I WAS OKAY

23 February, Tuesday, Midnight

So there I was, crouched in the mouth of the little nook just inside the cave, just behind a row of jagged teeth-like protrusions.

Outside, it was pretty noisy. There were gunshots, and this god-awful shrieking, and something I would have described as thunder, that began with an explosion followed by a loud cracking sound.

It sounded like the kind of movie I'd rather not watch. There was this time when some of my gang and I were just hanging out at Beta Lucas' house while the adults had a grown up meeting.

The the guys decided to watch a movie. It was a very upsetting movie, although I couldn't tell you what happened since I hid behind a bean bag and cushion for most of it. I was very traumatized by the old man in the show because he liked to eat human brains. The was even though he was human, himself.

"Look, its over now, Sam." Ben had said, "It's safe now. He's on an airplane eating jelly."

THAT WAS NOT JELLY!

Grrr... they guys thought it was hilarious and then Ben had to say it really happened sometimes.

"It's called cannibalism or something." Ben informed the rest of us less worldly pups.

"Humans!" Jonah shook his head, "They're a crazy bunch."

"My dad says they're the wild cards." I said. I had considered myself the expert on humans really, since I was the only pup who went to a school with human kids around.

"Like in uno?" Jonah asked.

"Of course not, you nincompoop." Lizzy rolled her eyes, "The Alpha doesn't play Uno."

Which was true. I had never seen my dad play Uno in my life. I had always assumed Dad was talking about Uno too, but Lizzy made a good point.

Actually, the most upsetting movies didn't sound like what was happening outside either. The upsetting movies usually had long prolonged silence and suspense music. Oooohhhh I hated those. There was this one... I don't really want to remember it right now - especially not while I was in some creepy weird cave, but let's just say I was afraid to get into the bath for months. This was about the time I switched to taking showers.

And these were just the human movies. I hadn't watched any of the werewolf ones in the same way - as in I sat through a few, but since I had my hands over my ears and my face in a cushion or my knees, I never actually found out what happened. I knew I was an Alpha wolf and all, so it was kind of ironic, but werewolf movies liked to focus on flesh ripping and tearing or dungeon scenes... or caves, just like this one.

Yeah, if I were in one of those scary movies, Lizzy would be yelling at me from the safety of the other side of the screen, "Don't just go off by yourself!"

And then she'd turn around and inform the rest of us, "The one who is alone is always the first victim."

And then she'd yell at the screen, "Don't go into the creepy cave!"

Yeah, if only I had an audience like Lizzy! I wouldn't be here right now.

I looked about, it really was a creepy cave. If this was a scary movie, I would be dead by now. Luckily real life didn't play out like cliche movie plots.

This cave for example, would have made a super cool movie set. It would have been perfect with with its many hidden recesses, passages, and caverns... If you filled it with a bunch of vampires, you'd instantly get a pretty scary underground coven... which this actually might have been.

Hahaha... I did another quick scan just to be sure there were no vampires lurking in the shadows. Com to think of it, this would very likely have been once a vampire coven, but it was definitely empty now. I looked around curiously, if this was a underground coven, what was the purpose of this nice ledge I was crouching on?

It was like a perfect bunker with a great view of the entrance. Could this have been the lookout? I imagined vamps on duty, crouching like gargoyles on this ledge with their vampire capes... waiting to pounce on unsuspecting trespassers. No? I guess not.

Based on what the Black Forest trainers had told us, Black Forest had been suffering a long bout of resurgence of underground vampire covens. These were different from normal vampire covens, these didn't have grand histories, huge ballroom and chandelier budgets, or ran by the usual rules the established covens followed.

According to the Black Forest trainers, many of them were somewhat connected to the vampires from the the first war against them long ago. They had been repeatedly trying to rebuild their covens and reclaim their lands, but of course the Black Forest wolves would stomp them out.

Actually, it didn't add up. If the Black Forest specialist teams were so thorough and constant in their extermination efforts, how was it that vamps could exist to multiply to so many new covens? Its like they were constantly eradicating vampires. In a sense, Black Forest's war against vampires had never really ended.

I dropped off the ledge and scrambled down the large boulders to look around the cave. The party outside didn't sound like it was going to end any time soon. I might as well take a look around.

At this point, I imagine Lizzy would have stood up from the couch and yelled, "Don't do that, you stupid girl!" And then she would turn to Savy and predict, "She's a goner."

Savy would grin and nod, "She should have listened to you."

And the guys would laugh.

Never in my life had I imagined I'd be starring in my own scary movie. I let my lucky sense of direction lead me so instead of stepping through the recess at the back of the cave into the largest passageway right smack in the middle, I veered to the right, just under where my gargoyle perch had been. Here, there was a largish passageway, it was a really dark passageway - so dark, I probably wouldn't be able to see where I was going even with my wolf sight.

I hesitated. Should I, or should I not?

I took one little step in, it's usually the first step that's the hardest. Once in, I reached out my hand to touch the rock wall on one side. If this turned out to be a cave, it would be safer if I tracked it by following a wall. I would just walk, a very few steps in.

If only I could smell! Was the passageway earthy? Musky? Danky? Okay, there's no such thing as danky, but if it was dank, then I would know there was water nearby. You could tell a lot about a tunnel from its smell. If there was a poop smell, then you'd know some animal had marked it too - very useful when deciding if you should seek shelter in a cave.

{Let's go.} Boo seemed confident enough though.

So against my better judgement, I took a few more steps into the tunnel. I did turn to look back out. The cave outside was dark too, so really, it was just pitch black everywhere. Even with my eyes glowing with wolf sight, I could only make out the outline of dark shapes.

There was a very good chance I would not know how to get back out again, and even if I did, would I be able to recognize the entrance? So just in case, I took off my hoodie - now I was going to freeze to death too - and left it at the entrance to the tunnel, just very unobtrusively on the side. This way, I would probably trip over it on the way out and be sure I was at the exit.

It was really cold. Just a quick one, maybe just to see what was at the end of this tunnel, and then I'd u-turn and come straight back to my jacket.

So I allowed my lucky sense of direction to lead me, one step at a time. It felt a little like that game where we had to wear a blindfold and someone else had to guide us through a maze with just words. I must have made a grand total of three steps when Boo warned, {Trap.}

Gee, thanks.

I carefully inched along the sides purely by gut instinct. Its a good thing I had such a lucky sense of direction. After a meter or two, it felt safe to walk normally again. By now, even though I could have sworn I probably hadn't even walked 10 meters from my hoodie, the noise from the battle had completely disappeared. The emptiness crashed in my large wolf ears. I twitched them, because the silence made them itch.

{Trap}

What? Another one? I flattened myself against the wall. I didn't know what the trap was, but I had no interest in finding out. Some things, its better not to see - like scary movies, or unknown traps. Just keep swimming, just keep swimming - or in my case, it was more like inching.

Wherever I was going, it had better be good! Why did I even come here? I should have just waited for Mate to come get me. This wasn't fun at all. It was dark and cold and I had to switch between creeping or inching tediously along the cave wall.

After the third trap, the wall I was inching along opened up. I found an entry into... wth was that? It was pitch black by now and I had no idea what I was looking at. Was this an entrance, or a turn in the tunnel? If it was an entrance, what was it an entrance to? I took the first step in... I could stand straight. This was it. I knew it, but I had no idea what it was.

"Sam!" Someone was calling my name.

"Princess!" {Mate! ~ ❤️}

"Sam!" Someone again, but I knew by now it was Ben.

I paused, and then I called back, "Watch out for the traps-"

My warning was cut off by a dreadful creaking sound.

"Pop!" This was Ki.

Bell elaborated in a string of lycan... poetry. Let's pretend its poetry.

Ben was growling, and then he thought to ask, "Sam, are you okay?"

I think it was Boo who spoke because I there was no way I sounded so bratty.

"No!" I yelled out to the tunnel, "I'm cold. My fluffy socks are muddy. It's dark. I can't smell anything. And I have no idea what I'm looking at!"

"She's okay." I heard Ben say to the others.

"In what way is this okay?" I yelled back louder, "I'm NOT okay. I'm the total opposite of okay!"

But Ben was right. I was okay and feeling suddenly much better. {Fun!} From the moment he had called my name from the tunnel, I was okay.