Ascendant

Chapter Two ⚜️ Years

Chapter Two

Dawn approached and the sun was nowhere to be seen. Another thunderous day approached, one which strikes across the land, with a hailstorm of rain. As it pounds against the windows, all I do is stare. I stand by the backdoor, watching my cool breath as it fogs up the door. The sky became dark and low with ominous black clouds and the wind picked up, howling, crying, warning, baying like a wolf into the night. I feel the static in the air, the hairs on the back of my neck rose as the first crack of lightening  in the air galloped across the sky and within seconds the rolling boom of the thunder reverberated overhead.

This reminds me of the day I was recruited.

***

Clouds as dark as night rolled overhead, plunging me into darkness. I was thirsty, hungry, lost. Dying. Fighting. After eternity looking for my sister, I was caught in the hunt. The air was heavy, filled with dread. I was alone and vulnerable. When the first drops of rain fell, they were as large as the tears I wept for my family. The rain fell, torrential and unforgiving like the forces at play. That's when I first heard the voices.

I heard them, so close but so far. I heard the crunching of leaves, the mumbles of chatter and the clicking of their guns. What would they be doing so deep in the forest in this storm? What would they be doing?

And then they found me. I am not sure when, or how long it took them. But they found me. Torn clothed, pale, eyes crimson, dying but so alive. I'm not sure what possessed them to take me under their wing, whether it was how frail I looked, or my burning desire to rid the world of werewolves so no other will have to go through what I went through. I must of looked pathetic, with mud caking my face, leaves in my hair, but they saw something. They saw fire. They saw a survivor.

I felt my body being lifted, as I kept mumbling incoherent words, trying to piece together a sense of reality. All I remember was that I managed to slip out one word, 'wolves', before my mind took the plunge into oblivion.

Next thing you know, I awake in a strange and foreign facility. Dressed in a white dressing gown, the room around me is stark white with pale lighting. Hospital? No. Too clean. Too enclosed. I remember lifting a shaking hand to the door before it swings open, and a man with a glint in his eye says to me,

"Hello Tamora" He said to me, power cutting across the air like a knife slicing into my very skin.

I felt it. This man radiated power, with a crisp and sharp suit,  and the coldest, most menacing eyes I have seen, and then that's when I found out the truth.
The man explained me that werewolves killed my family. Werewolves. That's when I vowed; vowed I would never be weak, never would be vulnerable again. That's the day Tamora, the warm and loving, became cold. I became the Huntress.

I was recruited late, years late in comparison to the others in my class. Think of my training as school, instead of teaching math, they taught us kids to kill. The others were born into the world of werewolves. The kids was legacies, born and raised to be hunters and huntresses, they were recruited by the age of 4 and learnt from there. Me? I was recruited 9 years later, at the mere age of 13. Unlike some of the others, I had passion, desire. I had drive. I woke up hours earlier, and went to bed hours later. I pushed myself, and soon I went from being an outcast and being looked down upon, to being one of the best, to being feared.

I remember years of gruelling training, where my body went under inhumane conditions, I was taught how to kill a man with my bare hands. I was taught how to use weapons, and how to use what I had to my advantage. How to kill a werewolf, via silver or wolfsbane and then I became a threat. I became a force to be reckoned with. By the time I was 15, I went on my first hunt, and I killed my first werewolf. My hair was chopped shorter, my jet black hair now shoulder length, my eyes became colder, icier. I was the epitome of danger and I was the youngest hunter to ever kill a werewolf, and damn I was proud. The blood dripped from my hands as I tore his gut open with a silver knife, and the light leaving his eyes, like they left my family's. I remember my first kill, a filthy rogue. That was 5 years ago.