Willow Springs

Chapter 10

Aurora and I found the twins sat by themselves in the dining hall of our lodging building. The room was loud with students talking, glass clashing and knives and forks on plates. Even with my slightly heightened hearing in my human form, it was loud. I could smell the mixture of food in the air, it smelt like lasagne, lamb and beef mixed in one. It may seem odd I remember but it's always been one of my favourite foods and still is, so it stuck in my mind. There was more food I could smell but it was that which was important to me. Aurora and I dropped our bags off at the tables with the twins, they asked what took us so long, but I was quick to answer they would be filled in once I got some food. I didn't notice Harnard and his gang until I was queuing in the typical school dinner room style arrangement. He was sat in the corner with his two friends sat with him. Once he saw me, I could sense he was looking at me the whole time. It's one of my family's gifts having the ability to sense when eyes are upon us, I don't know how it works but it does. My father always claimed it went back to when we first evolved into our werewolf or lycan state.

Our family like most werewolf family is full of stories of our kind been hunted like animals. The story my father told me was of my early ancestors who were from the mountains of Scandinavia, years before they moved to England with the Norse raiders known as the Vikings. Our kind lived once side by side with humans, vampires and even shifters. We tried to hide our secrets to seem normal, but one day no one knows how we were found out. Hunted to the point we were nearly wiped out of Scandinavia, but our family survived and thought back. We moved up to the wooded mountains and lived there hunting animals such as deer, as well as humans. At first, the humans tried to hunt my family to extinction like the rest, but they never managed to kill one of them because their sense of been watched, been seen let them act first. Let them bate their hunter in to become the hunted then they would strike back. It took the death of the local tribes high ranking children to stop them from hunting my family.

They heard stories of the last werewolves living in the forest on the mountains and wanted to be the ones to kill the last werewolves in Scandinavia, but they failed. Four of them stalked one werewolf for three days, watching, waiting for the perfect moment. They tried to learn its habits, its moment when it was perfect for them to strike. Little did they know they were the ones been watched. My ancestor used the time to watch them, take in what they were doing to wait for the perfect time to strike. Of course, they tried to stay out of sight, and they were, but our family's sense to let them know the direction of the eyes looking at them and so he ended up killing them all on the third night. He sent their head back to the tribes' leader as a warning, their eyes pulled out and placed back in as they were been looked in and not looking out. The story goes it worked, for three hundred years the story told of dangerous creatures which came out at night, which could see in the dark, see you coming. They were bigger than a man and twice as fast and no one ever tried to kill my family again. Over time the story only grew and helped them hide more until one day they came down and over time became the rulers of the land and then Viking raiders. Now I don't know if the story is true, but I know that the ability is true, though I am not sure how it works only that it does. It's like a switch is turned on as soon as eyes fall upon me, and that day it was switched on and didn't turn off. Harnard didn't know I had the ability I know because I don't think he would have watched me the way he did if he knew.

The room was too loud for me to hear what Harnard was saying, if I could have, I wouldn't have chosen to get up to go to the toilet when I did. The toilet was at the far end of the bottom floor, away from the dining area. I walked down the long corridor and I knew someone was behind me, like before I could sense eyes upon me, not one person but at least three. They were getting closer and closer, but as they flicked off me to the walls around me, I couldn't sense where they were until it was too late. I felt a sharp pain in the back of my head, it shook my senses completely. I would have changed if I could, but I didn't have time before I picked up by my arms under my armpits and punched hard in the face.