A Prophecy?

Silver's POV

"How do I smell, Mom? Why do you think I met someone?" I asked her, wondering why she looked like all the blood had left her face.

"We have to get out of here. Fast!" she responded quickly, pulling me with her.

I was now more confused than before, but I followed her to run until we got out of the forest. I didn't want to enrage her any further, plus I didn't want to remain in that cursed forest for a second longer.

When we stopped to catch our breath, I asked her again what she meant, but she just gave me a look that showed me she was still mad at me.

"What the hell were you thinking? Do you know how dangerous it is out here? You could have been killed!"

"I'm sorry, mom. I was just tired of the myths and wanted to check them out myself," I replied, withdrawing into myself when I realized how ridiculous it sounded out loud.

"Why do you always doubt everything," she complained in a tired voice. "You're supposed to take over you father's legacy, but how can you do that if you don't even believe the legacy exists in the first place?"

"Mom..."

My hands began to twitch. Again with my father's legacy.

"Those dreams you have every night, Silvie," she said, holding my shoulder. "You can feel it. There's a strong connection between you two even though you haven't met. If anyone should doubt, it shouldn't be you."

"Maybe I don't want to continue his dumb legacy!" I screamed and all fell silent.

I could see the clear disappointment in my mother's eyes and wished I could take my words back.

"Mom, I'm sorry…"

She waved her hand and turned away, feigning indifference even though I could see the disappointment in her eyes.

"Let's get you back to training."

***

"Hey, Ghost," someone called immediately I entered the training field against my will.

"How can you not believe in something when your own existence isn't real?" another boy taunted me.

Another reason I hated training; the bullying. For some reason, I was born with very pale skin and silver hair, and people had always picked on me, calling me ghost or other names. It hurt, but I always pretended not to care.

I turned to the first boy and smiled sarcastically.

"The same way believe your father will come back for you, even though he left you years ago," I retorted and his face twisted to a frown. The others stood with their mouths hung open, but I didn't care. I wouldn't take back my words. If they thought it was cool to insult me over something I had no control over, then they should feel the same way when it came to them.

"Just ignore them," Victor my best friend said, coming into view. He pulled me away from there, as if he was afraid they would try to fight me and I followed him because I really didn't have the time to be tempted.

"Silence!" the trainer who I didn't see earlier shushed us. He was holding a sword and his stance commanded everyone without words to stand in position as training was set to start.

He started swinging the sword in an awkward move and asked us to repeat after him, practicing against each other. I went along with them, drawing my plastic sword on Victor, but stopped a few seconds after. We all looked ridiculous. No matter how many times we practiced, we'd always look like this because we'd never had real wolves to fight. Fed up, I tossed my sword on the floor.

"Miss Ronald," the trainer asked, his attention falling to me along with the rest of the field's. "Do we have a problem?"

"Excuse me, but all of this is ridiculous," I said out loud, ignoring Victor who gave me a warning look. "How can we spend our entire lives doing something that's so unnecessary. We're not even good at it."

"Silver," Victor warned but I was way past caring.

"You're excused," the trainer said, looking angry. I rolled my eyes.

"Which is it? Detention or community service."

"Home. Go home, Silver. This has gone on too long. You're never going to learn."

I furrowed my brow and looked around to see the disappointed faces of everyone who was already used to my shit, and for some reason, it felt like I was being excused for the last time. Everyone had given up on me, including my best friend. My beliefs went against every single thing they stood for. I couldn't blame them.

I pulled off my protective shield, tossed it to the ground and started walking home, feeling more alone than I had ever felt before. When I got home, I was just about to unlock the door when I overheard my mother's voice and the voice of my Sorcery teacher, discussing.

"She's the one to fulfill the prophecy. There's no mistaking that," my teacher said.

Prophecy?

"But she doesn't believe in any thing we do. She doesn't even believe in sorcery. She always has some scientific explanation for everything," my mother says.

They were talking about me.

"But she believes in other worlds and that's enough. Since she can't be convinced naturally, I'll have to try other methods. I asked the training guide to discharge her early so she'll be here soon enough. I'll hypnotize her," my teacher said and my eyes popped open.

"Don't you think that's extreme?" my mother mirrored my thoughts.

"If that's what we have to do, then we should do it. Her actions worry even me."

I almost screamed when I heard my sister's voice. So she was in on this. I began to wonder if Victor was also aware of their plan to force me to believe what they wanted me to believe. Maybe that was why he hadn't tried to stop me while I left.

"Okay," my mother reluctantly agreed. "Once she returns, we'll hypnotize her. If that's what is required to fulfill the prophecy."

My body was shaking. I couldn't go in now. My own family was willing to betray me just so I'd believe in the same ridiculous things they did. I slowly backed out from the wall so they wouldn't hear my footsteps but unknowingly knocked over a glass vase my sister had tossed out earlier.

I began to run in the opposite direction, aware that once they found me, they would give chase. If they captured me, that would be the end of my freewill forever. I didn't know where to go, but I could hear their footsteps, so anywhere else was better than there, with them.

"Silver, come back," my mother called out to me but I ignored her and kept running. I could see the sparse forest in front of me, aware that it was the only place left for me to run to. I didn't stop.

The rough bristles of the thorny plants pricked my feet as I rushed through them, but I endured and kept going in a zigzag motion to reduce their chances of catching up with me. I kept running for hours until I no longer heard their footsteps or voices. When I stopped to catch my breath, I realized I was deeper inside the forest than I had ever been and didn't even know how to return.

I sat down on a branch, trying to process my betrayal. However, one word kept returning to me: the prophecy. What was it even for? Was that how desperate they were to get me to believe them? That they would try to hypnotize me and make up some ridiculous prophecy about me. I always knew my Sorcery teacher was weird, but not my own mother and sister.

I heard distinct male voices close by and immediately got up on my feet, worried my mother may have sent men to find me. Without thinking, I ran again, but the noise from my feet rushing through dry leaves was enough to alert them of where I was. They didn't even have to chase me for long. One grabbed my arm just before I could turn to a corner.

"Let me go," I shouted, hitting his chest, but I stopped when I actually looked up at him. I had never seen someone that huge. He did not look familiar, so he was probably from another clan. I just hoped it wasn't one of the enemy or cannibalistic clans..

The other two caught up soon enough and I was surprised to see they were just as huge as the first man who was peering at me with curious eyes.

They looked...different. Their skin had a faint glow and their abs and muscles appeared more pronounced than anyone I had seen in my own clan. Their faces were chiseled and their features were sharp. I couldn't stop staring.

"Are you hurt?" the man holding me asked in a very deep voice.

"How did you get away from the others, child?" another asked me.

Me, child? I was almost twenty, for god's sake.

"Wait a minute," the third one said, coming closer and grabbing my neck. "Her smell is faint, almost nonexistent."

"You mean she's human?" the second one asked, his nose flaring.

"Of course I'm human. What else would I be?" I said, wondering how I came across such weird people.

They immediately dropped me on the floor. The first one growled like an actual animal and what I saw next scared me.

His finger nails grew four times longer and his fangs which weren't there before protruded from the sides of his mouth. I could see a lot of hair on his previously bare chest. All the symptoms I'd learned of…

A werewolf.

My blood ran cold when I realized that all I'd ever been told was true. I managed to untangle myself from his grasp and turned around and ran as far as my shaky legs could carry me but even I knew it was useless.

When the second one caught up to me and turned me around, there were now two men and one complete wolf, instead of three men like there had been before. I was so scared, I was sure I looked like an actual ghost now.

"You just had to shift, Derrick," the one holding me said, rolling his eyes. He dropped me on his shoulder like I was something he had just purchased. "We could have just told her it was a misunderstanding. Now we'll have to take her to the Alpha King."

"We can't have her blabbing to her people she saw werewolves. That will ruin the entire plan."

"Too bad," the third one said, as they walked in the opposite direction, with me in the second one's back. "She looks harmless."

"It's what she's seen that's the problem."

"The Alpha will have her killed for sure."

"What were you even doing this deep in the forest," the second one finally addressed me, but I was too stunned to speak. I didn't even know this Alpha, yet he wanted to kill me.

"It's actually our fault. We went too deep in to hunt, too close to human territory," the third one admitted.

"But we can't tell the Alpha that. We'll just say we found her wandering."

The wolf kept walking behind us, eyeing me. I was terrified, but couldn't do anything but silently watch them.

My fear tripled when a tiger stalked toward us. The third one immediately turned and the two wolves started growling at it. When the tiger saw it was outnumbered, it whimpered away. I didn't know whether to feel relieved we were safe or afraid that the people I was with were even more dangerous that a tiger.

Close to an hour later, we finally came out to a clearing that looked sort of like a surreal village. There were children playing, women and men walking and many wolves prowling. I had never seen anything like it. The simplicity of it all was almost…beautiful.

They watched me with curious looks as the men paraded me. I wondered if they could immediately tell I was not one of them.

The men, or rather, werewolves took me next to a very tall beautiful building on top of a hill. It looked like a mansion, but was more mystical, like something out of a fantasy book.

When we got in, I saw rows of dangerous-looking men sitting in a round arrangement like in a council, waiting for me. How did they know they were bringing me?

The person whose back I was flung over kept walking until he got to the end of the hall, then he dropped me and turned me around.

On a very high regal throne, an extremely handsome man who made the other werewolves pale in comparison, sat, looking down at me like he was trying to figure me out.

I couldn't stop staring. He was like twice my size, but my breath hitched in my throat just watching him. His face looked like it was chiseled by God himself and with fiery maroon hair under his crown, his piercing gray eyes and his toned abs adorned with different royal accessories and holding a very long staff, he looked out of this world.

Something about him made me feel like I was choking on air, a heat I couldn't explain started in my chest. This was not the first time I was seeing a handsome man, but something about him was just...pleasantly different.

"When you linked me and told me we had a threat, I expected something more impressive. Where did you get this child from?"

His voice was just as deep and sultry as I imagined it would be. Wait a minute. What did he just say?

"She is human, Your Majesty," the man who carried me here announced before falling on his face before the Alpha and the council released a uniformed gasp.

His expression changed immediately from disinterest to anger. Sitting up on his throne, he motioned for a man who hurried over.

"Ready the gallows," he ordered. "This human is ready to die."