Fantasy There's No Such Thing as Werewolves (Closed)

[brightkings]

He took a sip of the water and set the book of Norse myths down. This was not the best case scenario, not at all.

Mr. Riley apparently thought pulling a Houdini after his daughter was attacked by a monster was an appropriate action. You’re on your own. Tobias would have liked to call bullshit on that, if the man hadn’t taken off.

And his worst case scenario had been confirmed, at least a bit of it. It had been a werewolf.

“Okay. Okay, wow. Cool. Cool, cool, cool. I mean, it makes sense. Kind of. Not really,” his eyes were now completely glued to the window. And the door. Any possible exit, really. “Weren’t you the one who thought he was off his rocker? And, yeah, his stories were good, but they weren’t real. Right?”

He turned his attention to the coffer on the kitchen table. It seemed to be embossed with something, like the Hogwarts crest. Except he was pretty sure Mr. Riley had not gotten an owl at age eleven.

“What’s that?”

 

[Amazonkass]

"Yes, yes. You know how I felt about his stories, but it's the only thing that would make everything fit." She told him as she took another sip of her water. She knew it wasn't believable, "You know how hard it was for me to admit this to myself? I seriously never believed his stories! And now I'm going to live as one!"

When he drew attention to the box on the table, she found that she was a bit relived to have something else to focus on. "It's my family's hunting box. My dad always promised he'd give it to me when he died, and said it was my legacy. I've never seen the inside of it, and I'm hoping it maybe will have...I dunno some kind of book we can learn something important?" It was a stretch, but she had never seen inside of it. She had no idea what was in it.

"I wanted to wait until you came over to open it. I feel like this is all my fault somehow and maybe this will help us some way." She offered as she pulled the box a little closer to her and flipped the latch. Jae locked eyes with Tobias before she opened the lid.

Inside the box was a set of five journals, a few bottles with ancient and withered looking things in them. They had turned black with age, and Jae shuddered to think what they looked like when they had been fresh. The box also contained a small dagger with the same crest as the box, embossed on the handle.

"If anything in here is going to help us...it's going to take a while to figure out..." Jae couldn't help the disappointment in her voice.

 

[brightkings]

“Yeah, it definitely is,” he said, not daring to touch a single thing. Everything in the box looked cursed, as if the Pharaoh had used the things to ward off greedy archaeologists. “But the journals could be important. Assuming they’re in English, of course. They’re probably written in like, ancient Latin or something. Also, you’re gonna have to be the one who reads them if they are because one, I suck at Latin, and two, I’m not touching them.”

“Okay, wait, your dad said you were all werewolf hunters. But since we’re, y’know, werewolves, do you think he meant for us to...?” He trailed off, gesturing at the dagger. It was a stretch, but then again, his entire life was turning into a young adult urban fantasy novel. The only thing he was missing was abdominal muscles to show every two seconds. Too bad for the moms, he’d never get those. But also, was he supposed to kill himself?

But Mr. Riley wouldn’t want that. Jae was his only daughter, and while he was sort of unimportant to everybody, even the guy who thought describing human gore in excruciating detail to first graders was a good idea wouldn’t just want them to kick the bucket for his own benefit.

 

[Amazonkass]

Jae carefully pulled out the contents of the box and laid them out on the kitchen table, before moving the box to the floor with a thunk. When Tobias mentioned the knife and her father, Jae couldn't help the doubtful look that crossed her face. She honestly wasn't sure what he meant to do by leaving the box behind. "I have no idea. Who knows what the dagger is even for?" She didn't sound like she was convinced.

"Alright, it could be in there for us to kill ourselves..." She admitted finally as she shook her head and picked up one of the journals. In the light that shined from the fixture above the kitchen table, the journals could be seen more clearly. All of them were wrapped in aged leather and secured with a leather cord tied around them. They all had the family crest embossed in dark ink on the fronts of them. Jae unwrapped the journal carefully and began to thumb through the worn pages.

"Fuck!" She groaned as she put the book down with a sigh. "It seems to be written in some kind of code. And if there's a code in one of them, there's probably going to be some kind of coded language in all of them. This is going to take forever!" She slammed a balled fist into the table, making the contents of it shudder.

"What the hell are we going to do Tobe? My dad's gone, I can't go away to college now...and you, how are we going to explain this away to your mother? She was so angry with me about you getting hurt, imagine what would happen if she found out about this?" Jae looked to be on the verge of tears.

 

[brightkings]

Tobias didn’t have much experience with crying. About ninety per cent of it had come from endless rewatching of Romeo and Juliet–seriously, all they needed to do was communicate like civilised people–and the real thing made the window look better than ever.

And Mr. Riley really had left. What was he going to do? Forge his identity in the Himalayas, then return at the last minute to play the hero? Whatever. No matter what, when he returned, Tobias was going to kick his ass.

“Hey, hey, it’s cool, it’s chill. It’s fine,” he wasn’t sure who he was addressing. “We can still go to college. I mean, you can, I’ll audition for the role of like, flower number two on Broadway. We’ll just have to pretend there was a wicked party during full moons. And, we don’t have to explain this to Mom. I’ve hidden tons of stuff from her before. R-rated movies, alcohol, a dead fish.”

He paused, thinking of what to say next. “Wait, hear me out here. So there’s definitely at least one other werewolf in this town, the one who bit us. If we can find them, then maybe they can read that stuff. I can’t read that code, I hope you know. Also, I’ll say this again, I’m not touching it.”

 

[Amazonkass]

Even though he was trying to calm her down, Jae could feel hot tears springing to her eyes. She cried silently for a moment and listened to his idea. It took her a long moment to compose herself before she responded to him. "I have a feeling there's some kind of cipher in these books, but finding another werewolf in town? You make it sound so easy. How exactly would we find that out without waiting in the woods on the full moon? I have a feeling we'll have other things on our minds at that point."

He wasn't completely wrong though, and Jae was glad she at least had him to talk to about this whole mess. "I appreciate you trying to help Tobias, but I have a feeling this isn't going to be as easy as you make it sound. Any way your mom would let you... stay the nights here? At least for the first time I'm not sure we should be apart." She was trying to think ahead. She knew he was trying to make her feel better, but Jae's analytic mind was racing at a thousand thoughts per second.

She seemed to settle on something and looked back to her best friend. "I'm going to delay going in the fall for college, I hope it will just be a delay at least. I have to see if I...we can get this under control."

 

[brightkings]

Tobias nodded. It wouldn’t be easy, of course, but it could work. Once they were able to get the wolf thing under control, then maybe it would happen. At that point, everything was just guessing.

“Fair enough. Maybe there’s something in this,” he waved the copy of Norse Mythology: the Essential Guide, Revised Edition. “That’ll help us.”

He almost laughed when she mentioned his mother. That would be a much more painful death than stabbing himself. “I mean, I could sneak out again. And I probably will. I don’t even know if she’ll notice. The only times I see her are when she wants to discipline me again, and I won’t miss that at all.”

Tobias was a bit scared, concerning what would happen during his first transformation. It was unnerving, thinking of what that would do his already underdeveloped body.

 

[Amazonkass]

Jae was glad he had brought some research material. She got up as he spoke about his mother and sneaking out, to turn on the ceiling light in the living room. She picked up the journals and motioned for Tobias to come join her. "You work on that book, I'll try and crack some of these."

She didn't have much hope, but at this point in time she was sure it was their only option. She set the bunch of journals on the coffee table and picked up the oldest looking one. She was going to have to figure out what the books used as a cipher. Jae settled into the couch and tried to keep her mind off of the thoughts that were trying to take over.

"Men especially, become physically aggressive around the time of their first transformation. There isn't a lot of research on what happens to women. But one thing's certain, it's excruciating the first time, and doesn't get any easier." Jae could hear her father's voice in her head as if he were there.

Jae knew Tobias would eventually ask, and if he didn't, she would have to tell him before the next full moon. She turned her attention back at the task at hand. There was some scribbling on the inside of one of the books.

Baring-Gould, 1865

Jae tried to think on what the words could mean. If Tobias happened to glance up at her, it would seem her eyes were a bit glazed like she was deep in thought. The name sounded vaguely familiar, as she had decided it was a name. She snapped out of her thoughts and picked up her phone. Within seconds of typing in the name, Jae had found The Book of Werewolves written by Sabine Baring-Gould, published 1865. She let out a loud 'YES!' before turning her screen to show Tobias.

"I think this is the cipher we need to crack the journals. It's old enough to have served as it for quite awhile. That being said, I don't exactly know where to begin with decoding it, but at least it's a start." Jae told him as she sat back from the books on the table. "Find anything useful?"

 

[brightkings]

Tobias has never been fast at reading. He was especially slow now, trying to decipher what alcohol these Norse lot were high on. Most likely something stronger than the average, stale beer.

“Not much,” he said, closing the book shut. There were graphics containing sibling deities doing things siblings should not do, and he could live with never seeing that again. His father liked these books? “Unless you count the information that I’m going to eat the almighty god Odin, according to here, useful.”

He read the name and the title on the screen. “That could be something, yeah, but where’re we going to find it? We don’t have that many libraries here, and most of them are in schools.”

Was he willing to break into an elementary school, possibly damaging property and most likely damaging younglings’ minds?

Honestly, yes. One of them had stolen his ice cream and gotten away with it back in ninth grade, and he wasn’t going to let that slide. Also, since the transformation process was most likely extremely painful, he was fine with breaking a few windows to learn anything more about it. Did this make him a bad person? Yes, but he’s known that since the first time he betrayed his parents’ trust. What more was one more time?

 

[Amazonkass]

When Tobias mentioned not knowing where to find it, Jae frowned. He was right about that. From what she had found online, the book had been out of print since the 1970's. Still, there was a chance they would be able to find it somewhere. "I don't think we're going to find what we need at a school library. Or a regular library, we're going to have to find it online." She told him as she put her phone down and sighed.

"I don't know what we're going to Tobe. There's so much about the transformation and all that, that my father told me in stories. But most of them were ways to kill werewolves when they were in different stages of the transformation." Jae sighed. They had a month to figure out the journals and tackle their first transformation. It all seemed impossible, and at that moment Jae burst out laughing.

It started small until she was in full blown hysterics, tears streaming down her face. "My dad...left..." she wheezed, "because I'm a werewolf now!" She couldn't tell if it was the combination of the ridiculousness of the situation and her future being gone, or if she was just losing her mind. "Tobias..." She continued to laugh, "We're werewolves!" She cackled, "Guess we gotta go live in the woods!"

It took a few moments before she had stopped laughing enough to catch her breath, "I need a drink. You need a drink. I'll get us drinks." She told him as she moved over to her father's fully stocked liquor cabinet, still chuckling to herself.

 

[brightkings]

Seriously, this entire situation was just a whirlwind of everything including, but not limited to: emotions, hormones (the only mood swings Tobias had seen that were like that were the ones on television, and those were pertaining to pregnancies. How would werewolf pregnancies even work?), and swearwords he would be using quite a lot.

"Sure, sure," he said, still trying to figure things out. They had one month until the dreaded day. How were they supposed to learn how to read runes that looked like they belonged in a documentary about vikings?

"I'll be taking that drink now." Tobias would need many to have any ideas. But, seriously, how would a pregnant werewolf work? Were they sterile? Was that important?

No, not really, but it was easier than actually facing said problems.

Could he grow a beard now?

 

[Amazonkass]

OOC: Sorry for the long delay in reply!

Jae was glad Tobias had agreed to a drink. She was still snickering a bit to herself as she poured them both a double of whisky and added some coke from the fridge. She knew much more about the whole process than Tobias, and she knew that was the part that was keeping some small part of her mind sane. The other, larger part of her mind just wanted to keep laughing at the absurdity of everything that was happening. This part of her brain was also she guessed, the denying part of her brain. There was no way they had been bitten, because EVERYONE knows that werewolves aren't real.

Maybe it was part of Jae's childhood conditioning shinning through, but she knew that the tiny voice saying 'this isn't real, and it is most certainly not happening,' wasn't right. She'd seen the creature with her own eyes, and even Tobias couldn't deny it all made sense.

Jae sat back down and handed Tobias his drink, she raised her glass into the air and looked at her best friend, "To us, because we're going to need all the help we can get." She cheered the air and clinked her glass against Tobias' before taking down half of her drink in one gulp.

"Can we...just watch a stupid movie and forget about this for the rest of the night?" She asked Tobias after she had finished her drink and went to fill herself another. "Where ever we're going to find that book, it's going to be there in the morning. Let's get drunk and watch shitty horror flicks."

Jae wasn't sure if Tobias could hear the hint of pleading in her voice, but she had tried to mask it.