Turning Event

Gray tightened the shoelaces of his boots and straightened his back. He gazed at the night sky and saw the moon shining brightly.

He heaved a deep sigh and shook his head when he caught sight of his bed. It looks so inviting and if the Old Man didn't make it clear that he wanted him to be in the Turning event, he would rather sleep than go there where he had to pretend he did not notice the indifferent looks and the whispers that would pass around.

He hated being with others. He never liked the way they looked at him as if they were pitying him, yet, at the same time they were scared of him because he was different from them.

"As if I want to be different," he muttered angrily under his breath and jumped out of the window, and let the darkness of the night swallowed him as he ran to the middle of the forest.

A lot of other wolves living in the area were going there as well but he did not meet anyone along the way since he used a different path—one that is not known to many.

He had memorized the land because the Old Man made sure that he did. He scoffed under his breath when he arrived and did not see any of his peers.

Kei, who was strongly inviting him, wasn't even around. He wondered if he changed his mind. However, he knew that Kei hated being left out of everything that happened, and he would not miss being here in this Turning event. Hence, he found it odd that he wasn't here yet.

Most of the faces are familiar to him, even those he does not exchange words with. Well, he does not exchange words with most of them anyway.

He could feel the weight of their stares so he decided to step back in the shadows and wait for Kei and his other group of friends.

He only talks to Kei but the other kids somehow include him in their group as if they are a small pack of wolves who have not turned.

It would be their time next year. Hence, Kei was a bit nervous and truly wanted to be in this Turning event since he wanted to see who would turn and if there were others who would be considered late bloomers.

Not all young wolves turned on their seventeenth birthday. Some were a year late but there were few of them. However, to turn late was kind of embarrassing, and no one wanted to be a late bloomer. And Kei was worried about being a late bloomer since his mother was.

Gray did not say anything whenever Kei talked about it because he could not offer comforting words to him since he could already turn even before his seventh birthday.

He clenched his jaws when he remembered the day he turned while he was playing around to the shock of everyone in their old pack. His father and mother received a lot of congratulatory words and praises for how special he was.

However, a few months after that, on the night of his seventh birthday, he and his parents had to run away because his life was being threatened. His father found out that someone wanted him to be dead just because he was different.

His parents chose to run away here to the Free Land but they were not so lucky.

Gray exhaled a deep breath and curse under his breath that the Turning event was taking so long. He looked up above the night sky.

'I have to wait for another twenty minutes,' he thought to himself, thinking if the Old Man would break his legs if he found out that he skipped the Turning event.

"Hey! I thought you were not coming!"

Gray snapped his head to his right and found Kei, panting and grinning at him like an idiot.

"You're late," he said, ignoring what he said.

"I waited for everyone."

"You all come together?" He asked even though he was not really interested to know the answer. He just wanted to fill the dead air with some useless conversation.

He was feeling antsy and he didn't know why. It was not the first time that he attended this kind of event since the Old Man did not like going out of the house, he became the representative of the Old Man and no one questioned it.

And now, with the unsettling feeling in his gut, he wished the event would start so that he could go home.

He released a sigh and looked up at the sky. The Turning would start in a few minutes.

"Hey."

"What?" He whispered back, not looking at Kei who was acting like he was on a secret mission or something.

"The others are going to the holy ground later. Do you want to come?"

Gray creased his brows. "Why do you want to go there?"

"Because they said something is happening in that ground every Turning event."

Gray scoffed under his breath. The Old Man always dragged him to that place since he could remember and there was nothing in there but a barren land.

The Old Man told him stories about what went down in the place. He knew the story as if he was in the battleground himself.

But he never heard anything about strange things happening there at all. The Old Man would sometimes tell him that he could hear the cries of their fallen forefathers but he did not hear nor see anything.

However, Gray did not want to tell any of it to Kei because no one knew that he had been in the holy ground before. No one really gave a rule about that place but most of the wolves who reside in the area avoid that place like the plague.

"You know that no one goes there. Why would you like to go?"

Kei scrunched up his nose and lowered his head to avoid his gaze. "Because they will call me a coward if I don't."

Gray nudged Kei with his elbow. "And why do you want me there?"

"Because I have a feeling that if something really happened, they would leave me there. You know that I'm not a fast runner."

"Ahhh," he said, nodding with a huge teasing grin on his face.

"Shut up!"

Kei snapped at him in embarrassment but he ignored him because all the wolves that were expecting to turn tonight entered the circle. He stood up and walked closer to the crowd to watch. He needed to see the event so that he had something to report once the Old Man pester him in the morning.