História Shifter Academy - It's transition time!!

Chapter 18

I didn’t have much time left, and as my feet crossed the door to my room I blacked out. I couldn’t understand at first what was happening, but then it hit me. The transition was starting. I stood up from where I was lying on the grass. I didn’t know why I was there or what was going on., but I knew that it was all part of the test. I found myself in some type of clearing, with trees all around me. They had no leafs on anymore. Instead they were all lying on the floor, forming a very beautiful and comfortable orange bedding for me, protecting my skin from the rough rocks and roots underneath me. I started walking, not knowing where to, since no one ever told me about how to proceed from here. Mace told me about it, and how everything here is a test, and the answer of it will lead you to your animal, but that was all I knew. No one ever talk about what they did, or what happened during their transitions. It was not allowed. Only full shifters could talk about it, because then there would be no influence that could change their decisions here made. 

I entered the woods and started walking cautiously. It was like a normal forest in the fall, my favorite season. Is it fall because of that? does it change for the other? Is it always in the woods? So many unanswered questions….I wish I had any sort of warning as to what will happen here. The time that passed felt like hours, so I stopped by a fallen tree, frustrated. I sat on it and dropped my head between my hands, with my elbows over my knees. Nothing was happening and I was getting tired. Then I noticed a small sound coming from inside the oak. It was a baby bird, scared and overwhelmed, but still fighting to stay out of danger. It must have fallen from its nest. I looked up and saw it over one of the highest trees, so I decided to take it back there. I knew that his mother would not accept him back if she could smell something other than the baby, so I took out my jacked and placed carefully over the small animal, trying not to hurt it. I placed it inside one of my pockets, and then I out the jacket back on, so I could have both hands free to climb.

It took me a few minutes but I finally got on top of the tree and placed the bird in the nest. There were two more inside of it. His brothers I suppose. The one I just saved started screaming like crazy, and they all got as far away from me as they could. Ungrateful brats. I climbed down carefully, trying not to distress them any farther, almost falling in the end, and scratching my hand in a piece of loosen wood. Back on walking, I saw many other animals that I hadn’t noticed before. The forest was full of them. I tried not to confront most of them. I just walked away. Even if they were fighting each other, because I knew it was the normal course of nature. Or if they tried to pick a fight with me, I would concede the battle of will and submit. That just didn’t work the time a energized monkey jumped on me and started pulling my hair. It got me out of guard, so out of reflex I grabbed him and tossed on the floor with one of the moves I learned with Mace. I made sure that it wasn’t seriously hurt, them I moved forward. 

I could almost see the line where the forest ended, and before I could take another step, I heard a noise. It was agonizing. Before looking at the source of the sound I already knew that the animal was in distress. When I turned around I saw a big coyote attacking a small bunny. I was going to turn away but the moment the bunny cried out again in misery, an image of my father appeared in my mind. In that moment it wasn’t just animals fighting for their survival. It was my father fighting against his murderers all over again. And I just couldn’t handle that. I didn’t notice when I started moving, but then I was running toward them both and grabbed the coyote without thinking twice. A second passed before I snapped its neck and it fell dead on the floor. I grabbed one of my pocked knifes, opened with one move and started trusting in its flesh over and over again. I was blinded by my fury, and I just stopped when a drop of blood ran down my face. I looked at it for a few seconds waiting for the remorse to appear, but it never did. I searched for the bunny, but it had already ran. So I just stood up and walked away.

I was still flushed for what just happened while crossing the edge of the woods. After the trees there was nothing. Just grass. I tried to look as farther as I could, but I couldn’t define anything. It was night, but the moon was so big and bright that I could see as much as during daylight. Over me there were many stars. I’ve never seen something like it. It was beautiful. A movement caught my eye back in the woods. It was my shadow, created by the light of the moon coming directly behind me. At first sign it was normal. But then, paying closer attention, I could see it was moving by its own. The movement that started slow was getting faster. It was really freaky. My shadow was getting bigger and then smaller. Not yet finished deciding what to be.

It looked like it was struggling with itself, and I couldn’t understand what was going on. Then, it was divided, being replaced with two of them, trying to find their shape That was the moment I knew something was completely wrong. One bigger, almost Griff’s size.  The other was smaller, but not by much. Out of nowhere my toes and fingertips started itching, and then my arms and legs, soon becoming my whole body. It wasn’t painful. But it wasn’t pleasurable either. I wanted it over. Then the shadows started raising themselves from the ground. Becoming two deep-black blobs of something that I couldn’t yet decide what looked like. Suddenly I felt a pull toward the bigger one. I was compelled to go to it and emerge on its texture. But then the other mass of darkness called me as well, and both their pulls was too much. I was being divided in the middle and the blobs just wouldn’t stop. Then pain came than. It was unbearable. I fell into the floor and started screaming for it to stop. But it never did. My arms and legs were on fire, and my head felt like it was going to explode. I couldn’t handle it any longer. They were calling to me, each one stronger than the other. They were fighting between themselves, to decide which one would win. And then nothing happened. The pain stopped. The pull was over, and I couldn’t feel anything at all. And that was the moment I woke up.