Harold groaned quite loudly as an excruciating amount of pain jittered through his body, tearing his human flesh apart as a new, thicker, and dense skin covered his shifting skeleton.
As he transformed, his human mind reminded him of the stakes at hand and consequences if he howled in the forbidden part of the school which he was in, and although his wolf instincts told him to, he kept it locked in his throats which made the pain as he mutated even greater.
His ears stretched like a force was pulling it to his limit and his facial bones began to shift and snap, rift slowly like a mechanized tool and join to new stout bones that could stand against the strongest of metals. His legs arched inwards, forming a slightly curved bow behind his knee before the straight, strong part rooted itself into the green grass beneath it and his arms fell on the wet grass before turning into hale and hardened limbs.
Brie, whose transformat
Wednesday's sunshine broke through the misty clouds that had coagulated like a chick that was forcing itself into the world by cracking open its shell, and one of the very few students who watched the sun grow bigger as its warmth heated up Golden Lake was Harold Girard.“You seem happier than usual,” Wilkes said when he had watched Harold look through his window into the brightening sky for a few minutes. Harold who had been oblivious that anyone was watching him will sometimes break into a smile as the sun's tentacles massaged his cheek and some other times, he sighed happily like the life he had fantastized of on lazy afternoons was what he was living.Harold looked at Wilkes and smiled again, revealing his near-perfect dentition. “Yes, yes, I am.”“Want to tell me why?” Wilkes asked as he smiled in return. Definitely, whoever said smiles were contagious was correct. He, Wilkes, knew that the reason why Harold was joyful wa
For the first time in Harold's life, he went to the gym—when he was done with his classes for the day at a few minutes after 4 pm, to get physically fit. After last night's training that had lasted for a little over seven minutes in the field which was out of bounds, Harold was utterly exhausted and Brie who was still as fresh as she was when they started, on their way back to their various dormitories, advised him to exercise very often, especially since the contest was fast approaching.“Your first time here?” a very slender female with well toned muscles that were of a perfect size when matched with her petite and extremely flexible body said as she stretched her waist beyond what Harold thought was possible of a human.“Yes, yes,” Harold replied as he looked all around. There were tons of equipments everywhere, hanging from above, resting thickly on the ground like they never had and could be moved, a few in their own special compartments, and r
With the famous scowl on his face after the day's lectures, professor Ericson packed all that was left of him in his office into a small box and sealed it tight with a tape as he relived what had ensued between him and the Vice Chancellor, Dr. Peyton Giovanni, minutes ago that had led to his ‘expulsion till further notice’.After lecturing the third year students for an intense forty-five minutes on how to heighten their senses, he had been called to the Vice Chancellor's office for an impromptu meeting by none other than Mr. Heathers who had been sent to get him.“You... Your attention is needed, sir, in the Dr. Giovanni's office,” Mr. Heathers had stammered, not being able to meet the cold eyes of professor Ericson.“Anything wrong?” Ericson had asked as he studied the wobbly frame of Mr. Heathers. He put the marker he had been holding since the class ended two minutes ago on a desk, dusted his hands of imaginary dust and sh
Harold Girard put the letter back into his bag, took out Trisha's phone, put it safely in his pocket then surveyed the the map which was neatly folded in his bag.He looked around, wondering who had put it in his bag but no one present in the gym looked likey they could have done it so, he parted the map slowly on his lap and studied it.There was a diagram towards the edge that looked like it was drawn by a kid for his project and an ugly sketched arrow pointed at it with ‘Golden Lake University’ written on it. From the school, ‘x’ trails which showed the part Harold was follow during the contest led into a part with small firs drawn like the design found on clothing materials. To an edge, Harold saw ‘Forest’ written in a clumsy handwriting and he, Harold, instinctively nodded his head as he understood what it meant.His eyes followed the ‘x’ trails again and only wavered once when an irregular circle was drawn quite a distan
“We have to keep everything safe,” Wilkes said as the trio stood on their feet, ready to go to the fields at a few minutes to 11 PM. “We've gotten to a point where we just can't risk anything or make mistakes.”Harold nodded in affirmation and Trisha looked around the dark room for the best spot to hide the letter in her hand and the map in Wilkes'.“Let's put them in here first,” Harold said, opening the mouth of his bag wide for them to put into his bag. When they had done that, he folded his bag in a way he knew the contents in it didn't stand a chance of tearing or soiling then he kept it under his bed.“Good spot?” he asked as he pushed his bag deeper and deeper—almost completely out of reach, under his bed that oozed a funny odour.“Yes.”“No,” Trisha countered quickly, holding her glasses by the handles against her face so that it didn't slip off and break. “Trust me, if anyone breaks in here
Professor Ericson's bones were becoming cramped because of the position he had been in for the past eighteen hours and the joints of his fingers which were tightly wrapped on his steering wheel pinched him as he kept on driving through the woods with his car's headlights—which were gradually becoming pale, shining on the dirt track ahead of him.For hours—almost a whole day if proper record was taken, he had not seen sunshine due to the thick trees and large leaves that converged ahead of him, forming a shrubby canopy. The network service, too, was unbelievably poor, and many a times, he had gone for hours without as much as one network bar on his phone.Most of the times, he had to use his natural compass—which was very inaccurate, to manage to continue moving but for all he knew, he could have been roaming around the same spot for the past eighteen hours and he will have no idea.As professor Ericson drove through, not mindi
From the night after Harold had proven to be a tough competitor when he faced Brie, he spent all his free time in the gym, doing sit-ups, and push-ups, lifting weights, too, and jogging on the treadmill to improve his endurance.Trisha and Wilkes who hadn't told him of their plans, prepared bit by bit to follow him when he was gone for the contest without him knowing. They had highlighted certain points on the map for what they referred to as ‘emergencies’, made suggestions of possible wild creatures they could come across and ways of dealing with them through minimal effort and resources and so on.Every evening, Harold met with them, they spoke on inconsequential matters for a few hours to wane the tension that built up everyday then they all headed down to the fields at night for Harold to practice.“I strongly believe this is my night,” Harold said to the other two as they walked causally to the field two nights befo
The students of Golden Lake; first year students the most, gathered in huddles in the auditorium that smelled of sweat and smelly feet to hear the details of the contest.As the week gradually ran down to the D-Day, Friday, which was the first day of the contest, students began to cheer their specie on.On the first day of the ‘outbreak of supporters’—which happened to be a Sunday, a large billboard that had ‘Go Derek Baxter’ in a swirly font was mounted in front of the Enchanters building with a picture of Derek holding his wand and looking very grim.The day after that, the Bloodsuckers came up with a T-shirt—and an anthem, too, for the vampire going into the contest as their representative, Penelope Quinn.On the second day after the massive support had started rolling out, a Tuesday, the vampires still had nothing and Harold wanted it to be that way until some students he referred to as ‘miscreants’ manage