Songs Of La Loba (chapter 1) I ran to the edge of the woods and peered out at a secluded road, with a single truck making it's way to an unknown destination. I ducked out of sight, just as it's headlights swept over the bushes I was hiding behind. I wouldn't have minded if the truck saw me. The only problem was... I was completely naked, and probably looked like some sort of monster with how much mud and dirt was caked on my skin. I watched the taillights disappear down the road, and made certain that another car was not coming. When I was positive the coast was clear, I sprang up and dashed across the road into the cover of the trees. My house was just a few minutes away if I cut through the woods. I knew my way to my house by heart, no matter where I was at. It was like I could just sense which direction to go, but I guess that's just one of the good qualities about being a werewolf. Although I wouldn't call myself that. I am nothing like the stereotypical werewolf, no full-moon shifts or terrorizing villages. When I "shifted" I was an actual wolf. I had wolf instincts, even as a human. What triggered my shift, was my birthday, although I did randomly shift at random times, my birthday was always definite. I have no clue why I shift, all I know is five years ago when I was twelve I had a near death experience... Or so everyone tells me. I can not remember any of it, all I remember is waking up in a hospital and having my mother tell me a story of how hunters found me in the woods gushing blood and #lifeless. Ever since that day, every year on my birthday I turn into a wolf, and I turn human again at random times and in random places within the woods. I was almost to my house now, I could see the outline of the back porch. I stepped over a tree root and out into my backyard. I didn't have to worry about being seen here, since the only house around here was down the road aways. I crept up the stairs making sure to avoid the stair that creaked and slid the back door open. I closed it shut behind me and crept forward with a stealthness a cat would be jealous of. I opened the fridge and grabbed the first thing a saw, which happened to be some leftover pizza, and made my way up to my bedroom. I closed my doors slowly so as to not wake up the sleeping occupants in the house. I felt through the darkness until I found the switch to my bedside lamp. I twisted the knob and my room was illuminated in a purplish light. My favorite color is purple so almost everything in my room is purple, including the lampshade. I settled onto my bed, placed the plate of pizza next to me, and reached into the top drawer of the table my lamp was resting on, to pull out a small leather bound book and my cellphone. I flipped it open revealing dates and wrote down the date I shifted and, glancing at my phone, wrote down the date it read as the date I shifted back. I closed it back and slid it into the drawer again. I turned back to my phone and pizza, and I chowed down as I went through my unread messages, all of which were from various people asking if I was having fun getting closer to religion with my aunt. This was my moms cover up for when I was a wolf. She would say she sent me there, because she felt I was "drifting from God." My "aunt" also, conveniently, did not allow cellphones. People bought it too, but what else would any of them guess to explain my long absences. I closed my phone and laid it on the table next to my alarm clock, which read 11 pm, after I had erased all of my messages. When I finished the pizza I threw the plate away in the small trashcan next to my desk and glanced at my reflection in the mirror hanging on my closet door. I could barely recognize myself as human. My hair looked straw-like and had streaks of brown and green in it, and my skin was coated in such a thick layer of mud that you almost couldn't tell I was naked. I reached out and opened the door and quickly grabbed the first articles of clothing I could find. I made my way back out of my room and down the hall to the bathroom. I turned the shower on and quickly jumped in, feeling knots unwind under to pulsating rhythm of the water. I watched as the water swirled thick and brown down the drain. I stayed in much longer than I should have, and by time I got out the water was cold. As I finished dressing, I glanced up into the mirror above the sink. The girl staring back at me was nothing like the creature who had peered out at me from the mirror hanging on my closet door. Instead the girl in the mirror peered out at me with strikingly blue eyes. She had long light blond hair that was just a bit curly, with porcelain like skin. I leaned in closer trying to remember myself looking this way, but all I could remember was the way I looked as a wolf. I had been a wolf for about three months this time, so it was almost hard to remember myself as anything other than that slender white wolf that lived among the trees. I tore my gaze away from the girl in the mirror and made my way back down the hallway to my bedroom, where I quickly dove under the covers and fell asleep.