Second Nature

I jump awake, startled, as I hear a loud, piercing howl somewhere outside. I crawl out of bed and look out my window. The moon is full and high in the clear night sky. I see a fire burning in the distance and I hear people screaming. I stand there gaping in wonder when my parents come running into my room and tell me we need to find shelter. They say some other teens in the neighborhood have gone crazy and they’re dangerous. I slip on a pair of jeans and a jacket, zipping it up quickly then slide my feet into a pair of worn tennis shoes. My younger brother is already waiting at the door, he looks tired. It is past midnight. We go outside and the family car is ruined. All four tires are slit and there’s a giant crack in the middle of the windshield. I gasp at the sight of it, wondering who would do such a thing. My parents decide we should walk to the bus station. I jump as I see a teen boy nearby who seems to be able to breathe fire. I dodge a blaze of fire that comes so close to me I can feel the heat from it. I see a familiar-looking teen girl running from another teen boy and she runs straight through a brick wall. I blink a few times thinking I must be going crazy! This can’t be real! Suddenly I jump as I hear a low, menacing growl nearby. I look around and I realize my family has disappeared from my sight. Then I hear another growl and I see a guy my age stagger out of the bushes and I recognize him as Drake, one of the “bad boys” in my class. He was a known troublemaker. He cried out in pain and I heard a loud crunching sound then I watched in shock as he turned into a huge wolf right before my eyes. He was a beautiful silver wolf. He sniffed the air then looked at me and growled again. I growled back at him. I was surprised by my reaction. I’m not an animal, I don’t growl at people . . . or wolves. Drake, the silver wolf, moved towards me slowly in an aggressive way. My heart began to race and my own body started to change, I heard a loud crack and it felt like one of my ribs broke. I gasped for breath, forced down onto all fours by the pain in my body, feeling like I was going to implode. After a few seconds that felt more like hours the pain finally ceased and I looked down at my hands to see they’d changed into huge, orange, striped paws. I thought “Oh my God, I’m a tigress.” I’d somehow turned into my favorite animal. My favorite big cat. Tigers were gorgeous, smart and intimidating, plus they had at least one advantage over almost all other cats, they could swim. Most cats were known for hating water but not tigers. They used the water to their advantage. The day I was born my parents gave me a stuffed tiger. I’d lovingly named it “Raja”, yes after the one in Aladdin, I was a Disney kid. I was drawn back to the present by a loud howl, then the wolf growled as it ran towards me and tried to bite my neck. I growled back and slapped it with one of my huge paws leaving a huge scratch down it’s side. My animal instincts were taking over. The wolf yelped and then began circling me, not backing down. I sniffed and wrinkled my nose at the smell of the wolf. The blood in my veins told me the wolf and I were enemies dating back since the beginning of time. Cats and dogs had always been enemies and always would be even though some people got them to co-exist. That’s why the wolf had attacked me. I didn’t really want to hurt him but he wouldn’t back down. The wolf made a jump at me, teeth snapping at my neck. I roared and tried to bite the wolf’s neck, swatting my paws at it and swishing my tail angrily.

A young man in a black, padded uniform equipped with a pistol, taser and a baton had witnessed the two teens transform themselves into a wolf and a tigress and go into battle in a mere matter of seconds. Things were getting crazy. He thought, “How should I handle this situation?” Then he ran over to one of his superiors and brought him over to see what was going on, while he explained what he’d seen. He said, “How do you want me to handle this, sir? You want me to shoot em?” Then he laughed in an evil way. His superior looked at him with a serious expression and said, “Are you crazy?! Do you wanna get killed? If you shoot that tiger you’ll only end up pissing it off and getting yourself mauled, do you know how much that animal weighs? You won’t be able to take it out with a pistol! And if that doesn’t kill you then our leader certainly will! He told us to bring the kids in unharmed, you idiot! Now, let’s go and get a tranquilizer gun out of the truck.” The young man said, “Sheesh, sorry.” The older superior just shook his head then they both grabbed tranquilizer guns and darts out of the truck and went back over to where the tigress and wolf were still fighting.

I continued to fend off the wolf, striking, dodging, and clawing. I didn’t think he’d ever give up. Suddenly I caught a whiff of a new smell, I heard a yelp then I saw and heard a dart go zooming into the wolf’s side. I watched as the wolf yelped and crumpled to the ground, unconscious. I looked towards where I’d seen the dart come from and next thing I knew I felt a dart hit me in the side, in between my ribs. I roared in pain. I started to feel dizzy, the earth seemed to spin and I stumbled as darkness closed in on my mind. I felt another dart hit me but it didn’t seem to hurt as much as the first one. I slumped to the ground, unconscious.

The older superior guard called his leader and told him everything that had happened with the werewolf and the werecat. His leader told him to have one of the telepaths come and wipe the events of what had happened in the past couple hours from their minds and then he was to bring the two to where they were holding the others.