The Wolf (Book 1)

First Shift.

I walked out of my house in a hurry wearing some shorts, an old black T-shirt and my trainers I used for running or messing around.

I had emptied my backpack and filled it with some spare clothes, chocolate, my phone a torch and a bottle of water.

I figured if I did shift, first off, id need clothes near me in case my other ones got dirty or something (yeah I'm like that, I don’t really want to put clothes filled with mud.) and I might be hungry and thirsty so that’s where the chocolate and water come in. The torch was going to be used for something else; I needed a little light where I was going.

My phone, why did I need that? I wasn’t going to call anyone, but my phone had a micro SD card in it and has a ton of memory, I figured I might try to catch myself on camera, to see what I look like.

I knew this was risky, if someone found that video, I’d be kind of screwed... ok really screwed.

I stopped dead in my tracks as I faced the woods.

“Let’s do this.” I muttered to myself, it almost felt as if I was in a film, I laughed at the thought.

I started to run, I felt free, like I always did, but this time something else twisted inside of me, I could feel it, I smiled and headed down to a small base/bunker I had made with my friends.

It was essentially a pretty large hole, and a few sticks, but we turned it into a pretty good bunker.

It was pretty low and we had to sit down in it, but in the 8months it had been standing no one had found it.

I crawled in through a small entrance. I was surprised at how dry it was, it was pretty damp and moist but id been used to it being a mud bath down here in winter. I reached out and took a small bundle of black plastic from the roof and unfolded it.

It was a large bin bag ripped open to make a sort of mat to sit on.

It was pretty dark in here so I grabbed my touch and turned it on.

I grabbed a piece of string that hung from one of the main support beams and tight the torch to it, perfect.

The whole bunker was now illuminated and bright enough to use my phones camera.

I took out my phone and slide my finger from left to right on the touch screen.

My phone told me it was 4pm, Thursday the 24th of March and it was 12 C°.

I shivered, wearing a T-shirt and shorts in March, in the south of England, and in this bunker, were not a good idea.

I tapped the camera icon on my phone and pressed the record button, and placed it on the ground so it could see me.

I closed my eyes as I sat down, concentrating. I waited... nothing, 5 minutes passed before I knew this wasn’t how I was going to shift.

I punched myself in the arm, was the pain or anger going to make me shift? No, it just gave me a bad arm.

I then had an idea, if shifting had something to do with emotions, then it had to have something to do with the mind, didn’t take a genius to work that out.

I lay down, cleared my head and breathed slowly, I told myself over and over I was a wolf, or I wanted to shift, I imagined myself shifting, and as I did I could feel it again, that nausea and twisting inside of me, I smiled and began to lose concentration and it stopped.

I tried again, I wouldn’t fail this time. After 5 minutes of pure concentration I jerked to the right, I opened my eyes but couldn’t see anything, I felt my skin rip and my bones changing, it was agony, pure agony.