Heaven's Eclipse: Star-crossed Fate.

Chapter Seven: Shadow Hall.

The classes here were small and of mixed supernatural species, so I'd expected to see fangs bared and yellow colouring slipping through a primorph's eyes, showing a glimpse of the wolf within. However, everyone was acting normal, which I guess was the point of this place; to learn to blend in with the rest of humanity.

Today I was in a supernatural only class, even though I was human my vast experience with the supernatural allowed me to be put in the classes with the Nephilium witches and druids, Fallen angels, vampyres, dhampyres and halflings. (Those last two were what happened when the virus only half imprints within the hosts cells, because the body's immunity system manages to fight it off. The result is a mutated version of the virus, as it hasn't taken over the cells completely.)

This class was taught by a middle aged vampyre and today we were learning about puberty in primalupuses and in particular the first transformation. These lessons taught them more about themselves and served to help them understand and learn control. Some were originally human and so these types of lessons primarily benefited them. Although ninety percent of primorphs were born, there were a rare few who could survive an attack and thus become primorphs themselves.

"Who can tell me what happens for the born primalupuses during puberty?" The class remained silent, but after a minute a young man slowly put up his hand and cleared his throat, at a nod from the lecturer.

"The born primalupus will live with the lycanthrope virus dormant in its genes from birth, until puberty. Some point during which the fluxing hormones that causes the pubescent changes that the body naturally undergoes and an adrenaline surge, which can be caused by stress: heightened or distressed emotions such as love, protectiveness, anger or self-preservation will combine and cause the dormant virus to awaken. This begins the transduction of the lupine DNA into the human cells. This process takes one month for the virus to fully infiltrate the body's cells, during which the person will experience heightened emotions, fevers and can even pass in and out of consciousness at times. In the final week they fall into a coma-like state, which marks the beginning of the final stage, where the body undergoes a very complex process. During this final stage the skin solidifies into an outer shell-like substance and the body releases enzymes that will digest itself from the inside out. The process takes a whole week to complete, but once it is done, the new body that is rebuilt is that of a fully fledged primorph, who's genetics are now that of a chimera, as they contain two different sets of DNA in the same body. Upon awakening from their coma, the newly formed primorph will experience their first shift under the next full moon, this shift can take up to an hour to complete the first time and is usually very painful, but all shifts after the first one will happen within a matter of seconds. From there onwards, they will have to compulsively shift during each and every full moon, but they can also learn to control their shifts through emotions; to voluntarily shift at other times too. For some the triggering emotion they learn is anger and for others it might be protectiveness. The fight and flight response tends to trigger either partial or full involuntary shifts. Once the primorph wakes up their animal instincts will also be awakened and it can take some time for the individual to learn how to control them, leading to animalistic behaviours, even when in human form."

The student took a deep breath and looked relived when the teacher clapped. I was pretty impressed myself with his knowledge and so joined in with the clapping. Due to the blood-feud, it wasn't often that vampyres knew a lot about the primalupuses. As the clapping died down I noticed that the girl from the snack bar in the gym was staring at me, rather intensely. What was her problem? She uprightly turned away and faced the front of the room, once she realised I had noticed her.

The rest of the lesson went by fine, but I kept her in my peripheral vision and saw her glancing at me often. When the bell rang I scrambled to get out of the classroom and turned to check if she was following me, yup, there she was pushing through the swarming crowd. I turned around and fast walked to the colleges main toilets, determined that if there was going to be a confrontation, it wouldn't be in public view. Pushing open the door I entered the toilets and turned around to wait for her. Sure enough, not several seconds later she entered as well. She let the door swing shut behind her, as we both stood there eyeing each other. Finally she took a step towards me and I instinctively stepped back, to keep her at arms length and not too close to me. All the years of training from my dad, would always be ingrained in to my psyche.