II. Trouble

1784 Words
The longer I thought about it, the less sense it made. They're choosing ten werewolves' and allowing them to attend a regular school. Not a hunters' school, but a regular school. "Why?" A student asks. Right now, we're in the middle of class - second period. We didn't even get to jump into introductions before students slammed the teacher with questions about the news. An introduction doesn't really matter since we all know each other. There aren't a lot of new faces in town. "Even though I heard about it already. This is still batshit crazy," Eric mumbles. Eric, Brenda, and I have the same schedule for high school. We also only have five periods. The perks about going to a hunter elementary and middle school are that their academics are above the standards. We took a few high school classes in middle school. So, we get to skip the first period and leave after the fifth period. We wanted to go home by lunch, but they disapproved of it. The school says we need to stay just in case there is a school assembly, which is always in the sixth period. I'm listening to it right now, and it's still batshit crazy. Apparently, it was all over the news and social media, but I don't watch the news, and I spent most of my free summer reading manga. I'm not proud of my obsessions. "Now. Now," Mr.Huber tries to calm us down. Of course, we'll freak out! A group of heart-ripping shape-shifting werewolves is coming to our school. "I understand this may be an unexpected development." He inhales a deep breath, "But, the government had already decided on it." "We're going to die!" Everyone starts mumbling to each other. "Student! Student!" The level of his voice increases, "There will be no death. Look. The government is sending an excellent group of student hunters and-" "Oh yeah. Student hunters. They'll save us." That voice sounds a bit too sarcastic. "And-" Mr.Huber ignores him, "we have student hunters at our school." "They're here because they're failures!" "Thanks, Brian," Brenda says. Brian is Brenda's twin brother. Brenda is a hunter, but Brian is not. It's interesting how the ACTN3 gene works. Brian gave her two thumbs up, but Brenda didn't respond. I raise my hand. "Yes, Julia." "Are any of them going to be in this class?" Everyone starts mumbling again. Mr.Huber clears his throat, "I can see why you're concerned. Possibly." The volume of the mumbles only escalates. "And that's because two of the ten students are seniors." "Who are they?" Brian asks. "Which pack are they from? Is one of them from that BloodHound Pack? And why did they choose that name?" Someone screams from the back of the classroom. I can imagine the same thing happening in other classrooms. Not many students had met a werewolf, but they had heard stories on the news. Stories of werewolves killing men...women...children...bears! A few years ago, a hiker videotaped two werewolves taking on a bear. It got us all going crazy. "We have not received information about the pack or their members," Mr.Huber said. "All the more, we should protest!" The whole classroom screams. "Children! Children!" "Why do you keep calling us children?" "Because you're all acting like one." Mr.Huber exhales. He leans against his desk to take a breather, possibly re-evaluating his life. "If fearing death makes me a child," Brain says, "Then, give me my damn baby bottle!" Everyone screams. "What's going on in here!" We all stop screaming. Damn. I was grooving with the mood too. The school principal, Mrs.Rodriguez, steps into the classroom. "Is this how a group of seniors, upcoming members of society should behave?" Her voice was low but threatening. No one dares to respond. Rumors say she eats loudmouth high schoolers for breakfast. You try to sass her; she'll close the office door and take out her machete. This is proof that I've been watching too many horror movies over summer break. Of course, I wouldn't read manga the whole time. I like to switch it up. Sometimes, I would watch romantic comedies. "I understand this may be surprising news for you all, but I expected a more mature response." Everyone was still quiet. "Now, due to paperwork, the transfer students won't arrive till next month." Silence. "However, when they do arrive, I expect students at my school, not monkeys." Silence. "Do we have an understanding?" Everyone grumbles in agreement. "Mr.Huber. You may proceed." Steadily, she walks out of the classroom. Once the door closes, everyone releases a deep breath of responses. Brenda leans towards me, "You know there's a third type of species other than humans and werewolves." "The devil," we said at the same time. Together, we place our forefingers behind our heads to imitate horns. The class period passes in a quieter manner, where Mr.Huber completes the awkward students' introduction. Then, he proceeds to talk about the syllables. Once the classroom bell rang, we made our way towards our next class. Everyone is still talking about the transfer werewolves. Some were excited. Others not so much. The school was ultimately split. If you aren't welcoming, someone would say you're not open-minded. How werewolves' have changed, and we should all live together in harmony. If you are welcoming, they may rebut that werewolves have a long history of killing our kind. From what I see, it's a lose-lose situation. I didn't care much for the situation. "Wanna hear a rumor?" Brenda leans beside Eric and me after she finishes using the bathroom. What can she hear during the two minutes she spent in the restroom? "I heard they're doing this whole werewolves' exchange program because they're trying to look for their soulmates." "What?" Eric and I said at the same time. "The students that are transferring are all soulmate-free. They couldn't find their mates in the werewolves' packs, so they think they're outside of their packs." I've heard stories about humans and werewolves being soulmates before. It's not rare. But, because it's not rare, humans made a law where werewolves aren't allowed to kidnap humans that are their soulmates. Most of the kidnappings in the past were forgiven because the kidnapped humans claim to love the person who kidnapped them. Stockholm Syndrome. There was a lot of going back and forth, which wasted a lot of time, so they established a new law to protect humans. I mean, who would want to wake up one day and find out their daughter or son is mated to a werewolf and got kidnapped. My old neighbor's daughter was one of the victims. When she was younger, about seventeen or so, she got kidnapped. Fifty years later, she came home. Let's say the family isn't too fond of her soulmate. They tried to convince her to leave him, but she didn't. Whenever I saw her, she would always say good things about her husband. But, whenever I see him, all I can think about is kidnapper, kidnapper, kidnapper. I'm pretty sure my facial expression says it all. Whenever they came to the neighborhood with their children to visit, all neighbors would take their kids inside. They're afraid their children may be mated to one of them. As you can see, my neighborhood is very welcoming. I accidentally met three of them before. I'm not their soulmate. After that, my parents were more at ease. My parents would accept the idea of a werewolf being my husband. They're more office workers than field workers now. But, they're not too fond of reading cases where human mates were physically and mentally abused. As I said earlier, most of the kidnappings were forgiven, not all. There were still cases where werewolves would beat their mate into submission - as in implanting fear and rejecting the idea of going home. It's not uncommon for a human to beat a human, but a beating from a werewolf is much more gruesome. There were cases where werewolves locked up the humans and showed their love every day. As for mental abuse? Most kidnap cases had that. Stockholm Syndrome. Most likely, it's the media planting fear in our heads with all these stories. But, people don't care whether the media is doing it on purpose or not. Someone always knows someone's daughter, son, niece, nephew, neighbor's kid, wife, husband, etc., being lost forever. The news of a ten-year-old boy being kidnapped by a twenty-year-old woman because he is her soulmate doesn't sound very pleasant. It's very alarming. "You mean, this whole peace thing is a way for werewolves to roam free?" Eric question. After the war, countries were split into different parts. Werewolves' cannot travel freely into specific areas, as in areas where humans vote against having werewolves. They need a pass to enter. Other open-minded areas disagree with our actions. They say we shouldn't discriminate. Right now, they're protesting against our ancestors' decision. They say we're specist. "Yup. I'm pretty sure they visited other packs and open areas already. They're desperate," Brenda responds. I can never understand the concept of soulmates. Why is it so important? For what? To be complete? I'm complete. I'm one whole person. Forget finding someone. The worst that can happen is that I live with two dogs. Maybe a bunny too. I nod slowly while I look around, "Yup. I don't have to worry about you two. You two don't have the characteristic to be the main character of a werewolf soulmate story." They glanced at each other before they gave my head a good hit. The classroom bell rings. "Did you two realize the warning bell rang a while back?" I question. They didn't hit me that hard. We look around the hallway. "We're late." The teacher who was monitoring the hallway halts when he sees us. He shakes his head before he grabs the red slip from his back pocket. "Detention on the first day of school. I would say it's a personal best, but I'm sure this isn't your first time with your unconcerned looks. Names." "Julia Elias." "Brenda Tran." "Eric Holmes." "Seniors?" We all nod. "Well, Julia, Brenda, Eric. Let's save the whole late for class in college. Alright?" He gave us each a red slip. We all looked at each other, "I blame you," we all said simultaneously. "No. You," we did it again. "Who?" Brenda and I point at Eric while he points at me. "Man! You two always gang up on me!" Brenda and I high-fived each other. "Let's go," Brenda says. "Before we get into more trouble." I smile, "It's the senior year! How much trouble can we get in?"
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