The Choice: Part 3

The Choice
Part 3

So, not surprisingly, I went home that day and had a heart attack. I didn't know whether to write it all of as a hallucination or to start screaming from the rooftops that werewolves were real. The latter, of course, seemed a very foolish notion, especially considering my conspiracy-fueled ideas on the subject.
Werewolves. Werewolves! Holy crap! Oh my gosh, what the hell? How is it even possible? I can't begin to describe my excitement, my fear, my apprehension... I didn't know what to believe, so I believed everything. Any attempt I made to temper my feelings just ended up being squashed a moment later by another question I might get an answer to. I didn't know that I could believe her or not, but just the possibility that there was this completely other race, this culture that, according to common society, doesn't even exist, and that I had stumbled onto it like a rock in the middle of the street, I mean... this was a huge deal. It was an affirmation of all my thoughts and expectations about the world, and for the first time in my life, things felt right.
Caroline was, to me, infinite possibility. I wanted to learn everything about her, her family, her lycanthropy. Everything that could give an extra dimension to my boring life, I wanted.
The next day she found me during lunch. She sat next to me, her tray exhibiting signs of extreme vegetarianism, and said,
“Prove to me why you're not a waste of my tine.”
“Hello,” I said, “you're sitting next to me.”
She shook her head. “And?”
“I figured you didn't want to socialize. People are looking and they're going to think we're, I dunno...”
“What? Dating?” She laughed. “Who cares what they think, we don't fit in with them anyway.”
“'We?'”
She took a bite of a celery stick and said, “You're nowhere near as stealthy as you think you are. Even when you're looking at me out of the corner of your eye, you're still looking at me. I've been watching you right back, okay? I could tell you were an outcast from the start, but I never expected this.” She shook her head again. “You take notes on people like they're, what, test subjects? Seems like you spend so much time trying to understand people, you lose the ability to live among them altogether.”
“Yeah? And what's your excuse?”
“You already guessed it, remember? We're not talking about me, we're talking about you. Unless you're all touchy-feely about that crap.”
I scratched my chin. “You have a very abrasive personality, did you know that?”
Caroline made to get up. “Fine, if you're not going to take this seriously-”
“Wait, no, hold on!” I said, grabbing her wrist.
Now, if I can just have you hold that image in your mind for a moment; Caroline half standing, half sitting at the table, looking at me with apprehension; me holding her by the wrist, desperately trying not to blow this chance. If I could point to any one moment in my life and say, “There, that's it, that's when it really began,” it'd be this one. Not many people have that luxury. It helps a lot, in retrospect, being able to see the very second the world changed and trace the transformation over time. You learn a lot about yourself and the world around you that way.
When I grabbed her, there was a very sudden moment of silence. The white noise of a hundred teenagers conversing disappeared entirely, and time itself seemed to slow to a crawl. And then I felt a pull in my chest, and my vision went black.
But it wasn't blindness, because I still saw things. It was different, though. My eyes had gone dark, but as I was being pulled through...whatever you might call it, my soul or essence or what-have-you experienced the visceral sensations of the universe. Conscious experience, despite what we might fool ourselves into believing, is more than just seeing and hearing and feeling; when you take the body away, suddenly you're not limited by your body's pain, pressure, and temperature thresholds; suddenly you don't have to worry about your brain needing to focus on one input at a time in order to make sense of it. When it's just the soul, you experience everything. Every blade of grass and drop of water. But even that doesn't do it justice, not really. It's like... every single atom is a vibrating universe all its own, and the soul touches them all individually, flows through them, expands them, becomes them. My soul was ripped out of my body, and pulled through what felt like an infinitesimal number of universes.
And yet, I somehow arrived at the image of the moon. And instead of being this rock in the sky reflecting the light from the sun, it was like a... a power source. It emanated this white, flowing energy that charged me and calmed me and made me feel like everything was simple and in its place. I had images of running through forests and hunting and howling at her -because Luna is a presence entirely her own on that plane, something I'm sure you've felt for yourself.
In all the time that I had been interested and obsessed with werewolves, I had never truly felt in my core that they could be real in an honest, scientific world. But when I touched her hand, I felt like I should have been one all along, like it was my calling.
My destiny.
And then I was back in the cafeteria, holding Caroline by the wrist, dazed and confused and not being entirely sure where I was.
Now, keep in mind that the entire experience happened in a span of time less than a second. I could barely have quantified what happened as having even occurred at all, except that I remembered it so thoroughly, albeit in a strange second-hand sort of way. I'd used senses that my soul understood perfectly, but that my physical body couldn't begin to comprehend.
I let go of her hand like it had given me a static shock, and when she looked at me expectantly for my explanation, I struggled to remember what it was she had asked me in the first place.
I said, “You're not going to believe this.”
I explained what little of my experience I could put into words, and she remained silent for a while. I asked her what it could mean, and eventually she explained.
“What you're describing is called astral projection, but I've never heard of it just happening like that without drugs or something. You're not on drugs, are you?”
“Of course not,” I said.
“Okay, so... what the hell?”
I stared at the palm of my left hand, rubbing it with the fingers of my right, and I said, “So, is that some kind of werewolf superpower?”
“Are you really entirely clueless?”
I said, defensively, “I'm sorry, I've never exactly done this before!”
She held up her hands, “Alright, okay, calm down. Everyone astral projects. Generally, that's what dreams are. Your essence leaves your body and goes to the astral plane, tied to your physical self only by a strand of energy no thicker than a thread. You ever wake up from a bad dream feeling like you just got flung into the upright sitting position?”
I nodded.
“That's the thread pulling you back. Anyway, it can be done consciously, but it's very difficult. It generally requires a lot of patience, and at least a couple years of daily meditation and self-discipline. There are a few stand-out cases but, uh... no offense, but you don't seem the type. And anyway, no one could just throw their essence out there so specifically and pull it back that quickly without at least a little preparation.”
“How do you know I'm not just that good?”
She rolled her eyes, “Because that's stupid, and you're stupid for saying so.”
The bell rang for us to go back to class, and she said, “Meet me at the same place after school, okay? I think I know what happened.”
I nodded and gathered my things.
Well, we met after school and we discussed my experience. She asked me a lot of questions about myself and my life, turning out my insecurities and trying to understand what I had seen from my perspective. Nothing about her opinion changed, of course, and I felt a little bit silly falling in love with the sound of her voice as she essentially interviewed me for inclusion in the Caroline Friend Club.
When she finished, I asked her to tell me what she thought, and she said she would rather wait. Not because of any dislike, simply that she wanted to wait what the effect of my experience might be. She would rather, as she said, be proven silently wrong than start a fuss and end up getting me hurt.
So, while it annoyed me that she might know something about me that even I didn't, I agreed to wait with her, and put forward that, in the meantime, we hang out outside of school.
I had spent several hours rehearsing the potential responses to this question at home, and not a one of those responses included the phrase, “Okay.” She said this and hurried away, late for whatever it was she had to do after school, leaving me flabbergasted beneath the trees.
Over the next three days, we continued seeing each other in school, and she asked me questions about philosophy and theology. I never had to explain why I wasn't a waste of time, apparently, as she found me to be a curiosity even compared to herself.
We'd made tentative plans to go see a movie over the weekend, a strangely normal thing for her to suggest. Not that I cared; I liked to think that I had the guts to put a hand on hers and an arm around her shoulder, to let her lean on me and maybe steal a kiss when emotions were high on the screen. Of course, on the night before we were to go, she canceled for reasons she wouldn't explain, and I was left feeling nonplussed and rather stupid.
It came to my attention that my experience took place the week before the full moon. Well, that Sunday I started to feel something very strange as it got closer to night fall. My fingertips tingled, and my heart seemed to be racing even though it wasn't beating any faster than normal. I had an excitement coming from a very primal part of me, and without thinking about it I went outside and ran as fast as I could in the direction that seemed like it would take me to the nearest outcropping of trees. I ended up just laying there on the ground, staring at the moon, feeling like a dog lazing in the sun. It just felt so natural, and I couldn't help but smile. I had the urge to go into a restaurant and order a steak so rare I could still hear it moo. I thought about chasing deer and killing them, to eat them and just to enjoy the hunt.
Of course, tempering these sensations was a fear that I was just making it up as I was going along, that I was letting myself believe what I wanted to, finding signs where they weren't any. And after so many days, I could easily convince myself that my experience had been just a flight of inspired improvisation. Maybe all of this was just my plea to get into Caroline's inner circle. Hell, maybe she wasn't even a werewolf? She could have just said yes because she thought it was good sport.
I did consider her words, though, and that possibility didn't seem entirely probable, but I couldn't write it off. There was no proof one way or the other for any of the possible explanations, so I had to believe that they could all be the truth.
I imagine by now you're starting to see a pattern.
Well, I went to school the next day and didn't tell Caroline about the night before, although she seemed to have expected me to say something and was obviously disappointed when I didn't.
The following night, however, the night directly before the full moon, I almost killed myself climbing up a tree, and I found myself heaving in my bedroom, unable to sleep, being shaken by the ghost of a pain I couldn't place. I told Caroline the next day, and explained my reluctance by saying that the first night hadn't seemed too out of the ordinary, but now it was starting to get undeniable, and I needed an explanation.
Caroline told me to have patience for the rest of the day and try to act normal, as the pains were still coming to me. She wanted to explain it after school. So I waited, and every class seemed to last an eternity. My mind was wandering to various places at speeds I couldn't keep up with, and while I was exhausted I was also exhilarated. I didn't know what I wanted and I was scared out of confusion. But Caroline gave me a hope.
I thought I was becoming a werewolf, and it scared the hell out me, partly because it didn't make any sense. I mean, she hadn't even bitten me! But I was simultaneously fighting it and letting it wash over me, this recurring sensation of free-fall. I almost landed myself in detention last period for not hearing a teacher call my name five times in a row, but thankfully I still remembered algebra and answered the question with relative ease.
And then I ran to the ROTC field and waited for her.
Caroline sat me down on a log and explained it as best she could.
“What you're going through right now... it's the call.”
When she didn't say anything else, I said, “And what is that?”
“I... don't know, exactly.”
“How do you not know?!”
“Because I -because it's not like it is in the movies, okay? Werewolfism is a lot weirder than you realize.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was born a werewolf, but neither of my parents even think they exist. I... know things, but I could never tell you exactly how I know them.” She took a deep breath and said, “I may come off as really confident or whatever, but I'm kind of freaking out right now because this is something I thought was just in my head.”
“Oh, you're freaking out?” I said. “I'm the one feeling like my stomach is turning into a boulder and having fantasies about killing woodland critters!”
“Alright, sorry!” she yelled. “We're in this together, okay? So just calm down.”
I took a breath and said, “What's going to happen to me tonight?”
“Probably nothing.”
“Probably?”
“Nothing like what you're thinking, I know that. You don't have the blood of a wolf, you can't shift like I do. The call is something else entirely.”
“Would you be so kind as to explain?”
She composed her thoughts for a moment.
“What you're feeling right now is a general transformation of your soul. You see, there are people like me, who were born werewolves, and there are people like you who were... not. But were supposed to be. Maybe it's some genetic thing that didn't come up quite right in your bloodline, or maybe your soul got put into the wrong body, I don't know what could lead to this situation. But you're like a...a baby werewolf that hasn't been born yet, and can't be without my help.”
“Did you just call me a fetus?” I said, then shook my head, “Nevermind. So, why is my soul, uh, transforming?”
“It's re-purposing itself now that it's come into contact with the spirit of the moon.”
“Okay... What does that mean for me?”
Caroline took a deep breath, seeming reluctant to tell me more. But she continued.
“It means that, after tonight, you're going to spend the rest of your life fighting off the impulses you're gaining now, and you're going to want to become a true werewolf. You'll likely find yourself reticent to go anywhere for fear of hurting people, or lose your mind trying to act like a normal human being. You'll fight as hard as you can, but you won't be able to resist it. That's why it's the call. She wants you to be one of us, and she's given you the energy to make that possible.”
“She?”
“Luna. The spirit of the moon.”
“I see,” I said.
We sat in silence, I rubbing my palms again.
“I guess I want to be a werewolf,” I said. “I mean, I'd never given it much thought before. Not like this, anyway.”
She shook her head. “What do you mean you want to be?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“What you're going through right now, you'd define it as painful, right?”
“Yeah...”
“Well, I promise you that being a true werewolf is much more painful. The battle you'd be going through against the call is nothing compared to what you'd go through trying to lead a normal life as one of us.”
“You pull it off pretty convincingly,” I said.
She stuttered. “I, well... You, you have no idea what it's like to be this thing that's a joke to most people, alone in a truth that no one would acknowledge even to a crazy person-”
“I wouldn't be alone, would I?” I said matter-of-factly. “And neither would you.”
Caroline stared at me, then laughed. “You are a piece of work.”
“What? Am I wrong?”
“Not necessarily, but you have no idea-”
“You keep saying that, but I just... I mean, if you're so alone, what harm would come of having someone in your life who is like you? Who does know exactly what it's like? And as for me, I just don't think it's going to be like you say, with the fighting and the struggling and all of that. I'm freaked out and nervous and...a lot of things right now, but ever since my experience... This feels right to me, you know? Like this is what was always supposed to happen.”
“There you go with that destiny talk again.”
“Well, hey, you're the one who said that werewolves are just born with no regard for genetics. If it really is like that, what are the odds that you'd be born in your family and live here, as a werewolf, and I would be born in mine and have my obsession, and then come here, and us have this conversation? You change a single detail in either of our lives and this whole thing just falls apart. So, why not destiny?”
She shook her head. “You're seeing what you want to see. Hindsight always gives you a good plotline, but what about the future? What's stopping me from walking away right now and never talking to you again?”
“Because we're in this together,” I said. “I think you're curious to see why I feel the way I do, why the moon would pick someone as -someone like me. I think despite everything, you feel responsible for my pain and don't want me to hurt any more than I already do.”
I rubbed my temple and stated, “And more than anything, you don't want to be alone anymore.”
Caroline stared, slack-jawed, then bit her lip and shook her head, turning away, laughing.
“Where the hell did you come from?” She said. “You are just... you- you- you don't even... Shit!”
She ran her hands through her hair and sighed. “Listen, I like you, but you don't want this. I promise you, you don't want to be like me.”
“Why not?”
“Because it hurts being singled out, seeing the world from a completely different perspective than everyone else. I mean, you can't comprehend...”
“What if I'm sick of being like everyone else? Maybe I want a new perspective?”
“Yeah, but for how long? This isn't reversible. I didn't have a choice, I am stuck this way. You do.”
“I guess, but do I really? Even if I choose no, I'll still have to fight the call the rest of my life.”
“That's a small price to pay comparatively, trust me.”
“But the whole point of me hearing the call in the first place is to bring me closer towards being a werewolf. Isn't it? I mean, if I've been chosen for this-”
“Chosen? You say that like this is some kind of movie or something. This is just how it happens, okay? This is just the world.”
“It's not like the world I've lived in all my life. Look, I know what you think here but you can't change my mind. You can't change how I feel. I have spent my entire life just...watching people. You know? I'm sick of being that person, of being the guy who never gets into trouble and never does anything exciting. Since I met you, I've felt more than I have probably my whole life. I don't want this to stop. Whatever this is, be it destiny or chance, I want to see it through to the end. And I don't think you want to just give it up, either. I mean, do we really want to go the rest of our lives wondering what would have happened if we had followed through on this?”
“We could live to regret it,” she said.
“I won't. Even if I am wrong and this is a terrible idea, I won't regret it, and you know why? Because despite everything, I did something. I lived. For once in my life, I actually made a choice and saw it through to the end. If nothing else, at least I could say that I tried.”
Caroline stared at the ground for a few moments before saying, “You are a very surprising person, you know that?”
“How do you mean?”
“You're...different. You actually think about things. You didn't seem like much at first, but...”
She mulled over her thoughts, then stood up. “I have to think about this. I'm not saying one way or the other yet. I need some time to make sure.”
“Make sure what?”
She smiled. “Make sure you're not just crazy.”