ken and Annabel exchanged glances then shrugged “hey” Ken broke the silence “while we’re all here we should totally go check out what happened at school” Annabel and Thalai grinned at each other “totally?” Thalai said suppressing her laughter (badly) Ken’s face turned red “yea well you know…” “Yea girls your age gotta start using bigger words!” oh very funny Ann.” “Hey we’re just messing with ya” Annabel said pushing him playfully. He smiled at them sarcastically then broke into a wide grin the way he always did when ever he was trying to keep a straight face for too long “all right lets go and check out the school” they laughed and started walking down the hill towards the village. It was starting to get dark and by the time they got to the village the evening sun was already sneaking in its last rays of light between the houses covering them in yellow light and making them shimmer like blocks of pure gold, the only thing making it seem remotely out of place was the crowd of people all gathered in the centre by the small clock tower and they could hear shouting and wailing coming from the crowd “come on” Annabel said running out ahead Ken followed but Thalai

4

didn’t move, she could feel the hair on the back of her neck bristling and she didn’t want to move, this had happened before, it happened every time she got near a dog but never this strongly and never felt so evil. “Thalai?” ken was already at the crowd but Annabel had stopped and was looking at her, in her ‘your hiding something and I’m going to bug you forever unless you tell me’ way. “It’s nothing” Thalai said shaking her head and running up beside Annabel “come on lets go catch up with MR. detective” Thalai said nodding towards Ken who was busy taking as many pictures with his mini camera as he could without getting noticed. Annabel grinned and ran to catch up with him Thalai shivered and then pushed her self to go after her, as they neared the crowd they could just make out the voice that was screeching “miss loony?” Annabel whispered as they pushed through the crowed and stared at the teacher lying on the pavement screaming about the moon and…”WOLVES! YOU’LL ALL SEE! COAT AS BLACK AS THE NIGHT SKY HE’S LOOKING FOR ONE LIKE HIMSELF! ONE TO LEAD ONE TO KILL! THE ELIMENTS WILL HONER THE FALLEN GOD!” Thalai felt a chill go down her spine she had no idea what her insane teacher was talking about but she had a feeling she didn’t want to find out “ONE WILL FALL TO THE DARK, ONE WILL KILL WITH THE HELP OF THE WHITE SOUL, AND TWO WILL DIE!” Thalai looked around and saw her parents and brother standing amongst the crowd her mothers eyes were wide with concern “mum dad what’s going on?” they turned to her, Thalai took a step towards them when miss lunar grabbed her ankle and she fell to her knees “YOU!” the teacher looked her deep in the eyes, fear and hatred piercing her simultaneously, “ALL YOU’R KIND ARE THE SAME! YOU WANT BLOOD! BUT YOU’LL REGRET IT ALL OF YOU’R KIND WILL! ALL OF...AAAH!” the teacher let go as Ken flashed the camera in her eyes. “Thalai!” her mum and dad pulled her to her feet Annabel and ken ran up beside her “are you ok” “that blooming teachers a nutter!” Thalai smiled at them “come on love” her mum said putting her arm around Thalai “lets go back home” she nodded giving miss lunar one final glance and then clinging to her mothers coat she walked home Ken and Annabel close behind her. “I tell ya they ought to sue that teacher they should” her dad said hanging up his coat “it’s a blooming good thing you got such good friends” he said ruffling Kens hair and grinning “I’m going to go make these heroes a cup of hot chocolate” Ken sat down as he left the room “do you think he’d hate me if he knew I was just trying to get a good picture?” Thalai and Annabel sat down next to him laughing, “biscuit anyone?” her mum said putting a metal tin of butter biscuits on the table and sat opposite them on an arm chair Thalai sat twiddling her thumbs for a while before saying “mum what do you think miss lunar meant by ‘my kind, or any of it?” “Sorry dear?” “Before when she grabbed my ankle she said ‘your kind are all the same’ she can’t have meant humans and I don’t think she hates our family that much so she must have meant….” “Thalai she was just hallucinating don’t let it worry you ok?” Thalai nodded although she was still playing it over in her mind she had better things to think about, “ok everyone chocolate is ever so slightly well done but it’ll still taste the same” her father came in carrying a tray filled with steaming cups of what looked like mud. “Oh no” Thalai’s mum whispered “I left you’re father alone with the hot chocolate” Ken and Annabel sniggered while Thalai and her mother exchanged worried glances “oh I almost forgot the marshmallows Thalai and her mum wished each other luck and then downed the ominous liquid “well how does it taste?” Annabel asked picking up her cup “oh brilliant” Thalai replied wiping her mouth (and tongue) on a tissue. She didn’t have time to tell Annabel and Ken that she was being sarcastic as they didn’t get the hint and soon found out the hard way.

5

They sat up watching TV and roasting marshmallows in there fire place late into the night, it was about one AM when Annabel Ken and Thalai said their goodbyes, as soon as they walked out the door Thalai felt all her energy leave her body and she realised just how tired she was, she stumbled up stairs and collapsed on her bed exhausted, she rolled on to her back and stared up at the ceiling ‘what had she meant your kind? And one will die? White soul?’ And wolves? Here? Thalai could feel her self slipping into a deep sleep but the last thing she noticed before she completely disappeared to the land of dreams was how uncomfortable it was to lie on her tail. Wait tail!? Thalai awoke with a start instinctively reaching behind to check for a tail she sighed with relief… nothing she looked out the window it felt like it had only been a second since she’d gone to sleep but that was obviously a lapse of time as the sky was turning a violet blue colour engulfing the room in its mystic light. Thalai rubbed her eyes got up and walked into the bathroom, she emerged a minute or so later rubbing her face with a towel she picked up a clock and groaned “five AM uurrrr!” she put her socks and shoes on tousled her fringe leaving it spiky and then walked out of her room, she peered out the door way, she could hear her dad snoring and her mother (exhaling heavily) as she called it, her brother never really made a noise while he slept in fact half the time people would check him for a pulse. She reached the bottom of the stairs walked into the kitchen and picked up the butter and a slice of bread. She began spreading it clumsily she was really in the mood for steak or duck or chicken or something more…raw. Thinking about meat only made Thalai whine like a dog and resent the bread more, but it was all they had so she ate it anyway. She was just brushing the crumbs off her dress\top when something flashed past the window, a dark shadowy thing, were it not for its size it could almost have passed for a dog its fur was short like it had been cut, but it looked more like…”Aaah! No way!” said Thalai watching it out of the window until it passed running up towards the mountains she didn’t hesitate for a second she grabbed her jacket and ran out the front door speeding towards the hills. She started panting as she got nearly half way but didn’t stop until she reached the top completely exhausted and collapsed to her knees in the dew soaked morning grass. Panting she looked down at the steep hill leading to the forest she sat there her fringe completely covering her face until the entire sky was orange and purple and all the clouds pink making them look like cotton candy the sun rising up between the hills, it would have made a perfect picture she knew that if Ken was here they’d never be able to move him unless the battery in his camera went flat.

6

Thalai looked around but there was no sign of the wolf ‘if that w

as even what it was, as Thalai refused to believe it without proof, after all there hadn’t been any sign of wolves around…well anywhere for at least fifty years everyone had believed them to be extinct. She sat watching the sunrise until the entire sky was completely blue and the grass began drying off or at least just transferring the water to her clothes as that was what it felt more like. She waited until the sky was a normal colour and since it didn’t look like any thing was stirring in the forest she decided to head back home she took one last sweeping glance over the surrounding aria before turning around and walking back down the slope. “Thalai!?” “Yea hi mum” “what are you doing up so early!?” Thalai’s mum stared at her like she really did have a tail! “Gees mum no need to act so surprised” Thalai said grinning “besides I’ve been up early before.” Her mum shrugged in a disagreeing way. “I have” “all right” “Thalai do you have to shout so early” jimmy said walking in in his pyjamas “I’m not yelling Jim” “yes you are you’ve just got the volume turned down” he said jamming three pieces of toast in the toaster and sitting down. Thalai raised her eye brows then turned back to her mother and said in a hushed voice “I think miss loony was right mum…I think there are wolves here now.” “Thalai I knew you’d get paranoid she was just hallucinating it wasn’t real there are no wolves, not anymore.” Thalai was about to retaliate when the door bell rang “I’ll get it.” Her mum said getting up and walking towards the door. Thalai sat twiddling her thumbs for awhile before she decided to get up and see who was at the door, she was expecting to see Ken or Annabel but to her surprise Sieris, a boy from her school stood at the door in his usual black\blue jeans and leather jacket the hood pulled up over his red hair, she had known him just as long as she’d known Ken and Annabel but they almost never hung out, he was always out of town on trips and stuff, “Sieris what are you doing here” Thalai could feel herself blushing (stupid question) she thought to herself, although she didn’t said anything “Thalai you gotta see this” he panted and backed into a run towards the school she went to follow him “Thalai” her mum called to her as she went “don’t forget to take out that broken mirror today!” “Yea mum I will” she called back as she sped up to follow him, she was totally puzzled until it became obvious what was wrong. The entire school was alight, black smoke puffing out every way it could making the sky seem like one volcano on the verge of erupting, “oh my god!” Thalai said staring open mouthed at the flames licking up the side of the building, “yea it’s terrible” Sieris replied although when she looked at him she thought she

7

could see the faintest trace of a smile. She looked at the school “so what happened?” he shrugged “miss loony’s done it again” “she torched the school? And as a matter of fact how do you even know it was miss loony she’s been fired” Sieris turned towards her and Thalai could feel her face burning again, at least this time she could blame it on the fire. “It’s easy to tell when it’s miss loony because she always acts on the day of a full moon or close to it anyway” Thalai paused for a second and thought, he was right, tonight was a full moon. Now that she thought about it Thalai had wanted to howl all day (but as always she had restrained her self and never did) “why did miss lunar do this” “loony? Because she’s a nut noone really gets why she does what she does, they just try to stop her from doing it in the first place.” Thalai looked at him “like the way she’s always on about wolves” he laughed “and no-ones seen any of them for at least the last fifty years” she tried to laugh or at least smile convincingly but she couldn’t stop thinking about the shadow she’d seen that morning, “Thalai!” she turned around to see Annabel and Ken walking towards her, Annabel’s hair was different as it always was, she had it straightened and hanging down over her shoulders, which made the blonde really look gold “I’d better get going,” Sieris said turning and walking away “see you at school” “see ya” Thalai smiled then turned to Ken and Annabel who just stared at her half smiling “what?” said Thalai wiping the smoke out of her already water logged eyes “I say nothing” Annabel said stifling a laugh Thalai rolled her eyes and looked at Ken who was attempting to take a clear picture through the smoke Annabel coughed and started what would most likely be a two hour sneezing session. “Come on we should get out of here” Thalai said pulling Ken by his collar in an attempt to make him follow “just a minute” she rolled her eyes and dragged him after them “no, I’ve . Almost, got the, perfect, picture!” they walked quickly covering their mouths until they got out of range of the smoke filled air. “So where we headed now” Annabel asked snapping a twig into small pieces and dropping them in Ken’s orange hood. “I don’t really know” Thalai replied kicking a stone out in to the road “we can’t just keep going up to the mountains I mean we can’t get down to the forest and if we cant get down to the forest then we cant get to the next mountain or anything interesting” Thalai stopped and thought for a moment “well we could go back and find out what happened with loony” “and risk her trying to kill you again? No thanks” Thalai rolled her eyes “I’ll be fine she didn’t even hurt me” ken and Annabel looked at one another “we could just go back to my house” Annabel suggested “my mum’s not in and we just fixed the trampoline” “ok” Ken and Thalai agreed simultaneously. Annabel’s house was one of the best places in the neighbourhood, her mum would always bake the best cookies and leave them out for who ever wanted them, the house was pretty big and really well insulated (which was pretty good when it came to winter) in their small mountain village it always snowed and with all the old houses it was always freezing!. They got to her house and Annabel jiggled the handle around but to no avail she grimaced and turned to the others “umm I think my mum locked it” they looked at one another “hey,” Thalai said looking up “your bedroom windows open” Annabel looked at Thalai and they grinned at each other “allow me..” Annabel said standing by the wall and locking her hands together, Thalai grinned put her hands up against the wall and used Annabel hands as a step, she grabbed hold of the window ledge in an attempt to pull herself up, but Annabel had started laughing as Ken, who had been attempting to take a photo of them in there circus act routine was now sitting in a wheelbarrow unable to move “what the hell did you do?” Annabel said in between giggles “I backed up to get a good picture and…Aaah!” Ken screamed as the wheelbarrow toppled over side

8

ways, and that was it Annabel burst out laughing dropping Thalai into a flower pot Ken tried to stand up causing the wheelbarrow to roll backwards into the pond, with Ken still inside it. Thalai burst out laughing Annabel’s laugh went silent as it always did whenever she laughed too hard, Thalai laughed so hard she thought her sides would split before Ken crawled out of the upturned wheelbarrow and collapsed next to Thalai and Annabel dripping wet and laughing almost as much as them. After about ten minutes of laughing and a really bad stitch the three friends got up still chuckling and stood leaning against the wall wondering how they were going to get inside. “Well we could use Kens camera strap” Annabel suggested “no way” Ken said clinging to the camera as if his life depended on it. Annabel sat and thought for a minute before getting up and walking over to the house, she looked up at the open window and groaned “we’re never going to get inside” Ken took a run up and tried to grab the window sill but it was way to high up “looks like we’re stuck out here” Ken said slouching against the wall. “Least it can’t get worse” Annabel said staring at the ground ‘shaaaa’ thunder roared in the distance “hey is it…raining?” Ken said looking up as a drop of water trickled slowly down his cheek, just then a husky howled across the road and Thalai could feel something change inside of her, she felt a shiver down the back of her neck, and then she growled and ran up the wall, Annabel and Ken stared open mouthed as Thalai grabbed hold of the window ledge kicked it fully open and flipped inside. Ken and Annabel stared at the open window until Thalai had completely disappeared inside (which took about four seconds total) then they looked at one another “whoa”. Once inside the bedroom Thalai looked around breathless wondering what had just happened, she shook her head brushed down her clothes flicked her tail and…tail again?! She spun around so fast she nearly fell over, but again nothing was wrong. Thalai sighed she was beginning to get sick of all these weird things happening to her, although on the other hand it was pretty cool to be able to flip in to a two story high window at will. “Hello!” Thalai snapped out of her daze and peered out the window, the heavens had opened up and Annabel and Ken were standing by the door getting drenched “forgetting something?” Ken called to her “oops” Thalai said as she vaulted the side board ran out the door and down stairs. She opened the door and her two water logged friends ran in shivering. “Gees what took you so long we could have caught pneumonia out there” “sorry Thalai said” suppressing her laughter as Ken ruffled her hair turning it in to a large feather duster, hey guys I’m gonna go make a drink do you guys want anything?” Thalai walked over to Annabel “just tea please” she said walking past her and in to the kitchen. She opened the front door and walked out side “what are you doing?” Ken asked as Thalai passed him “nothing don’t worry I wont be long” she closed the door behind her and ran across the street and stopped by the chained up husky who instantly started growling “hey! I need to speak to you” Thalai said leaning on the fence, the dog just barked louder “this is stupid dogs cant talk” Thalai turned to walk away when the dog barked and started whimpering she turned to see it cowering behind its kennel, “what the heck’s wrong with you” Thalai said turning to it she turned back to the house and froze, something jumped across the roof tops, a dark shadow, she knew before it landed what it was. “Aaah!” Thalai jumped aside at last second as the wolf landed fangs and claws ripping through the air she turned around and instantly had to dodge as he lunged at her again she couldn’t get a good look at it because it moved with the most incredible speed she had ever seen it was all she could do to stay alive, about the

9

only thing she could make out was that his fur was thick black and that he was massive even for a wolf. “Aaah!” Thalai screamed as she tried to dodge and failed, its fangs sunk into her arm it wasn’t very deep but it still hurt she fell down and closed her eyes. When she opened them again it was gone and she was left staring at the blank wall of the house. She walked into the living room closing the door behind her “hey your tea’s on the side of the…gees! What the hell happened to you!?” “What?” Thalai sat down grabbing hold of her tea, “your shoulder!” Thalai looked down “oh…that…stray dog” Ken and Annabel exchanged worried glances “I’m fine really” Thalai insisted although she knew she was in shock and therefore seemed calm she was certain it didn’t seem so convincing to them. Ken and Annabel still looked worried but they didn’t say anything “hey lets stay inside until the rain passes then maybe we should go check out the school” Annabel suggested “yea that sounds cool” Ken agreed “Thalai what do you think?...Thalai?” she didn’t respond she didn’t even hear them she just stared at the blank wall Ken picked up a pink frilly pillow and chucked it at her it hit her full on in the face and she snapped back to reality “hey dolly day dream” “hu? Oh yea sure sounds cool” she said picking up the pillow and lobbing it at Ken “hey” he said grinning and throwing it back the three friends looked at each other then began beating each other up with feather filled weaponry. The rain soon passed then it got colder and eventually night fall came, they didn’t realize what time it was until the grandfather clock struck midnight “oh man” ken looked around “I better get going” he said standing up Thalai grabbed her jacket “yea I’d better get going too” “see you guys round ok” “yea bye” “see ya” Annabel waved goodbye to them at the door and they walked up the street a bit before they reached Kens house “well this is my stop” he said smiling at Thalai “I’ll see you around” she smiled and carried on walking up the road till she got to her house she paused by the door then walked in, “you were gone all day” her mum said as soon as she entered the living room “were you off with that boy?” “no” Thalai said turning red “I met up with Ken and Annabel and besides he’s just a friend” her mum put up her hands in surrender but Thalai knew she was trying not to smile, “mum did you hear about the school?” “A little simply awful isn’t it, it caught on fire right?” “Yea right more like it was burned to the ground by miss loony” “Thalai! What happened to your shoulder?” “Damn it” Thalai whispered she had almost got away with it too “stray dog” her mum looked at her doubtfully “a stray dog? Here?” “Yea” Thalai said putting about ten slices of ham into a sandwich and eating it. “Where’s jimmy?” Thalai said through a full mouth “he went for a walk with one of his school friends” Thalai frowned “what school friends?” her mum shrugged “he just said one of his school friends, he’s a big boy not a baby, he can take care of himself.” “I know mum it’s just…do you really think it’s safe for a kid to be walking around on his own at midnight?” her mum smiled at her “it’s a safe village everyone here knows everyone else” Thalai shrugged cramming the last piece of ham into her mouth, “ok” she looked at the clock “I’m gonna go for a walk” “I thought it wasn’t safe for kids to walk around on there own” her mother said sarcastically “I said kids, I’m a teenager” her mum shrugged “just try not to be out to long and take out that bloody mirror” Thalai groaned “all right” she walked into the hall growling and picked up the mirror and walked out side she looked around the wind was blowing through the tree’s making a whistling sound “ah!” she tripped on a step and instantly fell to the ground, Thalai held her self up by her arms looked in the mirror and froze, staring back at her where her own reflection should be was the clear reflection of a wolf. She closed her eyes then opened

1 0

them and was left staring at her self in the mirror. “Thalai are you ok?” “Yea…I’m… fine” Thalai stood up and walked over to the house “mum, can I go for a walk now?” “Yes Thalai but don’t be to long!” Thalai had already vaulted the back garden fence and was running full speed towards the mountains panting as she sped up but she didn’t stop until she reached the very top. She sat down on the grass, it was surprisingly dry considering it had spent most of the day bucketing down with rain, she didn’t move or even blink much until she had caught her breath at which point the moon had come out from behind the clouds and the sky was almost totally clear. Thalai stared up at the moon, its bright iridescent light shining onto her face and making all the grass shimmer like dew drops on a sheet of glass, she sat and thought for what seemed like hours, why was all this happening? The wolves, the insane teacher, her new acrobatic skills, and what had her teacher meant your kind? She sighed all the thoughts buzzing round inside her head until she wanted to scream. She stared up at the moon watching as the blue circles of light danced around the edges of the white sphere. “Aagh not again” she said shutting her eyes tight trying to stop her self from howling. Almost every full moon she wanted howl and always had to stop herself, come to think of it she had never howled even though she’d always wanted to. What would happen if she did? She sat up straight and stared solemnly at the moon, then she threw back her head and let out a massive blood curdling “HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWW”. At first she was surprised that such a deep mystical noise could come from her own mouth, but then she felt it, the back of her neck started to shiver and she could feel something change inside of her. Her arms and legs grew in unison until they were the same length her ears changed got bigger and her hearing got a lot sharper she could feel her nose and mouth extending and her teeth became fangs her sense of smell increased and her

clothes turned into dark thick fur, and before she knew it, she was looking down at what were clearly the paws of a young wolf!. She stopped and after letting it sink in for a moment she gasped “this is impossible!” she stood up but realised she was on all fours “Aaah!” she had attempted to scream but it came out as more of a yelp, she stepped back into a puddle and spun around and stared into the moonlit water until all the ripples had disappeared and Thalai was left staring at what she had to admit was a very beautiful young she-wolf. She gently tapped the puddle with her paw causing the ripples to jump and dance around in the moonlight, “incredible.” She whispered she sat up on her haunches and looked around blankly, she didn’t know what to do anymore, her sense of smell was unbelievable she could tell were all the flowers were and she had never seen the mountain range as she could now…it was…beautiful especially through the eyes of a wolf. Thalai shook her head making her fur ruffle then she barked a little (just to see if she could) then she lifted up her head and howled again, that was when she started to get really freaked out she whimpered and looked around her franticly, what the hell was happening to her? Was this even possible I mean she was a freaking wolf for god sake! She whimpered more and more backing away from the edge with her tail between her legs then something rustled in the bushes

1 1

and she ran. Running with four legs was incredible it would have been awesome if she wasn’t so freaked out. She reached her house in no time skidded through the front garden gate crashing into the trash cans as she did so she yelped and bolted into the house knocking the door clean off its hinges she ran up stairs and threw herself onto her bed whimpering softly until she slowly drifted into a deep sleep. “Thalai! Thalai! Wake up!” Thalai opened her eyes and bolted up right fully expecting to see a tail she looked around desperately until she glanced the mirror in the corner of her room “human?” she got up and walked towards it and placed her hand on it “was I dreaming? No I’m sure that was real…wasn’t it?” “Thalai!” her mum called her again from down stairs. “Yea” she yelled back, but her voice was shaky and small, “are you up?” “Yea” she said stroking the reflection in the mirror “it must have been a dream” Thalai walked down stairs repeating “it must have been a dream, it must have been a dream, it must have been a dream.” Although she couldn’t convince herself of it for sure. “Hey mum” Thalai walked in trying to act normal, “Thalai I need you to pick up my iron I left it round Miss Tweed’s” “eerrh miss tweed’s?” Thalai shuddered, miss tweed was an old dried up rigid women that resembled a prune that had a fight with a microwave and lost, and apart from that she hated Thalai and all of her friends and would always complain whenever Thalai ken and Annabel ran down the street (even if it was four pm), “mum do I have to?” her mum looked at her and sighed “go on Thalai” “fine” she snapped and stomped out the door. She passed Ken as she was walking down, he seemed different and then she realised why “ken why aren’t you with Annabel?” he turned and snapped at her,”oh so now I HAVE to be WITH Annabel?! It doesn’t occur to you that I can be alone?!” “Ok ok” Thalai said backing down the street “I was only asking” Ken walked off muttering as he went, Thalai smiled and rolled her eyes, ken and Annabel were having one of there little feuds again, it was part off the whole liking each other and not admitting it thing, every so often they would pick something really stupid and have a massive fight. Thalai looked at the sky, for some reason she could tell what time it was by looking at the sun, “three minutes past four…what time did I get up?” she stopped and looked over the road, Annabel’s house was right there, she could just see if she was ok then she would go and pick up her mums iron, no, she shook her head, she would say hi to Annabel on the way back. Thalai reached miss’s tweed’s front door and shuddering, knocked on the wood, the door was answered with incredible speed and the prune like woman walked out scowling “you brat? You want your iron back?” her voice shook and she reached inside then half threw a white rusted iron at her, she took it off the old woman forced a smile then backed up the road fast pausing at Annabel’s house she decided to see how she was about the argument with Ken. “Annabel hey Ann you there?” Thalai was about to give up and walk away when Annabel opened the door and yanked her inside. “ok so get this right, Ken started like saying you were faking the dog thing and like so like I like you know said you wouldn’t do that and like then right he says to me ‘oh if like your gonna think that and stuff I’m like gonna go prove it’ and like I’m just thinking too far!” Thalai stared at Annabel she usually got it after a few seconds or so you just had to take out the like she puts in every twelve seconds and it’s cool but this time, “Ann what did you guys fight about?” “oh right well he said that there wasn’t a dog and like you got attacked by something else and like then I said right if there was no dog then were did you get the bite mark! And then

1 2

right he says that if there was a dog he was going to go take a picture” Thalai felt her heart skip a beat then she felt a sinking feeling as she realised what Annabel was saying “he went to the mountains didn’t he?.” Annabel nodded whilst drinking her second pint glass of water, Thalai didn’t hesitate “come on” she said grabbing her by the arm and running through the door “wait what the hell are you doing?” “Ann look we’ve got to stop him now!” “Why” “look Annabel “Thalai paused she and Annabel had been friends pretty much her whole life and Thalai knew if she could trust anyone it would be her but even so “look the thing that attacked me…it wasn’t a stray dog…it was a wolf” for a second Thalai thought she was going to do what she usually did and tell her she was crazy but then she dropped her glass of water and ran out the door next to Thalai. They got to the foot of the mountain and although Thalai could have run for much longer Annabel was exhausted, she didn’t have the same energy rush as Thalai got every full moon and as it had been a full moon the night before the energy was still buzzing around inside of her. Annabel stopped “go on I’ll catch you up” Thalai didn’t much like the idea of splitting up but she knew Annabel was right, “be careful.” And with that Thalai ran up the mountain as fast as she could. She reached the top with a bad stitch and collapsed on to her knees, she looked up and caught her breath, there was Ken, lying on his stomach just at the edge of were the cliff dropped “no” Thalai stood up and heart pounding ran towards the motionless boy, “Ken!” she jumped grabbing hold of his shoulder “Aaah! Thalai!” “Ken your ok?!” “Well I WAS until you scared the hell out of me and made me drop my camera!” Thalai looked over the edge, Ken’s camera was hanging from a low tree branch. “Ken I’m sorry but we’ve got to get out of here now!” he glared at her and turned backwards grabbing hold of a small tree root, “Ken! What the hell are you doing!?” “I’m getting my camera!” “Ken you can’t climb that and even if you did how the hell are you gonna get back up!?” Ken gave her one final evil eye and then lowered himself down with his arms “Ken!” Annabel yelled from the other side of the hilltop Thalai turned and then she heard a snapping sound she and Ken and Thalai knew what the noise meant way before it happened “Ken!” “Aaah!!” he screamed as the tree root snapped and he fell backwards Thalai felt the familiar tingle down her neck and lunged, her teeth drove straight through Ken’s jacket and into his shoulder “Aaah!!!” he screamed as blood trickled down his arm Thalai yanked him up and dropped him on the ground “Ken are you ok?” Annabel ran up beside them and crouched next to Ken he didn’t respond, he was too busy staring at the bite on his arm, “…Ken?” Annabel followed his gaze and gasped “Thalai!” she breathed in what was barely more than a whisper “look” she turned towards Ken and then she realised what they were staring at, on his shoulder, it wasn’t a normal bite mark it was massive and had four fang marks with smaller marks filling in the gaps, “Thalai?” she stared at him whimpering “Ken I’m so sorry I didn’t mean to I didn’t think it would…” he tried his best to smile at her through the pain “hey no sweat you saved my life” she smiled at him although she knew that he was really scared by what had happened even if he’d never show it. They helped Ken up and walked down the mountain, he didn’t complain about the pain once he was more upset about losing his camera. It was at least six o’clock by the time they got to Ken’s house, “my mum’s not in right now so I’ll just get a bandage or something” he gave them one last forced smile then opened the door and disappeared inside, “do you think he’s ok?” Thalai said turning to Annabel she shrugged “Duno I think so but you know how much he loves his camera only…something’s been bugging me ever since you pulled him up…” “The bite mark?” Thalai said as they turned and walked towards the gate.

1 3

“Yea, it’s just…how did you?” Thalai looked away “look I didn’t want to hurt him it was just an instinct you know? I saw him fall and I tried to stop it” Annabel stared at her for ages as they walked. “Well this is my house so I guess I’ll see you tomorrow,” Thalai smiled and turned to walk away when Annabel called after her, “hey are you ok?” Thalai turned her head “yea I’m just fine” they smiled at each other then Thalai walked up the street and Annabel closed the door behind her. Thalai stopped out side her house and looked in at the faint warm glow being emitted from the living room window, then she turned her head and stared up at the cold dark mountains she closed her eyes for a moment and breathed in trying to calm herself down she blinked back tears and opened her eyes again, she hadn’t meant to hurt Ken or anyone but the bite marks in his shoulder, had she really done that? If so then it couldn’t have been a dream, she sighed and started walking towards the mountain. She pulled the silver watch out of her pocket and stared at it although she already knew what time it was by the light she just needed something to distract her from what was happening. She reached the top and sat down on the edge of the cliff, she was shaking uncontrollably and she didn’t know what to do, on the one hand if it was real then she would be to scared to do anything on the other hand if it wasn’t real she would be disappointed it would be pretty cool to be able to shape shift at will. Thalai stared up at the moon, it wasn’t full but it looked it, she closed her eyes then howled. At first nothing much happened then she felt it, that shiver down her neck and then her nose and mouth extended her arms and legs got longer and she could feel the joints changing position finally her tail grew and her howl got deeper, to her surprise non of these things hurt her, and it seemed like the transformation happened quicker this time. She looked down to see paw’s where her hands should be she looked around then walked over to a puddle and stared down at her reflection she was a mix of dark brown and light brown with a hint of grey thrown in, she stared for awhile then she grinned and howled. After ten minutes or so she sat down exhausted and lapped up some water from the puddle she looked around grinning then ran straight down the mountain side and stopped right before the drop she looked down growling slightly, she had growled before but it had never sounded so…real, she stared over the edge into the black abyss of trees and rocks and she noticed something she never had before, there were loads of rocks leading down the gap was too big for a human to make but maybe…she shuffled from one paw to the other then swallowed and leaped onto the first rock landing with a whimper, it hadn’t hurt but it had scared her a bit and she wasn’t used to four paws, she regained her balance then leaped again on to the second rock she tripped on her own paws and fell landing on the third, she winced as the shock hit her but in spite of it she was amazed by how little it had hurt, “ok…if I were a camera were would I be?” she got to all fours and looked around. She smelled the air and although it smelled incredible! Especially as a wolf with all the flowers, sand, pine and crisp clean mountain air, she couldn’t tell where kens camera was. She jumped off the last rock and landed amongst the trees, and pine needles, she toppled a bit nearly falling over again (she wasn’t used to having four legs) she stood up and began stepping tentatively through the twigs looking around she smiled and her ears pricked up as she began to get used to the forest. She sped up slightly breaking into a run she laughed and barked as she ran, it felt unbelievable the wind in her fur the scent of pine and pollen and… boy was it fun to run so fast!.

1 4

Thalai slowed to a jogging speed and looked around she didn’t really know were she was but she could always find her way back with her sense of smell. She tilted her head and stared, out of the tree tops the sky was pitch black but she could still see the moonlight making the branches shimmer and turn silver, she sniffed the air and pricked up her ears, up ahead the trees were getting lighter as if there were an opening, Thalai sniffed the air again and began walking towards it, she stepped out of the trees and looked around, it was a small clearing filled with rocks and small trees and a river running through the middle. She sniffed the air but nothing seemed to be wrong she was still cautious however as her sense of smell wasn’t brilliant and she knew it, she wandered round a bit before sitting down next to a rock in a big puffy bit of grass, she rested her head on her paws and it was only then that she realised how tired she was she yawned and lay down, she would only rest her eyes for a moment… “What the hell do you think your doing!?” Thalai opened her eyes and looked up, the voice that had spoken was slightly rough and Thalai knew that was because it was growling, she jumped to her paws only to be crushed back down hard “hey! Let me go!” she whimpered and yelped as the wolf’s paws threatened to pierce through her neck “what do you think you’re doing mutt!?” “MUTT!?” Thalai repeated indignantly and that was it she rolled and lunged at him he jumped back then reared up on his hind legs she stared at him, he didn’t look like she did, for one thing his fur was white and longer than hers, his eyes were brown\orange and he looked far more wild then she did, Thalai jumped at him trying to push him into the near by river but he was far stronger then she was and she only succeeded in getting her shoulder bitten, she drove her fangs into his neck before he could bite any harder, he barked and shook her off throwing her into one of the rocks she lay there exhausted with her eyes shut tight expecting to feel his fangs any second but when he didn’t move Thalai slowly opened her eyes, he growled at her from the top of the highest rock as she stood up and turned to him, “so what’s a mutt like you doing round here any way?” “Hey!” she growled “I’m no mutt! The names Thalai!” he smirked “new to this place?” her ears went back “well no not really I live in the village, with the humans, I mean people” he looked at her

suspiciously “you mean they keep you as their pet?” he said scratching his head, “no way! I’m not a pet they…sorta don’t know I’m a wolf.” His attention instantly snapped back to her she froze realising what a bad idea it was to say that, he jumped down in front of her, he was quite a lot bigger than her and his fur was slightly thicker which was probably why her bite had no effect on him. “I knew I smelled something strange about you” he started growling again “you smell like those humans!” she gulped and looked up at him, she couldn’t make it any worse so she decided to tell him, “well I can kinda shape shift” he immediately leaped up stopping an inch in front of her she yelped “what were you born as a wolf or a human?” she sat and thought for a minute “well my mum and dad are human but apparently when I was born I looked different” he frowned at her and sat down “different?” “Yea I looked well wolf like” “how?” “I don’t know I didn’t exactly have a mirror did I?” he closed his eyes “how long have you known what

1 5

you are” her ears went down to the side of her head, she was beginning to think these things would be a pain in the ass for truth or dare if they always reacted to how she felt, “I really only found out yesterday, if I had only known sooner I would have been so much clearer, I never fit in with humans and now I know why” he looked at her and sighed “look kid you should probably get out of here it’s not safe” “why? Do you mean that black wolf I saw the other day at least I think it was a wolf its fur was kinda short” his fur bristled and he turned to her and barked “black wolf!?” Thalai turned back to him “yea, you know him?” he growled deeply as he answered “we’ve crossed paths.” She stared at him “where?” he growled again “ya know it’s not really any of your business kid” she whined and sat down he sighed “uuur pups, when I was a cub he was a part of my pack but all the wolves could tell he was bad just by the smell of him, we were walking on a frozen lake and a human in a white coat grabbed both of us I bit it and got free but shadow didn’t…” “Shadow?” “Look do you want to here this or not kid?” “I’ll be quiet,” she said ducking her head down “good, anyway a little while ago I ‘wondered’ into a human laboratory…” “You mean you were captured” “GRRR” he growled and stepped on her tail “AS I was saying! I ‘WANDERED’ into a humans laboratory and he was in a glass cage opposite me, I never really got to speak to him before I left but I heard the humans talking about him, they said he had been… enhanced, they experimented on him, the only thing I remember is, the more he kills, the stronger he becomes, the next thing I knew he had broken out half destroying the lab as he did.” Thalai stared up at him “I met him the other day he tried to kill me” “he hates humans more than even the other wolves he sees you as a traitor to our kind” “and what about him if he’s been engineered then he’s no longer a pure blood either” “I know, but he doesn’t.” Thalai cocked her head to the side “he doesn’t know he’s an experiment?” the white wolf shook his head “they must have made sure he was unconscious first.” Thalai sniffed the air and growled “what now runt” “something’s wrong…and I am not a runt!” “Yea well you’re not exactly the expert on wolves now are you?” “Yea but I’m still a kid so my sense of smell should be better than yours, how old are you anyway?” “216 full moons what’s it to you?” Thalai sat and thought “oh you mean your eighteen?” he nodded “in human years” he got up and started walking “come on kid” “what? Why? Where?” “I’ll walk you back to your ‘village’“ she stood up and clumsily followed him out of the clearing. “So where did you come from?” he sighed “what you say kid?” “I mean like when did you get here?” he sighed and ignored the question “cause I think people would have noticed sooner if you’d been here long” he growled a little bit but Thalai remained oblivious “I mean that black wolf well my teacher saw him and then she said he was looking for one like him self I think she meant me but I don’t really know she could have meant you but then more people would know about you she talks a lot and…” the white wolf stopped and turned to her “all right kid look I’m starting to get pissed off and the last thing you want is to piss me off so would you can your yap hole already! Gees!” Thalai whined and dropped her ears to the side of her head he looked back at her and grimaced “what now kid” “its nothing really its just that I’ve never met a wolf that could talk before other than myself that is, I didn’t think they existed I mean no-one does anymore the humans all think they died off years ago.” “Yea well we came close to extinction but wolves are good survivors” he stopped in front of what was the apparent beginning of the mountain rocks. “this is your stop kid” Thalai walked in front of him and looked up, sure enough there were the rocks leading up to the hill and the village below it, “how am I supposed to climb it?” she turned around, but he was already gone Thalai jumped into a tree branch and clung to the bark “oww!” she barked as she sat up and hit her head, “hey” she laughed as she bit

1 6

into Kens camera strap and untangled it from the leaves. She leaped on to one of the rocks and tripped (luckily Kens camera landed on her head so it didn’t break) she leaped at the next rock only just making the jump she took a step back then leaped for the top and landed hitting her stomach on the edge and slipping backwards she yelped as she clung to the grass, half off the mountain, “raah!” she barked as she gave it one last kick and sprung to the top panting heavily. She rolled off her side and got up with Ken’s camera gripped firmly in her mouth, she looked around the light was fading fast it must have been at least five, she shook her head then began trotting up the hill as soon as she got to the top she turned and looked behind her, nothing, she frowned and continued down towards the village, she stopped at the first houses only just realising the problem, she closed her eyes and tried to change back, she opened her eyes and looked around but she was still on all fours, “umm, human! Change! Transform? Shape shift? WOOORK!” she looked around and started whimpering what if she could never change back? What if she was stuck as a wolf forever? She closed her eyes and thought, she tried to picture her self as a human, her dark brown\grey hair, her orange\brown eyes, her gothic taste in clothing and suddenly she was standing on two legs with her hair trailing down her shoulders, she sighed and smiled then took Ken’s camera out of her mouth and jogged down the road towards Ken’s house. “Ken hey Annabel, Ken, you there?” Thalai knocked on the front door and peered in the window but no-one seemed to be in. “Hey dweeb I thought I told you not to bug us!” “But I wasn’t I was just walking home!” Thalai recognised jimmy’s voice and turned around, he was standing in front of a group of kids with there hoods up Thalai growled and edged closer, “your in our neighbourhood!” jimmy started to back off as they came closer, “why is this your neighbourhood anyway? Won’t your mummy’s let you come any further” Thalai growled and edged closer, although she was careful to stay in the shadows, one of the suburban chavs stepped forwards and grabbed jimmy by the shirt collar raising his fist and laughing, that did it Thalai roared and lunged she howled mid air and felt herself changing by the time she bit the chav by the arm she was full wolf. “DON’T TOUCH MY BROTHER!” she growled and threw the chav to the floor, he then burst out crying and ran flat out down the road his friends close behind him screaming. Thalai turned around, Jimmy was lying on the floor in a heap cowering with his eyes shut she whimpered and walked over to him on all fours, he was clutching his arm and as she got closer she understood why, on his arm were four massive bleeding claw marks, she gasped and felt the same sinking feeling she had done when she had bitten Ken, she had never meant to hurt anyone but it just seemed to keep on happening, she whimpered and bent her head to lick his arm “Aaah!” he screamed and tears started trickling down his cheek. She whimpered louder then turned and ran she leaped over a fence and ran towards her house howling pitifully with every step. She crashed through the back door (which was still broken off its hinges) and ran up the stairs, she looked around and she slunk into her room and lay down on her bed, she closed her eyes and sighed as she opened them again as a human. She closed her eyes and lay there until she fell asleep, although with the bad dreams she had she almost wished she hadn’t, Kens arm bleeding, Jimmy screaming and running away from her, her mother and father pushing her away from her friends and family... “Thalai? Are you up?” “Yea” she groaned as she got up and walked begrudgingly down stairs, she stopped as she saw Jimmy sitting at the table she froze and held her breath as she walked down the last two steps realising just how many people there were dotted around the kitchen, Annabel, Ken and their parents, miss tweed,

1 7

Sieris and his parents, their head master and miss lunar, amongst various other adults from the neighbourhood, “Sieris hi…” Thalai said turning bright pink and twiddling her hair around her finger “what’s going on?” she knew that Ken and Annabel would be cross with her for not saying hello to them first, but he was closer to the door and she hadn’t said hi to him in awhile, so in other words she had many many excuses, “Duno but your brothers been talking about, weird things” Thalai looked at him then at her brother “he knows” she whispered to herself, “what?” “Oh” she blushed “nothing, “hey forget about us?” Ken and Annabel walked up to her grinning, “the whole town’s gone nuts did you hear?” Thalai shook her head Annabel laughed “do you know why this meeting was called? Wolves!” she laughed “the whole town is worried about wolves!” Thalai tried to fake a smile but she could feel her heart skip a beat “ha ha pretty crazy alright” “they said there was a big one earlier that tried to attack miss loony, a big white one weird hu? They said they got a big laboratory van to pick it up” “What!” Thalai yelled making everyone turn to her, “Thalai are you ok?” “I gotta go!” she leapt up nearly knocking over the table threw Kens camera at him and ran out the door. Ken, Annabel and Sieris looked at each other then followed her. she ducked under a fence (or rather tried to and instead hit her head full speed and rolled under it whimpering, she looked around she knew Ken Annabel and Sieris were right behind her but she was panicking too much to care she stood up threw back her head and howled, she changed almost immediately and continued running on all fours, she looked behind her, the fence was pretty big and wooden so she could only hope her friends hadn’t seen her, she rounded the corner and there it was, a big silver van with weird looking symbols on the side it was dented all over it so apparently he hadn’t just given up without a fight “hey!” she ran up to the van clumsily and stood up resting her front paws on the cage at the back, he was lying on his stomach with blood, cuts and bruises all over him “hey are you all right…” he opened one of his eyes “do I look it?” Thalai sighed “sorry I guess not...” she sniffed the cage “boy you really screwed up huh? I mean I heard they caught you but I didn’t think it would be this bad,” he growled exposing his white fangs covered in blood “I can get out of here whenever I feel like it!” “Then why are you still in there?” he barked and leaped at the cage door Thalai yelped and jumped back “hey I can help you! Just hold on,” she stood on her hind legs again and bit the padlock as hard as she could “hey kid don’t do me any favours!” she ignored him and snapped at the lock again “look mutt I don’t need your help!” he reared up biting one of her paws she jumped back before he could do any damage and closed her eyes she heard him growling more viciously and opened her eyes as a human she stood up and grabbed onto the padlock, then rummaging around in her pocket she produced a small, red and black hair pin. “Hold on…almost” ‘click!’ the padlock fell to the floor and the door swung open, she grinned at him “I told you I could help” he growled and jumped out “HEY!” Thalai turned to see two police men, or what looked like police men she growled “government!” they looked at each other then raised there bats and walked towards them Thalai started growling, “come on we can take them!” she looked behind her but she could see the white wolf shaking, he must have been fighting them for quite awhile, she frowned “don’t worry I’ll take care of this.” Thalai smiled at him then turned to them and growled, “Come on kid what are you doing? He can’t understand you he’s just a dog,” he growled Thalai stood in front of him preventing him from striking them “wolves are just stupid animals he’s just looking for food,” she growled “you damn humans, you can’t tell a wolf when you see one? Not even when it’s staring you in the face! HOOOOOOOWWW!!” they screamed and began

1 8

backing away as she dropped to all fours and snarled at them, “That is not a kid!” “There’s something wrong with her!” they raised the bats and forced them down Thalai dodged and head butted one of them the second one struck her back leg she yelped and landed with a limp she jumped right back into the first police man who was attempting to attack the white wolf, who could fight surprisingly well considering his injuries, Thalai bit into the arm that was holding the bat, he dropped it instantly, screaming in pain, blood ran down Thalai’s fur and spurted out of his arm covering them both Thalai jumped back in shock she hadn’t realised just how hard she could bite when she had to, the human fell to the floor clutching his arm “HA not bad kid you can really fight when you have to! Come on lets get out of here!” he jumped on to the van and over the wall, Thalai looked at the police man, his arm was still bleeding and the other human had run off the first chance he got, “come on kid!” the white wolf looked back over the fence “lets get out of here!” “I’ll catch up ok?” he growled “don’t come whining to me when the humans kill you!” Thalai watched as he disappeared back over the fence then she turned to the police man and began licking the blood off his cut “Aaah get off!” he screamed and threw her along the floor, she yelped and looked up at him and spoke “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to hurt you really I was just defending my self!” his eyes widened and she guessed he could hear her, “let me help you” he shut his eyes tight and turned away Thalai closed her eyes and stood up she ran over to him and grabbed his arm squeezing it tight to stop the blood flow, he opened his eyes and tried to shake her off “what the hell is wrong with you! Just hold still!” she said ripping his jacket sleeve off and tying it round his arm “there that should…Aaah!” he took out a handgun the second she had tied the material and fired, “RAAAH!” Thalai yelped as the white wolf leaped in front of her and snapped at the gun “go on! Jump already!” she looked behind her at the van then ran up the side and leaped over the fence and ran, she couldn’t transform under pressure plus she was moving, the white wolf jumped over the fence and overtook her easily “come on kid” she stopped and howled but she was so tired it took much to long to work and by the time she was a wolf the bullet had already hit her. “Ryiiiipe!” she yelped as she fell to the floor and rolled violently. she lay there breathless as the police man came slowly closer, Thalai shut her eyes tight and time seemed to slow down, all she could hear was the sound of her own heart beat she was in so much pain she could hardly believe it, and then they jumped from nowhere, Annabel, Ken and Sieris stepped in between her and the policeman, Annabel yelled her name from the distance Ken and Sieris held the policeman back and tried to get the gun out of his hand, Thalai felt sorry for them they thought she was still human, it was getting dark and she was hunched over on the floor but they didn’t know what she was, “come on kid!” Thalai opened her eyes and yelped as he bit her by the scruff of her neck and carried her running up the mountain she closed her again eyes and did her best to drown out Annabel’s cries, getting fainter and fainter until she felt herself swoon and she fell unconscious. “Hey mutt get up your going to kill the grass if you lie there any longer” “uuur” Thalai groaned and opened her eyes, it took awhile for her eyesight to adjust to the early morning light but once it had she sat up immediately and held her breath “were, am I?” “What? Never seen a field before?” Thalai stood up and looked around in awe, it was the most amazing thing she had seen since she could remember, the field was huge! It went on for as far as the eye could see going up and down, a cross between a flat field and a small hill, the grass was so green and at least three foot tall with flowers growing all around and a big clear river running

1 9

through the middle, and right in the distance was a mountain range all around, they were in a massive valley! “Where is this place?!” Thalai said standing on all fours, “its closer to your ‘home’ than you might think” Thalai looked at him “what do you mean?” “See that up there?” he nodded towards the mountains behind them “behind those mountains is the forest and behind that your village” Thalai grinned and walked around in a circle trying to take in all the scenery, “huu?” she stopped and felt a chill go down her back as a terrible thought entered her head, wasn’t she shot? What happened to the bullet and this place seemed too good to be true… “Hey umm… I’m not… I’m still alive right?” the white wolf looked at her

then burst out laughing “hey! I’m serious what happened to the bullet?” “I bit it out” Thalai cocked her head to one side “what?” “It makes it heal” “all right… but how did I get here?” “I carried you here on my back that’s how” he snapped “and you were only shot in the shoulder anyway it wasn’t enough to kill you, your just making a mountain out of a mole hill, but I warned you about that human.” Her ears went back and she started whimpering “hey kid don’t sweat it they’re only humans” she gave a weak smile, “hey, what’s your name anyway?” he growled and then sighed “what’s it to ya?” “Please!” he sighed deeper, then muttered begrudgingly “Vitarny” “Vitarny huh? Cool name what’s it mean?” he looked at her “what makes you think it means anything?” she shrugged “just sounds like it should.” He sighed again “it means white soul “hu?!” Thalai thought back to her teacher, one will kill with the help of the white soul… but it couldn’t mean him, could it? “What’s Thalai mean anyway?” she sat and thought then smiled, she’d never thought about it before but it sounded now like it was quite a good fit for her “wolf of god.” He looked at her then did what could have been a smile, but as she had never seen him do it she couldn’t really tell, “Come on kid we need to get food” he said getting up and shaking his fur, “the village is too far we wont get any food there” he rolled his eyes “you really are a house pet” “I am not!” he laughed and started running out into the field “hey! Wait up!” Thalai yelled while running after him, her shoulder hurt a little bit but not enough to stop her, but she couldn’t help wondering, how long she had been asleep for. “Hey Vitarny” Thalai panted as she caught up with him, he had stopped and was crouching by a hole in the ground “hey what are you doing?” he didn’t answer “hey?” “quiet mutt” he said as the ground in front of him started shifting slowly, suddenly a rabbit poked its head out “Aww cute,” Thalai said smiling at it “glad you like it cause your going to help me catch it.” “What no” Thalai looked at the little fluffy creature sniffing the air then at Vitarny staring patiently at the brown rabbit, “go on then mutt, get our dinner.” She looked at it and whined, she was starving but she didn’t want to kill a helpless rabbit, “well…what do I do?” he rolled his eyes “haven’t you ever hunted one day in your life?” Thalai looked away, Vitarny rolled his eyes “of course not, stupid question for a house pet” she growled at him but he

2 0

ignored her “come on mutt,” she whined as she followed his lead, he skulked along the floor and then lunged at the rabbit snapping at the neck, it broke in one and Vitarny was left holding a dead rabbit with blood dripping out of his mouth, “oh man, I feel sick!” Thalai said shutting her eyes tightly and turning away, “if your gonna be squeamish about it then you can catch your own food, but just so’s you know, I don’t think you’ll find a cheeseburger hiding out in the wild” Thalai whined and licked her lips, “I can eat more than just burgers you know!” Vitarny raised an eyebrow “city dog” he dumped the rabbit in front of her “eat up, if you can,” she growled and sniffed the rabbit, it didn’t smell too bad it just smelt like raw meat, she closed her eyes and tried to imagine it was chicken, she opened her mouth and hovered over the rabbit “…well? Go on then” she opened one eye then shut it as soon as she realised she was staring into the eyes of a rabbit carcass, “oh for god sake eat!” Vitarny said putting a paw on her head and forcing her open mouth onto the rabbits flesh, “Aaah yuck!” Thalai tried to spit it out but his paw was restricting her movement she swallowed and opened her eyes, it tasted so…good! He let go of her head and she blinked then drove her fangs into the rabbit ripping at the meat until there was nothing left but bone, she licked it clean breaking the bone with her teeth as her tail wagged from side to side. “Well?” she licked her lips and looked at him “where can we find some more?” he smirked and trotted towards the long grass “you coming mutt?” she growled “the names Thalai!” she ran after him and sat down in the grass. “Hey mutt don’t get too comfy, your caching the next one” Thalai sniffed the air and leant closer to the ground were there was a small tunnel, she poked her nose inside then yelped and withdrew it quickly as a mole poked its pink nose out of the soil, Vitarny sniggered behind her and lay down “you cant even tell the difference between a mole and your lunch? What the hell kind of city wolf are you?” Thalai growled and sat up “why can’t we eat moles?” “Because there just skin and bones, they take more energy to catch then they give you to eat, besides they taste terrible” Thalai snorted “getting a little picky for a hunter aren’t you?” he snorted at her “at least I don’t spend all my time eating compressed cardboard meat in a bun!” “Hey!” she whined “cheese burgers are brilliant and they’re a lot easier to catch than a rabbit!” he rolled his eyes and walked around slowly sniffing the grass, “ah! Here, hey mutt I’m calling you” Thalai trudged over to him and plonked down on the grass, ears low, and whined pathetically “hey mutt! stick your whiny little dry nose down that rabbits hole and get us some damn food!” she whined even more pathetically but did as she was told she pulled her nose back out a fraction of a second later saying “it smells like feet!” he growled and leant on her head forcing it back into the ‘feet soaked’ underground, she coughed and spluttered trying to get her head back out “what the hell are you doing? Mutt you’ll scare off whatever lunch is in there she whined, her voice echoed through the tunnel “why can’t you do this?” “Because I’m teaching you a lesson!” “You’re being lazy! You’re just sitting on you’re ass!” “I’m sitting on you’re head mutt” “this is cruel…haven’t you ever seen Watership down?” she struggled and whined but to no avail, and eventually she was forced to sit quietly and wait for rabbits. “Umm, not bad mutt.” Vitarny mumbled while chomping into a small hare “see I told you I wasn’t a city mutt! Let’s see a dog bring in that many rabbits” “they were hares and you only ‘brought in’ four, you are a city mutt, you can’t even catch a rabbit.” Thalai bit into the last piece of bone and licked her lips, “I caught hares there much faster than rabbits and bigger that makes them harder to catch…right?” Vitarny shook his head “rabbits are smaller and well known for being cunning, their far harder to catch.” Thalai rolled her eyes “you know they would be

2 1

hard to catch if you had caught them” he growled “I don’t exaggerate my kills.” Thalai ripped the last piece of meat off of the second hare and swallowed it, “hmm, I’m sure…so how’d you get caught anyway?” he looked up at her his eyes caught the light turning them red and for a moment Thalai thought she would be joining the hares, but then he just sat down and began to scratch himself “what’s it to you?” she looked around “well I was just wondering, I mean if you live here then why did you come to the village?” “I don’t live here mutt, my turfs in the forest by the stream. And even then it’s not permanent. No I come from the north” Thalai cocked her head to the side contemplating what he said before saying “wait, if you live in the forest why did you go so far out of your way to drag me here?” he stood up and snapped at her “because mutt, if I’d left you in the forest humans could have found you way too easily, out here we’re safe-er, and humans live, wolves wander.” He sniffed the air then started growling Thalai felt a chill go down her back as the very air around them seemed to change, “stay here.” Vitarny growled and broke into a run towards the mountains. Thalai sat down and looked around herself nervously then she sniffed the air ‘snap!’ Thalai whipped around as a twig snapped behind her she hunched her shoulders and sniffed the air again, something seemed wrong “…Vitarny?” she sniffed the air again and whimpered, whatever it was had gotten closer, ‘snap!’ she spun around again “…Vitarny?!” she was beginning to worry the grass was too tall she couldn’t see anything over the top of it. ‘SNAP!’ “Vitarny!!” she stood up tail and ears down fur bristling, she knew she had to get into the short grass were she’d first woken up but she was too scared to move, she closed her eyes and tried to take a deep breath Then opened her eyes and leaped over the grass she landed on all fours and bolted towards the mountains where Vitarny had disappeared. She reached the shorter grass and heard something run up behind her before she knew what was happening she was slammed down into the grass mid air and skidded along the mud soaked ground. “Aaah!” she came to a stop lying on her back, she tried to get up and was instantly pummelled back down with unbelievable force, she opened her eyes and was left staring into a pare of orange\red eyes surrounded by thick pitch black fur and the sharpest yellow/white fangs she’d ever seen, she yelped and tried to get up but he was far too strong, “who are you?!” Thalai yelped as he pushed down on her throat she tried to howl but she couldn’t breath, “vitar...” she panted as she tried desperately to call to him, “vita…” she could feel herself losing air and the black wolf was starting to blur, she panted more and more until she could feel herself getting light headed,

when suddenly she heard a loud bark as Vitarny pounced from nowhere knocking the black wolf onto the ground. “SHADOW!” he growled as he pinned the black wolf to the ground “Vitarny! It’s been awhile” they snarled at each other, and before Thalai could get up blood splattered the grass and they turned into a blood bath filled with fur and teeth,

2 2

“Vitarny!” Thalai looked franticly but she couldn’t see anything she ducked into the grass and looked from side to side then Vitarny was thrown into the river landing on his stomach half under water, he lifted his head and opened one eye (as the other one was so covered in blood it wouldn’t open) shadow laughed and stepped forwards fangs bared Thalai saw her chance and jumped for his throat, at first she didn’t think anything had happened but then he yelped in pain and ducked

down to the floor in a heap, she growled at him, mouth open ready to bite then he leaped up slammed her and ran. she stood up and looked around franticly, but the wolf had disappeared “Thalai!” she turned to Vitarny as he attempted to stand, but his injuries were too much he collapsed back into the river panting, “wait, let me help you up.” Thalai said walking over to him and clamping her teeth around the scruff of his neck. He struggled to stand but eventually with Thalai dragging him he made his way out of the river and on to the grass, “hey mutt why did you step in like that? You could have been killed.” “Well yea but that’s what friends do right? I mean you helped me before,” he growled slightly “it doesn’t make us friends… I just like attacking humans that’s all” he rested his head on his paws and sighed, “anyway we’re wolves, we don’t have friends, it’s a pack or nothing.” Thalai lay down next to him “well, I guess we’re a pack then.” he sighed “it doesn’t work like that mutt, a pack needs to be able to protect one another and has to have at least three members, that way there’s always a way to make things work,” “what do you mean?” Vitarny sighed “a lone wolf only has to take care of himself no compromises no waiting for an injured pack member and it can sleep when it wants to, in a pack they all take care of each other, if one falls behind all the wolves will wait behind with the fallen one, when they sleep one will always stand guard, and if one gets into a fight they will all step in and fight together…that’s why it doesn’t work with only two, there’s not enough to live and fight.” Thalai grinned “well then lets start a new trend!” he stared at her questioningly, “a…new trend?” “Yea lets make a pack with only two wolves!” he smiled slightly “all right for now you can stick with me, but the second I get the chance I’m sending you back to the humans” he closed his eyes and lay his head down, Thalai smiled and began licking the blood off his fur and wounds, he growled but she ignored him and carried on until he fell asleep. Thalai stared up at the sky watching the stars for what seemed like hours before she too fell asleep. Thalai didn’t get as much sleep as was her intention, she would wake up every half hour and drink out of the river looking around nervously she was completely paranoid that the black wolf would attack her again, neither of them were in any condition to fight, and the more she thought about it the more paranoid she got, by the time she fell asleep it was about five am, which was an hour before they normally got up, and as soon as the sunlight hit the valley Thalai was wide awake. She sniffed the early morning air and licked the due soaked grass then she walked towards the river for a proper drink, the river water was much clearer and purer than anything she had tasted before, she turned around, Vitarny was still asleep snoring like a big dog (although Thalai knew he would kill her for thinking that) she looked around and sniffed the air again, she turned around as there was a scuffling

2 3

sound behind her, she grinned as a small brown rabbit emerged from the grass, Thalai sat down and tried to be patient but she just ended up barking and scaring it off, she sighed and looked around there were more and more rabbits hopping into the light, she sat and watched until there were at least five in one place then she lunged the way she had seen Vitarny do it and caught two of them under her paws killing them instantly, all the other rabbits in the field ran and disappeared into there burrows, Thalai sighed and picked up the rabbits it wasn’t brilliant but at least it was food. She dropped one next to Vitarny and began eating the other one herself. She finished licking the bones and stared around, apart from the birds twittering around in the grass and the faint noise of the river as it rushed passed the edges of the bank there wasn’t much to do, she whined and thought about her mother, back at home, alone with her brother and father, and what about Annabel and Ken? And Sieris? They had risked there lives to save her and they didn’t even know what she was, she whimpered as tears trickled down her fur and splashed onto her paws, what if she never saw any of them again? What if that black wolf…Shadow had gone back for them, she had just left them there, she had run away without looking back, she whimpered more and more until she felt a chill go down her back and the tears stopped and she began howling, echoing through the valley making a sad haunting noise unlike anything she had ever heard before. “Hey mutt!” he paused seeing her expression and the way she was howling “what’s wrong?” he got up begrudgingly and walked over to her limping slightly, “Thalai?” he nudged her shoulder with his nose then stared at her questioningly “what is it, what’s wrong?” she turned to him and sniffed whimpering and whining, yet no tears emerged from her dark shinning eyes, “I miss my family and my friends and…what the hell is wrong with me?” Vitarny Looked puzzled for a moment before he spoke “wrong? What the hell do you mean wrong?” Thalai growled “if I had never howled that night on the hill, if I had never responded to that stupid instinct!” “And remained ignorant of what you are?!” “NO!…no.” Thalai stared down at the ground “no, I like the way I am, being able to run and hunt and be free! It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me, it’s just that…I wonder if my mum worry’s about me, and my dad and brother and Sieris and Annabel and Ken and…” “So what? They’re just humans?!” Vitarny cut her off mid sentence, “they would hate you in a second if they knew what the hell you really are” she growled and whimpered “no they wouldn’t! They’re my friends and my family, they’re like a pack, of course you wouldn’t know what that’s like would you!?” Thalai regretted the words the second they left her mouth but she didn’t know how to take them back so she just turned her back and began walking over to the mountains. Thalai took one glance up at the steep mountain although she knew the forest was just behind it she had never felt so far away from home, she put a paw on the muddy rubble and attempted to push herself up, only of course to fall directly back down, she tried again this time getting a significant way up before the earth crumbled beneath her and she slid down head over heels, she shook it off and turned around as the sound of Vitarny laughing became more apparent she snarled and turned back to the mountain, the rocks and mud were so loose that every step Thalai took resulted in her slipping right back down to the bottom, “hey! She turned indignantly to Vitarny as he lay on the floor rolling with laughter, “you know I could be at the top right now if I hadn’t spent all night up on guard!” “Yea well kid, no-one told you to do that, still I’m glad you have the right instincts.” She tried to argue but he just stood up and took a running jump at the mountain, “come on mutt” he said biting a tree root and pulling himself up, “wait, where are you going?” she said attempting to mirror his actions and failing instead landing on a

2 4

thistle “Ryiiiipe!” she yelped and leaped up the mud slope landing next to Vitarny, he smiled “not bad mutt,” he grabbed her by the scruff and yanked her up higher and higher until the ground of pebbles and loose mud morphed into grass and rocks, Thalai got to all fours and pulled her self up following Vitarny’s every step although she reached the top considerably later than he did, and totally exhausted. “Come on mutt we’ve still got the other side” she whined and stumbled down the rocks to where the land got steeper tripping as she went, “come on mutt!” Vitarny called to her from up ahead “…yea? I’m a little busy right now!” he snarled at her “yea well, bite me!” she tripped and landed on her back at his feet, “where are we going anyway?” he smirked and flicked his tail “to your home,” Thalai stared at him, speechless “my home? why?” he scratched his ear still smirking “because if you wont believe me about the humans then I’ll show you what I mean,” she grinned “you’ll see they’ll be fine, once they know its me they’ll… everything will be fine.” Vitarny shrugged “if that’s what you want to believe” he turned and began making his way to the bottom of the slope, “we’ll rest in my den tonight and walk to your home in the morning.” Thalai nodded “ok but…do you think it’s a good idea for you to come?” he rolled his eyes “yea as a matter of fact I think it’s a great idea mutt, in fact I think its such a good idea that I’m going to suggest this idea over and over until I get it stuck in my head!” Thalai looked at him and laughed even Vitarny couldn’t help smiling at his long senseless rant. It didn’t take them long to get to his den although the sun was already beginning to set which made Thalai wonder what time they had left the field. “Vitarny?” “Yea mutt? What is it?” Thalai ran up beside him and sat down “what’s up with you and humans?” he looked at her puzzled before saying “what do you mean? They’re humans, what’s to get?” “Yea I know but I mean what’s so bad about them?” Vitarny growled “they’ve never given me much fun in the past.” “But I’ve lived with them my whole life and they’ve never hurt me,” “that’s because you looked like them!” Thalai whimpered “but they’re my friends even if I didn’t look human they’d never hurt me” “is that so?! Well we’ll bloody well see what they think of you when we get there wont we?!” “No need to snap! I was only saying, besides just because they hurt you it doesn’t mean they’ll hurt me, besides they probably only hurt you because you’re a miserable scrogey GIT!” he growled and snapped at her front paw causing her to slip tail first into the river, “hey! There’s no need to attack me!” he snorted and rested his head on his paws “good night mutt” Thalai crawled out of the water and lay down next to him “good night Vitarny…aka jerk” Thalai opened one eye and moved slightly further away from him, but he was already asleep, “…night.” She closed her eyes and before she knew it she too was asleep. She didn’t awake to the sound of Vitarny’s voice for once, because he wasn’t There to wake her, instead she was woken by a small brown\yellow rabbit sniffing Around her stomach, “hu? Oh, hello,” she said slowly getting to all Fours and crouching down ready to pounce, but then she noticed something odd, The rabbit had a small bell around its neck “hey! You’re Annabel’s mum’s rabbit! Taffy!” the rabbit twitched its ears and sat up responding to his name, “Its ok I Won’t hurt you, just hold still” and with that Thalai Grabbed the rabbit by the scruff of its neck as lightly as she could and Began carrying it through the trees, it struggled and bit just as hard as one small rabbit could do but Thalai hung on to it all the same she was careful not to bite Too hard as she knew her bite was far worse than her bark. By the time she reached the rocks Taffy’s breathing was fast and heavy, she jumped up the rocks

2 5

Faster than she usually did (maybe she was getting used to this) then she rested The rabbit on the grass for a moment but it remained motionless she whined Picked it back up and began trotting up towards the village. Thalai reached the first row of houses and was instantly presented with a problem…if she walked up to Annabel’s house as a wolf with her mums rabbit in her mouth, she would most likely be shot (again!) but she could tell by the way he was moving that if she were to put the rabbit down and shape shift he would immediately run back up to the forest, and Thalai didn’t think she was up to chasing rabbits at six thirty in the morning. In which case, she began thinking, could she stand up drop the rabbit and shape shift fast enough to catch him?, or, could she put him somewhere he couldn’t move then pick him up again once she was human?...she sat and thought for a moment or two longer before she decided to put taffy on the floor and hold him still with her paw, as this seemed like the smartest thing she could do, (it wasn’t.) the second she closed her eyes to transform the rabbit bit her and ran out into the village “no!” Thalai opened her eyes and although still a wolf she didn’t have much choice and ran after the fuzzy escapee, unfortunately she didn’t catch it until it was at Annabel's back door, Thalai rounded the corner and sped head first into the dust bins, “Taffy!... Taffy?” she stopped and her ears instantly fell to the side of her head as she saw the motionless rabbit lying on the door step, “Taffy…” Thalai nuzzled his side and backed off and felt the familiar sinking feeling in her gut the, same thing that had happened when she scratched jimmy and bit Ken and the policeman, things like this just kept on happening, she whimpered and nuzzled the rabbit again but it remained motionless, she slowly lifted her head and howled a sad mournful haunting noise that echoed through the houses, suddenly a light switched on inside the living room Thalai stopped howling and looked around not knowing what to do, if Annabel's mum opened the door she would ether be shot or captured and experimented on, she panicked and grabbed the dead rabbit in her mouth and turned to run only to fail and trip on her own paws, she turned with Taffy still in her mouth and froze as the door opened and she was left staring at Annabel. “… Taffy?!...” Annabel’s voice was hollow and it wavered as she spoke, Thalai swallowed and lay the rabbit down at her feet then backed off slowly into the alleyway. Annabel picked up the dead rabbit and gently stroked its fur, tears began to trickle down her cheeks and onto Taffy’s whisker engulfed nose Thalai whined and Annabel’s attention instantly transferred to her, her eyes widened as if noticing her for the first time, Thalai froze and took a tentative step forwards then stopped as Annabel screamed “muuuum! Come here now there’s a... a wolf!” Thalai gritted her teeth and ran leaping over the fence and running out into the town centre she flicked her tail and looked around frantically, she could still hear Annabel’s screaming in the distance and her mum’s sobbing over her dead pet, lights started to turn on all over the village as windows and doors were opened to investigate the racket, Thalai whimpered, her tail between her legs, her ears flat against her head, she didn’t know what to do, she thought quietly for a moment trying to drown out the sound of people screaming and shouting all over town… where could she go? If she didn’t move fast she didn’t know what would happen to her but she was quite sure she didn’t want to find out, but no matter where she went right now no-one would recognise her, “oh stupid me!” she said only just remembering that she could shape shift, she closed her eyes then opened them, but nothing had happened she looked around puzzled for a bit then closed her eyes again and tried to picture her self as a human… and she felt the familiar feeling of her body

2 6

changing then she opened her eyes as a human and ran towards her house, she hesitated out side and peered in the window, the living room light was on and her mother and farther where sitting on the sofa watching telly, but there was something strange about it… they were crying. Thalai stared at them then walked round to the front door and pushed it open, she walked inside and stood behind the sofa staring at the telly until she noticed the problem… on the TV talking into a microphone from a hospital bed was the policeman with his arm covered in bandages, Thalai gasped and her mother and father turned around and stared at her then her mother breathed her name and ran and hugged her, her father followed suit, then her brother and finally her cat brushed around her ankles purring “what…what’s going on?” her parents smiled at her then broke the embrace and jimmy broke in with his usual bluntness “we thought you were dead! The man on the news he said there were wolves around you and then one bit him and dragged you away with them “what?!” Thalai reeled in shock wondering if the policeman had really forgotten or if he had decided to be kind to her and keep his mouth shut. “I’m so glad your ok Thalai” her mum said putting a hand on her shoulder and wiping away the remains of the tears in her eyes, “now I’ve got to make a phone call, honey” she said turning to Thalai’s father “can you go and make the children some hot chocolate ok?” he wiped a hand across his eyes and walked into the kitchen giving Thalai and jimmy one final smile then disappearing behind the door, Thalai sat on the sofa still completely perplexed about everything that was happening and although she was glad to be home a part of her couldn’t help being worried about Vitarny, after all she and him were a pack now he wouldn’t just leave her, would he? She sighed and sunk back into the cushions as jimmy leant against her, “jimmy…” she glanced at his hand, his pale flesh was scarred with her claw marks and didn’t look like that would change any time soon, “yea Thal?... what’s wrong?” she looked at the fire place, alive with smoke and embers and dancing flames lighting up the walls and carpet, “nothing… its ok.” She closed her eyes and tried to relax but she couldn’t, so much had happened to her and Vitarny… she may have only known him for a short amount of time but he was her friend and he had saved her life so many times, but he had said that he would dump her on the humans at the first chance he got, maybe he had finally stayed true to his word. “Ok honey, chocolate is ready” Thalai turned her head as her mother walked in holding two cups of steaming hot liquid, she handed one to Thalai and the other to jimmy then sat down on the sofa next to her and stroked her hair out of her face expectantly waiting for an explanation, she sipped the cup of chocolate then turned to her mum and said “I’m kinda tired mum… do you mind if I go to bed?” her mum smiled and nodded “of course I don’t mind I’ll wake you up early tomorrow, Annabel and Ken have been worried sick about you,” “oh yea… great.” Thalai said getting up and wandering up the stairs to her room, she had completely forgotten about Annabel and Ken, the last time she had seen Annabel she’d had her mum’s dead rabbit in her mouth and she didn’t feel much like explaining it. She lay on her bed and looked up at the near circle of light in the sky, if she howled now would Vitarny hear her? or would she be heard by some… human and shot? She decided to take the risk (if anything went wrong she could blame the husky next door) she leant out the window and howled she tried to call to Vitarny but as much as she tried is wasn’t loud enough and all she ended up doing was growing a fur coat and a tail, she sighed and collapsed on her bed, tail flicking off the bed from side to side, she closed her eyes and willed herself to change back then opened her eyes and looked around, she had gotten used to shape shifting, to

2 7

change into a wolf all she had to do was howl and to change back she just had to close her eyes and will herself to and either way it seemed easy enough. She lay there whining as she thought about her friends and wondering how to tell them about everything, she had gotten used to life with Vitarny, in a pack, even if it had only been a few days, there her instincts were a good thing no-one looked at her like she was the new Hitler every time she panted when she was out of breath or when she chomped down on meat with her canine teeth, or when she howled, all those things were as normal as breathing and blinking to a wolf, but to a human… she would always get stared at as if she was wielding an axe and she would always have to defend her self and the way she was to bullies and although she loved her family she knew she would never be like them… so she had two choices go on like this living as a human and hoping Vitarny would return for her one day, or she could show them what she was and hope they accepted her… in the end she decided to sleep on it and make her decision in the morning. It was about seven thirty when she woke up and she felt like the weight of the World lay upon her shoulders, she had decided to tell her mother and father first, Then based on their reaction she might tell Ken and Annabel, just as long as it Didn’t get too far, after all she didn’t think she wanted to be dissected, she walked out of her room and shut the door behind her, the walk down the stairs seemed longer than it normally did but the second she got down stairs her mother smiled at her and handed her a cup of tea like everything was normal, Thalai tried to force a smile but she just ended up sighing and looking like she had a mouth Full of some disgusting cough medicine. Her mother looked at her puzzled for a moment then said “is everything ok?” Thalai sighed although she thought her mother already knew the answer, “mum… can I talk to you and dad alone?” her mother was about to respond when the doorbell rang her mum turned and walked out the door “Thalai if you need to talk of course I’ll be happy to just let me deal with this first” she gave one last encouraging smile then disappeared out the door and Thalai was left alone with her cat. She sat on the bottom step and stroked the tabby creature prowling around her ankles, although she was extremely cautious as she kept on hurting people by accident and killing animals she didn’t want to hurt her beloved cat that she had grown up with, and despite the fact that she was a wolf he didn’t seem to care one bit, he still prowled around her purring and flicking his tail as always. She sat and stroked him thinking about how to tell them about what she was, but in spite of all her worries she couldn’t help thinking about Vitarny and wondering whether or not he had meant to abandon her in the forest… “Thalai its Annabel and Ken do you want to go out and say hi?” “Yea… yea I’ll be right there” she stood up and brushed the cat fur off her clothes, Vitarny would have to wait, for now she had bigger problems to deal with. She walked out of the room and passed her mother to the front door where Annabel and Ken stood waiting for her on the door step, her mum smiled and walked into the living room, Thalai stepped out and closed the door behind her, Ken and Annabel stared at her as if she were a ghost, “hey… how have you been since…” Thalai stopped and gave an apologetic smile “sorry if I scared you, and Annabel I’m really sorry about taffy…” “Hey!” Annabel jumped in all guns blazing, “how’d you know about that we haven’t told anyone yet?!” Thalai gritted her teeth realising her somewhat fatal mistake “oh um…yea sorry I heard it from a neighbour,” Annabel sighed “sorry I’m just on edge lately” “Ken you haven’t said a word are you all right?” he nodded “look Thalai…” he looked away “we have to

2 8

know… first of all did you spring that white wolf in the truck?” she swallowed then spoke quietly, as if convincing herself first that it was ok to do so “yea…he’s my friend” Annabel and Ken exchanged worried glances “how can he be your friend?” Annabel said backing off slightly Thalai swallowed, to see her best friends backing away from her stung her badly, “look, Thalai you’ve got to tell us, what’s going on we’re your friends but… we just don’t want to get mixed up in any of this ok?!” Thalai felt her eyes stinging as tears began to bubble over her eye lashes and onto her cheeks “so that’s the way it’s going to be hu!” she closed her eyes as more tears ran down her face, “you came here to tell me you’re not my friends anymore right!?” Ken stepped forwards tentatively “no… it’s not like that we are your friends we just… don’t want to get hurt we just want you and us to be safe…” Thalai looked up at them, they had never seen her cry before, probably because she almost never did, but the stress of what was happening was getting to her at last, Annabel put a hand on her shoulder and stepped towards her, she flinched “Thalai… what happened to you?” she looked away, Ken and Annabel stared at her in silence for awhile before it was broken by a loud yelp, they all turned to see what had happened but there didn’t seem to be much out of place… except the husky which was cowering behind its kennel, or rather, the pile of splinters that used to be its kennel, Thalai sniffed the air nothing seemed wrong all she could smell were humans Ken grabbed hold of Annabel’s shoulder and stepped closer to them looking around nervously then Thalai realised something that instantly gave her a sinking feeling and made Goosebumps appear on her arms, she had been expecting the threat to be caused by a wolf… not a human. She whipped round to see miss lunar standing right behind them Ken relaxed a little and began walking over to her when Thalai and Annabel grabbed him by the shoulders Thalai began growling, she could feel her fur brisling and all she wanted to do was howl and chase her off, but she knew that wasn’t an option, for one thing Annabel and Ken were right there watching and for another thing miss loony… lunar, was her teacher or at very least her ex-teacher. “Hello miss, are you all right?” Ken asked although still being restrained by Annabel, Thalai had let go and was snarling open mouthed at the teacher, she didn’t trust her for a second and luckily Annabel seemed to have the same instincts, “Thal?” Ken had begun backing off slightly as if having second thoughts about the deranged teacher, “Thalai” Annabel whispered sounding unusually calm, “why isn’t she talking?” “I don’t know but why has she still got her hands in her pocket and…” Thalai’s sentence was cut short as miss lunar pulled a small long silver whistle out of her pocket and held it to her mouth with an evil grin on her face Thalai growled and took a step back, she didn’t know what it would do and she didn’t want to find out, “Thalai!?...“ Annabel and Ken had started backing off with her, “we should get out of… AAAAHHHH!” Thalai screamed as the teacher blew the whistle making a terrible hi-pitched mournful sound that just sounded like everything that was truly good and pure in the world being thrown into a black abyss, and in this whistle was there dying screams Thalai’s scream suddenly changed into a shrieking howl, and as the fur on the back of her neck began to bristle she realised what was happening… she was being forced to change! And there was nothing she could do about it. Unless… she got to her feet and lunged at miss lunar, although through all the pain she couldn’t aim much and when lunar side stepped and pulled a hunting knife (which was not the sort of thing that you expected from a fragile deranged ex-teacher any way) Thalai narrowly dodged the jagged blade, but unfortunately for her lunar seemed to have a lot of experience at fighting wolves and spun hitting her ribs, it wasn’t particularly hard or deep but it was enough to make Thalai shut her eyes and falter, lunar lunged at her and even though she tried to roll aside the teacher pinned her on her back and

2 9

held the knife up ready to strike “VITARNY!” Thalai called out, and miss lunar froze recognising the name Thalai saw her chance and bit the teacher as hard as she could then kicked her and sprung to her feet racing towards Ken and Annabel “run! Now!” they glanced at the teacher then at Thalai then all three of them bolted down the road into the town centre, they were headed towards Annabel's house as her mother was in and was good friends with the headmaster and there was a chance he could be there, they had closed in on the house and were only a few steps away when Thalai felt something sting her shoulder “Aaah!” She tripped and fell to the floor and suddenly everything started going blurry she stumbled to her feet and tried to get a clear view of miss lunar but everything just kept on blurring she looked down at her arm and puzzled pulled out a red dart, then frowned as it seemed to slowly change into a rainbow then she dropped it and looked around, she had never realised how colourful this part of town was, she began to panic she didn’t know what to do so she turned right and ran bolting into a fence, she jumped up, only just clearing it then ran as fast as she could through the streets but she couldn’t see straight, she tripped and fell next to another fence gasping for breath and totally confused, she had no idea what had just happened and she knew that if she passed out here miss lunar would kill her and what had happened to Ken and Annabel?, she couldn’t keep her eyes open, she collapsed into a shaking heap on the ground and all she could think about was not to give up, not now, if she could just hold on a little longer… she swooned and her head hit the ground then everything went black. “Ouch! Oh my head!” Thalai sat up and rubbed her eyes then looked around she was still a human but she couldn’t tell where she was, she was no longer in the village… was she? She blinked then spun around growling, “I knew I could sense something!” she said as her eyesight readjusted to her surroundings and she locked on to someone standing in front of her she could tell there was something abnormal about him but she couldn’t place it until he hopped off the wall on all fours, “Vitarny!...” Thalai jumped up and stared at him, he grinned, fangs glinting in the light, “took you long enough mutt.” She grinned at him, she didn’t know what had just happened but she had never been happier to see him. “How did you get here… where is here? I thought you hated humans… why are you in the village”, and I had to do something to get to you” Thalai looked at him puzzled “I heard you howl the other day I know you said you liked living with humans but you sure sounded sad to me” Thalai looked away “was I right about the humans… did they desert you the first chance they got” she turned to him anger burning up inside her, “NO! As a matter of fact they In fact the only one who has ever deserted me is you!” Vitarny growled “I didn’t abandon you! I waited in the forest until you needed my help! You’d never learn with me fighting all the battles.” Thalai sat down and sighed Vitarny sniffed the air and looked up at the sky, “we have to stop him before he finds others, before things get bad.” “Other what?” “wolves mutt, what else?” Thalai looked at him totally taken aback by shock, “wolves?!! Where I mean wolves don’t just appear from no-where” “you did” he said turning and walking around sniffing the air “but if shadow gets himself a pack then he can make more listen to him and he won’t stop until he reaches his goal” “…which is?” Vitarny stared at her “to kill every last human… make wolves rain supreme, Thalai, to him you’re human” Thalai followed his gaze up into the clouds, “I can’t leave them behind, my friends and family” “even though they abandoned you with the wolf hunter.” “they didn’t abandon me! They were probably just scared I mean… she had a hunting knife! For god sake!”

3 0

Vitarny scratched his ear and yawned “well mutt the choice is yours, you can come with me to find more of our own, or you can stay here with the humans and play in the streets all day, just hope that shadow doesn’t kill you first.” He jumped a small fence and began to walk off. Thalai watched him go and thought about what he had said, “…wait! Vitarny!” she ran up to him and grabbed on to his fur “just wait one more day, I’ll tell my parents what I am,” Vitarny snarled slightly, we don’t have one more day, if you need time I’ll go on ahead, and you can meet me there.” “Where’s that?” he looked left Thalai followed his gaze and saw where he was looking, there was the mountain and behind it the forest, “mutt!” her attention snapped back to him “do you know your way to the canyon?” Thalai stared at him “canyon?” he sighed “when you’re ready to come after me, go through the forest to the field I showed you, then walk all the way through that field to the mountains on the other side climb to the third one…” THE THIRD MOUNTAIN?!” “Yes mutt now listen and try to get it through your head, if it isn’t all crammed full of boys and cloth shopping anyway…” she growled at her but he carried on regardless “after you get to the third mountain you should be able to find a stream, follow it and it will lead you to a canyon river, once you’re there get somewhere high up and howl as loud as you can, then I’ll come find you. Do you think you can do this?” Thalai’s head was swimming with information, was he really asking her to climb three mountains on her own? He smiled “I’ll walk you home, then I’ll leave ok?” she didn’t know what else to do so she nodded, but she didn’t understand why he wanted her to do it on her own, he turned left then began walking through the ally’s and past houses, Thalai followed looking around still trying to figure out where she was but she didn’t quite get her bearings until they jumped a wooden fence and ended up in front of her house. She knocked on the door and turned around expecting to see Vitarny walking into the distance, instead he nodded at her from the lamppost “hey what the hell are you doing! If my parents see you they’ll go nuts!” “And if they don’t they’ll ground you for making stuff up.” You can’t just stand there… well at least, just go behind the house there’s a window there I can hear you if you need to talk” he growled then nodded begrudgingly Thalai sighed then turned round as the door swung open and her mum stepped out looking petrified Vitarny darted behind the house, her mum grabbed her by the shoulders shaking her “where were you! Don’t you ever EVER! Do that again young lady! We were worried sick about you! You disappeared for almost a week last time how did I know when you were going to come back! You’ve been gone all night its six in the morning I didn’t get a wink of sleep your father is out looking for you and Jimmy’s been crying!” her mother stopped shaking her and started breathing properly again,” mum relax I was with a friend” her mothers rage seemed to double “which friend! Annabel and Ken came here! How old is he? And how come I’ve never met him before!? And you young lady why did you abandon Annabel and Ken yesterday and you punched a teacher! What is wrong with you?! “Nothing miss… lunar is an exteacher and she tried to kill me! And As far as Annabel and Ken go…” her mother cut in mid sentence “stop with all the lies Thalai she’s ill but she wouldn’t try and kill you, and you just can’t just try and get out of trouble by saying that… did you just growl at me!” Thalai tried to stop her self but it was a tough habit to brake “don’t you dare growl at me…” her mum paused in confusion as the sound of something barking from behind the house became louder Thalai saw her chance and jumped in “mum I’m not lying miss lunar really did try to kill me and my friend saved my life” “if it hadn’t been for him I’d have been killed half a million

3 1

times by now, and… I need to talk to you and dad when he gets home, please mum no matter what happens don’t… get scared or hate me” she said blinking back tears her mum sighed “just because I’m angry doesn’t mean I hate you… just come inside and wait for your father… Do you want anything to drink?” “Yea, water thanks mum” her mother walked into the kitchen holding her forehead “so mutt, how do you plan on telling her?” she turned to see Vitarny leaning in the window “Duno but something tells me she doesn’t like you,” “very observant kid, not to burst your bubble but I’m not to keen on her either.” “Yea I noticed… how am I supposed to tell her?” “Quickly and without waterworks. No pansy crying or hugs I can’t stand that stuff.” Thalai sighed “I thought you’d be leaving ahead of me” “I will kid” “yea, when?” “As soon as I’m good and ready!” she sighed again and leant back into the sofa, “I’ll leave in a bit,” Thalai closed her eyes and put her arms behind her head “well you know ya don’t have to go, I mean its not like I’m trying to kick you out or anything.” He smiled “hey no sweat, besides you’ll probably want some alone time after you tell them, see ya kid” he ducked back out the window and gave her one final smile as he left then said “remember howl as loud as you can.” And with that he disappeared out of sight. “Thalai is tap ok we’re out of bottled” her mum said walking in with a glass of water Thalai nodded “so.” Her mum said sitting down besides her and putting the glass on the table “what was it you wanted to tell me?” “I’d prefer to wait until dad gets home, if that’s ok?” “Of course and don’t worry we’re your parents and we’ll love you no matter what, just as long as you haven’t got yourself pregnant or into drugs, is someone picking on you?” “No, mum its nothing like that, it’s not even bad really it’s just… unusual” “hello?” a voice called from the hall as the front door slammed shut, “that’ll be your father” her mum said getting up and walking out to greet him Thalai sat back and tried to calm herself down for what she was about to do, she could hear her mother and father talking in the hall like everything was normal, it made her feel guilty that they didn’t know what was about to happen they walked in and Thalai could feel herself breaking into a sweat and her stomach was tying itself in knots, it felt like the last time she had been around Sieris, her mother and father sat down on either side of her, her dad seemed rather relaxed for someone who had been out all night searching for her, “hello sweetie” her dad said hugging her, she couldn’t understand why he wasn’t telling her off for being gone a whole night, after she had been gone for so long before, she took a deep breath and decided to get it over with quickly “mum dad, please promise not to get mad, or call anyone or hit me with a broom or anything like that… ok” she took a deep breath and got of the sofa then she closed her eyes and tried to howl but it got stuck in her throat, she coughed and swallowed “honey… are you feeling ok?” her mother asked clearly confused, Thalai didn’t respond she lifted her head again and this time it worked, she howled quieter than she had done before but it still seemed to work she could feel herself begin to change the transformation seemed much slower than usual, like it was prolonging the last bit of normality in their house, finally she opened her eyes and dropped to all fours, she looked up at her parents ears down, tail between her legs waiting for someone to say it was ok, even though she knew it wasn’t, her mother dropped her glass of water as her face went totally white as if only just realising what had happened, she looked down at the water on the floor “oh… I’ll go get some tissue’s” she said getting up slowly and walking to the kitchen without closing her mouth or blinking “mum…dad…are you ok?” speaking human felt weird like some sort of dream language that you weren’t really talking… it was like she had watched someone else speak for her.

3 2

Her father didn’t speak or act like everything was ok when it wasn’t he merely knelt on the floor in front of her and stared at her, “dad…it’s ok… it’s me.” She said sitting down and raising her paw slowly until it was in the high-five position her father looked at her then slowly raised his hand and pushed it against her paw, they stared at each other until her mum walked back in the room her father laughed then tears began pouring down his cheeks, although he still laughed, her mother walked back in and began silently cleaning up the water “look honey, it’s ok, it’s still our girl.” “Raghf!” Thalai barked in agreement then wagged her tail as her father gently stroked her fur, she could tell he was scared but he was trying to be supportive, her mother was trying to deal with it her way… by cleaning, but Thalai could tell she was not taking this lightly either, she didn’t think it was a good idea to tell them she had to leave right now but if she didn’t Vitarny would be way out ahead of her and she knew it was a tough journey anyway, she didn’t want to travel any further on her own, “mum dad… look I, I love you two a lot but, I need to go somewhere… I won’t be alone all the way and he really does need me!” “…who…what are you talking about?” her dad asked still stroking her fur “you’re not going anywhere young… uuur, Lady? Especially not a massive trek” her mother began stroking her fur too and they sat in silence for awhile, Thalai wanted to argue but it could wait until everything was all right if it ever would be. “Thalai… come to me Thalai you don’t need the humans, your wild now come…” Thalai awoke panting and shaking, it was dark but she was aware of the sky getting lighter, out side she stood up and realised she was still a wolf she closed her eyes and then opened them and walked into the kitchen, there were two half full cups of coffee on the side, so Thalai guessed that her parents hadn’t gone to bed right after she fell asleep, Thalai looked around and picked up a piece of paper then reached for a biro on the side of the counter, she writ on the paper as neatly as she could, she hated to do this to them but she knew that she had to leave, so she writ on the note: Dear mum and dad, I have not run away I am just trying to help, I am with a… reliable friend And you do not need to worry about me. I am fine I will be Back as soon as I can, love Thalai. Had she thought about it she most likely would have taken supplies while she was in the kitchen but as it was she was too busy worrying about how her parents would take this. She took one last look around the house then walked out the back door, she checked around trying to remember everything Vitarny had said, “Go to the field, then through to the mountains on the other side… over to the… second? No third! Mountain then…umm?” she whispered to her self as she walked past the houses, she was almost at the path leading to the mountain and the forest when she heard a familiar voice “where do you think your going?” Thalai froze then whipped around and swore under her breath, as Annabel stared at her, arms folded Ken stood behind her they both looked at Thalai until she spoke, “you guys should get to bed.” “So should you!” Ken said stepping forwards Thalai turned her back and went to walk off when Ken and Annabel clamped there hands around her shoulders “we’re your friends Thalai. And we’re coming with you.” Thalai turned to face them, “look I know you guys are trying to help but, it’s too dangerous, I mean even I’m not trust worthy for too long, I’m, ‘Im not like you two” Ken and Annabel looked at each other then Ken nodded at Annabel she

3 3

smiled and turned back to Thalai “Thal, we know what you are, and it doesn’t change anything. You’re still our friend.” Thalai stared at them in shock then sighed “look Annabel, I’m really sorry about Taffy,” “but you’ve got to know, I didn’t kill him” she hastily added seeing the disappointment in her eyes “he was in the forest and I was just trying to bring him back to you, I think he just got stressed” Annabel smiled “I knew it was you that night, I could see it in your eyes” they smiled at each other then Thalai looked up at the sky, it was starting to go a lighter blue “look, I’m sorry but I gotta get out of here we’ll talk if… when I get back ok see ya” she turned to run but Annabel and Ken stopped her again “we’re not letting you go alone.” Thalai turned back to them, and sighed “there’s no way I’m going to let you guys come it’s too dangerous and…” they folded there arms and she knew that she would never be able to talk them out of it. She sighed “ok… you can come but you have to do what ever I say and be careful!” “Deal!” Ken Thalai and Annabel shook hands, then she looked around one last time and they all ran up the path to the mountains. “So how do we get down?” Annabel asked once they were at the top, “oh” said Thalai looking down into the tree’s “I hadn’t thought about that… hold on” she closed her eyes and howled “wow!” Annabel and Ken stared open mouthed Thalai suppressed a smile, even though it wasn’t like her to gloat, it was kinda cool to have someone admire her like this. She wagged her tail then look at them she was about the same size as them “Annabel, try to hang onto my fur, maybe I can carry you down.” Annabel stepped forwards and grabbed the fur on her shoulders and sat side saddle on her back, Thalai crouched down and was about to jump when Ken tapped her on the shoulder, “”what, I’m a little busy right now” “Thal.” “What?” she said turning around she froze and swallowed, “Sieris.” He stood a few feet away from them mouth open motionless. Thalai stepped back forgetting there was a cliff there and fell back wards with a yelp, Annabel screamed and clung on tight, Thalai landed on all fours and jumped straight to the ground landing on her stomach, Annabel stepped onto the floor and gasped “I can’t believe we made it, Thalai stood up and shook her coat then stared up nervously “what the hell is Sieris doing here?” “Duno but what are you gonna do you can’t just leave Ken up there I wont but do you think it’ll freak him out to see me like this?” “Does it matter?” “No of course not Thalai said attempting to cover her tracks then she barked and jumped onto the first rock she cringed slightly, the landing had hurt her leg slightly but she didn’t think it was anything serious. She got to the top and stopped as she saw Ken sitting down talking to Sieris, she crept up to them then stopped as they turned to her, she put her ears back and sat down “Sieris… what are you doing here?” he looked away “things, aren’t working out at home, I needed a break.” Thalai looked away “Ken come on, we gotta go.” Ken looked from Thalai to Sieris “he’s got nowhere to go Thal, do you think…” Thalai looked at him “no! it’s bad enough that you two are coming anything could happen I cant watch out for all of you, what if something happens?” Sieris looked at her, he was clearly freaked out but she could tell he really wanted to get away. She sighed, although she couldn’t stop her tail from wagging at the thought of him joining them, but at the same time, she didn’t want him to get hurt, not that she wanted Ken and Annabel to get hurt ether but she knew she couldn’t deter them.

3 4

“I don’t care if I come with you or not, I’ll only go off on my own anyway.” Thalai thought about it, then realised that knowing him he really would go off on his own, her tail began wagging faster, and he would be safer with them then on his own, what with shadow around and all… “Ok you can come with us but be careful.” She yanked Ken up by his jacket and threw him onto her back, then turned to Sieris, acting as calm as she could and said “I’ll come back up for you ok?” “Don’t worry about it I can climb down myself” Thalai looked at him concerned “I don’t think that’s a good idea, I’ll only be a second” she said jumping off the edge, Ken screamed as badly as Annabel as they flew through the air, but this time her landing was much better, Ken dismounted the second they touched down, Annabel helped Ken up then tapped Thalai on the shoulder and pointed up, she turned and gasped “Sieris! What are you doing?!” he ignored her as he continued to hang and drop onto the first rock Thalai looked at Annabel desperately, she shrugged “well what do I do… help!” Annabel frowned at her “what the hell do you mean ‘what do you do?’” “I mean WHAT DO I DO!?” “GO GET HIM DOWN OF COURSE!” “How?!” “I don’t know” Annabel and Ken looked at her then shoved her towards the rocks “you’re a wolf! Figure it out!” Thalai jumped up then stopped and looked up at him flailing around wildly “what the hell are you doing!? You can’t climb this it’s at least forty feet! If you fall you’ll die!” “well then I wont fall.” Thalai looked from side to side then barked and whined then jumped up and down, unsure of what to do. “please let me help you down!” he ignored her and lowered himself down onto the rock and looked around, the gap from the second rock to the third was considerably larger than the others and was more to the side than directly underneath, he knelt on the edge and stared down at the trees, Thalai walked over to him and sat down “just grab onto my fur and I can jump down with you.” He looked at her then sighed and stood up, Thalai smiled, he smiled back, then looked straight ahead and took a running jump at the trees “Aaah! Nooo! Bad! that! Aaah!” Thalai panicked and dove after him and as time seemed to slow down the way it always did when something really made her panic Thalai saw the floor in her plan, he grabbed the tree branch and Thalai bit the back of his jacket, the tree branch snapped and they both plummeted to the ground, fortunately it was only ten feet to the ground, and Ken and Annabel broke their fall. Thalai closed her eyes and changed human then They all lay in a heap groaning until they felt able to move, then they stood up and began walking through the forest, the sun was high in the sky by the time they got to Vitarny den, it didn’t look like it had been lived in for ages, they decided to pass it by and keep on walking, Thalai remembered the way to the field perfectly, it was the mountains on the other side she was worried about, what if Ken and Annabel and Sieris couldn’t climb it? She couldn’t take them home then come back there wouldn’t be enough time, the more she thought about it the more she realised what a stupid idea it had been to bring them with her, “Thalai… Thalai” Annabel's voice echoed from somewhere in the distance, and what about Vitarny? She would be on her own in a mountain range for days, and what if Vitarny had just been trying to get rid of her?, “Thalai!” “Hu?” she snapped back to reality just in time to see the wall of the mountain before she slammed head first into it. “Oww!” she clutched her head and stumbled backwards then grinned at Sieris blushing slightly “ha, umm this, here we, up…” she slapped a hand to her forehead as she turned around and leaped up at the grassy rock formation, Annabel Ken and Sieris followed her somewhat more slowly, Thalai took the lead running up on all fours, although still human, she decided checking the ground as a human would be more useful as she had humans following her.

3 5

they reached the top at the same time as Thalai had slowed down and they had sped up to catch her, Thalai sat panting as they looked down at the field, it was beautiful, especially with the sunlight shimmering over the flowers, “come on we’ve got to down” Thalai turned to her friends, Annabel and Ken were sitting back to back exhausted Sieris was still standing and looked ready to go, but Thalai knew he was just as tired as them. She whined and sat down “no… Thal we don’t want to slow you down, we’re the ones who asked to come…” Ken said standing up and sitting down on the grass and edging his way down the slope, Annabel and Sieris followed immediately, Thalai rolled her eyes and followed them although she overtook quickly due to her wolf’s instincts and although she reached the field quickly her friends took there time shuffling down, “hey Thalai, how far exactly do we have to go?” she stared up at the mountains in the distance, “I don’t know really, I’ve never been there before, but I’m supposed the to find a canyon somewhere.” Ken and Annabel looked at each other then Sieris piped up from the back “well this is no time for a break, we should sleep when we get to the mountains there.” Thalai nodded in agreement although she couldn’t help thinking that it was odd the way he wanted to get far away so fast. The sun was beginning to set by the time they reached the foot of the mountains, ok so they had stopped in the field to mess around and eat some plants and black berries but the sun had set abnormally fast, “ok we have to find a place to camp, maybe there’ll be a cave higher up” Annabel Ken and Sieris stared up at the mountain towering over them, and sighed it was bigger than the other mountains that now resembled hill’s more in comparison, “so you want us to climb that?” Ken said taking a quick picture Thalai nodded and attempted to jump the first rock, she made it, barely but she didn’t think Annabel Ken and Sieris would be able to do it so easily, she sighed and jumped back down then looked around the field “Annabel Ken can you find some wood to burn?” they nodded and ran off into the field Sieris looked around “and us?” Thalai looked up at him, she could feel her self blushing but it was late so she hoped he didn’t notice, “we should find a more sheltered place to sleep.” She said looking around he sat down on the ground and poked at the soil, “it’s too wet the fire wont light here, how about over there?” Thalai followed his gaze and saw what he was looking at, the rocks covered the grass with a large gap in the middle like a small tunnel “that looks brilliant!” she grinned and they walked over to inspect it, the grass was dry and it looked as if water hadn’t touched it in ages Thalai glanced at Sieris then looked away blushing as he turned to her “what about Annabel and Ken one of us will have to tell them where we are.” Thalai nodded in agreement “plus we’ll need food, do you think we can cook rabbits?” he nodded she smiled then howled and dropped to all fours “can you make a circle of rocks? We need somewhere to light the fire” he nodded and began scraping rocks and dirt together in a heap, Thalai smiled at him then quickly turned and ran out of the enclosure and began trying to sniff out Annabel and Ken, she found them surprisingly fast and began to hunt for rabbits while they gathered sticks and dry grass, they smiled at her as they worked and it seemed surprisingly, genuine they didn’t appear to have any problem with what she was, although Thalai found that rather hard to believe but it didn’t seem to interfere with their cooperation. They sat around the fire that night, watching the flames dance and spin in there rock enclosure, eating char grilled\burnt rabbits, she figured by the look on Kens face it was a good thing he hadn’t seen her actually kill them. They talked,

3 6

laughing and joking like old times and for the first time since all of this had happened, Thalai felt, like things could be normal again, like maybe she and her friends could be the same as they formerly had been without her lycanthrope-y business having an affect on their friendship. But the happiness and joy was short lived as Thalai would soon awake to find out… Vitarny lay on the ground, motionless, teeth gritted together in pain, the pool of blood in which he was lying had stained most of his white coat a deep shade of crimson, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath then whimpered as he placed a blood soaked paw on to the ground in an attempt to stand, slowly he moved his other paw out from under his stomach and placed it on the ground next to his already braced one, he pushed down on the ground and breathing heavily rose to all fours, he looked up at the stars, twinkling amongst the darkness, each of them like a little beacon of hope, he whined as he fell back down to all fours suddenly realising how foolish he had been to undergo such a perilous journey on his own, as he made yet another attempt to stand and failed landing him in a sort of backwards surfing pose, he sighed and wondered if Thalai’d had better luck than him, he attempted to stand, but he no longer had the strength for it, he looked down at the pool of blood at his paws and sighed, he lay down and closed his eyes as his vision blurred and darkness began to carry him away. Thalai woke up, fur bristling, growling, although she had no idea why, she looked around at her surroundings, the sky was beginning to go a lighter shade of blue making the due drops on the ground shine and glimmer like stars, she stood up and shook her head then closed her and changed into her human side then looked around, there were three main things that came to her attention, one, Annabel and Ken were curled up next to each other, his arm around her neck in the kind of embrace you’d expect to see with your mother and father late at night when they fall asleep watching a classic trashy love story on telly, she smiled down at them then looked to her left at where Sieris had been, only to realise that he wasn’t there, she frowned and was about to wake up Ken and Annabel when she noticed the third, and perhaps most strange thing, she was aware that she had gone to sleep without exploring the aria, but clearly in a circle around their camp was a line of big, long clawed paw prints, Thalai frowned and stooped down next to them “what the hell?...” Thalai’s frown deepened as she touched the soil realising that there were three separate tracks, she blurred the paw prints into a semi circle, then she froze as something caught her eye, she swallowed and reached out for the long specks of black on the floor beside the prints, she scooped them up in her hand, and froze, her eyes widened and her heart stopped “no….” she breathed and all at once her heart began beating again, getting faster as she tried to make her legs obey her command to move, but all she could do was to stare at the strands of black fur on the palm of her shaking hand, suddenly she heard a small voice in her head yelling one continuous word getting louder and louder, setting it aside from all the other jumbled up thoughts bouncing and screaming around inside her brain, RUN!... All of a sudden she was able to move, she got to her feet and ran to Annabel and Ken’s side waking them up with vicious shaking “UUGH NO!” was Ken’s instant response “shhhh!” Thalai said in a shaky whisper as she placed a hand over his mouth, she could feel every inch of her body telling her to run, to leave them and save herself, but there was no way on earth that she would ever do that, “Ken, Annabel” she whispered their names hoping that they would hear the distress in

3 7

her voice and wake up without kicking or screaming, unfortunately this was not the case, Ken opened his eyes and upon realising that he was holding Annabel, turned a deep shade of pink and he yelled as he leaped up to his feet, “what the hell are you doing there?!” “Shhhhh!” Thalai hissed as she stood to join him Annabel sat up looking puzzled and immediately realised that something was wrong, “Thalai what is it?” she said in a hushed voice as she too stood up, Thalai looked around desperately, “where’s Sieris?!” she whispered trying to contain the shakes that erupted from her throat every time she attempted to speak, “I don’t know, I thought he was still there? Thal what’s going on?” Thalai swallowed and held out a shaking hand to reveal the black hairs that her hand had refused to let go of, Annabel looked at her puzzled, “so? Your malting it happens don’t worry I’m sure it’ll grow back” Thalai stared at Annabel, getting more and more frantic as she realised that her friends knew nothing about Shadow, she had been so used to Vitarny, if she were with him by now they would be far out of dangers grasp, but as it was she was travailing with humans and she herself had no idea of how to take control of this situation, all she knew was that they had to get as far away from the field as possible, she figured that the first course of action was to tell Annabel and Ken how much danger they were in, “look, guy’s” she said in a hushed voice, looking around nervously, expecting to see something lurking in the grass, “the, fur isn’t, mine, it belongs to a very, very! Dangerous wolf called shadow. Look I’ll explain later, but for now we need to find Sieris and get out of here now!” Ken and Annabel exchanged worried looks before, Ken stated the obvious problem, “where do we go, we can’t climb, this thing!” he said nodding to the mountain behind him” Thalai sniffed the air before responding “you and Annabel get to the top of this mountain, I’ll go find Sieris and meet you up there, ok?” “But…” Annabel stopped mid protest, she could tell by the look on Thalai’s face that they wouldn’t be able to change her mind, Annabel nodded then grabbed Ken by the arm and ran with him out of the enclosure, Thalai, knew she would have more luck finding Sieris as a wolf but the howl and scent would also alert shadow to her location, she sniffed the air then crouching low to the ground she ran out into the field, “..Sieris?!” “Sieris where are you?!” she straightened up and walked out into the centre, she was begging to get more and more worried, she closed her eyes and was about to howl when a hand clasped around her shoulder, “Aaah!” she screamed and turned around as Sieris clamped a hand over her mouth, She relaxed as she realised who it was, he released the grip on his hand allowing her to step back, she sighed and looked up revealing the red blush that had crept onto her cheeks, she opened her mouth to tell him that they were in danger when he grabbed her wrist and set off at a light running pace towards the mountain dragging her along with him, “we’ve got to get out of here, now!” Thalai was quite taken a back by his, somewhat sensible response, but since it was what she wanted she didn’t press the matter. The second they reached the edge of the mountain they looked behind them breathless, she began looking around trying to tell if there was something amiss, “Thalai…” “Yea?” she responded still looking around, “…you can let go of my hand now…” “Oh! Yea right sorry!” she hadn’t realised that she was still holding Sieris’s hand but as soon as he pointed it out she dropped it as if it were made of hot coal, blushing she looked straight up at the mountain in an attempt to back away from the uncomfortable situation in which she had landed herself in “Thal?...” she sighed dreading the question that he was about to ask and desperately hoping something would brake the silence, in this case I guess best to say careful for what you wish, “AAAH!” Thalai and Sieris whipped their head’s round simultaneously to see where the noise had come from when Sieris said,

3 8

something that immediately sent a chill down Thalai’s back, “hey Thal, what made you think that shadow was still down here?” at that moment Thalai felt the familiar feeling of her stomach falling through the air into a pit of darkness as she heard a dog barking, from somewhere above them, no, not a dog, a wolf. Thalai threw back her head and howled, she thought somehow that by transforming she could lure the wolf away from her friends, she didn’t allow herself to drop to all fours as she normally did instead she used the power in her hind legs to jump up onto the first part of the mountain, then, heart pounding began her accent upwards, silently praying for her friends to still be alive when she reached the top, she could hear Sieris’s voice from below her yet she didn’t listen, she continued running up the rock engulfed mountain terrain until she reached a half way point where the ground went flat. She saw the wolves snarling at Annabel and Ken, she heard their screams, and she didn’t think twice, she lunged for them biting the throat of one, blood poured everywhere as the grey wolf retreated as quickly as it could, it’s comrade followed as it’s tail disappeared down the mountain, she sat there panting and snaring at the air (just in case her friends attackers were to come back) then she turned around to Ken and Annabel and smiled apologetically, “sorry you guys I should never have let you go up here alone, hell I should never have let you come with me in the first place!” Annabel, who was clutching Ken’s shoulder and looking as if she had seen a ghost, stepped forward and placed a hand on Thalai’s shoulder “we chose to come with you, don’t blame yourself” Thalai smiled at her, just as well as a wolf could smile anyway, then her ears flicked up as she remembered Sieris, “oops um, I’ll be back in a minute, I better go find him” Annabel smiled understanding instantly what she meant and then turning back to Ken and helping him to his feet smiled at Thalai as an indication that things here were fine and she could leave, she nodded then hastily leaped off the edge and began running flat out down the steep mountain towards Sieris gaining speed every second, she was almost at the bottom when she heard an evil sounding growl\laugh, from her left hand side, she turned trying to see although she could tell by the chills down her back what it was, but it still didn’t prepare her for the bloodthirsty black wolf lunging at her, his fangs finding there way to her shoulder and biting down hard, she yelped loudly and fell into a long and rough roll\bounce down the rocks until she hit the bottom. “Vitarny!” she howled his name instinctively hoping that somehow he would save her as he always had, this call seemed to stop shadow in his tracks he

looked up at her for a moment then snarled\laughed three words that seemed to make the entire world stop turning, “Vitarny is dead” Thalai looked up at him and as everything froze she felt rage building up inside her unlike anything she had ever felt before, how dare he say that he must be lying, she knew that Vitarny would never allow this creep to beat him suddenly she felt the anger that was burning up inside of her edging it’s way into her subconscious urging her to fight back against the black wolf that now stood in front of her laughing at her pain, no.

3 9

Not anymore. She was sick of running and hiding and letting other people get hurt on her account, well not today! She began growling and hunched her shoulders facing the wolf, which was now laughing at her attempt to stand up for herself then without knowing where it came from she barked at him louder than ever before “SHUT UP! YOU THINK YOU’RE SO TOUGH JUST BECAUSE YOU’VE GOT STUPID SLAVES TO DO WHAT YOU’RE AFRAID OF DOING! AND YOU’RE SO OBSEST WHITH KILLING ANYTHING THAT ISNT A PURE BRED WOLF! STUPID! YOU CANT EVEN TELL THAT YOU’RE A MAN MADE MUTT!” shadow stared at her his eyes getting darker, his fur bristling then they both lunged, colliding mid air in a blaze of blood, claws and fur, they landed facing each other then jumped off the floor again biting and scratching each other every time they landed jumping straight back up into an attack. “Thalai! Thal!” Ken and Annabel stopped at the edge of the cliff not believing the blood bath they were seeing. Thalai didn’t notice them all she cared about was destroying the demon that had clamed to have killed her friend, every time she thought about it, it filled her with a new rage that consumed her. “Had enough yet?!” he grinned mouth open, blood silently dripping onto the ground Thalai snarled at him “bite me!” she leaped at him diving her claws and fangs digging into his neck he yelped in pain as he tried to fling her off, she clung on as tight as she could biting as hard as was possible he growled and threw her against the bottom of the mountain, but she refused to give in, she scratched and kicked as he slammed himself to the ground forcing her to brake his fall, but she still didn’t let go, it was only on his third attempt that she faltered, as he turned to bite her shoulder, she let go to bite his neck and he ripped her off throwing her full force into a rock, she fell to the ground attempting to stand, and failing, as he walked slowly towards her, she noticed he was limping, she must have done some damage, she summoned her last ounce of strength, and with it got to all fours and launched what she knew would be her final attack. She couldn’t remember anything, although the blank spots in her head were beginning to get filled in with the vague memory of… another wolf, she could remember a wolf lunging at shadow, just as he was going to kill her, and driving him off. She opened her eyes, and a silhouette of a wolf appeared in front of her, for one terrible moment she thought it was shadow but then she realised it was much smaller, about her size, she blinked trying to bring the dark figure into focus “… Vitarny?...” she croaked unsure of whether or not to believe it, she tried to stand and her head instantly imploded with air, and she fell back down watching the silhouette appear and disappear before her eyes until everything went black. “Thalai, Thalai? Are you ok?” “Aagh, hu?” she opened her eyes and found herself looking up at Sieris. “Oww!” she whimpered in pain as she attempted to stand only to have every inch of her engulfed in an immense amount of pain she breathed loudly blinking back tears, but she refused to cry, not after all of this, she closed her eyes then she rose steadily to her feet, it felt strange to stand on two legs especially after fighting as a wolf for so long, her human self felt distant as if even now she was no longer connected to it, she fought back tears as she straitened up and looked at her friends, there were so many things buzzing around inside her head all of them bad, making her feel isolated and alone, had Shadow been lying or was Vitarny really, gone? And who was that other wolf she

4 0

had seen? She was in so much pain, she looked herself up and down, noticing just how many scratch and bite marks she was covered in, all over her body felt like it was being ripped apart from the seams, like if you were to get a cut on a sunburn, and every time you move it stretches the still healing skin and tares bringing with it excruciating agony, she walked towards the mountain, grimacing with every step, she couldn’t stand the fact that she lost to him, after all that he had done the only thing she wanted to do was kill him, regardless of the consequences. “Come on.” she said slowly jumping onto the rock, and screaming, she stopped herself and breathed heavily, the only thing she knew was Shadow would be back, and the next time he would be stronger and she knew that she wouldn’t get away so easily. Ken, Annabel and Sieris followed her looking worried, Thalai winced with every step and by the time they got to the top almost all her wounds were open and bleeding, she sat down and attempted to howl, but she didn’t have the energy for it, and instead sat still panting until Ken placed a still shaking hand on her shoulder, “we should probably rest a while” Thalai looked up at him and snarled, “no. I don’t need to rest…” she replied while getting to her feet, Annabel put her hand on the opposite shoulder and held her up, “get off!...” “Thal you need to rest, you’ve been through a lot.” Ken nodded in agreement as he and Annabel tried to gently push her down to the ground, “I SAID GET OFF!” she howled slightly as Annabel and Ken screamed as she lashed out at them, Thalai glanced at Annabel's hand, which was now shaking more than ever as she clutched it tightly, Ken was a few feet away now, lying on the ground with his hand placed flat over his cheek looking petrified, Thalai stared in shock, then looked down in dismay to see that she was on all fours, she gasped as Ken moved his hand to reveal four, deep, red, claw marks on his right cheek, she spun to look at Annabel, who had a bite mark on her hand, Thalai looked over her shoulder to where Sieris was sitting on a rock then she turned her head away from her friends, and said “go home. I don’t want anything bad to happen, and if you stay with me it will. So go home.” and with that she turned and jumped up a rock, leaving her friends in shock, getting further and further away from them as she began to ascend towards the top of the mountain alone. “I don’t understand.” Ken said, still holding his cheek, as they walked back through the field under the golden rays of the evening light, “well we couldn’t exactly climb that thing without her help.” Annabel replied sounding miffed, “no I mean, why did she attack us? It’s not like her.” Annabel stared at her feet as they walked, Sieris kicked a stone nearly hitting Ken, sniggering as it brushed against his shoe. “We could have.” “What?” Annabel said looking back at him quizzically “we could have what?” he sighed “we could have climbed it, don’t you know where there’s a will there’s a way.” Annabel huffed at him, as she turned back to Ken, he sighed muttering under his breath, “you humans have no will power.” Annabel sighed “what?” he ignored her knocking her shoulder as he went “hey!” Ken said slamming his shoulder “be nice ok! Its not our fault that you didn’t get to climb or go on an adventure or whatever the hell it was you wanted to do!” “Shhh!” Sieris raised a hand to the air and glanced behind him “what! Did you just shush me?!” “SHHH!” Sieris snarled as he turned around “listen.” Annabel stepped closer to him frowning, at the mountain range they had come from, “no Ken he’s right

4 1

listen.” They stood staring at the mountains until they heard the definite sound of something echoing through the mountains, a wolf howling. Thalai pricked up her ears as the familiar sound of a howl became more and more apparent, she lifted her head and howled in response, which gave her a cool tingling sensation, she had never howled back to something before, she stopped for a second as she was sure that something else had answered it as well, a third wolf? She had to find out who and what was calling, she ran, galloping down the mountain towards the undiscovered darkness. She had never been this far past the field before, so she had no idea what she was running towards, but in the back of her mind, the vague hope that it might be Vitarny urged her to carry on. She reached the bottom of the mountain in an uncomfortable heap, having tripped on her own paws and rolled most of the way down. She sat up and looked around, trying to take in her surroundings, she appeared to be in a small pass between two mountains, although her long range eyesight was slightly interrupted due to the darkness of the night which had brought with it a blanket of mist, she shivered and walked forwards slowly trying not to make a sound as she stepped on more and more stones, making a soft sharp, ‘clack’ sound reverberate off the rocks and down the steep hill, she looked around and howled, but nothing howled back, she sighed and walked forwards, ears drooping to the side as she dropped any hope of another wolfy companion and instead accepting her fate of walking alone to where Vitarny had said to meet him. She knew that Shadow had pronounced him dead but why would he be? And why would Shadow, an evil wolf bent on world destruction decide to tell her the truth? Had he been trying to get her spirits down in the hopes of beating her? Whatever it was he must have been lying, Vitarny couldn’t be… could he? “Thalai!” she spun around instantly looking frantically for whoever had called out her name. She frowned, no-one, nothing, “I didn’t imagine that, did I?” She shook her head and continued walking down the slope, which she could swear was getting steeper. She wandered around in circles for a while before curling up on the ground in a patch on grass, she knew that she needed sleep and this would probably be easier in the light, as she lay on her back gazing up at the stars, front paws tucked up on to her stomach, she found herself whimpering, all she could think about were her friends, the way she had hurt them, the possibility of one being dead, and what about her parents? She had just left them a note then what? Up and left, and how was she supposed to get to the canyon? Alone, and what if she got attacked again, Shadow was so strong already, and she knew he was getting stronger, and getting himself a pack so it wouldn’t be just him to kill. She was so stressed that when she finally fell asleep all she did was worry in her dreams, she had night mares tormenting her the whole night long, Shadow, his blood engulfed fangs sinking into her throat Vitarny’s body afloat in the river, Annabel and Ken screaming as she ripped them limb from limb, and another wolf she had the feeling it was her friend but they were still killing each other, she tossed and turned in her sleep, whimpering and whining with every second of her blood soaked dreams until the dawns early light would set her free from this hell. Thalai awoke whimpering and snarling, trying desperately to escape the images of carnage, death and destruction that had become her mind, she sat up and yawned, her fangs narrowly passing her tongue as they always did, there were still some things about being a wolf that she wasn’t used to, like having a tail, she loved it but it was still odd. As for having fur, it was cool, but when you

4 2

brushed it the wrong way, yuck! It felt like your grandmother pinching your cheeks with a pair of latex rubber gloves on, other then that it was the sort of thing you could get used to, she got to all fours and stopped in her tracks as she noticed just where she had fallen asleep, she thought the mountain had been smaller on the way down, and now she realised why, she had fallen asleep roughly two feet from a massive drop down into a pit in-between two mountains, she gulped as she stared down into the bottomless pit, she couldn’t tell how far down it was but she could tell that it wasn’t the sort of thing she could survive, she took a few steps back then looked straight ahead at mountain opposite her, the gap looked roughly forty feet and an over whelming feeling of despair and hopelessness swept over her entire being leaving her trembling and feeling utterly alone, what was she thinking, there was no way she, and she alone could do this, she looked behind her at the hanging down cliff that she had come from, then back at the mountain over the gap, there was no way she would have time or the ability to climb down this and back up the other side, but if she just gave up and went home would Shadow kill her family? And had he already found Annabel Ken and Sieris? Thalai had no idea what she was doing but she couldn’t escape the feeling that Shadow had been telling the truth about Vitarny. She would have just walked away but at that moment she saw it. A grey wolf like the one that had attacked Annabel and Ken, running across the other side, Thalai felt the same uncontrollable anger burning her stomach and a thought occurred, if Shadow had run from whatever was defending her, then he must have been hurt, if she had any hope of killing him, now was the time, she snarled and began backing up the slope until she had a good few feet between her and the edge then she growled and shut her eyes tight trying to blank her mind for what she was about to do, then still snarling she ran at the edge, all she could think about was how much she wanted to kill shadow and all his slaves, she was nearing the gap and about to leap when mid air she felt something tackle her to the ground, she landed with a harsh roll along the ground ending with a skid which made dust and sand fly up blocking her surroundings. She lay panting on her back, when suddenly she became aware of something pinning her to the floor, she snarled at it struggling to get up, it smelled familiar but she couldn’t tell why she snapped and bit and barked, but it clung on, eventually the sand cleared and she was left staring into the face of a red\ginger wolf, she stared at it for a while then frowned as it got off her and sat down looking her in the eye, she stood and growled at it “alright! What do you want?!” it looked her grimly in the eye and then smiled weakly Thalai straightened up and stared, mouth open as her tail began wagging and she felt the familiar knot in her stomach, not daring to believe what she was thinking she stepped closer to him and gasped “Sieris?!” he sighed and smiled again, although looking slightly ashamed, she sat down still in shock and tried to calm down all the thoughts going through her head “what… how?” “the wolfyness?” she nodded although it didn’t sound right to hear Sieris’s voice coming out of a wolfs mouth, “I’ve always been like this, but it kinda activated a year or so ago, but I tried to hide it.” Thalai stared at him not knowing what to believe, the silence would have gone on for ages if Sieris hadn’t spoken “so if you really want to get across that” he said nodding to the pit, “then look around and come up with a plan cause jumping that thing is suicide.” She sighed and looked around, there wasn’t really anything, there was a patch of long grass, some rocks a couple of small tree’s a big thick tree, some mole hills, “that’s it!” Thalai smiled “we’ll use the tree’s!” Sieris looked at her then smiled as he grasped what she was doing, they ran over

4 3

to the biggest one, Thalai trotted around the edge then began digging, “what the heck are you doing?” Sieris asked sitting down in front of her “I’m digging up the roots, if we weaken it then we can knock it over to make a bridge” Sieris grinned and began digging under the tree on the other side flinching occasionally as Thalai flicked dirt at him “how do we know it wont fall the other way?” Sieris asked through his panting, “we don’t but it isn’t going to fall straight away, we’ll have to brake the roots after we dig them out, and then somehow knock the tree over” Sieris grimaced as he hit a root, “now what?” Thalai looked around, as she had been presented with the same problem, then she ploughed her dirt soaked muzzle into the earth, biting into the root, Sieris followed suit, his root being smaller he snapped it with ease, then ran to another and began digging. It took them close to what must have been a couple of hours to get through all of the roots, and when they were done they had bleeding gums from chewing through roots and bloody paw’s from digging, they sat down out of breath before Thalai cursed under her breath “there’s still one left, looks like a big one too” she sighed and walked over to it then tried desperately to bite through it, “here let me help.” “No don’t worry about it.” But he ignored her gently putting his nose down next to hers and beginning to bite through the root, she swallowed trying to remain calm as his muzzle came so close to hers that she could feel his hot breath on her face, she breathed out heavily swooning for a moment before noticing that she was merely drooling on the root instead of biting it, she swallowed as she felt a warm flush go over her body, she knew that if she were in human form she would be blushing, a lot. The second Thalai heard a snapping sound she backed away and tried to avoid looking Sieris in the eyes, “great, how do we make it fall?” Thalai raised an eyebrow at the half dug out tree and circled it slowly, “well we need to break it from the side we want it to fall, but we also need to slam it from this side so…” Sieris looked at her cynically “so what is your ingenious plan then?” she didn’t answer she just ran at the tree hitting it full force, “oh come on! That is never gonna work!” she shrugged as she hit it again with her shoulder, “well, at least break the other side first.” He said trotting over to the other side of the tree and biting and scratching at the bark, his claws did more damage than she would have expected, but it still wasn’t enough to get through it, even with Thalai slamming into the other side the tree did little more than creek, “wait, stop- this – is – ridicules” Sieris said panting, Thalai lay down next to him, breathing in short gasps, “ok – yea –your – right” Sieris looked up at the half torn tree towering over them and sighed, “this is hopeless, we can’t make this thing fall.” Thalai nodded in a dismal agreement, then looked around “suppose….” Sieris nudged her with his snout “yea? Suppose what?” “Nothing really, it’s just, trees brake easier when there’s weight being put on the top.” “So…? You want us to climb it?” Thalai looked up at it, “well, not exactly cause who ever climbs it will most likely get crushed on the way down so we need to attach a weight on to it.” They looked around then smiled as they both seemed to notice the same thing, a pile of rocks tangled in vines a little way away from them, they smiled and ran up to it, “this might be hard to move.” “Yea and how do we get it up the tree?” Sieris grabbed one of the vines in his mouth and began to tug it towards the tree Thalai did the same and after a while they managed to get it to the base of the tree trunk, “great!...now what?” Thalai closed her eyes and changed Sieris looked at her then did the same, although he didn’t have to close his eyes to do so. “That’s so cool how’d you do that?” he grinned at her, “practice.” She felt herself blushing and instantly turned towards the tree, she sighed almost knowing that this wasn’t going to work, then she tied a vine around her waist and jumped to the first

4 4

branch, Sieris looked at her and grimaced, “this is suicide.” He mumbled tying the rope diagonally around his shoulders and began climbing next to her. Together they managed to pull them selves up branch by branch hoisting the vine made bag of rocks with them, slipping occasionally and feeling as if the weight of the world was on there shoulders. The tree creaked and moaned as they neared the top, both of them exhausted and gasping for air as they clung on to the branches, and eventually they had got as high as they could, Thalai began untangling the bag of vines from her waist and hastily hung it over the thickest branch she could find above her, quickly tying knots around it Sieris did the same as they clung on, terrified that the tree would topple over while they sat there, as every little breeze shook the tree like a bouncy castle. The second it was tied they both clambered down the tree as fast as they could and dropped to the ground laughing, “Wow I can’t believe we’re still alive” Thalai smiled then howled and began scratching at the tree again, Sieris did the same, so she guessed that he had to howl to change as well. They began tackling the side of the tree making the rocks swing and pulling the tree towards the pit until there was an almighty crashing sound and the tree plummeted to the other side, lodging itself in-between them. “Ok let’s get going I’m not sure how long this will hold for.” Sieris nodded in agreement as they started walking across the half dead tree bridge, it toppled slightly from side to side as they went, threatening to roll with every step, Thalai swallowed trying not to look down as she stepped paw over paw.“ Sieris followed seeming much more surefooted than her, the second the other side was a tail away Thalai jumped and clung onto the tufts of grass pulling herself up, she lay on her back and sighed with relief, “I am never doing that again.” Sieris landed next to her and sniffed the air, “theirs another wolf around here” “yea I know that’s why I tried to jump it. Hey! Does this mean were you the wolf that chased off Shadow?” he suppressed a small smile as he said “well, I don’t know about ‘chased off’ he was in bad shape so, yea I guess.” Thalai smiled at him, “you saved my life, thanks.” He puffed out his chest as he turned towards where the mountain led up. “So Vitarny said to meet him on the… third? Yea Third Mountain so does this count as the second, or are we still on the first?” Sieris looked around “depends, we never went to the bottom but there was a gap. What do you think he would count as the third?” Thalai shook her head, “duno but we should probably get going.” He nodded then they looked up the hill and grinned at each other, they howled (just for the hell of it) then they began running up the slope. The thing with travelling with humans was that Thalai could never run, not like this, which was a shame because it was pretty damn fun! Where as with another wolf they could run vast amounts of landscape together without getting tired. They ran side by side, laughing for the first time in what seemed like forever as they galloped up hill towards the top. After about an hour and a half of running and climbing they sat down on a ledge gasping for air, after all the time they had spent, without brakes, or stopping for any kind, they were little more than half way up what had started as a slope and not long after became a fierce accent into the clouds. they looked around them selves still gasping for air and then got to all fours, “look,” Sieris breathed looking above them “theirs a bigger ledge there, there might be a cave or something, it’s getting dark, we should probably find somewhere to stay for the night.” Thalai looked around herself, it was getting dark true enough, but would two wolves really be ok sleeping on their own? She

4 5

remembered what Vitarny had said, two wolves can’t be a pack, their isn’t enough to live and survive, she shuddered “that’s a good point too, its getting colder, I think we should probably sleep closer and in wolf form, that way we wont freeze” Thalai felt her tail begin wagging and her ears perk up, as the idea of sleeping in close quarters with him began to make her stomach knot up, she looked away turning her attention instead to the ledge he had pointed out although she had thought she’d seen the faintest trace of a smile. It didn’t look like a good place to rest but they weren’t exactly in the lap of luxury, she sighed and leaped up, beginning to get higher Sieris followed behind her as they climbed up the rock, it was a lot steeper then when they had started out, it was all they could do to hang on, it was like a mix between when you start pedalling up hill and you slow down, which makes you feel like pedalling in humus, which of course makes you slow down more and so on and so on, or when you start trying to climb a hill of mud on your hands and knees and no matter what you do you just slide down, but thankfully they were wolves and as such had claws to pull them selves up, the second she got near enough she placed her paw on the ledge and used her shoulder strength to push herself on to her stomach and kicked herself onto the ledge with her hind legs, Sieris landed beside her much more stylishly than herself, and looked around “well it aint a bed and breakfast but it’ll do huh” “huh? Um yea! Sure sounds good” “There’s no fire wood, we might have to go look around.” Thalai looked around, the sun was setting fast, making fog come down over the mountain range, not that you could see much from the height they were at since it was even with the height of the other mountains that they had come from, Thalai walked up and down the ledge they were sitting on, it was fairly small but fortunately wasn’t sloped so sleeping on it wouldn’t be a problem. “Ok, I’ll go look for some” Sieris said walking around a small corner Thalai smiled and sat down on the rock, it was pretty cold, and hard, but it would have to do, unless there were spiders, she thought to herself, if there were spiders then she would just climb to the top. “Thalai?” “Yea?” “What colour fur did that wolf you saw have?” “What? Why” she said getting to her feet and wandering round the corner, she walked over to him and stooped down trying to see what he was looking at, he had changed into a human and was clutching a hand full of soil close to his face, “what is it? Sieris?” she changed into a human and stared at him as he held out the handful of dirt and stared at her, she looked closer and her heart leaped as she realised that he was holding several strands of snow white fur. “Vitarny?!” Sieris shrugged “duno but white wolves are pretty rare around here” Thalai wasn’t going to wait around, she leaped to her feet and sped round the corner, “Thal! Wait!” Sieris raced after her and rugby tackled her as she changed into a wolf in the hopes of climbing further up, he changed into his wolf form and pinned her down, “you can’t just run off like that! We don’t even know if it is vit… whatever his name is besides even if it is this fur could have been here for days!” Thalai growled at him and struggled to get off her back, “please just promise me that you won’t wonder off just for tonight please sleep.” Thalai sighed “fine.” She growled as he got off her and began to look around, she got up and walked over to the back of the ledge and lay down, Sieris followed and lay down beside her, she normally would have frozen with nervousness but all she could think about was the white fur that Sieris had found and the thought that it could have been Vitarny, she closed her eyes and waited for sleep to take over. It was still pitch black when Thalai awoke, Sieris was still asleep next to her, she sat up quietly and shook her head, she didn’t want to abandon her friend but that

4 6

went for Vitarny as well, and she and him were a pack, even if there were only two of them, she looked around, her eye sight was surprisingly good in the dark, she looked up at the daunting mountain above her then back at Sieris “I’m sorry, I promise I’ll take care of this.” She licked his shoulder gently then turned to the mountain and leaped up at it, she scrabbled kicking and biting root’s steadily getting higher and higher despite the steepness of it and the fact that any contact with it made every little rock quiver and fall like sand, after a quarter of the climb she was exhausted but she pushed herself on until the top, (which was a lot further than she’d expected) as soon as she reached the top she collapsed panting and lay there until the pain in her chest subsided and she was able to stand once more. Thalai looked around and then stepped forwards, then she looked down trying to see why the ground was darker in one place, then she realised and her heart skipped a beat, as she walked over to what she knew was a pool of dried blood, she stepped lightly over it not daring to think about how it got there or who’s it was for fear that she already knew, she didn’t allow herself to stop or dwell on it instead she kept walking getting faster and faster on the airless top of the semi flat mountain top until she was at a full blown run, galloping on as the mountain slowly got steeper and began to slope but she didn’t stop, instead she ran on knowing that it got too steep to run down but somehow not caring, she reached the edge heart pounding and howled as she leaped off the edge. “Hey… you awake?” “Yea… you?” Ken sat up and looked at Annabel who was huddled in a ball for warmth, although due to her shakes he was guessing it wasn’t working, he looked around, they had stopped back at the shelter they had stopped at the first night, unable to move or climb with much speed and unsure of whether or not to go back or to go on. “Am I the only one who’s feeling abandoned by like, everyone?!” “No, I feel the same… first Thal, then Sieris, now what?” Ken shrugged as they sat opposite a fire facing each other “I think… I think we should go find Thalai and Sieris, if he’s caught up with her then she can’t move much faster then us, he has to keep up with her” “so… onward and upward?” they smiled at each other and slumped back down into the ground and closed there eyes. Thalai opened her eyes and looked around, all she could feel was pain, but she was mostly amazed that she was still alive she had no idea how far she had jumped or where she was. The only thing she knew was that she was in serious pain, although nothing seemed broken, she guessed that she must have passed out from the rushing air and lack of oxygen as she fell, that and her fur would have softened her landing, she rolled slowly onto her side groaning in pain with every motion, she staggered to all fours breathing heavily, and looked around sniffing the air, the sky was turning turquoise although the storm clouds above suggested that the sun would not be coming out any time soon, she whimpered as she took a shaky step towards the edge of wherever she had landed and looked around, she looked up, she could see the top that she had jumped off far away from her, but it did look survivable, she walked to the edge and looked down, she could just about see the bottom, but it looked imposable from this distance and it annoyed her so much to see that the mountain she would have to climb was only a few metres away yet it was way to far to make the crossing, she sighed and was about to begin her descent when she noticed something weird, the sun wasn’t rising in it’s usual place, as far as she remembered the sun up until now had been rising

4 7

behind them, to where they had come from, and if she was still on the second mountain then it was rising in front of her she looked around then gasped as she realised what she’d really done. Grinning she began attempting to climb upwards, which was unbearably painful granted the injury’s she had obtained during the last few days, the cuts and bruises and claw marks from her fight with shadow had not yet healed and all the usual aches and pains from just travelling were now mixed with the agony of jumping from the top of one mountain to the middle of another was making her head spin, and there was now not an inch of her that was not covered in blood and cuts. Still she had come this far and did not want to just quit, so she forced herself to go on up and up into whatever hell awaited her. “Three down, one river to go.” She smiled as she reached the top as a human, she had transformed half way up so that she could grab hold of all the roots and rocks to pull herself up, one thing she could not do as a wolf, she stumbled away from the edge and collapsed on her hands and knees, every part of her was in pain and she just wanted to collapse and sleep until everything healed, but she couldn’t stop, she got to her feet shaking and began to stagger forwards grimacing with every step she looked at her surroundings the mountain top was completely flat and she could hear the clear sound of rushing water, she walked to the edge and looked down, it wasn’t much of a drop and it descended into a river with currents like she’d never seen before, she gulped then looked around as she tried to remember what Vitarny had said to her, find the stream then follow it down till you find a canyon river, if this was his idea of a stream, then she was afraid of what she would be facing as a river. Thalai howled then trotted forwards, although transforming had only made her injury’s feel worse, then she jumped down to the river bank, which was surrounded by mountain rocks on ether side, making the river look like it were in a ditch, she landed with a yelp, jumping had not been her smartest idea, then she began trotting down the edge of the river bank speeding up occasionally only hoping that she would be able to make it to where Vitarny had said before anything bad happened. Sieris stormed up the mountain tugging at weeds and roots with his jaws in an attempt to pull him self up, “I can’t believe her! Leaving even after everything I have done to help her!” he scrabbled up the mountain occasionally slipping back, “this is ridiculous!” he snapped and barked as he came closer and closer to the top still slipping with every step, he gave the rocks one final kick with his hind legs and pushed himself onto the rocks. “I can’t believe that she would just up and leave! Huh?” Sieris stopped in front of the dry pool of blood and sniffed at it then ears back he broke into a run up the slope heading towards the edge, he skidded to a halt at the last second as he began to jump and climb down the mountainside towards the darkness. Thalai collapsed to the ground her breath raking the air in an attempt to gain oxygen, her legs were shaking, and she had become light headed she had no idea how long she had been running for but it seemed like forever, she could taste blood in her throat and could only hope that it was not serious. After five minutes or so of sitting on the ground shaking she got to all fours and began walking down the riverside, it twisted and turned and she could only hope that she was on the right track.

4 8

She was beginning to lose hope when she heard the sound of rushing water grow louder, “finally!” Thalai gasped as she ran around a corner and stared as the river bank opened out into a massive bank less Canyon River, it was nothing but deep, fast, rapids everywhere with a big yellow mountain following it round, towering above her like the ones that you might see in a desert, it looked amazing accept that there was no way from the bank that she was on across to the mountain opposite. She looked at the river, it looked roughly forty foot wide and she didn’t have any idea of the depth, and she didn’t want to find out, she sighed and whimpered as she shifted from paw to paw looking around for some way across, then she noticed something, markings on the other side, it was to far for her to see what it was but it looked like something had been dragged out of the river on to the opposite side, she took a breath then looked up, there was only a tree on her side, a very thin, leg withed trunk of a stick but she didn’t have much choice, she walked over to the tree and threw herself against it, it toppled over almost instantly, which was not encouraging, she knew there was no way she could walk across it, and the thought of swimming those rapids was purely imposable. But she couldn’t stop now, not when she was so close, she closed her eyes and stood up then she looked at the tree hanging across the river balancing from the bank to the rocks on the opposite side then she took a deep breath and plunged herself into the water. “This is ridiculous.” Ken said staring at the log bridge in amazement, “it looks like it hasn’t been broken for long” Annabel replied looking at the roots “do you think… Thalai and Sieris?” “No way, a human and a wolf? Do this? I don’t think their that strong.” Annabel shrugged “duno, but shouldn’t we spend less time wondering how it got here and more time thinking about how we’re going to cross it?” “We have to cross it?!” Ken grimaced as he looked at the log bridge in front of them Annabel shrugged at him “we don’t have much choice, come on Kenny.” And with that she hopped onto the log and clinging to it began to walk across on her hands and knees, Ken followed lying on his stomach and wrapping his arms and legs around it so that he could shimmy after Annabel not unlike a worm of sorts, “I’m sure the way Thalai got across this more dignified.” Said a very disgruntled Ken, “yea, but we can’t turn into a wolf on command can we?” he shrugged “maybe its something that everyone can do and Thalai just figured out the way, I mean we have known her for more than half of her life, and she’s never grown a tail over night before has she?” Annabel sighed “Ken is this really the best time?” “meh.” He did his best to shrug then screamed as even this simple action had triggered him to slip sideways, he pulled himself up right again then continued his worm like movement in an attempt to follow Annabel, who’s method of hands and knees was a great deal more affective then ken’s wriggling. “I just don’t see the big deal with this whole journey” Ken grumbled as they reached the end of the log and began jogging up the slope, “I mean just because a wolf that she barely knows says that something bad is going to happen, how can we be sure, how do we even be sure that he isn’t the bad guy?” “Well the black wolf… Shadow, is the one who tried to kill her” “I repeat, meh” Annabel sighed clearly getting exasperated with him then continued to speed up as the slope got steeper slowly changing into a large mountain. Thalai gasped for air, clinging to the tree trunk, although it was only big enough for her to grasp with the palm of her hands, she spluttered and coughed out water desperately clinging to the one thing that was keeping her alive.

4 9

The currents power was ridiculous and every second it dragged her and bashed her around, she was barely able to hold on, and she realised now just how stupid she had been to jump in, her vision was being constantly obscured by the rapids all around her that now threatened to be her death. Summoning her every last drop of energy she slid one hand along the tree branch towards the opposite bank, then she followed suet with her other hand narrowly avoiding letting go, she breathed heavily her arms felt as if someone had chained a weight the size of a bus to them and left her to hold it up, but she continued her slow moving plan until she was but a few feet away from the edge, mud and rocks looking her in the face, when she slipped, the tree branch had gotten soaked and she just couldn’t hold on she screamed as she began to plummet down the rapids going under every second, she thought she was done for when she felt a tug on the back of her dress top and she was thrown out on to the bank where she lay gasping and shaking until she heard Sieris’s voice from behind her, “what the hell were you thinking?! You nearly died! What the hell would you have done if I hadn’t been here?” she sat up still gasping a breathed “how did you get here before me?” he smiled and his eyes flicked up wards she followed his gaze to the river path she had followed, “the mountain walls that follow it, I didn’t jump onto the river bank I ran across those and jumped to this side, quite a slip you gave me with that stunt you pulled.” Thalai put her ears down and looked away, for one thing how stupid had she been to follow the river on its lowest path and for another, what the hell was she thinking?! She had leaped across a mountain abandoned her friend and plunged into a canyon river! If her mother could see her now she couldn’t help but wonder what she’d think. “Look I’m really really sorry Sieris, it’s just that I got worried and you were asleep and I just didn’t know what to do.” Thalai’s fifth apology was, she imagined starting to sound desperate, but although she did feel terrible about abandoning her friend, he did not seem to be taking it so hard. “I told you ten minutes ago stop worrying about it, I am not cross.” She sighed and walked along side him, it felt strange to see him as a human after knowing what he was now. She had known him for years and they had each thought the other human, and now they find out that they were both wolves. She sighed as they edged their way along the bank as it slowly began winding around the mountain upwards. “Ok how long do we have to walk for seriously?” Sieris asked while trying not to look down into the swirling rapids below, “did Vitarny say where to go?” Thalai nodded silently as she kept walking around the path “get to the third mountain, find the river, get somewhere high up and howl, that’s about it.” Sieris sighed “howl? For what?” “He said this would be half way and he’d meet me there.” Sieris stopped and stared at her “he said he’d meet you?! But what if…” Thalai stared at him and growled “what?” “What if he never comes? Have we just come all this way on the word of some guy you don’t even know?!” “Wolf, not guy, and I know him well enough to know that he wouldn’t lie.” “He doesn’t have to, he might have… he might have had trouble getting here.” Thalai barked at him “he wouldn’t just quit! He would never be killed by some, some experiment!” “An experiment? Is that how you see me?” Thalai’s blood froze as she slowly turned on the spot instantly recognising the gruff evil sounding voice, the very essence of which seemed to be dripping with poison. She turned to look at him, he stood a few feet away above them on a pile of rocks, and he looked different, his fangs were dripping with blood, his fur was much thicker and blacker then it had been, his eyes were a darker shade of red\orange and he looked bigger then normal.

5 0

And as Thalai stared into his demonic blood thirsty eyes, she felt fear, true, real fear for the first time in her life, she had been scared before but it felt nothing like this. At that moment she remembered what Vitarny had said, the more he kills the stronger he becomes, and she would have given anything to just run, but she knew Shadow would never let her go, not now, “Thalai! Run!” she turned to see Sieris lunge at shadow in his wolf form, “no!” she was too late, she watched in horror as Shadow side stepped and bit him by the tail throwing him backwards, Thalai howled and ran towards him, “Sieris!” “I’m ok, but he has gotten strong!” his voice was shaking as he struggled to his feet and turned to see that shadow hadn’t moved. He stood firmly, fangs bared in an evil grin, “IS THAT ALL YOU’VE GOT?!” Thalai found herself shaking “get to the top, I’ll stall” she turned to him in shock “Sieris no!” “Go on, I won’t fight him if I don’t have to.” Thalai wanted to protest but looking at his face she knew she couldn’t stop him, “please be careful.” She turned to face Shadow then turned back to Sieris and licked him on the cheek, “good luck.” And with that she gave shadow one last black look then bolted onwards and upwards, “YOU CAN’T WIN HUMAN! NO MATTER WHERE YOU GO MY PACK WILL STOP YOU!” she closed her eyes, tears trickling down her cheeks as she heard the familiar sound of wolves beginning to rip each other apart and shadows laughter fade into the distance. “Uuugghh!” Ken moaned as he and Annabel stopped in front of a massive gap between mountains, “I am so sick of these things, we barely made it up the last one, now we have to go down, AND up!?” Annabel sighed, a look of total despair on her face “we have to Ken, we got this far, one more mountain shouldn’t do too much harm.” She sat down and began to edge her way down the rocks towards the bottom of the pit, Ken followed, very reluctantly grumbling and moaning with every inch, “the third mountain, why couldn’t it be the third escalator, or take a bus to the third beach and relax with some sun tan and orange juice.” “Come on, ken we could be really close it could be right up Th… aaah!” “Annabel!” she screamed as she lost her footing and plummeted towards the ground helplessly, “HOLD ON!” Annabel closed her eyes as she felt something hit her full force in the stomach, she was too scared to open her eyes all she could feel was thick warm fur. “Annabel! Ann! Where are you?!” Ken jogged along the bottom of the pit, it was pitch black since the sun was nearly set, he had been walking around for what he guessed was a couple of hours, and he was getting beyond desperate he wiped a tear from his eye “Annabel?! Where are you? Please! Ann?!” he stopped and fell to his knees, tears now streaming down his face, his throat closed up from the inside as he tried to yell once more, “a-n-n…” his voice wavered and croaked making it imposable for him to shout, so he just knelt on the floor and tried to stop himself from crying long enough to talk, “A- Annabel I- I’m so, so sorry… I wish I could have saved you, you w-were my b-best friend and I… I l-lo…” “Ken? I’m right here.” “Huh?!” he spun around to see Annabel standing behind him, arms folded “Annabel!?” he leaped up and dove at her in a hug, then the second he realised what he was doing instantly stopped and jumped back, face glowing like a traffic light, “what the hell happened?! How did you survive?! I mean a fall like that?!” she broke into a grin and turned her head “a friend.” Ken followed her gaze and stared mouth open in shock “he’s beautiful!” “Oy! Beautiful ya great bloody pansy?!” Ken stared in shock as the white wolf stepped down from the

5 1

rock he was standing on and blinked at him, “i-is this him?!” Annabel nodded still beaming “say hello to Vitarny!” ken stared mouth open in shock as the wolf began to circle him “he’s massive.” “Oy, I’m not massive, it’s just the fur, it makes me look poofy.” Ken laughed in shock, “he’s alive?!” “He’s not much.” Vitarny replied half heartedly as he lay down beside him, “umm… what?” “So anyway, you and ya girl friend out for a midnight stroll or what?” “She is not my girlfriend!” Ken said turning pink, “whatever, Ken I presume?” “Huh? Oh yea nice to umm meet you…” Ken said extending a hand instinctively then pulling it back as Vitarny began to growl, “you trying to find the mutt?... Thalai.” Annabel and Ken nodded Vitarny snarled “follow me.” He walked into the darkness, Annabel and Ken looked at each other and then followed him nervously. Ken frowned as he noticed his limp, “So umm, where does this lead?” “Short cut, leads to the canyon river, literally. This path we’re walking, it used to be a river, until a landslide a couple of years ago, rocks came down, blocked the river, this path went dry, the boulders are pretty stable, its blocked at the end of the path. Rivers over the top, stepping stones, big easy.” “He talks kinda quickly doesn’t he?” ken muttered into Annabel’s ear “I think he’s just stressed. His voice is kinda rough though, he’s like the total stereotype of a wolfs voice.” She laughed. “Do you think, I mean, is he…safe? Huh?! Oh no where is he?” “Well I aint house trained but I wont bite” Ken jumped as Vitarny jumped down in front of him, “well, provided you stay on my good side.” Ken gulped as the white wolf turned and carried on walking, “you know, Thalai was a lot less threatening.” Annabel nodded in agreement “yea but maybe it’s a good thing, maybe he can fight Shadow.” “No.” “What?” he slowed down waiting for them to catch him up, “I fought him enough times to know it’s pointless. See these...” he turned in a slow circle revealing the cuts and scars covering his entire body, Annabel and Ken looked at each other, they hadn’t noticed them before, “so is that how you got the…limp?” Vitarny shook his head growling, “No, that was from a couple of Shadows lackeys.” “Other wolves did this to you?” “Wrong again human… his pack isn’t fully made out of wolves that’s only half of it.” “Annabel frowned “well then what? Thalai said he would only work with his own kind?” Vitarny smiled “she was right, by the way did you know bears are related to wolves?” Annabel and ken glanced at each other fearfully, “bears?! But Thalai and Sieris! Their ahead of us!” “Why do you think I’ve been hurrying?!” they looked at each other then sped up as did Vitarny, they ran until they reached a wall of rocks and boulders with an obvious sound of rushing water beyond it. Annabel and Ken looked at each other then at Vitarny, whose gaze shifted from rock to rock then groaning with the pain of putting weight on his hind leg, he leaped up onto the rocks then onto the other and the other until he went out of sight over the top, “sorry, does he expect us to follow him?!” Ken stared at the rocks in despair, “come on we’ve got further than this so what’s a few rocks” Annabel grabbed onto the first and pulled herself up, it was much easier to climb then the other mountains, except that it seemed quite unstable, the rocks shook with every step and crumbled under the weight of their climbing, “is this safe?” Annabel asked as Ken came up behind her “I don’t know he didn’t seem to have any trouble.” Ken said nodding at Vitarny who was waiting at the top, tail flicking over the edge, although it was barely visible over the rocks. The second they reached the top Ken pulled a camera out of his pocket and began clicking as he looked at the mass of rapids and waves over lapping against the sides, Annabel laughed “haven’t seen that in a while.” He smiled and looked down at its familiar metal coating and wrist strap, “haven’t really had time to think about it.” “We have even less time now! Come on!” Vitarny put a paw on

5 2

one of the rocks then looked back at Ken and Annabel and growled\sighed, “all right ya bloody mangy human-mutts, you left side and grab onto my fur, you right side and same.” Annabel and Ken did as he said cautiously trying not to look at the river, Annabel clung on as tightly as she could ken did the same, one hand reaching instinctively for the pocket with his camera in, “all right you two hold on as tight as you can, without pulling out any of my bloody fur boy!” “Oh sorry.” Ken said loosening his grip as they stepped onto the second stepping stone, the water was just barely going over the top, making it slipperier then usual. They were almost at the edge, Annabel jumped landing on the bank “uuurr” she shuddered “I hate rapids” “yea I’m with ya there, huh?” ken froze as Vitarny stopped still and began growling, “What is it? What’s wrong?!” Vitarny barked “jump!” Ken tried his best, but he was too slow, the tree came from nowhere, crashing into the rocks with Ken and Vitarny along with it. Ken screamed as he plummeted into the water Vitarny yelped as the pressure on his hind leg made him freeze and he went under, “KEN! VITARNY!” Annabel watched helplessly from the side lines as the water frothed and foamed as if there was never a disturbance in the surface, Annabel held her breath and everything went quiet. When suddenly “Aaagh!” Vitarny burst out of the water, Ken clinging around his neck, Vitarny held the tree branch in his mouth, snarling, “Go! Now jump!” Ken nodded in-between splutters and with the thrust of Vitarny’s head Ken leaped at the bank barely making it, Annabel catching him by the shoulders and throwing him down next to her then turning back to Vitarny, he panted and breathed heavily as his claws slowly slipping off the rock he was lodged on as the currant’s dragged and pulled him away from the stones “Annabel we’ve got to help him!” Vitarny met her eyes and then she knew he had been through so much, his injuries were too great, he could barely move. “Annabel?! What are you doing?! We’ve got to… Annabel?” at that moment there was a sound that made a chill go down their backs, it sounded like a mix between a loud yelp and a scream, “go now!” Vitarny yelled as his grip on the rock faltered and he slipped, Annabel didn’t wait, she ran upwards towards the sound, silently apologising for Vitarny’s fate as she ran Ken right behind her every step of the way. Thalai screamed as she jumped back in surprise, she hadn’t intended to scream but seeing a black bear rear up and try to attack her just made her panic. “Hey! What the hell are you doing?!” she yelled amidst the dodging and jumping, “Why are you attacking me? I’m a wolf too you know!” it didn’t respond, it merely rose again, bellowing at the wolf and then crashing down in another attempt to crush her, “WHY ARE YOU LISTANING TO SHADOW?!” she yelled once more before deciding that the bear could not understand her, she rolled off her back and bolted up wards, she was only a couple more turns from the top when another wolf jumped out at her, biting and scratching they fought viciously, “what’s wrong with you?! You’re fighting your own kind!” the wolf stopped and stared at her quizzically, “you’re not like me. And shadow ordered your destruction, I must do as he says, or I will not be worthy of him.” “What?!” she did all she could to avoid hurting it, she did not want to fight against another of her kind, but after various cuts and injuries she was forced to deal a counter blow, this however did much more damage then was the intention and the wolf fell to the ground, a fresh slash mark across its forehead, it lay on the floor whimpering, which of course only made her feel worse, “sorry, but you gave me no choice.” And with that she ran on, her vision locked onto the mountain peak, all her senses flaring, she could sense wolves and bears everywhere, she felt so

5 3

alone, like everything in the world was against her, and heck it probably was, she ran on completely exhausted, her attention flicking to the full moon it the sky, there were a few clouds in the sky, most of which made it look as if it would rain, just then she stopped and fell to the floor, unable to move. She had come so far in the last month or so from when she had first howled and transformed and yet she felt so much more like a wolf then a human. But she knew she was not that strong, and there was no way she could stop shadow on her own she would have given anything to just sleep but then she heard a very familiar sound, “Sieris!” she leaped up filled with a new burst of energy based on her concern, then she bolted heading for where she had heard the howl coming from, then she jumped onto a ledge in front of her and ran over to her friend. Sieris crouched on the ground whimpering softly, “Sieris! Are you ok what happened?” “You still don’t understand, do you?” “What?” she looked him in the eye, tears trickling down his orange snout, “Thalai, I’m so sorry…” “What?...” she gasped as she realised what he was saying, and suddenly everything made sense, he didn’t have a single scratch mark on him, he had stayed behind to distract shadow, he found his way across the river before she had. “Ah, it just got interesting.” Thalai turned as she heard Shadows evil voice from behind her, “well done, you got her here earlier than I had expected.” Thalai stared at Sieris tears began to sting her eyes “you?...” he turned away from her “… yea.” “But… Sieris why?” “he said he could help ok! a couple of months ago he found me and said he could train me. He told me what was coming, what was going to happen, what he was going to do. And said if I helped bring you to him I would be spared. You’d have done the same thing too Thal.” She stared unable to believe what she was hearing “no! I wouldn’t! You’re my friend.” “ENOUGH WITH THE DRAMATICS! FINISH HER! BY MIDNIGHT TONIGHT IT WON’T MATTER!” Shadow yelled from the sidelines, “Thal, I’m so sorry.” And with that, tears streaming down his face, he lunged at her, his teeth ripping into her already torn shoulder, she didn’t even scream, she was too in shock at why someone she had known for so long and had trusted so much, was now trying to kill her, “come on Thal, don’t make this harder then it already is, fight back!” she shook her head in silence, refusing to strike a blow, Sieris however would not show the same mercy, as he bit and slashed and hurt her in everyway possible she could feel nothing, not the wind, or the pain or even the blood that dripped from all over her body, the only thing that caused her pain was the stinging sensation of betrayal. “Thalai! Hit me!” she shook her head once again as he slammed her into a near by rock, “please!” his voice shook as tears fell to the ground she just shook her head and no matter how he hurt her or what he said, she refused to fight back. “Thalai, I’m so, so sorry, but I’ve got no choice, he’ll kill me if I don’t.” “He’ll kill you anyway…” she croaked, staggering to her feet, “this is just him making you do his dirty work.” Sieris growled at her then lunged in another attack, landing her on her back half over the ledge, overlooking the canyon rapids. “Thal, please don’t make me do this.” “I’m not.” She stood and closed her eyes “I’d rather die with honour than attack a friend.” And with that she leant backwards just as he reared up to attack her and she fell. “Thalai?! Thal? Are you ok?” “Huh… how. What?... Annabel? Ken? What, did I… you know…” Thalai sat up and shook her fur Annabel and Ken looked at each other then threw themselves at her in a massive hug. Thalai nuzzled them affectionately then pricked up her ears, “wait! Sieris! And Shadow I’ve got to call Vitarny!” “WAIT!” Thalai stood and looked around to see where she had landed, she was on a muddy patch of rocks somewhere near the

5 4

middle of the path she had half climbed before her fight, “guys I’ve got to stop shadow, I don’t know what he’s going to do but I know it’s gonna be at midnight and I’ve got to stop him!” “Wait… Thalai, Vitarny won’t be… he’s…” “No! Stop right there I’m sick of everyone saying that he’s gone! I know him and I know he’s not gone! And up until now I would never have asked you two to do anything life threatening for me, ever! But I need you to distract Sieris, I’ll take care of Shadow.” “Sieris?” Thalai’s ears and tail fell down as the pain and heartache hit her all over again, worse now that she’d had the chance to think about it. “Because…” she blinked trying to keep her voice steady as she explained about what had happened “look, Sieris, Sieris is a wolf and he’s working for Shadow, he tried to kill me, I was half way to the peak when he…” she turned away as her voice began to crack, Annabel and ken looked at each other in dismay then turned back to Thalai as she said, “look he doesn’t know that you guys know, so maybe you can trick him, get him away from Shadow, be carefu…” “If you tell us to be careful one more time I’ll tie you up out back!” ken laughed at his comment then as Thalai smiled they nodded at each other then they ran in different directions, Ken and Annabel taking the winding path up and round to find Sieris. Thalai leaped up the side of the cliff and began climbing up as a human, she figured that Shadow would lock onto a wolf easier than a human and if she climbed up the side she would not be noticed, although she felt fit to drop, all her injuries were weighing her down so much, and she was so tired in fact she presumed that the only thing that was keeping her going was the thought that she couldn’t let her friends down. Annabel and Ken slowed to a stop as they neared a corner up ahead, they would have just creped around it had they not heard Sieris’s voice coming from the other side, “ken..” Annabel whispered as they slowed down even more, “We only have an advantage if he thinks we think he’s on our side what do you think?” “I honestly don’t know.” Annabel nodded then raised her voice to a louder pitch, “hey Ken! We have to find Thalai she has to be around here somewhere.” “Ann!? What the hell are you doing?!” Ken said nudging her shoulder Annabel slapped his hand away giving him a ‘shut your mouth’ look. “Annabel? Ken?” Ken straightened up, realising her plan as Sieris rounded the corner “hey you guys have you found Thalai?” Annabel and Ken glanced nervously at each other before Ken responded “um, no not yet, have you seen her?” Sieris smiled in a way that seemed slightly remorseful, “yea… she’s, I’ll take you to her.” “Annabel nodded, ignoring Ken constantly grabbing her arm as she followed Sieris up and round the hill. Thalai tugged on a root, pulling herself up the last foot and a half of rock, she flopped on her stomach and lay there breathing heavily, she was covered in a mixture of blood and sweat, she sat up and looked around, she was on the path above the one Sieris had attacked her on. She looked up, the peak wasn’t that far away, if she could get there as a human then howl as loudly as she could, it would give her a good back up in a fight as well as calling Vitarny. Thalai got to her feet and ran around the corner, this time she wouldn’t stop, she would get to the top, and she would stop shadow. She rounded the next corner and suddenly she felt a massive sharp stabbing pain go across her back, she screamed as she fell to her knees and spun around to see another black bear, this one however was significantly bigger then the first, or that could have been because she was a wolf the first time, she tried to run but her legs were glued to the floor, so instead she just tried to talk, “um, yo

5 5

brother, what’s up?” the bear either couldn’t understand her or it really hated her attempt to relate to it. It raised its paw and slammed it against her stomach knocking her backwards onto the ground, she gasped for air and clutched at her rib cage, “ok… bad…” she couldn’t be bothered to transform and alert everything to her whereabouts so she just ran, passed the bear, which followed her in a raged attack, Thalai decided she could either run and hope she got away or she could ‘just happen to run into some of shadows pack’ with an angry bear behind her, at least that way she wouldn’t feel so bad about killing them. Thalai rounded another corner and stopped with her back against the wall panting as the bear skidded round in front of her then raced into another bear, Thalai could only assume that these were Shadows guards as they seemed to be round every corner, she crouched and snuck passed them then bolted into a flat out run towards the peak, which was now quite close, the only thing which separated her from the top was a whole in the rock, which seemed to just lead into an underground pit. Thalai looked around, and then up at the wall of rock, she sighed then jumped and began to climb up the mountain side. “Annabel what are you doing?!” ken asked nervously as they walked up the mountain behind Sieris, the path wound up and round the mountain and seemed endless, Annabel and Sieris spoke occasionally but the distrust and tension was almost as obvious as Sieris’s many cuts and slash’s, although neither Annabel or Ken had commented on them. “So, is this mountain… empty?” Annabel asked after a short period of time, “huh? Oh yea. Me and Thalai were here a while ago, but she…” Annabel clenched her fists “she what?” “She… went to the top to call Vitarny… I don’t think she believes me about… you know.” “Yea. I know.” “So, um how’d you two find your way here?” “We ran into a friend.” Annabel replied looking down at the ground, “oh? Who?” “No-one you know” Annabel said overtaking him on the path, Ken followed, eyeing Sieris nervously, “so Annabel, Ken, how did you guys get across the rapids, they stop almost everyone, or so I hear” “from who?” Annabel said as they turned another corner, “oh um, my dad, he’s away from home a lot, you know, travelling and stuff, he mentioned about these rapids.” Annabel nodded half-heartedly while looking up at the path above her, she guessed it was the same one just higher, but she didn’t really care, she was to busy hating Sieris for betraying them. “Well, Thal and I kinda had trouble with them, she got kinda ahead of me and I had to jump across…” “That’s it! I can’t take it anymore!” Annabel stopped and turned to face Sieris, all guns blazing, “we keep on acting like he’s our friend and all this time we knew! Just cause Thalai’s emotions got the better of her! That’s the only reason we let you come!” Sieris didn’t seem at all surprised by this out burst of anger and hatred, he acted almost like he welcomed it, smiling grimly at them he sat down, back against a bolder and sighed, “go on then, if you still wont to stop Shadow, I won’t stop you…” Annabel and Ken stared at him in confusion “I didn’t want to you know… I never wanted to hurt anyone, especially Thalai.” Annabel stared at Sieris, his eyes were red and puffed up, like he’d been crying for ages, and there was sincerity in his voice, which made him sound genuinely regretful of what he’d done. Annabel even momentarily considered telling him that Thalai was alive but she knew he’d only try and kill her again. “If you really regret it, then help us stop him.” Sieris looked away from her as he slumped more towards the ground, arms folded over his knees, Annabel turned to Ken and then started walking up the path as if Sieris didn’t even exist, Ken followed and giving the sobbing Sieris one last glance of pity he and Annabel disappeared around the corner leaving

5 6

Sieris to the black pit of despair which now consumed his entire being and made his stomach sink like an anchor in the sea, and he sobbed silent, and alone, just hoping someone would pull him out of the murky depths into which he had been thrown. Thalai pulled herself up and over the last rock that stood in-between her and the top then without pausing for even a second to rest, she leaped up and looked around, she stood on a big flat mountain top, perhaps the size of a medium sized swimming pool, upon which there was an even bigger peak, a small tower of rocks, roughly twenty foot above the mountain like a radio antenna, it didn’t look very big at the top, it got slimmer as it went, but she guessed the top was the size of a very small kitchen. She ran over to it only to be slammed to the ground, fangs and claws tearing open her back, “aaah!” she screamed and kicked as the weight was lifted and she turned to see Shadow grinning at her evilly, his orange eyes revealing a battlefield of blood and fire buried deep within his soul. “Well well. Little human is not floating in the rapids, and here I thought my ‘assistant’ did so well, Thalai growled, she would never be able to call Vitarny, he could stop her mid howl, she sighed as she decided that if he was going to take her down, she was going to go down fighting. “Go back to hell Shadow!” she snapped as she threw a punch at him, he dodged then snapped at her arm leaving a blood filled bite mark. She held back the pain, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of screaming. She pulled away from him and snarled, he laughed “look at the little human, acting like a wolf, when your nothing more then a runt!” he took a few steps backwards and snarled “I am a wolf, and I’m more wolf then you’ve ever been! You don’t even realise that you’re an experiment gone wrong!” he growled at her but stayed still as a statue. “Go on then human! Tell me what makes you think that you are more wolf then I?” she stood proud, her shoulders back, and head up looking him straight in the eye, knowing for the first time that she had something he’d never have. “My soul.” He snorted at her “is that it?” she took a step closer “and my spirit, and my friends! I have been through so much more than you! And I still stand. My will power is the one thing that you can never stop or brake, hey, where there’s a will…” she closed her eyes “there’s a way.” She opened her eyes as a wolf and lunged at him, her attack did more then the last time she had tried it but he still grabbed her scruff and threw her she rebounded faster then usual and sunk her teeth into his neck, then realised, most of the time during this journey what had kept her alive was her human side, Ideas pans, her mind, she looked around, if she could knock him off the cliff it might buy her enough time to call for Vitarny. It wasn’t brilliant but it was the best plan she had got. She got to all fours shaking and staggering under the weight of standing, then she ran at Shadow, fangs bared, and struck a blow on his shoulder, he growled and staggered backwards, Thalai’s eyes shifted to the edge of the cliff, only a few feet away, Shadow saw his chance and lunged, Thalai cried out in pain as his jaws locked around her neck she took a breath and realising she had to get him off before she bleed to death, amidst the panic, her two plans merged and she jumped off the edge with shadow still attached, they bit and scratched each other mid air, then Shadow made his first mistake, he let go of her to kick and she flew backwards into a small dead tree extending from the cliff, Shadow however was too far away to make the landing and continued to plummet down. Thalai stood up and rubbed a paw against her neck to check the damage, the bite was not as deep as she had thought, in fact she was barely bleeding, she

5 7

stood and looked up, then without hesitation she ran up the tree and leaped from rock to rock until she reached the top, she pulled herself up, knowing that the fall would not delay Shadow for long, she knew she had to hurry. Thalai ran to the part where the mountain grew higher in a small tower of rock and stone, then she jumped half way, then once more landing badly on all fours, then she lifted her head took a deep breath and “HOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWW” she howled louder and stronger then she ever had done before, it seemed to echo across the whole mountain range and she held the note as long as she could until she felt as if her lungs would burst then she stopped and sat down panting, her paws shaking, covered in cuts and slashes that made blood drip to the ground it several places. She sat and waited, she expected Vitarny to come running but the air was silent. Nothing moved Thalai’s ears fell to the side as she finally realised the situation that she had put herself and her friends in. She had believed in Vitarny despite the reality that, he was gone. And now she and her friends were alone lost in a mountain range and doomed to be killed with in it just because she had refused to believe that Vitarny was really gone. “HAHAHAHAHA” Thalai whipped round to see shadow standing behind her on the small ledge, he grinned malevolently then lashed out, his paw swiped clean across her muzzle, making her fall backwards off the small peak and back onto the flat part of the mountain, Shadow jumped down beside her still laughing evilly as he said “WHAT DID YOU THINK WOULD HAPPEN RUNT? THE WHITE WOLF WOULD COME TO RESCUE YOU AND YOU’R FRIENDS? FACE IT YOUR GUARDION IS DEAD! HE WAS TOO WEAK JUST LIKE YOU. HE TOO BELIEVED THAT WILL POWER WAS THE ULITIMATE IN DEFENCE AND LOOK WHERE THAT ENDED HIM!” Thalai could feel anger and despair burning up inside her like a molten volcano “Vitarny was a way stronger wolf then you’ll ever be! And if he really went down, it was fighting, just as I will.” “YOU CAN’T KILL ME!” “Maybe not. But I can damn well try!” she leaped at him and bit and scratched as hard as she could kicking biting scratching clawing punching, anything she could to hurt him. “DO YOU REALLY THINK YOU CAN STOP ME?!” Thalai lunged at him again, slashing his stomach, “no, I know I can!” she leaped at him and faltered. Her ankle crippling under the weight of jumping making her fall on her stomach at his feet, Shadow showed no mercy, he aimed his attack then ducked his head and ripped into her neck. She yelped in pain and tried to retaliate but to no avail, “YOU SEE WHERE BELEIVING GETS YOU? NOW YOU WILL DIE!” “Yea and I’ll turn into a big fluffy kitten!” Thalai’s heart skipped as she recognised the voice and looked up as there was a massive raw, like the kind you’d expect to hear from a lion as Vitarny leaped at Shadow knocking him onto the ground hard. Thalai’s tail wagged from side to side despite the pain she was in as she stood, shaking and ran at him “Vitarny! Your ok!” she leaped at him, nuzzling his head and licking his ear, “ouch! Get off mutt! We’ve still got to stop him!” he backed away and shook his fur, then smiled at her and tousled her hair with his paw “well done mutt, I wasn’t sure you’d make it.” she smiled at him, her tail still wagging from side to side. “AWW IS’NT THAT TOUCHING!” they turned as Shadow got to his feet, Vitarny’s attack had done much more damage then Thalai’s had. She and Vitarny growled at Shadow as he moved steadily closer grinning in his usual evil manner, Thalai was terrified, she knew even with Vitarny fighting by her side, they couldn’t win.

5 8

Shadow circled them flexing his claws, he was a great deal bigger than she was and quite a bit bigger than Vitarny, with his fur and size he resembled a teenage bear cub rather than a wolf. “All right Shadow! Prepare to die!” he laughed as Vitarny’s voice changed in to a growl “YOU WONT STAND A CHANCE, YOU’R ALLREADY BEHIND SCHEDULE” “what the hell are you yapping on about?!” Thalai thought then said in a smaller voice then was her intention “midnight! Vitarny Shadow said something was going to happen at midnight tonight!” Vitarny glanced at her then up at the clouds covering a full moon and snarled “mutt, how long in your years has it been since the wolves disappeared?!” she looked at him bemused then said “umm, fifty years I guess, why?” “That would be fifty years tonight I’d guess… half a century.” Thalai felt a chill go down her back, as she suddenly got the feeling that there was more going on here than just wolves fighting. “Vitarny, what’s going on?” he growled then turned to her and said, “He’s trying to change himself” “what! When? How? Into what?” Shadow growled “I guess the best human equivalent would be, a god.” Thalai stared at him in shock her tail ceased to wag as she contemplated the danger and impossibility of what Vitarny had just said. “A god!?” she stammered after a long pause, Vitarny nodded “once every fifty years the moon builds up enough power to grant this change, but only to a wolf. And only if they howl at the moon on the midnight of the fiftieth year” “so is that why wolves are always howling at the moon?” “Yes, time seems different when you’re a wolf, so none of us are sure of the Time, so howling every night seems like a good idea, bit like playing the lottery everyday” Thalai frowned at him. “Never mind that just help me kill him!” Thalai nodded and together they charged him Shadow laughed as they head butted and kicked him but no-matter what there endeavours it seemed to do little damage to the demonic wolf that they faced. “Annabel! You won’t believe this!” “What is it?” Annabel ran after Ken, who now stood on the edge of the flat peak watching the battle unfold, bears and wolves had began to show themselves around the edge of the arena, and only by ducking behind a rock were Annabel and Ken able to watch unharmed, they looked over at Thalai and Vitarny, fighting side by side against Shadow, “but I saw him fall into the river how?” Ken grinned “I guess that the spirit of a wolf can take anything, maybe all spirits can.” Sieris lay on his back tears still trickling down his cheek as he thought about what Thalai had said before he pushed her, ‘I’d rather die with honour then attack a friend’ he breathed in shakily then stood up and began to walk up the mountain slowly aiming for the top. “Mutt! Jump!” she did so as he barked leaping up and hitting Shadow they collided mid air, kicking off each others paws to gain speed and avoid Shadows rebound attack. Thalai landed panting and snarling at him, Vitarny landed low in a fighting stance and they charged him again. Shadow laughed as he avoided both of them and slashed at Vitarny, who was in just as bad shape as Thalai at this point, she had no idea what he had been through but she could only imagine it was twice as bad as her ordeal. “Vitarny… we can’t win this!” he growled and lunged at Shadow again ignoring Thalai’s comment, she followed suet trying desperately to block Shadows attacks on him while biting and scratching him herself.

5 9

Thalai and Vitarny fought bravely, never backing down once, this continued long into the night until the heavens opened and rain flooded down on top of them. “Vitarny! The moonlight!” Vitarny turned his head just as the moonlight started to shine down onto the highest point on the mountain, where Thalai had called Vitarny. “HAHAHA TOO LATE DOGEIS!” Shadow laughed and leaped over them headed for the rocks. “We can’t let him get there, if he howls it’s all over!” “Mutt!” Thalai turned as one of five black bears swung its paw over her face knocking her backwards at in incredible rate. Vitarny instantly jumped for its back, but it was massive Vitarny was less then half of its size. But he still bit and scratched until it paid him more attention then Thalai. “Mutt! You distract these things. I’ll stop Shadow!” “No!” Vitarny looked at her as he jumped off the bear leaving it to trip over its own paws “I’ll stop Shadow.” And with that she ran without giving him a second to stop her, she raced towards the black wolf that was now at the rocks she knew Vitarny was getting pummelled behind her, but his only chance was if she stopped Shadow. As she neared the gap between her and the black wolf she thought back to everything that had happened to her, her first fight with Shadow, all the mountains she had climbed, with her friends, and alone, and the tree she and Sieris had knocked down to cross, then the third mountain, and the river, fighting Sieris, fighting the other wolf, and the bear, being knocked unconscious so many times. And she wondered how she still had the will to go on, after all that she had been through all she wanted to do was stop him. She smiled and sped up, and then she leaped at Shadow, knocking him off the mountain peak, sending the two of them rolling harshly across the flat top until Shadow stopped them and tried to rip out her neck, he was clearly getting anxious as he glanced at Vitarny who had already killed two of his five bears, then to the mountain peak where the moon light was shining down onto, “mutt! He can only change while the moonlight is on that peak!” she nodded realising that he was just asking her to stall him. She charged him again but this time he was in a hurry he kicked her like a horse would, making her skid painfully across the dirt engulfed terrain. She turned as he put both paws on her neck and began to cut into her throat with his claws, “YOU STUPID RUNT! YOU CAN’T STOP ME! AND NOW YOU AND YOUR FRIEND WILL DIE!!!” he snarled then fell back yelping, “no they bloody wont!” Thalai sat up and coughed trying to work out what had happened, “Sieris?” he grinned at her as he let go of Shadows tail and dodged his claws, “Thal, look I’m really sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking, I, I was scared and…” “WELL THAT’S SWEET AND ALL, BUT YOU TWO HAVE BEEN ANOYIING ME FOR TOO LONG!” Shadow slashed them both then jumped at them, Thalai bit his ear, Sieris scratched his leg, she grinned as they fought against him, forcing him back at one point towards the edge, then he roared, it wasn’t the sort of noise you’d think a wolf could do, but she had heard Vitarny do the same thing earlier, she was beginning to think that there was a lot more to wolves than people thought. She could have gone on like this for ages had she not heard a loud ear splitting yelp, “Vitarny!” she turned to see a bear holding him in its mouth by the neck Thalai completely forgot about Shadow as she ran at the bear and bit its hind leg, it bellowed in pain as it dropped Vitarny she leaped at it again this time, killing it, with a swift bite at its neck it fell off the edge, although there were still two bears and a countless number of wolves all staring at them, “mutt…” Vitarny croaked as he stood up “Shadow…” he turned to the wolves panting as Thalai turned to see Sieris fighting five wolves and Shadow nearing the peak she ran at him trying

6 0

to come up with a plan, something that was not easy to do under this kind of pressure. She leaped at him, he kicked her off, instantly and leaped at the top, Vitarny ran towards her, while Annabel and Ken distracted the wolves, Sieris ran to their aid and Shadow threw back his head, she knew she could never stop him, but maybe there was another way. She didn’t know how it worked but if the power was split then maybe he wouldn’t be immortal either way she knew what she had to do, Thalai leaped onto the rocks and she and Shadow howled up at the bright full moon. She tried to match Shadows howl but his was too deep, although hers was slightly louder than the other two… wait other two? She heard the howls but she couldn’t stop, although she knew Vitarny had followed her idea and now stood behind her howling along side. All of a sudden she felt a massive pull that seemed to tug at her very soul and Power, an impossible amount of power then it seemed to stop tugging and she opened her eyes expecting to see herself glowing or something but instead, her fur was the normal colour, then she realised that she was bigger, she resembled an arctic wolf now, but with her usual brown\grey fur. She howled, it sounded amazing, so deep and it echoed like nothing she had heard before she slowly turned to Vitarny, he actually looked like a god his white fur had gotten much longer and he had grown bigger. She turned to Shadow and realised that she should feel afraid, but she didn’t. Even though Shadow looked more like the devil, his eyes were red, his fangs and claws were long and sharp, not to mention his demonic fur. She and Vitarny exchanged glances, and she realised that she didn’t have to speak, they could hear each others thoughts, then Thalai looked to Ken and Annabel slowly and calmly, she barked, it echoed in a holy way just like her howl had done and the wolves they were fighting were blown backwards, and they bowed and sat, Sieris Annabel and Ken looked at her mouths open, Ken took out his camera and began snapping at the scene that was unfolding Vitarny stepped towards Shadow, the ground shook and then Shadow lunged And all hell broke lose, the wind turned into a full blown gale, the sky began to storm and lightning crashed down, the moon escaped the clouds however shining on the gods and the devil, Thalai and Vitarny leaped at him and the earth seemed to quake, and the elements follow him as he bit Shadow and blood fell to the floor. She nodded solemnly as she heard Vitarny’s calm voice in her head ‘true gods can’t bleed. He is still mortal.’ She stepped towards him and they began to fight, every inch of nature around them seemed to follow suet. The rain battled the wind, although their fur never got wet. The lightning fought against the mountains and Canyon River, the darkness fought against the moonlight. Thalai Vitarny and Shadow clashed in spectacular blazes of power and light, although none of them ever seemed to come out of it with a single scratch, Ken and Annabel looked on in astonishment, their battle seemed to have been paused as the gods fought on. Vitarny howled and ice seemed to target Shadow and stab his entire being without touching Vitarny or Thalai. Shadow howled and the darkness seemed to swallow them making them see their worst nightmare in each other, his attempt to make them fight each other would have been successful had Thalai not howled and made the wind and lightning strike the black wolf. As Annabel Ken and Sieris watched this mayhem from the side lines they all had the feeling they should help, although there was nothing they could do to stop it.

6 1

There was no way any of them could ever fight a devil or a god. So they stared on in silence, holding their breath at every blow and howl as the elements threatened to rip the world apart at the seams. Thalai barked at Shadow as lightning struck his back, he yelped then growled and the rocks flew at her, Vitarny continued to strike the black wolf with hail and ice until Thalai spoke in his mind ‘Vitarny, we wont kill him with this we need to make him mortal’ ‘we can’t’ he lunged at Shadow, the wind following making him fly through the air, ‘the only way for any of us to become mortals is for one to die, and then we would all change back’ Thalai struck Shadow with another bolt of lightning and spoke again, ‘would he die if we pushed him off the cliff’ Vitarny shrugged ‘maybe. He can still bleed, but he’s a god he could pull himself up with the wind, one of us would have to hold him down as he fell.’ suddenly Thalai thought back to her home, back to when everything was normal, before she transformed, when her ex-teacher had grabbed her ankle in front of the school during her insanity rant, she had said ‘one would fall to the darkness, that must have been Sieris, one would kill with the help of the white soul, and two will die’ suddenly Thalai understood, with the help of the white soul, that must mean Vitarny would help her, and two would die, she would have to knock Shadow off the edge and hold him so that he fell properly. She looked at Vitarny and spoke in her mind ‘help me lure him to the edge I’ll take it from there.’ She knew by the look in his eyes that he was far less then happy but he nodded anyway, then together they barked and the wind and hail and rain seemed to team up against Shadow, forcing him back, he tried to fight them but he didn’t seem worried, he must have not realised what they were planning, that or not understood how far they would go to stop him. Perhaps if he had he would have put more energy into stopping them but instead he only stepped back to the very edge, reared up on his hind legs and roared, Thalai didn’t take a second to think, she leaped at him and knocked him off the edge of the cliff, biting and scratching him as they fell, making sure she occupied him enough so that he couldn’t get the elements to help him, as they fell she became aware of a sound from behind her, air rushing, then all of a sudden Vitarny kicked her onto the tree that she had landed on last time she fell and grabbed hold of Shadow using the scruff of his neck. Thalai watched helplessly as they fell, she knew that jumping now would do no good, she leaped off the rock and focused what miss lunar had said, it all made sense but she didn’t want it to, unless she could get to him Vitarny would be the one to die. She howled and started to glow with a faint golden light and she knew how to move, she focused on Annabel, Sieris and Ken, and they appeared in front of her in the air then she dove, all of them diving through the air as Annabel, Ken and Sieris grabbed hold of her fur to keep up as they flew. They reached the bottom in no time, slowly descending onto the ground, the canyon river was a few meters away but none of them were paying any attention to that, they were all staring at the two furry heaps on the floor, a pool of what appeared to be a mixture between a black tar and blood. Thalai walked over to the fallen god and the devil. “Vitarny…” Thalai walked over to him her tail between her legs, her ears flat against her head. “Vitarny….?” She nudged him with her muzzle, “Vitarny?” his eyes flickered and he looked up at her and smiled sadly. “We did it mutt. We faced hell and back, but we did It.” she smiled at him and blinked back tears, just then there was a flash and Thalai felt instantly drained.

6 2

She looked at Vitarny and Shadow, their fur coats had gone back to normal and she knew hers had as well, she looked down, afraid of what she’d see, Shadow was lying motionless on the ground, Vitarny smiled at her, “sorry I doubted you mutt…” he panted as he rolled onto his stomach and tried to sit up “you did pretty well for a house pet…” “Vitarny you can make this… look how far you’ve already come, this is nothing…” he shook his head, his breathing getting heavier. “You and I both know that’s not true… thank you, you beat the devil Thalai.” She smiled, tears dripping onto her paws “no, we did, hey what are packs for?” he smiled then he tilted his head back and gave one final howl, then the white wolf’s head fell to the ground. And he never moved again. Thalai, Ken, Annabel and Sieris moved Vitarny’s body to the top of the mountain and buried it on the peak. It was the least they could do for the fallen god. They sat and lit a fire and said goodbye, each in their own way, Thalai and Sieris howled for what must have been at least three hours, and Annabel and Ken talked and prayed next to the grave, but they all cried Annabel and Ken cried into each others arms, Thalai and Sieris whimpered beside each other on the ground. The minute the sun struck its first rays of light, the four friends said one final good bye to Vitarny and began their long journey home. They took Vitarny’s path across the rapids and through the pass. Sieris and Thalai helped carry Annabel and Ken up most of the mountains, and they seemed to go faster like they were skipping past most of the troubles. Thalai figured that last howl Vitarny had done was using what was left of the god power to make their was home less difficult. They slept at Vitarny’s old den, which Thalai and Sieris promised to take care of. And in the morning they guessed what had been left of the power was gone because they all felt exhausted. They sat in silence for a while, Annabel on Kens lap, Thalai and Sieris hand in hand, all of them solemnly looking at the sky before Sieris spoke, “how long have we been gone?” Annabel shrugged “a few week’s maybe… I hope my mum hasn’t forgotten me.” Thalai groaned at the thought of her parents and brother. The last time she had seen them she had transformed in front of them and then up and left with only a note as her explanation. She sighed and got to her feet, “we should probably get home… if our parents don’t already think we’re dead.” Annabel nodded in agreement as they all got to their feet and began walking through the forest. When they got to the rocks that lead up to the mountain at the edge of the village Thalai and Sieris didn’t even bother to transform. After everything they had been through the forty foot to the top seemed like nothing, so they climbed up as humans and ran up the slope, they stood on the flat top of the mountain and looked back at the forest and the mountains that faded into the distance. It felt strange to think that those mountains that seemed so far away when they had began were only the beginning of their perilous journey. Ken took out his camera and took a picture of the mountains that had almost been their death, the camera made a weird buzzing sound and Ken smiled “end of the film.” Annabel smiled at him and then they turned towards the village and ran.

6 3

Thalai hesitated in front of her house. What if her family had forgotten her? What if they were waiting for her ready with a net and silver bullets? And at the least she knew that she would at least be grounded. Thalai looked around the village, Annabel, Sieris and Ken had already run home as fast as they could, leaving Thalai alone in an empty street. She swallowed and pushed the door open, the room looked the same as when she had left it but empty. No-one was there. She walked into the living room and sat on the sofa, she had no idea what had happened while she was away but now she had her suspicions. Shadow must have sent his troops to the village and when Shadow died they must have left. Thalai leant back against the sofa, her eyes tightly closed Then she heard it, that one small sound that seemed to make everything ok. A key being turned in the lock. Then her mother’s voice and jimmy’s and even her fathers. They sounded so normal, not happy not sad, just empty, normal, like nothing. She stood up as they walked into the living room and they stared at each other. Then after what seemed like an eternity of silence jimmy ran at her yelling her name and attached himself to her in a massive hug. She squeezed him tightly then her mum and dad seemed to unfreeze and they too ran at her. Everyone was yelling and smiling and crying all at the same time, so much so that she couldn’t understand any of them, but she was still so happy to be home. The only thing she could say was “please don’t ground me.” Her dad laughed and tousled her hair then her mother squeezed her and laughed then jimmy just refused to let go of her, and they all fell to the floor laughing and crying until the carpet seemed water logged and they had no more tears left in their body’s. At which point Thalai’s dad yelled, “I’m gonna phone people!” and laughed as he whipped away the remainder of his tears and ran to the phone. Thalai’s mum laughed and kissed Thalai and jimmy repeatedly on their cheeks getting red lipstick everywhere. “Mum, I wasn’t the one who went away!” jimmy laughed pushing away from the ‘mwmwmwm’ of his mothers lips and hiding behind Thalai, her mum squeezed them each one more time then turned to the kitchen and said “I am going to make some hot chocolate.” Thalai forced a smile, “does she always act like things are normal when she gets scared?” “Yup… you’ve only known her your whole life so you know.” Her brother smiled at her as he sat on the sofa, it felt strange to feel happy, after everything that had happened she could still feel a gaping hole in her chest that felt like it had been swallowed up by darkness, every time she thought about Vitarny. But unlike the usual remorse of death she knew, he had expected this from the beginning. He had wanted only to stop the evil from taking over. And he had succeeded, he had kept his pride and still Shadow, as he smiled at her before he died she knew he was proud, of her and of himself. And he had done what no other wolf could have. He had become a god and beaten the devil. And she knew that this meant more to him then anything she could have done to save him, but most of all. She knew they were friends.

6 4

No-matter where either of them were. Thalai smiled as her mother and father came back into the room and they sat together like old times. And she knew that things would be ok from then on.

The End

6 5