Touched

Ep.3

That's when I heard it for the first time.

It was calling me.

I had never heard anything so beautiful before.

The sound was like a melody specially created for me.

My heart was both scorching with fire and freezing at the same time.

The light wind blowing filled my nose with a tempting smell, a scent that I was not familiar with. It had reminded me of something sweet, and the scent of the herbs that I am not familiar with gives it a mystery vibe.

At that moment, I had only one thought in my mind.

I had to find him.

While I lost time and place and everything lost its meaning and importance, the path leading to the forest caught my eye. Wasting no time, I started walking towards it. I could feel the wind on my skin as my pace turned into running.

My heart was beating faster than ever as I swept into the depths of the forest. I had never felt this before.I felt pretty good when I should normally be tired now.

I don't know what it was or who it was. But I needed to find it.

When I heard the voice again, I felt electricity radiating through my body.

As I increased my pace, I could feel my heart beating like it was going to come out of my chest.

I saw a clearing ahead, where the moonlight reflected from the lake and I headed towards it.

When I reached there, I felt the moonlight embracing my body and it made me feel at peace for the first time.

As if the lights were warming me up like the sun, I opened my arms and embraced it, and at that very moment, I felt the first wave. The first pain entered my body through my chest.

It was a pain that I'd never felt before and I couldn't move. I couldn't even move a finger. Right after the first pain wave, I started to hear cracking sounds and every muscle in my body started to tremble.

A scream broke the silence of the night and echoed in the forest and I realised it was my scream. The cracking voices were the sound of my bones twisting and breaking, changing.

When another wave of unbearable pain hit my body, I felt my whole body start to shake, and I fell to my knees, screaming. It was as if my whole body was on fire, and when I fell to my hands, I saw that the skin on my fingers had torn and my hands had turned into the claws of a wild animal.

My clothes started to get torn because my body is constantly changing and moving on its own. Just when my vision started to get blurry, I noticed the reddish hair covering my body.

I couldn't understand what was happening as they kept growing and wrapping around my arms. When the furs shone under the moonlight and wrapped around my entire body, I was still unable to stand up.The things I felt while my legs bent in pain prevented me from thinking rationally.

What is happening to me? Was this kind of a delusion or side effect of the meds? Or alcohol? But what is this pain that I am feeling?

I wanted to believe it was a dream, but it was too painful to be one. I lost the scent as my vision blurred a little bit more and the forest fell silent as my screams reverberated through the trees one last time.

I couldn't scream anymore. I tried to call out for help but my voice wouldn't come out. I did not have the power for it.

I was all on fours, I could feel the damp soil under my.. under my paws? covered with red fur?

As I curled up on the ground groaning with pain, I realized that I was alone in the forest. Nobody will come to help.

A few minutes later, I saw my hands return to normal as I twisted into a fetal position with a new wave hitting my body.

I was slowly returning to my old self, and I began to shiver as the cold earth and my eyelids started to close slowly. The cool winds slowly embraced my weak body.

I knew I shouldn't have given myself over to sleep, but I was feeling very tired.

I noticed a silhouette coming towards me through the rustling, but I couldn't tell who it was.

As the silhouette got closer, the only sound I remembered before my vision was lost was a sound echoing through the trees.

"Valeri!"

****

Emptiness.

That was the first feeling I felt when I woke up, something was missing.

Warmth.

MIt was way too warm around and I slowly began to come to my senses with the familiar smell of resin filling my nose.

My whole body was covered with a soft fabric. The familiar feeling of my bed embraced me as I fidgeted under the fabric. I felt very comfortable and safe.

Then the restlessness in my mind made me move in my warm spot. I must have had some very strange dreams that were still in effect even though I couldn't remember what happened. I slowly opened my eyes and met with the familiar sight of my room.

My father had covered me with the thickest quilt in the closet so that I wouldn't get cold at night. I winced at the slight wave of pain that entered my body as I stretched and stood up on my bed.

My muscles must have been tense while I was sleeping. It was the first time I had woken up in such pain. While I was searching for my medicine box in my drawer, the sounds coming from below caught my attention.

A heated discussion was going on downstairs. There were so many noises but I couldn't quite understand what they were saying.

I looked at the viscous resin in the jar above my head, and I knew that the smell in my room was coming from it. There were more plants than I could count, and although I didn't know what they were, I knew who had brought them.

A smile took over my face.

After I couldn't find any pain meds in the drawers, I gave up.

I looked at the clock on the nightstand. It was eight in the morning. As I walked towards the corridor with my cardigan and fluffy slippers on my feet, the voices began to increase.

There must have been more people than I thought.

Now that the voices were getting clear, I realized that some of them were familiar.

As I started to get down, the murmurs gave way to silence and I met my father waiting for me at the end of the stairs.

"Good morning Valeri"

He would greet me with a smile every morning, but today there was something different. There were dark circles under his eyes that I had never seen before, as if he had been up all night.

"I didn't expect you to get up so early," he said, trying to put a mask on his face, which made me even more suspicious. He was definitely hiding something, and I was going to find out sooner or later.

"Well, yeah, I wasn't expecting it either." Then I smiled at him and headed towards the kitchen.

Strange enough, he didn't stop me this time.

Normally, conversations with those who come to our house at this hour would be confidential, and no matter how hard I tried, I could not be involved. Smiling with the hopes of maybe something was starting to change, I made my way to the kitchen.

The kitchen table was rather more crowded than usual. Family faces from the hunters' councils suddenly stood up as I entered the room and took a defensive position, which was as if they were protecting themselves.

Those who continued to sit comfortably were representatives I had only seen once or twice before. They were the people from the Wolf council attending periodical meetings with their father. Even when sitting, it was obvious that they were quite built and tall compared to the others in the room.

When the familiar blue eyes locked on mine from the other side of the kitchen, I started curing myself for not looking in the mirror before I got there.I wanted to disappear in my baggy pajamas and fluffy slippers as George carefully studied my body as if he didn't know me.

The atmosphere had softened a bit when my father appeared behind me, but I could still smell the tension in the air.

"Good morning." I went to the closet and started looking for something to eat. I'm very hungry. Normally I'd skip breakfast with a little cereal, but today I wanted to eat everything in the fridge.

When I started to fill the plate with the things that I'd found in the fridge, no one was talking. Maybe I was wrong, they were definitely waiting for me to leave the room before they could continue the conversation.

"I won't bother you much, gentleman."

I turned to my father when I closed the cabinet:

"I couldn't find my medicine. Did you take it?"

Not allowing my father to answer, Isabel's melodious voice echoed in the room.

"Actually, Valeri," she continued, as if in acknowledgment, after her eyes wandered over everyone.

"There's something we want to talk to you about."

When I turned my back, I saw Isabel who was waiting for me with her arms wide open in front of the door. She was smiling at me in her usual comfortable clothes and her hair in a loose braid. As I threw myself into her arms, the familiar scent of cinnamon greeted me similar to the resin in my room.

"Let me take a look at you, Mija." She pulled me away and looked at me. "You've grown so much."

Isabel was the person I felt closest to thinking as a mother. Ever since I was little she has been preparing my medicines and relaxing herbal concoctions. She was a healer, perhaps one of the last remaining healers. Their traditions and culture continued with her.

Whenever I felt bad, she was always there for me. When she was not with us, she was staying at her house on the mountainside.

Isabel had always been an outcast in the town.

She had been living a distant life from the day she felt her place was in the forest, not the town, and she was quite happy about it. I hadn't seen her for a long time, and when I saw the resin on my head, I knew she was nearby.

"So, what is it that you want to talk to me about?"

Although Isabel was not a hunter, she was a member of councils, respected by many hunters. Thanks to her wisdom, she helped to overcome many problems that came in our way.

When Isabel took my hand and brought me closer to the table, I pulled the empty chair in front of me and sat down.

As I left my plate on the table, I took one of the grapes and started to eat it, otherwise my stomach would start to digest itself from hunger, leaving me alone in this battle.

I was feeling better as I snacked on the juicy grains one at a time and was still waiting for someone to start talking.

I understood that the issue was about new laws.

Of course, the wolf council was not pleased that we were going to act with those bloodthirsty hunters. But this was nothing new, everyone in the room had known this since it was announced. Isabel must have come to town for this situation.

When my father sat next to me and cleared his throat, I thought maybe the situation was more serious than I thought and looked into my father's eyes.

"How are you feeling?"

I couldn't understand what he was trying to say.

"Good, like every morning?"

"What do you remember about last night?"

As I think about last night, I couldn't stop the blood that rushed to my cheeks. As my eyes searched around the room, I noticed that his blue eyes were avoiding my gaze.

"The party was nice and it's true we went out a little late, but-"

"What happened after you left the party?"

Gerald, who had broken his silence for the first time since I had arrived, looked quite angry.

Normally he would be nervous too, but this time he kept his eyes on me as if I was the cause of his anger.

He was one of the most trusted men in the Hunters' council and had gone on many missions with my father when he was younger. And from what I know of him, he didn't like to be kept waiting.

I tried to remember but my memory was not helping at all. While I didn't want to admit it, I must've had a little too much to drink yesterday, and it didn't take long for me to realize that all my memories of the party were fragmented. My only vivid memories were moments that I spent with George.

After leaving the party, my memories are so mixed I remember going to get my jacket. No matter how hard I tried, it was as if all my memories were hidden in a corner of my mind.

"I can't remember exactly."

Then I looked at my father's face and realized that everyone was a little relieved. Everything seemed normal except that I didn't remember because of the drink, but that was definitely not the reaction I was expecting.

"Now it's time for her to come back home. You can't keep her under control any longer."

I saw the fear in my father's eyes when the voices of the members of Wolf Council that I did not know echoed in the kitchen. I could feel goosebumps as his eyes roamed over me.

"It's not safe here anymore, she has to come back."

My father was thinking as he rubbed his temples.He only does this when he is stressed. A lot.

None of the talk made any sense, so I realized that I was the only one who was somehow unaware of the issues. Everyone but me, seemed to have an opinion.

"If she harms those around him in the next change, there will be an irreversible mess."

Their heated conversation among themselves was starting to get on my nerves. Isabel took my hand as I continued to eat my food, focusing on my plate.

"How would you like to explain to her what happened ?" The blond one of the ambassadors stood up and bowed before me with a smile on his face.

"If we had known that women were treated with such inferiority in hunter society, we certainly wouldn't have left you in their hands when we found out."

As I continued to look at the man with questioning eyes, feeling that my bites were starting to get stuck in my throat, I put one last piece in my mouth and put my food aside.

"It's normal for her body to feel so hungry after what she went through last night. The wolf has been waiting to go outside for so long."

As my heart beat accelerated, the images of last night began to appear in my mind again. My body began to tremble as it remembered the excruciating pain I had experienced.

My hands turning into claws

Cracking sounds...

When I woke up, dreams and images that I couldn't remember but disturbed me one by one appeared in my mind, and I barely managed to swallow the last piece I chewed.

"I can see you're starting to remember."

The man crouched in front of me and aligned his eyes with mine. No one was making a sound. Everyone seemed to be waiting for me to say something.

I looked at my hand on the table. There was no difference. It wasn't like the claws with red fur I saw last night.

"What you saw and felt last night was all real. I can understand the confusion of finally discovering your true self." he touched my hand gently but I pushed him away.

"Now it's time for you to go home. The pack needs you."

This was impossible.

What happened yesterday...?

My body..

"Valeri." Our eyes locked on each other as my father approached me. "I know it's hard to accept, but please listen."