Start with Finding You

Riiiiiiiiiinnnnnngggggg!!!

Gawd! I hate that bell!

Esha thought as she gets up and stretch from her desk. She had been sleeping during breaks since she was up all night reading some novel her sister brought home from college during the summer break.

The teacher was in the room now so she sits down again as classes start.

She kept herself awake and tried to focus but she keeps looking out of the window. The sky started to darken and she knew it's gonna rain. She left her umbrella, of all the days to forget it.

"Esha"

She looks at the person who called her name.

"Yes?"

"Did you hear the news last night?" Clara said looking like the reporter she wanted to be.

"What news?"

"You're near the area but you don't know?" Clara said and face palmed, "Someone got attacked by something or whatever the hell it was last night, they said it's a murder in cold blood and well, what's creepy is, the victim was like ravaged by some animal or something."

"You even know that stuff, are you one of the police now?" Esha said, looking at the front, pretending to listen to the teacher, "I did not know anything, yes of course, I didn't, word travel fast around my area but you know, I seem to be oblivious of these ones" she continued, "That's a bit too much, though."

"It's not just too much, you know" Clara said, "It's just strange to have this kind of thing in town, these things doesn't happen often here, so well, it's interesting to know stuff and all that, it helps to have information, my girl!"

"I'm not your girl, though."

Clara chuckled and suppressed it, the teacher started to look at their direction.

Esha and Clara are quite good friends and well, meet the ordinary and the ever goddess of the newspaper in school, that would be Clara, of course!

Esha doesn't have clubs or groups or cliques, she has few friends, or more like 3 or 5, she's got Clara, Clara's boyfriend, Matt, her neighbor, Bran and the librarian, Gellie. That's probably 4, obviously!

Being in the 3rd year of high school and all you have is a few friends and an average school life is very suitable for Esha. Ordinary. Average. She just wanted that.

Walking home, since Clara and Matt goes home together these days, Esha wondered about what Clara mentioned a while back in class. She's always so late about news. The incident even happend near her area as her friend mentioned.

She sent a text to her mother to pick her up since she started to get a bit nervous from just thinking.

'Just ordinary' she thought.

She stopped by at a bench, just a block away from the school she's attending, to wait for her mother since she just got out of work, just in time to read her daughter's message.

Esha started browsing on the Internet searching for the incident, it might have been published. And so there it was, the headline reads "Mysterious killing at Dale Ven".

'Not so catchy' she thought.

She goes on and reads through the article anyway, much as summarized by Clara. Reading still, she felt something touch her causing her to jolt up, expecting someone there. But there is no one in sight, except some old man passing by from across the street with his walking stick.

The air suddenly felt cold and she looks up at the sky. The rain's gonna fall at any minute now and her mother's not yet there.

'I think I'll be some wet puppy when she gets here' she thought.

She started to have a prickling feeling from her back, she feels like someone is watching her but tried to ignore it so as not to add up to the flame of her growing fear. What if the killer from that incident is here and she might be the next victim?

Her imagination ran wild and she tried to stop it and was about to scream because she thought she heard some growling, but then she also saw her mother's approaching car, she almost made a ran towards it.

When she is in the car, her mother looks at her and her face registered worry.

"Honey, what's wrong?"

Esha was quite for a while.

"What's wrong?" her mother repeated, "You look like you've seen a ghost or something."

"Uhm, sorry, I'm okay, Mom" Esha managed to answer, looking at her mother and gave a smile.

"Are you sure?"

"Uhm, yes, Mom, I'm fine" Esha reassured her mother even if in reality she does not really feel well because of what happened. Maybe she just overreacted and got affected by the incident.

Her mother didn't press on and she drove them home.

***************

The creature was quite again as it watch the car recedes taking away its next prey. More like its main agenda in town. It'll wait again until no one is around to save her. Its paws started to scratch the ground and its eyes were bright red.

It started to walk away and ran into the woods. The rain started to fall as it started to stop running in the middle of the woods, it was surrounded by other creatures like it. Bright red eyes and paws with sharp claws.

It started to convulsed. Its body started to smell like roasting flesh in direct fire. The rain came down a bit more heavy now but it continues to recoil and convulse. The other creatures were looking at it with intensity.

After like five minutes or so, instead of the creature, stood a man with no clothes on, his body muscular but with a slash scar on his chest. His once form a while back is smoking and becoming cinder, the rain just added up to the effect.

His wolf body started to disappear from the smoke. He stood there, looking at the pack members.

"She is here" he uttered.

The pack members started howling one after the other.

***************

From the car, Esha felt like she heard howlings and looked at her mother.

"Did you hear that?"

"What is it?" her mother asked.

"I think I heard some howlings from the nearby woods" Esha answered.

"Maybe, you're tired than me, honey, I did not hear anything" her mother said, Esha looked puzzled, "Oh okay, maybe there were howlings, but I did not hear them because of the rain, I couldn't hear much from the outside."

Her mother tried to make sense of her daughter's words, trying not to upset her or anything.

'Such consideration, Mom' Esha thought.

"Yeah probably" Esha said, "Let's just go home, I want some hot chocolate."

"Count me in, honey, badly want one now."

"Hot chocolate?"

"What?"

"You drink coffee, Mom, not hot chocolate" Esha said.

"Can't I drink hot chocolate just because I drink coffee, then?" her mother said and laughed a bit.

"Oooookay, you said so" Esha said.

The car sped up but still, her mother is careful as the rain really is a bit heavy.

***************

He smiled and his fangs showed a bit. Two of the pack members turned back to human form, too and one of them is draping him a cloak. They were all wet but it's worth it, he found her.