In The Woods Somewhere

Chapter Fourteen: Fever

Short breaths.

Thumping heart.

Hot skin.

Sweat dripping.

Edan had the flu.

It was bad.

Very, very, very bad.

He sat hunched over on the mattress puking. Like he has been for the last twenty minutes. Gagging because nothing could come up. His hair stuck to his face. The shine dulled over.

Glory wanted to hold it back for him. Some of it was in the way when he threw up. Everest told her to stay away; the flu could be contagious. Even though Glory was going to eventually get it too - she didn't exactly want to rush it.

Glory gaze averted to the separate room hearing clanging sounds. Glory's eyebrows furrowed together and stared at the entrance. After a couple seconds, Everest's face made an appearance looking from Glory to Edan as he continued to gag.

"I'm going out. For a walk. Do you mind?"

Glory shook her head 'no'. She wasn't in the mood to talk. Not when Edan was in front of her puking. Keeping nothing down. She was worried. Even though they both told her it was going to pass it's just that the more he doesn't shift the sicker he got. The two explained the whole process to her. Glory was going to have to go through the same process. She already started.

Last week she has begun phase one.

The first was; suppress the will to shift. Glory had begun this step.

The second was; the flu season. As Edan and Everest called it. While their urges to shift were over. The sickness begins. The weaker the wolf. The more frequent the flu. The sooner this phase is finished. This happens because of their nature - the act of holding their wild side back is not good for them. The beast in them wants out. After finishing the first step the wolf stops fighting; it starts getting sick. Hence why they call it the flu.

They start puking. Getting high temperatures. Their wolf getting weaker unable to heal the sickness - and even get sick themselves. Sometimes suppressing the wolf like that can kill both the human and animal side of one.

The third phase is becoming human. As soon as the second phase is finished the third is brought upon you - if you survived that is. There's no ending this step. Once you go human you never go back. Most wolves turned human go insane. Everything too much to handle. The weakness. The lack of smell. The hearing loss. The human and wolf are one. After the wolf dies a part of the human dies too. There's an emptiness inside them. A hole that can never be refilled.

Most wolves can't go through this because the human part of them is not strong enough. Instead of just killing their wolf. They kill their human too. Disappearing from existence.

Everest had explained all this to Glory after Edan's flu last time. Everest gave her a choice: stay with them. Which would mean holding out on shifting and slowly turn human? Or, leave, go prancing around the woods and find her own way to live. It was a hard decision to make. Glory left the pack so she wouldn't have to mate with Avery. Not so she would lose her wolf.
She stayed anyway. Once she was human they wouldn't want her anyway. So it was a win in some aspects.

Edan finally stopped gagging and lowered the bucket of puke on the ground. Glory went to collect it - trying not to look at it. She spilled it outside - gagging. She almost threw up on the spot. She put it beside his feet. He was still in the same position from earlier. Hunched over. Breathing heavily.

Glory's heart ached at the sight. She couldn't stand to see him like that. It was breaking her.

She wanted to sit down next to him. Hug him. Kiss him. Tell him everything was going to be okay. He already knew that. He knew what he signed up for when he started this. Glory just wondered what made the two do this to themselves. She never dared to ask - Afraid it was too personal. If they asked her why she agreed to do this with them she wouldn't tell them either.