Dragon's Century

Chapter 7: Ummm...?

I suddenly see a large shadow move towards me. As it gets closer to where the silver moonlight shines, the figure becomes clearer.

I hear Marissa finally speak up. A wolf? She scoffs. We don't have to worry; wolves aren't as strong as us. It is kind of abnormally large though. I feel her start to relax as she says this.

While keeping my eyes trained on the slowly approaching wolf, I reply to her statement. Marissa. I pause momentarily, not wanting to admit out loud what I have decerned because it would make it seem more real. Wolves aren't that big, even ones that grow to abnormal sizes can't get that big; only Wolf-Shifters could possibly be that large in a shift. And Marissa? I can barely stand because I'm so exhausted. So, if we don't run, then we will lose against this shifter.

The Wolf-Shifter is now about 30 feet away from me as it advances through the edge of the forest and into the direct moonlight.

I stand in my attack stance in awe as I am able to clearly see the wolf's magnificence.

Snow-white fur glistens as it reflects the moon's rays. Upon closer inspection I see that woven throughout the fur is cobalt blue streaks. The wolf has black fur covering its left ear and a mix of white, black, and grey fur surrounding its right eye as it fades to the side of its face.

I take a deep, calming breath. "What are you doing here? Stay back!" I begin to shout as the Shifter gets closer.

The wolf looks at me with a challenging stare, as if to say, "Make me." It keeps moving closer so I take a small step back in fear.

I bare my elongating teeth at it. "I said, 'Stay back!'" As if I had not uttered a single word, the wolf keeps advancing.

Stepping back again, this time a couple steps as I stumble, I turn and run. Using some of Marissa's strength when I get close to my mansion, I crouch down and leap up high enough that I can put my hands on the brick, guard-wall on my bedroom balcony and use that to propel myself onto the balcony.

I stumble and fall to my hands and knees as another wave of exhaustion hits me. I crawl across the mahogany, wood-floor back over to the wall and use it to pull myself onto shaky legs.

I peer over the small wall to look for the giant beast, but see that it has disappeared. Marissa suggests that I stay there to look around better, just to make sure that it isn't hiding and that is what I do. After a few minutes of looking into the forest, I turn around to make my way inside, but before I can walk a few steps, my vision goes blurry and my body gives out to exhaustion.

My vision goes black as I near the balcony floor.

****

I groan out in pain. My entire body aches as I gain consciousness.

I open my eyes, but when I see that I'm not outside where I passed out, and instead am now in my bed, I jolt up to a sitting position and look around my room for any intruder.

Sniffing the air, I try to smell who was in here, but I don't smell anything different.

"Did I just forget about getting into bed? Maybe I didn't really collapse outside..." I mutter to myself.

I move slowly as I pull the red and black satin covers off of myself and climb out of bed.

I sigh as I realise that I'm still in my dirty clothes from yesterday.

"Great, now I have to wash my sheets before I can go to bed tonight," I say as I glare at the dirt now on my bed.

Looking over at my black, jeweled clock that is hanging on the wall, I notice that it is getting late in the morning when it reads 9:06. I pinch the bridge of my nose when I realize that I've missed all of my first class and some of the second.

"It looks like I'm either going to school late when I've already missed half of the day or I'm going to stay home." I think to myself out loud. "Stay home it is."

I walk across my black-painted room to my bathroom. As I walk into the bathroom, I feel as if I've forgotten something. I quickly turn around and walk back out of the bathroom.

My heart seems to beat out of my chest as I see the disappearing shadow of an uninvited figure on my balcony. My door is now open part of the way and the warm, morning breeze makes my thin, silver curtains billow.

I run to the balcony as I grab one of my six-inch blades off of my wall.

Throwing my curtain open, I see the last of the intruder disappearing off of the balcony. I run to the edge of my balcony where they jumped and look over the edge. To my dismay, they have disappeared already, without a trace. There's no footprints, no noise, no anything. Absolutely nothing. And they we're able to get past my barrier that I have covering my entire house, without forcing their way through it.

While pondering how they got past the barrier, undetected, I walk over to my door and reach my hand out. I make the barrier appear so that I can see if it has been tampered with. The pearly, almost bubble colored, barrier looks untouched. I run my fingertips over it lightly and the pearly color swirls around my fingers. I stare at it, mesmerized by its beauty.

At first glance, it looks completely normal so I go to walk back inside, but as I do, the light catches on the barrier and I see threads of red mixed in where the doorway is.

So the barrier did catch some part of the being who had snuck into my home.

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THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING, IT MEANS A LOT TO ME!

UNTIL NEXT TIME!

DAWN IS OUT!