Fangs Or Tails?

9 | Chapter

Why did you hold me back?

Tobias sighed as he walked to school, doing his best to keep his hands occupied, to hide their trembling. Left hand gripping a strap of his backpack and the right held the coin. Alternating between flipping it, and clutching it in an iron grip. Even after leaving the wretched building, that odd rage didn't lessen in the slightest. Never had Tobias felt such... hate. Yet he imagined that it's intensity would match the built up anger he should be feeling over the years if his emotions had not shutdown. It was almost as if... it was someone else's emotion had been trapped inside him.

I'm not trapped inside you, Tobias. I am you.

Who said that? Tobias frowned, looking around him to spot the speaker. But no one stopped to talk to him, everyone went about their business as usual. Men and women went to work, girls and boys headed to school. No one ever stops to talk with him. Yet he heard someone's voice saying his name.

You don't have to look so hard, Tobias. Just listen, and think.

Tobias stopped in his tracks, standing shock still in the middle of the sidewalk. Disgruntled passersby shoved past him, but he paid them no mind. Not when he'd distinctively heard a voice inside his head. The knuckles on his right hand turned white with the strain with which he held the coin.

Is... there a voice inside my head? In return, he got not just one, but two responses.

Yes.

Yes, said the voice Tobias kept on hearing. A deep gruff voice that spoke with a soft growl. He almost lost his grip on the coin at the combined voices in his mind.

Great, not only am I now a werewolf, I'm also getting delusional, Tobias thought bitterly. A lupine whimper reverberated in his mind at that, startling him at the foreign sound.

Of course you're not delusional, Tobias. It's just me, Chase, your inner wolf. Every werewolf has their own animal counterpart, the voice said. Tobias rolled his eyes at the last sentence.

Let me guess, you came with the whole werewolf package, he thought sarcastically. He started to walk again despite the absurdity of the situation he found himself in. At least he didn't have to speak out loud for the vo-wolf to hear him. Small victories.

A small lick of the flames of fury burning within him flared up, causing a spike of pain to pierce through Tobias' already throbbing head. He gritted his teeth, resisting the reflex to scrunch his eyes shut. His head was killing him at this point, body becoming increasingly sapped of energy.

I don't care what, or who the fuck you are. But for fucksake, calm the hell down wolf! His kind request was met with an instant animalistic growl, that was eerily similar to the growls Tobias heard from yesterday. It left no doubt in his mind that this strange new entity was indeed one of those overgrown wolves. Yet it was still admittedly difficult to believe that he himself could turn into one of those... beasts.

How can you possibly expect me to calm down? I suddenly materialize in your mind, and before I could even introduce myself, I was thrust into your memories! I had to watch you in agony over and over again! I was forced to watch every single thing you had to go through in your entire life, with the thought I wasn't there fighting beside you! I had to hear about all those times you thought about taking your own life! So yes! I'm fucking furious! At all those people who hurt you! Especially your father! I WANT TO RIP THAT BASTARD TO SHREDS! And K-

DON'T. SAY. HIS. NAME, Tobias forced out through the blinding cloud of rage. Somehow, he felt that he knew exactly what the wolf had been about to say. He breathed huge gasping breaths, hands trembling uncontrollably. Nevertheless, he managed to make his way to the school, despite the red seeping into his sight at the edges, in addition to the head-spilting migraine.