Chapter 4. Agony

I sigh, internally irritated at his attitude, before staring down at the dark amber liquid contained within, its heavy scent of herbs and perfumes wafting up into my face. I spot the others drinking it down fast, without question, and I follow suit.

It tastes like thick gloopy honey, laced with chemicals that burn my throat as I take it down and almost choke on its thicker consistency. I gag but manage to claw myself into staying still and swallowing hard with multiple gulps. Closing my eyes as the taste turns bitter, spreading down my throat and into my stomach, immediately warming them both. I can feel it disperse into my veins and limbs, knocking the cold of the rocks away from anywhere my skin touches, and almost immediately, I get a little dizzy. The ground around me moving and swaying softly, like the sea coming in on the tide.

I shake my head, but it’s completely pointless. Hunching forward so I don’t fall over, I now understand why every time I watched this, the newest to awaken would sit the whole ceremony slumped down and immobile until they turned. Seemingly oblivious to all the tradition and its stages, the light faded to dark. They have dr**ged us for the pain, and I start to lose track of everything around me as a veil of surreal sweeps up like a warm fluffy fog and devours me whole.

I don’t know how long we are this way or what’s happening, as all I can hear is the chant of the Shaman as he dances around, shaking things, singing, and clapping. Vision blurry and coming in waves, my body heavy yet detached, and I no longer feel like I am here or even conscious. Time passes, but I have no clue how fast or slow, and all I know is it gets dark so quickly around me, and I can’t seem to stop myself from drifting into space or losing track and fading away. Cocooning me into the little bubble of black space around me, where the smell of fire and incense makes me giddy and sleepy. It’s peaceful, yet somehow it’s not, and there’s a stirring of awareness and fear almost out of reach.

Lulling into a weird semi-sleep state, I can no longer open my eyes or understand what is going on around me. There are warm hands on me, maybe, but I’m not sure. The sudden breeze, although it does nothing to cool my eternal warmth.

Cold liquid and wrinkled hands, as something is smeared across my forehead, making me cringe with a second of reality, and I grasp to focus on the dancing form in front of me. Rattling, blowing smoke, chanting a song as it runs down the bridge of my nose, and I pull from memory that the new turns are marked with a fresh blood kill to prepare for their turn. My face will bear the mark of a wolf from an animal our Alpha will have slaughtered.

The roughness of something pulling across my skin startles me slightly, and then suddenly, I’m levitating out flat or floating, or maybe lying down. No clue anymore. I’ve never felt anything close to this, not even being drunk for the first time a few months ago when we found some alcohol in the orphanage storage cupboard. I’m too wasted to know what my body is doing, and the heavy, loud tones of the wolf song echo across the mountain as the packs sing to welcome our moon.

The memory of witnessing this many times reminds me they take them and pull the blankets free for the turning, laying them down to be blessed by the full moon, and logically, a part of my brain is telling me this is what is happening. It’s almost like I’m no longer attached to my limbs as warm sensation trails firmly across my cheek. A raspy voice comes through the fog at me.

“It’s going to hurt… I can’t wait to watch it, Reject. Or maybe I might take advantage of you like this. Finally, get my way.” I barely recognize the voice, but gut instinct tells me it’s Damon, a boy from the Conran pack who tried to kiss me a year ago. He cornered me in the school hallway, pushed me against the wall, and tried to force me to kiss him while shoving his hand up my dress. I fought him off, leaving him with a nice scratch down his smarmy face, and he has been gunning for me ever since. Not that I marked him badly, we heal fast, but I left a dent in his pride and ego.

I can’t react, and as a hot invasive sensation moves down my shoulder, I can only squirm, wanting so badly to get his hands off me. He’s not that dumb, though, and with all eyes on us, he leaves me alone to my fate as I try to fight to come back to a sense of now. Suddenly afraid that he will be the one to tend to me like this after this is done. Responsible for ushering me back to my clothes and the concealed shadow of the cliff edge. Who knows what he will do? I don’t recall if the turning takes you out of the dr*g-induced stupor when it’s done or not.

I can’t dwell on it any longer as a burning light hits me hard over my entire body surface, almost like a blowtorch was turned on, and I spasm instinctively into an arched position on the floor. Every inch of my skin bubbling and blistering to searing levels of torture as though I have been set alight and I strain and claw the ground beneath me, gasping with effort. Breaking nails on rough terrain as I scramble for relief and yet can do nothing but scream.

Crying out in pain, writhing in agony, as an intense sensation rips my skin from my bones and engulfs me. My voice deepens, scraping and hoarse like I’m swallowing splinters, and cries become growls, my throat almost bursting into flames with the effort. For a second, it’s like I’m being strangled. I’m under attack. My body is being ravaged, twisted, snapped, and slain, but this isn’t another wolf… this is the turning. It’s so much worse than I ever imagined it could be.

Cracking, convulsing, and devastating agony rip through me hellishly. Sending me rolling around to relieve the pain as grime, rocks, and dust scrape at my flesh and burn as I graze across them. I whimper and moan, but it eases nothing of the torture of my body crunching and shredding itself apart. I cry out, beg for my mother to save me, wail for the Fates to stop this, and claw at the rocks, breaking fingers with the sheer force of my fight and gouging what’s left of my skin on sharp edges underneath me.

No one could prepare me for what this feels like, and I’m being turned inside out while slow-roasted over an open bed of hot coals. I can’t breathe, I can’t scream anymore, and silently, I writhe and jerk and twist and turn as I am consumed by hell.

Our noises are drowned out by the stamping, chanting, and clapping of the packs, thundering through the ground and reverberating through my broken, smashed body, giving way to howls as the moon reaches its peak. They encourage us to make the final transition to become like them. Combining to howl, under strict orders that none are to transform tonight and break the ceremony. Only the new shall change tonight. Only our blood will spill as our human form is destroyed to build something better.

I want to die.

The pain is unbearable, driving me to the brink of insanity, and it truly feels like my human self is being tortured to nonexistence. Every bone in my body snaps and reforms as though it’s being done manually, one at a time. My flesh tears free and pulls away from the muscle. I’m wet, a hot pouring out as blood drains from the hellish self-inflicted wounds that seem to last forever, covering me in sticky warm heat, smothering me, and leaving a vile metallic scent. I can’t tell what’s sweat, blood, or maybe other kinds of fluid. I howl and strain with all my might, so I extend my face up into the air and gasp with relief as my lungs inhale and I finally take a breath. Barely holding on, reaching a pinnacle where my mind is on the verge of collapse, and the dregs of sanity teeter on a cliff edge.

And then… everything is still.