Chosen by the Alpha (#1 of the Denali pack)

I woke up to the sound of my alarm , it went off buzzing just like any other day. I opened my eyes to shut the alarm off and rolled onto my back, to look at my ceiling, just like any other day. I sighed as I watched the morning sun make beautiful patterns on my ceiling. As a child, I always loved to find animals and other shapes in the reflections the sun reflected there. It made me feel calm and safe inside the bubble of my old room. After a few minutes, I forced myself to get up as I walked towards the bathroom. I jumped in the shower and brushed my teeth on automatic pilot, just like any other day… only, today was nothing like any other day… and I absolutely hated it! It felt like it was the last day…. The last day of my life. I put on some jeans, sneakers and a white tshirt I picked up from my desk, threw my hair in a messy bun and ran downstairs to find my parents both sitting in the kitchen. My mom was making pancakes and my dad was already on his third coffee while reading the newspaper. They were trying to make this morning run as 'normal' as possible, or maybe even better. As I walked in, my dad looked up with a huge smile. "Good morning love, ready for your last day as a student at Rockfeller High?" He said, while he was studying my face. I could tell he was trying to see if I was ok. My mom turned around with her arms spread open, waiting for my hug. "Good morning honey" she spoke, also smiling, but I could tell by the dark circles under her eyes, that she hadn’t slept all night and she was trying to hold back her tears. ‘Morning mom, dad’ I said as I hugged my mom, Gosh… how I was going to miss her hugs… I had an amazing bond with both of my parents. Unlike a lot of people, I actually loved everything about my life growing up. My city, my friends, my school… and my parents… But I couldn’t show them how much I was hurting inside, so I acted like everything was fine and put up a huge smile for them. "Wow mom, what’s up with the breakfast? Feeding the entire baseball team this morning?" I asked while nodding at the huge stack of pancakes. She kept holding me as she looked at the pile she had already made. Cooking always took her mind off of things. Good thing she is such a good cook. I gave her a kiss on the cheek and sat down at the table, getting myself a coffee. My dad immediately took my hand and stroke the top of my palm with his thumb. “You know how proud we are of you, right?” he asked, squeezing my hand. Still trying to read me and find out if I was actually feeling ok. I nodded and forced myself to smile again at him. “I know dad, I love you guys too, so much” I answered as I watched him and than my mom. My mom turned around to check on the pancakes, but I could have sworn I saw a tear running down her cheek right before she turned to face away. I decided to stay quiet and eat as many pancakes as I possibly could. My dad decided to follow my lead, which seemed to make mom happy and take her mind off of things. She joined us as we silently continued our possible last breakfast as a family. Smiling, laughing and having fun, like nothing was going on. After breakfast, I got my backpack and walked to school. It was officially the last day of my entire school career. Normal kids would make plans to have a fun summer, maybe get a summer job, travel and, after that, go to college or a university. But not in this town. Not if you were an 18-year-old girl… I didn’t even know what I would be doing tomorrow around this time. I stepped into the hallway and saw my best friend Jennie standing by the lockers. She saw me and started jumping up and down waving at me “Oh God”, I whispered to myself as I walked towards her, rolling my eyes at her. Unlike me, she was super excited about tonight and had been looking forward to it for months. “Hey girl!” she said as she gave me a hug and studied my face. “Did you even get any sleep last night? Sorry but, you look horrible.” I looked at her with wide eyes. “Jennie, I really don’t get it. Why are you so happy? We could end up losing everything tonight.” Jennie just shook her head and smiled a radiant smile back at me. “Or we have everything to gain, just stay positive, you’ll be fine Hannah.” I nodded as we headed to our first class of the day. “I can’t wait to see what dresses we will be getting for tonight.” Jennie said as she flipped her long black hair over her shoulder. “I bet they will look gorgeous!” We walked inside the classroom and found two free desks next to each other. Jennie just kept blabbering on as we took our seats. “I just hope the makers will get my hair right or I will be doing it myself. I want to look absolutely perfect tonight!” I just smiled. Jennie always looked perfect, even if she would have worn a potato sack. Me on the other hand, not so much! I tried to look at my reflection in one of the windows and saw an exhausted girl with greyish blue eyes and messy blonde hair staring back at me. I just wanted to sink into the ground and disappear right then and there. “I heard,” Jennie said, leaning into me “that every girl gets two makers all for herself, can you believe that?” I shook my head, getting annoyed. “No, I cannot believe it. I guess we’ll know for sure tonight”. Jennie clapped her hands all excited, as Mrs Castillo walked in to start her last class of this school year. Since there wasn’t much teaching being done today, I drifted off in my own thoughts. Why was Jennie so happy with possibly getting two makers? A maker is someone who would be making us ‘presentable’ tonight at the ‘ritual of choice’… Not that us girls would be getting a choice at all. In our town, all girls who reached the age of 18, needed to participate in the ‘ritual of choice’ . A ritual where monsters would come and choose a wife or ‘mate’ as they called it. All we really knew was that the girls who got chosen never returned back home and were never seen again. Meaning no one even knew what actually happened, once you got chosen. Girls who didn’t get chosen during their ritual, could just return to their ‘normal lives’ if that is what you can call it. None of the girls who returned talked about their experience, but you could tell they were very traumatized by the event and the things that happened there. The ‘ritual of choice’ was made as a bond between our small town and the monsters. If they could come once a year to look for a possible mate, they would protect our town from other monsters. So yes, our town was always a safe and quiet place to live in. You just had to be willing to give up your 18 year old daughters in exchange for that. On the other hand, it was life as we knew it. It had been like this for so many years, it was just a part of life and you just had to ‘suck it up’ and 'be a big girl'. Best case scenario, I would be back tomorrow with my parents in my normal life as if nothing would have happened… I was just hoping that would be the case for me. Me and Jennie finished our last day at school like any other day. At the end of the day, I was even genuinely smiling and having fun with my best friend. The last bell rang, meaning school was officially over and, with that, our high school life. Everyone started shouting and clapping, high school was done! We rushed to our lockers and picked out our last things and placed them into our backpacks. We walked out of the building and started our walk back home. “I will be picking you up around 6 o'clock, OK?” Jennie asked as we got closer to my house. “Tonight will be fun, I promise” she said as she kissed my cheek and hugged me. Easy for Jennie to say, she only lived with her mother, who loved vodka more than her. Jennie had nothing to lose. Maybe if I was in her shoes, I would also be happy to get a chance to leave this place too. I smiled at her as I walked to my front door. “See you tonight Jennie.” I waved one last time and got inside, walking up the stairs to my room where I placed my backpack on the floor near my desk and laid down on my bed. I heard my mom walk up the stairs and silently opening my bedroom door. “Mind if I join you sweety?” she asked, looking down at me. “Get in!” I answered as I moved to the side of my bed. My mom laid down next to me and held me close, as she would have done when I was little and was having a nightmare. She stroked my hair as I snuggled up against her, placing my arms around her waist. “You are such a special girl, Hannah.” She spoke as she kissed my hair. “You will be fine tonight, I promise.” I looked up at her. “What if I get chosen? I’ll never see you or dad again, how can I live with that?” My mom took something out of her pocket and showed it to me, tears running down her face now. She showed me a necklace of a heart, she pressed a tiny button on the side and the locket opened, revealing a tiny photo of my mom and my dad. “Mom...” I said with a tremble in my voice, unable to say anything other than that. “This way,” my mom said, swallowing down her own tears. “your father and I will always be with you”. I sat up as my mom helped me to put the necklace on, it looked so beautiful, I just had no words to thank her properly. I hugged my mom as we both started to cry as we were holding each other close. We stayed there, just holding each other as tight as we could. I tried to burn every inch of her body holding mine, into my brain. So I would never forget how safe I had felt in her arms. After a while, I heard my dad coming up the stairs. I knew he wanted to give me and mom some alone time, before he would join in. He got inside my room and scooped me up from my bed. He held me there like I was a toddler once again. He couldn’t speak, because I knew that he was trying to stay strong for everyone in the room. “I love you, Hannah bear” He finally spoke after some time, placing my feet back on the floor. “Mom gave you the necklace?” He asked as he saw it on me. He smiled. Looking at me with red eyes. And his gaze changed to one of shock, as the doorbell suddenly rang. Shit! It was time.