Dawn of the Werewolves

Chapter 3 - Bullies

By the middle of the morning, at a certain High School, Amy Pearson opened the door that led to the balcony on the rooftop of the main building. Surrounded by a wall at chest height, it was not a place where students were allowed to be, but that never stopped them.

Amy’s childhood friend was there, waiting for her. They used to always be together, but since High School started, she stopped wanting to go to School with her and even joined the group of popular girls.

Amy Pearson didn’t understand why, but the popular girls started to pick on her, bullying her every single day. They would make her trip, bump against her on purpose, or put papers with insults in her locker.

Asiya Khan was always with them, and she did nothing to stop them. Instead, she laughed and clapped every single time. More than once, she would be the first to make Amy trip, starting another round of bullying from the girls with her.

Asiya forced a smile and greeted her. “Hi, Amy. I wasn’t sure if you would come or not.”

“Hi… It took me a while to decide. I am not sure why you wanted to see me here, considering all the mean things you have been doing to me ever since you joined that group. You know what they are doing to me every single day, and you did nothing to stop them. Today, you left a note in my locker, saying that you wanted to apologise and explain.”

Amy made a slight frown when she saw her once-upon-a-time friend making an awkward smile and waiting. Asiya then explained, and Amy felt her heart stop. “They are being mean to you because they found out your parents are Werewolves. Since this week you are going to be sixteen, you will probably be one of them as well.”

“Sometimes kids with Werewolf parents never change, and sometimes kids with normal Human parents change! It’s not an exact science! How did they find out? I never told anyone, and neither did my parents!”

From behind them came a girl’s voice that made Amy shiver. “Oh, that is easy to explain! Asiya told us! What were you thinking, you monster? That no one would find out?”

Amy turned to face her bully and her three friends. Charity Richie was grinning at her, with a dark brown hijab covering her hair and surrounding her cute face and hazelnut eyes. Amy faced her childhood friend, who was now also grinning at her. She understood immediately. She snitched, and that was a trap. No one was around to see them, meaning they could do anything they wanted to her.

Then, something snapped inside the always peaceful girl. Amy jumped at Asiya’s throat and squeezed while shouting, “Why did you tell? Why are you being so mean to me? We grew up together, moron! Your parents are also Werewolves, and I never told anyone! Not even after everything you and Charity did to me!”

Charity and her three friends frowned at the two fighting girls, and while Asiya was trying to take Amy’s hands from her throat, Charity shouted, “You are also one of them, Asiya? Shit! Are you like her, a rotten Monster?”

Asiya rolled her body, and they both bumped against the wall. With a final push from the adrenaline and fear that what happened to Amy was also going to happen to her, Asiya shouted as she pushed Amy against the wall that surrounded the balcony, “No! She is lying! I am not like her; neither are my parents!”

Amy screamed while her head was being pushed backwards and she felt her feet leaving the ground, “Yes, you are! Even your grandparents are Werewolves! You changed for the first time before High School started! I was with you, and I helped your parents restrain you in their basement!”

Asiya shouted, and made one last push, “Liar! I am not a monster like you! I am not!”

Amy went over the wall and fell head-first on the concrete, three floors down. Asiya stared at her former friend’s dead body with blank eyes, watching as the pool of blood stretched on the concrete, making a strange shape, and she mumbled, “Amy… I… I am sorry…. Amy… What did I do…”

Then, she felt hands on her arms and legs, lifting her over the wall, and she shouted, “Wait! Stop! Let me go!”

Charity spoke in an angry tone, “You are one of them as well? And you told us you hated Werewolves! You monster!”

“No! I am not! Let me go! I am not one of them! Let me go!”

“Oh, I will let you go, alright! You know what my father says? A good Werewolf is a dead Werewolf!”

Asiya screamed all the way down, her arms stretched forward, desperate to hold on to something. In a flash, all the memories she shared with Amy came to her mind. All the time they bathed together, played together, or cried together. All those images vanished the moment her head got sliced open after hitting the concrete. Her hands and arms broke first, and her head last.

On the top of the building, Charity Richie was grinning, and one of her friends asked, with a pale face, “What… What do we do now? If someone saw us…”

Charity turned to face her friends, and her scary smile made them shiver. “We saw nothing. We go wash our hands and faces in the bathroom, and then we go to class. Those two were most certainly fighting here, and they fell during their fight. No one saw. We were never here. Understood? Unless any of you want to join them!”

The other girls vigorously shook their heads and followed their leader to the exit door, leaving the balcony in silence, straight to the nearest bathroom.

In there, Charity was smiling while washing her hands, and asked the three girls next to her, “What do you say if we go do some shopping after School? I feel like celebrating!”

The three girls slowly nodded, and one of them asked, in a whisper, “Charity… What about our religion? We are Muslims, and according to the Islamic teachings, this looks bad! We… we did nothing wrong, right?”

“What are you talking about? Didn’t you see the news lately? This is war! And we are soldiers! It is us against them! You forgot?”

“No… I didn’t forget… I just… The Quran preaches kindness, forgiveness, and tolerance, but what we did… I am not sure…”

“You are not sure, because you are not studying hard enough! They are rotten! All of them! They taint our blood with their mutations! What do you think will happen someday? We will all become their food source! If you want to be a sheep, it is your call! I would rather fight with all my strength to rid the World of their impurity!”

The other girls gulped and fixed their hair, following their still grinning leader to the next class.

Meanwhile, in another country, a Priest was at the pulpit, starting his daily sermon to the people that went to his church. Surprisingly, besides the usually elderly folks that were normally in his Church at that hour of the week, there were also a few middle-aged men and women scattered on the benches. They didn’t seem to be in the same group, but it was still strange.

Taking little note of that, he started, “Brothers and sisters, I hope everything is going well in your lives, with the grace of our Lord, despite the state of the World lately. The news on television and in newspapers is upsetting, but I pray that the good Lord will guide us in these dark times.”

One man on the left of the aisle spoke in a loud voice, “I wonder if God would allow Werewolves to be alive if he was still around!”

The Priest jolted because he was not used to being interrupted in his sermons. He kept his calm demeanour and said, “Werewolves are still Humans like you and me, my child.”

“They are not like me! I am a real Human! Those things are an abomination, bred by Lucifer himself!”

“I… wouldn’t say that much, my child. Any Human can be a Werewolf. It all depends on the blood mutation and chance.”

The same man grinned, and the Priest noticed that the other people that were new to his Church, also had a weird smile. Then, the man said, “Is that what you say to yourself in the morning, you monster? I know, and my friends here with me also know, that you are a Werewolf. The only thing we don’t know is if these old people here are Werewolves or not!”

Before the Priest could say anything, four men got up from their benches, guns pointing at the old people who were too surprised and scared to react. The Priest quickly raised his hands. “Please! Don’t do anything foolish in the house of God! These people are not guilty of anything you think they are! I have known them since their childhood!”

The grinning man pointed his gun at an old lady with white hair and dark clothes who was on the bench in front of him. The woman stared at him with a frown, and she growled.

Then, a gun fired, and in the next second, the Priest was ripping his clothes and flesh, and jumping towards the first armed man. A big, dark Werewolf with claws pointing forward and sharp teeth.

One after the other, they all died. Along with them, two of the elderly that were shot by the guns.

The Priest changed back, and kneeled in front of one man, whom he tore apart, and said, “God, forgive me, for I have sinned…”

And he cried while his community was cleaning the blood off his body and fetching a robe to cover him. Around them, eight people were dead, benches were broken, blood was all over.

The old lady with white hair, who got hit by a bullet in her left shoulder, caressed his head and said, “You are not to blame, Priest. You saved everyone here. I didn’t even have time to change, but you didn’t hesitate to protect us. It is like you always say, God is watching, and I am sure he will forgive you for this. You need to forgive yourself as well.”

“I… I can’t… I… I need to call the Werewolf Enforcer Unit… and turn myself in… I didn’t even think, I just… wanted to stop them, but my beast took over and I…”

“We all saw what happened, Priest, and we can vouch for you. Come, let’s sit and pray for these poor souls. They probably had problems with Werewolves because of their stupidity, or because they didn’t even know that anyone could be a Werewolf. Or maybe they knew and thought they were doing the World a favour.”

The Priest slowly nodded, and while one old man was grabbing his phone to call the Enforcers, the others prayed for the ones that died.

Half an hour later, Aella ‘whirlwind’ Harlow entered the Church, dressed in a white sweater, dark brown trousers, sneakers, and her dark brown hair tied in a ponytail. She looked around at all the mess and frowned.

After she introduced herself, the Priest got up from his bench and said, “I killed four normal Humans. They pulled guns to kill my Church members here, and I… I tried to save everyone… They killed two of my friends.”

“They started shooting? Or they invaded and-“

“No, they were attending the service. I have never seen them here before or in any other place. They knew I was a Werewolf.”

“How did they know? Do you have any idea?”

The Priest slowly nodded. “I never hid what I was because I am not ashamed of it. I learned how to live with my beast. My community also knows, but a few stopped coming here over the years.”

Aella sighed and looked at the headless body near her. She faced the Priest again and explained, “In normal circumstances, I would kill you immediately, but self-defence grants you some leeway. I need your statement and everyone’s. I will call some people to clean all this, and I also need you to come with me to Headquarters.”

“Yes, I expected that. I am sure this will put a dent in the Werewolves’ reputation…”

“Maybe not. If everything happened like you told me, we can say a Werewolf intervened to save innocent people from a group of extremists. Or something along those lines.”

The Priest looked at the broken benches and said, “You know… Things were not always like this. When people found out that Werewolves existed, a lot of families were happy, because they thought they were the only ones suffering from the blood mutation. But then, some strange groups of normal Humans started to appear. Jealousy, fear, doubts about the future, all of this ruled their lives and decisions… Not to mention the several times that Werewolves in their Human form did some impossible things. All that pressured people. Normal Humans and Werewolves began to clash, and it has gotten worse over the years. I fear for the future…”

Aella remained silent, remembering her childhood. She then vigorously shook her head, took a notebook from her pocket, and said, “Now, tell me everything, from the beginning…”