Stay Novel 10

Georgie

If you buy a house in Swan Valley, one feature that might surprise you is that the bedrooms are soundproofed. Why, you might ask? Swan Valley is the town where my werewolf pack resides, and werewolves like sex—lots of sex. If you look in a dictionary, the meaning of the word werewolf should mention something about ‘sex.’

Werewolves have high sex drives because of our low birth rates. It is hard for werewolves to reproduce, which explains our high sex drives and long life expectancy. Werewolves don’t age like humans. We stop aging in our thirties because you guessed it… our bodies struggle to reproduce—even with our fated mates.

Why do I bring this up? When Dad gets home from his trips away, it’s like Mum’s in heat. They hold themselves in their room and don’t come out until they are both sated.

A memory flashes through my head – I remember learning about the female werewolf heat at Sunday school when I was little. We were asked if we knew what it was. I proudly answered, ’It’s when mummy and daddy stay in their room for days, get naked, and are very happy.’ When I recalled my answer to my parents later that day, I remember my mother blushing in embarrassment, which in turn made me feel like I had said the wrong thing. I remember that Dad, however, giving me the thumbs up.

So here I am, lying in bed, grateful that the bedrooms are soundproofed. My parents having sex has never been an ‘ew yuk’ thing for me. Sex is normal for werewolves. So is nudity. I have seen both my parents naked growing up more than I can count. But now that I’m older, I don’t want to think about them having sex. or hearing it. If I were to see my parents naked, I would look away. I’m not a little girl anymore. And that’s a line I don’t want to cross.

Am I rambling? I think I’m rambling. Today has been long and tiring, and I should be exhausted. I should be. But I’m not. I feel like I’m in limbo. When it comes to my life, I’m in an in-between, contemplating what I should do. To think, a week ago, I knew where my path was taking me, and then meeting my mate stopped all that. Shifting it to somewhere… distressing.

I know I’m probably going to die. The information I read confirmed this. I have some of the symptoms, hematemesis and emesis. Yeah, I looked up those words, too. Hematemesis is the vomiting of blood. Emesis is vomiting of blood, fluid, bile, and food. I haven’t experienced vertigo (I already know what that means) or syncope (a loss of consciousness for a short time). But I’m getting worse. I don’t know how long I have left, especially with Conner acting like he is.

I wonder if he knows? I wonder if he knows what his actions are doing to me. And I wonder if he would care enough to stop. Would he still want me? Would I take him back? I don’t know about that. I don’t think I could accept him after he’s allegedly slept with Hadley. And I say allegedly because I don’t know for certain that he has. I love Hadley, but… she likes to embellish and is not always honest. And even if he didn’t have sex with her, he may have done something with her because it’s not like Hadley would make things up from nothing.

Regardless. I don’t want him after Hadley has had him. He can’t go back from that.

I close my eyes and play the violin in my head. I’m never lonely when I have my music. I imagine myself playing my favourite tunes, Rush E, Beethoven Virus and Caprice number five, until I fall asleep.

Pain erupts from my abdomen, spreading quickly up my chest and between my legs. I try but fail to keep my scream in. It. Hurts. So. Dam. Much.

I wait for a little respite so I can move, but I don’t make it to the bathroom in time, instead vomiting my dinner mixed with bile and blood onto the floor next to my room.

Tears spring from my eyes, and I can’t control them as they roll down my face.

“I thought… I thought he’d have a break!” I cry between heaves. I painstakingly move from my bed, not bothering to wipe my mouth as I do. Each step hurts, and another wave of pain clenches my stomach, making me cry harder.

“Fuck! No more! Please!” I cry out. I feel bile come up my throat, and with unseen energy, I swing my bathroom door open and run for the toilet.

I don’t have enough time to lift the seat up. Instead, I partly vomit blood on the seat. My chest heaves upwards each time I expel the bright red liquid into the toilet bowl.

“Please stop,” I beg before everything goes dark.

The first thing I notice when my eyes open again is the awkward way I’m lying on the floor. The tiles are cold, and I feel the lines between the tiles and the grout dig into my skin.

Pain ripples through my abdomen as I twist and heft myself into a sitting position. I feel completely wiped out. I want to cry, but it’s like I have no liquid left to give. Thinking of this makes me realise I’m really thirsty. My throat is sore from vomiting, and my chest feels dry and rough.

As I position myself into a better sitting position, I notice the blood on the seat hasn’t dried completely. It’s darker in colour but not dry. This gives me the impression that I haven’t been out for long. Without thinking, I pull off some toilet paper and wipe the blood off, rubbing harder at the more stubborn stains.

“I can’t do this anymore,” I whisper. Slowly pulling myself up, I make my way to the sink and turn the tap on. Cool, clear water hits the porcelain, and I bend my head to take large gulps of the liquid. When done, I wipe water over my face before standing up and looking at myself in the mirror.

I look the worst I’ve ever looked. My skin is pale and grey, and my cheeks have sunken, emphasising my cheekbones. With the dark circles under my eyes, my face looks skeletal. I notice deep blue bruises down my neck, and I don’t want to look further down in fear of what I might see. I know it’s bad.

Slowly, I make it out of the bathroom. I scan my bedroom as if taking one last look at everything. Which I think I am. I can’t stay in Swan Valley anymore. I don’t want to live like this. I check my phone to see what time it is and if I have enough time to sneak off without being caught. It’s one-oh-two. Which means I have a few more hours of nighttime left. It also means Conner might not be finished. But I have to risk it.

“I don’t want this,” I whisper to the air.

I turn to my cupboard and pull out an empty backpack from the shelf I used when Dad took me camping. Inside, I pack a few pairs of clothes, only a little, just enough to change once in a while. I then change from the clothes I’d fallen asleep in, throwing them into the hamper. I grab my savings from my bedside drawer, counting how much I had saved from birthdays and Christmases. It’s not much, only five hundred dollars, but I won’t need it where I’m going. Not yet, anyway.

I close my bedroom door and walk to the laundry, where the spare bathroom is. Inside, I grab two bars of soap, then head for the kitchen, where I take a knife and fork, a small plastic bowl and a water bottle, which I fill.

I’m about to open the back door when I hesitate. I’m not leaving because of my parents. And they’ll worry. They’ll send out search parties. I can’t come back.

Turning back into the room, I grab the notepad and pen from a drawer and write.

Dear Mum and Dad,

I lied to you when I said I hadn’t found my mate. I have, but he rejected me. This is why I’ve been sick. Please don’t go asking who he is, or go looking for him. Please don’t, for me. I can’t stay here anymore. I need to leave. Please let me go. Don’t look for me. I’ll be fine. You both taught me well. I love you, Love Georgie.

Happy with that, I leave the notepad and pen on the bench and head outside.

When I enter the forest, I strip, shove my clothes in my backpack, and lengthen the straps. Then, I shift into my wolf and take off.

When I get to the log I found on the weekend, the sun is shining down between the trees’ canopy. I shift back and take a few sips from my water bottle before allowing Pandora to take over again.

It takes hours to get to my pack’s border in wolf form. Swan Moon’s territory is large; one could get lost in its forests.

“What’s that smell?” I ask Pandora in disgust. The fresh scent of urine permeates the air. Every tree has been sprayed in a golden shower.

“That’s our pack’s territory,” Pandora replies.

“Should we…” I hesitate. I know Mum and Dad won’t leave their room for days, just like they would if Mum were in heat. They won’t notice I’ve gone. And I’m second-guessing my choices. I love my parents so much. Should I stay and die knowing I’m around people who love me? Or should I leave?

“We can’t live much longer, Georgie. Please. Let us go,” Pan begs. I nod.

“Okay. But let’s not break the link to the pack yet, okay?”

“Okay,” Pandora agrees, stepping over our pack’s border. We run a few metres away when we stop and turn around, taking one more last look at our home. The place we’ve always known.

“Where to?” Pan asks. I think about all the studying I had done at lunchtime when the music rooms were booked and my friends were doing other things. I studied our pack lands and the state in which our pack was located. Secretly, I wanted to be a Delta like my Dad. But I knew my mother and grandparents would never allow that. Not that I don’t love playing music. I do. But there was always this ‘what else?’ in my head. To the north were mountains; from my studying, no packs resided nearby. If I went there, I wouldn’t reach another pack for miles.

“North,” I state.

“We should cut ties,” Pan then suggests.

“Yeah. They might follow us.”

“No, they won’t. I masked our scent at the log,” Pandora answered.

“You can do that?”

“We can do that.”

I shift back into my human form.

“I, Georgiana Evangeline Athentree, rescind my position in the Swan Moon Pack,” I state. Immediately, my head begins to pound, as my link to my pack breaks.

“Arrgh!” I cry, grasping my head. I never knew this could hurt so much. It must be easier to accept another pack before breaking ties with your first one cause, man!

“Ready?” Pandora asks, sounding impatient.

“Yeah,” I reply, shifting back into her form. Pandora takes off and heads for the mountains.

We spend four days in wolf form, sleeping under trees and hunting rabbits as we head further up the mountain. When I went camping with Dad, we stayed in pack territory. The mountain is different regarding the animals that live on it, but the flora remains the same. Large trees reach the sky with hungry branches, leaves bustling against each other, fighting for their chance to touch the sun. The shrub layer and forest floor remain the same, with ferns and decomposing leaves separated by small clearings of wildflowers and outcrops. The only difference is that some parts are rocky.

Nowhere, however, is good enough for us to settle.

“I remember seeing a river to the east…” I suggest. And so we head east.

We head further up the mountain, the air getting cooler the closer up the hill we become. Eventually, we find a small valley with trees on one side and a cliff on the other. To the East, a trickle of the river can be heard, and we inspect that before returning to the trees. A log sits between two trees, evidently fallen a long time ago. Pandora sniffs and wags her tail. Jumping over the log, we land on lower ground, a small clearing of dirt and leaves surrounding us. Pan turns back towards the log, where a small opening reveals a cave-like dent in the earth. Sniffing, we go to inspect it, Pan yipping excitedly.

“This is it. Our den,” Pan grins, clearing the bottom of it with her paws. The dent in the earth may be a metre high and two metres across, but I can see its potential. It’s sheltered but also hidden from the elements. In this recess, I could make a good bed and line the floor with the goat skins I can smell in the hills. The little glade in front of me is flat enough to build a fire, and I can source stones and twigs from the surrounding area. Yeah, I could do this.

Pan walks into the small cavity and curls our body for sleep. I have a place now and a plan. I have hope.

I wake sometime in the evening to a thumping throb in my abdomen. While on the run, I had peaceful nights and stupidly thought I was too far away to feel Conner’s indiscretions. The pain I know immediately is Conner having sex, but it’s not as painful as when I lived in the pack, which I guess counts for something. I also don’t feel like I’m going to throw up, which is a bonus. It’s like I’ve got my period, and I’m cramping. But I can deal.

The next few days, I spent setting up my home. In wolf form, I dug a bigger trench in the bottom of my shelter, creating an area where I could sleep. I visited the river frequently and gathered rocks from the riverbed to make a firepit, which I filled with dry twigs. I found an exceptionally sharp rock that let me dig out a shelf to store my essential items, like my clothes and hairbrush. Then I hunted. I gathered wild grass and braided it to make ropes, which allowed me to make traps to catch wildlife. I know I could have hunted them in wolf form, but I wanted to skin my prey and tan their hides for their fur. Winter is coming, and I needed to be warm.

Dad never taught me how to catch mountain goats, however, so I went out in both my fur and skin and watched them, looking for signs of weakness. I found that if I chased them and herded them towards a cliff, frightening them by shifting at the last moment, I could have them self-delete by jumping to their deaths. Their horns were scary, and some goats stood their ground. But I was quick and used my werewolf speed to my advantage.

Before I knew it, I’d lost track of time. My mornings were spent going to the river to brush my teeth and eating berries I had gathered previously. Then, I would check my traps, killing the wild rabbits and chickens I caught and preparing them for meals. Some days, I ate a lot. Some days, I only ate berries. But as the days turned into weeks, my skill in hunting got better. I used the leather from the animal pelts I caught and made a decent spear, which helped me catch young goats in my human form during the day. At night, I shifted and hunted bigger prey- goats and foxes.

I’d created a nice fur bed in my den, which, over time, became softer and softer. Every three days, I went to the river to clean myself, scrub any dirt on my body, and wash my hair. Of course, I licked myself clean when in wolf form, but it’s not the same as cleaning yourself with soap, which made me feel human again.

I enjoyed the solitary nature of my chosen lifestyle and was never really lonely with Pandora by my side. She quickly became my best friend, even though I often felt like I was just talking to myself. And when I did feel lonely, I sang. I sang in my head and out loud, practising my vocal skills as I did.

And Conner? He became a sad memory. One that I worked hard not to linger on. At the beginning, I felt him, the painful throbbing in my core and cramping in my abdomen. My bruises from him had reduced, and I no longer vomited blood or lost time. It got to a point where I actually forgot about the pain of our broken bond after no longer experiencing it.

“It’s been five days since I started counting, Pan,” I say, checking the last trap, which was also empty.

“I know… but…”Pandora protests. Five days and no meat. Even hunting was ineffective. It was winter, and the animals we had been hunting since we had arrived had either hibernated or we’d killed them all. I think they’ve hibernated with the snow covering the ground in the mornings. The usual places where I harvested berries had also stopped producing a few weeks ago, so it was animal meat I had been living off.

“I have a little bit of soap left; I think we need to go,” I say.

“But not back to the pack,” Pandora states.

“No. Not back to the pack. Let’s go east. There’s a small human town that way. No packs, I think,” I suggest.

“Okay,” Pandora agrees. I nod and begin the process of packing up my camp.

My firepit had stopped working when the temperature began dropping below zero at night. The wood I had collected became too damp to light, and drying them in my den would take too long, so I ate any meat I did catch in my wolf form. I had dismantled the pit and covered it with sticks and large branches once that had happened. Not that this area had been visited by any human, werewolf or other sub-species for a long time.

I left the clothes I had worn the most in my den, collecting my clean pairs and changing into them before heading to the river for a final clean. I had a little soap left, which is another reason to leave. The soap was just enough to lather my body and wash my hair before it disintegrated in my hands and flowed down the river current.

When I returned to my den, I began covering the entrance with the large sticks I had gathered during my time here.

“Ready?” I ask Pan.

“Yup,” she replied, curling up in the back of my head and falling asleep. I nod, looking over my camp one last time before hefting my bag on my shoulders. Turning East, I start my trek towards some unknown town, not knowing what will happen to me next.