Memories
Chapter 1
The camp is cold this time of year. Frost bites as if it’s starving and frostbite is a cold blue parasite constantly ruling night and day. Icicles are icy clear spears pointed down towards us, ready to freeze our hearts with their penetrating cold.
Ceries shivers next to me, rubbing my hands between his to keep them warm. We wait in our morning lines, cold and stiff and ready for our standard yard run. Everyone is tired and adjusting. Just yesterday it was summer, warm and hot and spicy. But the cold comes faster and faster each year and this time we weren’t prepared for it.
When the bell clangs for line-up and inspection, we’re already in position. I make sure of that. My team is always the first and the finest. Our gray winter uniforms are perfectly crisp, with not a single wrinkle to deform them or button undone to imperfect them. We line up in straight lines, not even daring to shiver for fear of breaking this rare, disciplined perfection.
Torch walks out of the Calipalice looking ready to persecute. He swishes over to our teams, saturated in thick black furs and lathered in a sour, black mood. If only such a fury as this held physical warmth, I wouldn’t mind or complain as much about the company it brings. Unfortunately, cold fury brings no warmth.
He stomps over to my team, scrutinizing every detail, every piece of our uniforms, faces, and stance. Same as every day, he huffs and stalks away in disappointment. He always hopes to find at least one imperfection in my team and he always comes away empty handed.
After Torch finishes yelling at a young recruit over the mismatching of his shoes, he stands at the front of the lines and orders us to begin jogging.
My team leads the way into the woods, pacing ourselves so we don’t run out of steam early. The other teams follow, already breathing heavily as their lungs strain against the freezing cold, stinging air.
The woods are quiet, serene and unnervingly eerie. Trees reach bony arms towards us, basking in the foggy air our breaths drape over their strong shoulders. Black crows with sharp scythe beaks, meat hook claws and narrow, watching eyes perch menacingly on the branches, their soft purring caws falling on our heads like black halos.
We pass several humans, slaving among the trees, cutting down timber for their owner’s house. They snarl as we pass, muttering in distaste hateful words. As always when I come to pass humans, I grin at them and snarl back. They pale when they see my wolf’s teeth and silver, flashing eyes.
I hate that I love to scare them. It gives me a thrill to see their frightened faces and a sickened feeling to know I’m the cause of their fear. I can only imagine what stories they tell their children about the monsters in the woods to ensure that their little ones don’t wander far from the human huts.
I don’t mind that we’re different, hated, and maybe even loathed. We were born with our genetic alterations. We’re used to the animal strength and furiosity our mutations bring. We accept who we are and accept what we can do as easily as a human child accepts that they have toes and enjoys wiggling them in the mud. Nothing we have was ever meant to be ashamed of. Nothing we don’t have, like proper families and time to play, was ever meant to be envied.
Back at camp, Torch waits to dismiss us. He does it with a glare and a promise to punish anyone late for the lunch bell.
We scamper off to our separate areas with our teammates to stretch and relax until lunch. Ceries, Scotty, Ares, Pumpkin, and Tyler follow me back to our cabin where we lay down and stretch our muscles.
“Patty, someday we’re gonna have to find out who’s faster between us two,” says Ares with a smile. “Ten reubilies says I win.”
I laugh. “Ares, you don’t even have ten reubilies. And we both know you have as much speed and endurance as a human.”
Ares growls in playful anger and snaps his large fangs at me. I growl and snap back good humoredly and then continue my stretches, ignoring Ares’ jibes and boasts. We all know that as the Pack and Team Leader, I’m the fastest, strongest, and smartest out of all of us. I always have been.
Ceries, Ares, Tyler, and I were all assigned to labor in the camp when we were ten years old. At first I hated it, the early morning runs, the training, the tests. I felt that there was no time to do anything fun and I wasn’t as good as everyone else. That was before I was tested to determine what I could do. I aced every test and outdid everyone, finally being assigned as a Team Leader.
Ceries had hated it too, mostly because he was smaller than the other Glitches, with less muscle and furiosity. But what he lacked in strength and gusto, he made up for in intelligence. He could outsmart any of the other Glitches without any competition. Except for me. I’m the only one who’s every outsmarted him. If it weren’t for that tiny detail, he’d probably be the Team Leader.
Ares had always showed a passion for fighting. He wasn’t bad at it either. He never jumped into a fight without knowing the competition, all angles of what might happen. Nothing he did was ever rash. He thought about the barriers to his goals and then used his large muscles and brute force to shove them out of his way. Only one person had ever shoved back and that was me. I’d probably only beaten him because I was larger in my wolf phase than he was. My wolf phase was abnormally larger than usual for a she-wolf.
Tyler has never been significantly talented at anything, except for maybe relieving tension between people with his amazing humor, which helped a lot back when me and Ares had disagreements over who should really be the alpha. He’s the heart of the team, our soul, the one thing that never seems to change or get old.
Pumpkin and Scotty came later. Pumpkin, with her sweet charming looks and deadly battle tactics, and Scotty with his speed and unnerving knack for knowing things that are secret. They’re the runts of the group, but they never hold us back or get in the way, and for the most part we leave them be.
Ares, although on the occasional bad day challenges me, has accepted my role as alpha and his as a pack member. The others never really had a problem with my position in the pack, or if they did, didn’t have the guts to express themselves.
I smile at the thought of little Pumpkin challenging me. Ceries glances over at me, his intelligent gray eyes smiling and his lips twitching to do the same. He can read my thoughts better than the other pack members, who have difficulty reaching out and connecting brain waves.
Just as his lips begin to upturn to form a bright grin, the world goes black.