9 To Kill and Ea (1/2)

Hunter bounded swiftly into the woods. He had been aching to shift since lunch time: he had felt the surge of animal energy coursing through his veins and the wolf's hunger had been clawing away at his insides. He needed to channel his urges into a hunt, otherwise, he would've gone crazy.

When he was far enough away from the fence, he chose a safe spot under a tree. The half moon was cradled in the tree's branches as he looked up: he deemed it a good sign.

He let go of his human mind and began to shift. His spine lengthened and his muscles grew to accommodate the increase in his height. From his human frame of nearly 6 feet tall, he grew larger to an impressive 8 feet from his head to his new hind legs. His bones shifted all over his body and his muscles and tissues expanded to cover them, all the while his organs moved, resizing and reorganizing inside him. As the surface of his body increased, his leather costume was swallowed into the expanding mass of his new skin.

When a human shifts into the werewolf form, the old skin is swallowed by the new skin. Organic leather melds with the natural skin of the human body and forms the foundation for the new werewolf skin and fur. Any other material would be rejected in the transformation and be ripped apart like tissue paper. Hunter's leather getup was specifically designed to ensure that he would not go naked shifting in and out of his werewolf form.

Hunter's fur bloomed in light gray tufts across his transformed body, and as his tail grew out of the base of his spine, he fell to the ground on his newly formed paws. The increase in sense of smell and vision always overwhelmed him so he usually held his breath and kept his eyes closed while shifting forms.

When he felt the last of his bones and organs slide into place, he finally opened his eyes. From icy blue, they had changed into a deep amber color. It was a dark night out, but with his werewolf eyes he could see as clearly as though it were late afternoon. He took a deep breath and smelled the air.

He started and almost fell back on his haunches. There was a new smell in the woods. Something that had never been there before. He raised his muzzle in the air and took another whiff. He started again, jerking as though he'd been smacked on his snout.

There was a woman in the woods. She was still there and she wasn't far away.

The fact that there was a woman in the woods wasn't what surprised him though. People came out here every so often: students (usually male) on a dare wanting to prove they were brave and forest rangers (mostly male) who did their rounds in the woods every month or so.

This woman was different. Special. She had a scent like nothing he had ever smelled before in his young life. It was probably a scent that his father or even his grandfather had never smelled in their lives.

It was the scent of a female werewolf.

Werewolves in general were a rare species, rarer even than vampires and witches. Outside of his own family, Hunter had never met another werewolf, and even then all the ones he knew were male.

He couldn't believe his luck! He wagged his tail like a happy dog. He wanted to howl at the moon and proclaim his ecstasy. But he didn't. He would reserve his rejoicing for when he finally met this new werewolf.

He bounded off into the night, racing toward the source of the enticing scent.

****

In Ash's dream, the deer had disappeared. She was now eating the largest chicken leg she had ever seen in her life. Dreams were weird like that, they give you the things you crave when you're awake and blow it up to cartoon-level proportions. Her teeth were so strong that she cracked right through the bones and chewed them up. When one chicken leg disappeared, she reached for another one and proceeded to feast on it as well.

She was enjoying her meal when a large dog suddenly came up behind her. She turned around to greet it.

[Oooh, doggy! Maybe doggy is hungry too!] Ash thought.

With the giant chicken leg still in her mouth, she reached out to pet the large dog. But it wasn't her hand that reached out to pet him: it was a large bear-paw sized hand covered in thick dark gray fur. The fur was similar to the large dog's, only darker in color.

[Huh? What's going on?]

The theme of Ash's dream quickly changed from a happy feast to a strange twisted nightmare. The chicken leg in her mouth was no longer a chicken leg, but some kind of large animal leg. The large dog was now a very large wolf with light gray fur and amber eyes. And she was a fur covered creature.

She dropped the animal leg. She felt the broken bones in her mouth and tasted blood and flesh on her tongue. She swallowed, hard.