Changing for Love Chapter 6

Changing For Love

Chapter 6

Thomas

I’m moving. Why am I moving? The soothing, white light that surrounded me a little while ago has now become a white, hot heat. There is pain, lots of pain. It feels like fire is running through my body, coursing, blazing its way through my veins. I don’t know what’s going on. Nothing is making any sense except the pain. And I still don’t know why I’m moving.  

My body starts to jerk and my muscles start to spasm. Then it feels like my bones are breaking and my blood is now boiling. The motion comes to a sudden stop and there is more pain. I have fallen and I hit something really hard. I want to scream but no sound comes. I can’t see, I can’t hear, and all I feel is pain. Surely this is not what dying feels like. I think I’m lying on the ground but all I can do is writhe and thrash. Please, make this stop! Make this pain go away!  Please…

There is something nudging my head. Over and over something is pushing me. Whatever it is, it is soft, but definitely insistent. I roll over just a bit expecting the pain to get worse but it’s gone. I roll over once more, but no more pain. 

Wow! No pain! I try to move my legs and they move just fine. They feel strong and agile! I lay still for another moment, and just try to take in the surroundings and sounds. Something is still nudging me. I smell the dirt, the grass, and the pine trees. I smell leather. Leather? I smell something else. I think I recognize the scent but it’s much stronger than I remember it. Suddenly whatever is nudging my head snorts.  Snorts! 

My eyes fly open and I jump straight up in the air just like I’ve got springs in my legs. I twist around in midair, swing out with my hand, and make contact with something big and stout. When I finally land I see a horse. A big, red, frightened horse that’s ready to stomp me if I don’t move. It’s Whiskey! I take a couple of steps toward him to tell him it’ll be ok. As I step forward he steps back and whinnies at the top of his lungs. “Easy,” I say to him, only the noise doesn’t sound right. “Whoa boy,” still, it doesn’t sound right.  He’s hurt and bleeding. There’s a huge gash in the middle of his chest and he’s staring at me like he’s terrified. I’ve had this horse since the day he was born. Why is he scared of me? I take another step toward him and realize that he is taller than me. He hasn’t been taller than me for about the last three years. And I’m standing on four legs! What’s going on? What’s happening? I take a deep breath in and scream as hard as I can. The sound I hear is an awful roaring, growling sound. When I open my eyes Whiskey is running in the other direction. I scream again and then I run. I run as hard and as fast as I can back toward the woods. No!! No!! This can’t be happening!! I am a huge cat! That huge cat with the black eyes; Celeste’s dad! He’s the one that did this to me!

I break through the trees at a dead run. I’ve never been able to run this fast. I fly. I can smell a familiar scent in the air and I run toward it. Someone or something is going to pay for this. Suddenly I see one. There is a big cheetah with golden eyes stopped and staring at me. I stop for a minute and stare back. There is something familiar about this cat but the blind fury that I’m feeling right now could care less about familiar. I want to punish something or someone. Guess I’ll start with this one! We circle each other, staring into each other’s eyes. I’m done with this playing, so I leap. 

I collide with this cat and instantly tackle it to the ground. It screams and I roll it over on its back and go for the throat with my now huge and vicious teeth. The cat’s eyes open and are staring at me, pleading almost. I growl, still latched on to its throat, and a tear rolls down its cheek. 

Celeste! This is Celeste! I’ve found her. Just as I’m about to let go I feel two stings somewhere on my side and hear the repeat of a rifle from a good ways off. Celeste!

As I start to wake I open my eyes and start to focus I see a stone wall and dirt floor that I’m lying on. Slowly I lift my head up to look around better. There are three stone walls and the front is covered in large, iron bars. I see a huge cat on the other side of the bars. I roar and leap as hard and as fast as I can. I hit the bars full force and stick my front leg through the bars to try and rake it with my claws. The cat backs away swiftly and darts behind a nearby tree.

I back away from the bars and pace. When I look back outside of the bars again, there is a girl standing there. She has long dark hair and is tall and thin.  Her eyes are a beautiful hazel color. Celeste! Instead of feeling relief, I growl.

She moves toward the cell with her hands out, palms up. “Thomas! Thomas, it’s me! It’s Celeste!” She is pleading with me. 

I pace and growl some more. I’m so angry, confused, afraid, frustrated, all in one.

“Please calm down.” She steps a little closer to the bars. “Thomas, you have got to listen to me. Please.”

Calm down! Ha! I roar as loud as I can. 

She sits and puts her head in her hands. Then she looks up at me with tears in her eyes. “I know this is confusing and frightening, but you have to listen to me.” One tear flows down her right cheek. She quickly wipes it away. “You have to change back into human form!” She pleads.

I sit back on my haunches to listen for a minute. 

“Thomas this is really important!” There are tears streaming down her face now.  “I never meant for this to happen. When my father attacked you I woke to find you bleeding. I could smell the death on you from the injuries you had suffered. “I thought werecat saliva could heal you so I licked the wounds on the back of your head.” She buries her face in her hands. “Thomas I’m so sorry! I didn’t know that this could happen.” She raises her face up and looks me right in the eyes as she stands and moves a little closer to the bars.  “My licking your open wound has turned you into one of us, but in a mutated form. Thomas you have to try to calm yourself so that you will change back into human form before the full moon rises tonight. If you don’t, you will remain cheetah and my father will make me kill you.”

Kill me? What the? I roar and leap up at the bars again. Celeste doesn’t move this time. She stands stock still. 

“Celeste?” A huge man with dark hair has come up behind her. “What are you doing here? I told you to stay away!”

“Father I’m trying to calm him. I’m the only one that will be able to reach him.  He will listen to me. Give me a chance!” She pleads with him.

Another large man comes up behind Celeste and her father. He has a rifle with him and hands it to Celeste’s dad. 

This is it, I am going to die. I roar and start to run around this cell desperately searching for a way out. 

“Here Celeste.” Her dad tells her as he hands the rifle over to her. 

“No father!  No”

“This is what happens when rules are broken Celeste. These are the consequences your defiance and recklessness have caused. It is time for you to take responsibility and make it right.” 

“No dad! I can get him to change back.”

“Celeste, he is a beast now. He’s a mongrel, no longer human and not truly one of us. He is a threat and a danger to both races Celeste. You must make this right.”

I stop running and look at her. Our eyes lock and that moment back in the clearing where I first saw her comes to my mind. If I have to go, at least the last thing I will see before this nightmare is over is her beautiful face. I sit back on my haunches and just take in the sight of her so I can take this with me.

“I’m so sorry Thomas.” She is sobbing now. “I’m so very sorry.” 

She holds the rifle up to her shoulder and takes aim through her tears and shoots!