Strange Eyes

I opened my eyes.

My body was no longer sickly and weak. I felt better. Strengthened.

I looked around the room. It was night. I could feel the darkness from the outside, the pale moon shining in through the shades. They billowed around in the cool nighttime wind. Someone must have opened the window. I wondered how long I had been sleeping for.

Memories came flooding back. The burning. The smell of the forest surrounding me. Familiar hands, familiar faces. Hunter.

Sitting up, I was wide awake. Alert. I realized that I was wearing different clothes. A fresh pair of comfortable pants and a tank top that I had never seen before in my life. A sense of violation gripped me, along with a dulled frustration. What was going on?

I got up slowly, fearing that I would pass out if I didn’t. A precaution. I didn’t want to subject myself to their mercy any longer. I knew that I needed to act quickly. I needed answers.

Slowly, I padded towards the door. My heart was suddenly in my throat. My renewed mind was going at a thousand miles an hour. I had so many questions. What had happened that night? Where was I? Who were those strange boys who were only ever around in the summer- until then? My head swam.

Tentatively, I opened up the door. It creaked. It was old. Worn. I peered out into a darkened hallway. There were no lights on. But I could hear voices coming from the other end of the hall. A yellow light shone.

I stepped out into the hallway, my movements careful. My pulse pounded. I felt so…strange. I was better. I wasn’t sick any longer, at least I didn’t think so. But my every sense was considerably sharpened. I could smell the putrid scent of wet earth coming from outside. Most notably, I could smell…man.

“Adonis, don’t be such a tight-ass.” I recognized Les’ voice. He laughed, a beautiful sound. I was frozen. I could make out more of what they were saying as I inched closer.

“Don’t push it, Les. I have tricks up my sleeve.” A deep, powerful-sounding voice nearly knocked me off my feet. I knew that had to be the elder one. Adonis, was his name. What a strange name.

“Aw, Sam. You asshole.” An unfamiliar voice spoke, a certain childish whine about it. An unknown man laughed, the sound rich.

Suddenly I got the intense feeling that I was not alone.

I turned quickly behind me to see Hunter standing in the darkness.

He held out his hands, a form of surrender. “I come in peace.” He said. The joke did nothing to calm my wild nervousness. There was so much strangeness. “I need answers.” I spoke, trying to sound as demanding as I felt. I wasn’t sure if it worked or not.

Hunter stared me down. There was a certain gentleness to him. As though he sympathized with me. It was all so confusing. I didn’t know how he could ever sympathize with a girl who had been taken from her home and kidnapped by a band of strange teenage boys.

“Come with me.” He said, and he drew me to the other end of the hallway with the yellow light. A rush of gladness along with a paralyzing fear overcame me. I was about to get the answers that I wanted. That I needed.

But I wasn’t sure if they would be what I wanted to hear.

Hunter led me into the yellow light. As we stepped out of the hallway and into what looked like a large living room space, I was startled to see six men all sitting around the living room. Each of them turned to me. It was the elder one that gripped my immediate attention.

He looked so…strong. I don’t know if that makes any sense. But that’s the only way that I can describe him in memory. His dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail. He was most likely of Native American descent, if not directly so. But the first thing that caught my attention and never let it go were his eyes.

They were a startling caramel color.

As he looked at me, I got the chilling sense that I had seen them before.

“Jane. Welcome.” The elder one said. Adonis was his name. He wore a simple white tank top, his muscled form nearly bulging. He was a warrior.

I paused. Looking around the room, I was puzzled. There was a stone cold silence. The laughter was gone from the room. A certain seriousness had enveloped everything, threatening to close in on all of us. Everything was so incredibly heavy.

None of the others introduced themselves to me. They all just stared. They were intimidating. All boundlessly handsome, indulgently so. As though a little too much of the beauty in the world had been sucked away and absorbed into them, radiating off of their skin with power.

“I need to know why I’m here.” I stated. I sounded much braver than I felt. Adonis looked oddly pleased at my request. He was still sinister. Stone-faced. But a touch of warmth spread in his captivating eyes. He got up to his feet. Every other person in the room seemed to follow, their bodies gravitating towards his as though he was their center. He was their life.

“I will tell you.” He said. And with that he motioned to me. I looked to Hunter with a question in my eyes, a sudden nervous anticipation taking me over. He urged me onward with his eyes. With that I followed Adonis and the others, the unknown on the verge of the known.

It was all so strange. Surreal. Like we were traveling into another dimension.

The night was chilled. I could see all their breath in the darkness, a smoky vapor that spilled from their lips like unspoken secrets. Adonis didn’t speak as we stood outside of the mysterious house. Woods was all that I could see. We were right in the middle of it. Dense green surrounded us, whispering with the wind. The air smelled unfamiliar, the dirt a foreign scent compared to the usual smell that surrounded Aurora. This wasn’t Aurora. This wasn’t anywhere. The moon was a full oval that illuminated everything a garish silver.

The others had come to stand near me as Adonis paused. As though to shield me. From what, I didn’t know. They were all tense. Rigid. So tall as they surrounded me with the strong presence of power. Hunter stood close by. Les met my eyes for a fleeting moment, unsmiling. I thought of the boy with the light hair and the light eyes. He wasn’t anywhere in sight.

There were so many things that I didn’t know. But I had the strong feeling that I was going to find them out in a matter of seconds.

Adonis stood alone. The strong silver light of the moon illuminated his form. He looked powerful. Godly. There was something astoundingly inhuman about him in that moment.

His topaz eyes were blazing. They looked at me, staring me down. His muscles gleamed in the night. Chills went up my spine.

I could sense him. It was sudden. I could feel his presence there, as if he were reaching out to me. Communicating something vital.

“Do not be afraid Jane.” He spoke in such an otherworldly way. His deep voice reverberated around me, becoming one with the night. It was as though he had come from another era entirely. I stared at him. I couldn’t speak. I didn’t dare move. I felt the heat of the others surrounding me in the chill. My heart drummed in my ears. The sound was hollow. Shrill. Constant. Rhythmic.

That was when he Shifted.

I saw the Change before it had even begun to take full effect. I had recognized the same change in me days before. It felt like years of time had passed since then. But I saw it in him. The same spontaneous combustion. The painful heat. Adonis let out a shrill cry that blended with the night, mixed in with the moonlight. He was wild.

His form twisted, the heat enveloping him as he fell to the ground when he had once been standing so powerfully. With such strength. There was no escape. I looked around wildly, expecting the others to be at attention. To come to his aid. But they stood and watched, some of them looking on with pain in their eyes. A distant, old pain. Like a knife slashing over an old scar.

Hunter’s hand gripped my wrist.

Adonis thrashed against the dirt, his legs kicking up at odd angles and his screams escaping from his mouth in ragged and disconnected noises that sounded half-human half something else. My heart continued to drum as the heat ravaged him. My entire body was tense. I realized that I was crying.

“Do something.” I whispered. “Do something!” The sound gained strength.

“We cannot disturb him.” One of the men said. I sobbed quietly, watching with horror as the heat continued to agonize Adonis, there on the dirt.

The transformation began.

It was like his old skin had shed to make way for the new. He was becoming something else entirely.

It was abrupt. Sudden. Like the blink of an eye. I didn’t even see it happen completely. But one moment, Adonis was thrashing, the next, he had become the wolf.