Wolfblood ━ TWILIGHT (being rewritten)

07

The night was warm, yet the period before dawn was quite the opposite. The morning twilight and pale glow of the every slowly rising sun over the horizon was as cold as the polar winds. Colder than near anything had ever felt before. It was far too cold for it to only be mid autumn.

The dinosaur comforter askew, half drooped to the floor, half coiled too high, on top of the pillows and revealing a foot. Hands were clenched tightly in fists, black twinged veins and the beginnings of pointy claws emerging from her nails stabbed into the comforter. They did not quite tear the fabric, yet if she put more pressure behind it, the soft cotton would.

A sharp intake of breath, then a soft whimper, low and pathetic. Not a weak call for a parent or protector, nor just the expression of fear taking form of sound. It was a pain. Phantom pain. Pain like needles being shoved into the somehow still sleeping girl's skin.

Suddenly, she sat up, lurching forward as though she was going to vomit with a half-scream tearing from her throat. Fae wanted to cry, to vomit, to scream for help. Yet she did not. Her body was tangled in her sheets, a fabric prison too heavy and cold any yet too light and hot all at once. Sweat stuck her hair to her face and back and neck in a sickening strangle, plastered to her like the little band-aid she wore over her near healed ankle.

Fae rubbed her throat, peeling her long dark hair from its sticky, tangled choker and tied it behind her head in a loose bun. It no doubt looked atrocious and would fall out in the span of minutes, yet it allowed a brief feeling of cool to kiss her exposed skin.

She was alive. She was safe. She was home, in her bedroom. It was morning. She could see her record player. Her clothes that lined the floor in piles, like a decorative rug. Her school bag and homework nestled amongst the mess and clutter. Her curtains, grey black outs she had pinned all of the pins she owned to go try and weight them down. The pastel pink and white dragon pin her mother had gotten her for her twelfth birthday. The Anne Boleyn and Catherine Parr costume pins Lexi had given her for her fifteenth birthday. The multitude of random band, musical and other pins she had been collecting ever since then.

She could hear the wind outside her room. Hear the sound of the kettle and her mother's breathing. Hear the tv and the reporter's prattle about football, or at least what Americans liked to call football. She could hear the sound of the heater too, the soft whispering and crooning of it straining to circulate the warm air. She could smell breakfast, eggs and bacon, the scent of petrichor and the strong stench of instant coffee and the copper-y smell of the heater.

Fae took a sip from her water bottle. It tasted stale, but none the less refreshing as it rinsed the rancid bile taste from her mouth. The dream was already fading, though she could remember red eyes and cold clutches, though they transformed into marigold yellow and haunting howls along the moors. The breath being forced from her lungs and terror. She blinked and the imagined sound faded to nothing. The nausea remained with her though, as did a subtle tenderness to her flesh and her senses already reacting to the time of wildness ever creeping closer. It was the day of the moon.

Nightmares and the moon. Of course. For some reason she always got nightmares around the time of the full moon. Her mother, Marie always said that the onset of their uncontrollable shift always unlocked parts of their subconscious that usually one could ignore. Fae sighed. School would be more of a nightmare than usual, but she could deal with it. Perhaps she'd sit outside at lunch, burry her hands in the ground and ground herself quite literally.

Fae massaged her eyelids and checked the time on her phone. It was still early, a little earlier than she usually woke up. Her skin was clammy and gross, she did the maths in her head, then checked the time again. six-forty-three, a minute had passed. Yeah, she could definitely fit in a shower and not be late for school.