Tala
I wake up to the alarm clock screaming into my ears. I jerk upright and am up and standing before my brain registers it as just the buzzing of the alarm. Annoyed at the adrenaline that has crushed any chance of sleeping more, I reach down to the floor to pick up the blankets I threw off in my haste. I think back to my nightmare. In a moment of weakness tears stream down my face, and I quickly brush them away. Weakness is something my world does not tolerate, a fact I know all too well. I run my hand across my shoulder hesitating over the mark I received because of my weakness.
I will never forget that day.
My father and I had been out in the woods helping me shifting practice when we smelled the intruder. We had raced as quickly as we could back home. It still hadn’t been enough. My dad was dead, and all I could think about was that it was my fault. I had asked him to help me. I had made him lose his strength shifting back and forth.
I let my hand stay on my mark a moment longer. One Mississippi…...Two Mississippi……Three Mississippi. I stand placing the blankets on my bed and decide to push my self-pity and grief down. I would not appear weak in front of my family. I would not give them another reason to look down on me. I was the runt, the one nobody expected anything from. I was also the baby of the family. Not age wise, I was actually the oldest, I had just taken the longest to shift into my human form.
Normally we shift to our human forms when we reach the age of five, but I hadn’t done so until I was ten. It didn’t matter that I was bigger and stronger than almost all my siblings. I was still considered a little pup by the pack. Although being a wolf longer than everybody else had its advantages. I was the best hunter we had, and nobody could beat me in a race. But it also had its disadvantages.
I am behind in everything human. I had to be taught how to walk on two legs. I also had to learn how to talk. It was strange using my vocal cords like that. I had to be taught how to act, think, and respond like a human.
I am still stronger than any human sixteen year old girl, but by Shifter standards I am weak in my second form. The best thing I kept from my true form was my speed. Nobody could catch me no matter what I looked like, human or animal. Mom had always told me that I got it from dad. I smile every time I think about that. I will always have a piece of him with me.
I look at my calendar. My birthday is ten days away, and I am not looking forward to it. Birthdays are always a “pack only” thing. That means that I will have to create yet another lie about why my human friends from school couldn’t come to my house.
My house is amazing, it would be great to show people and have bragging rights, but… things tend to be more complicated than that. My house is settled on a hundred acres of land. The first ten acres surrounding our house is fenced in. The brick wall that fences it is around ten feet tall and two and a half feet thick. Poison ivy lines the top of it, to make sure not even bored teens from around the area would want to climb it. It keeps humans out and us in. There is only one gate and it’s made out of thick steel. Let's just say it would take a lost to get to our house without an invitation. And of course the giant wolves that were everywhere. So that means no humans. Ever. At least not officially.