This story starts in Hayden's view but he is NOT the main character, she is yet to come, and when she does the story will continue in her POV. I just needed someone to set up the story, so you know… anyways, on with story! Hope you like it!
Hayden's POV
There had been roomers within our tribe of another pack of body switchers in Washington somewhere. I put it down to nothing but silly Chinese whispers that had the singular purpose of entertaining the town gossips briefly; but I could not help but ponder the possibility with a small trace of aspiration. Who was to say that we were the sole carriers of such a gift? Surely evolution would have put up defences against the stone men in a wider area than just our small tribe.
Of course Brayden, the pack alpha, was dead set upon the tribal stories and liked to believe in the magic of it all. He was quick to dismiss any suggestions of science and reason when it came to our existence, so I never pushed my ideas, but I just could not undertake the proposal that we were "magical" in any way shape or form.
It was ok though, I stood by my beliefs as he did his. After all it didn't really matter how we got here, just that we did, and that we take on our duty to protect our people from the vampires. But it sure would be interesting to find another pack like our own.
"Yo, Hayden, would you stop your mental blabber for like, one second?" 'Said' Luke in a joking manner interrupting my thoughts. "It's bad enough having to put up with Tee's constant singing, I can't deal with you attempting to answer life's big questions too."
"How do you even hum in you're head anyway?" I stupidly asked, then cursed myself inwardly as Tee decided to demonstrate by singing even louder.
"Great" mumbled Luke, then "has anyone picked up anything?"
"Nope" replied three equally bored voices.
It was still snowing, showing no sign of halting, and it was now as deep as my knees in human form, which made it hard to run. The weather was certainly not helping with the pack's mood and I could feel my own limbs grow heavy with fatigue.
"Ok guys" said Brayden "Nothing seems to be happening"
"As always" commented Tee
"Lets head in" Bray sighed, and we all turned back round from our patrols and headed home.
*********
Life as a body switcher isn't actually that bad, fun even. Yeah ok, its lot of responsibility but with that also comes freedom, self-worth and a sense of belonging in your pack. I was second to phase after Brayden, then came Luke and eventually Tee. The change of an individual never ceases to fascinate me; I was always interested to see how they would turn out. So far, the animal of which we take place seems to be reflected in the personalities of ourselves personally; Brayden, calm, level headed yet fiercely protective, takes the form of a polar bear and is easily bigger than any one of the pack, a trait that seems to follow him in human form. This is saying something, as we are all pretty big anyway due to the transformation process.
I take the slighter form of a snow leopard where Luke transforms into a white tiger, mirroring his fast changing mood swings and strong territorial traits.
And Tee becomes an arctic fox because Tee is… Tee. He's wild, eccentric and completely unusual. He is just Tee. There is no other way to describe him.
Naturally, we all phase into animals indigenous to our environment, meaning we are all more than well equipped for living in Alaska, but that doesn't stop even me from worrying about the tremendous wind blowing outside.
I squirmed in bed, listening to the cold weather batter my window panes. The small snow shower I had previously been running in before had escalated over the past few hours into a full blown storm. I pitied any soul unlucky enough to be caught out in this. Sure, it was fine for us body switchers running at a toasty one-oh-eight, but any normal person could easily freeze to death in those conditions. I shivered involuntarily; nothing to do with the temperature.
A faint knock rapped at my door, drawing my attention from my troubled thoughts. I doubt I would have heard it if not for my enhanced hearing. Sometimes it paid to be freaky.
"Come in" I called lightly and in stepped my mother.
"I didn't want to wake you" she hesitated "you've been working so hard recently and all…"
My mother was a slight woman with dark hair and a fragile looking frame, she looked as though she could be blown away with the slightest bit of wind. But her temper betrayed her timid looks and she was well known in our tribe for her sharp tong, which had gotten her in to trouble on more than one occasion.
"He isn't working you too had is he?" she asked, concern lacing her voice.
"No, momma, its fine, see?" I stretched out my arms, nearly touching both ends of my narrow room and grinned.
"Well then" she huffed "He obviously isn't working nearly as hard as he should." She stated in a nonchalant tone.
I snorted, "Ha! I'd like to see you run eight hours a night, non stop."
"I'd like to see you try to feed a body shifter!" she retorted and stepped out of my door way and into the hall, walking back down to her own room. I listened to her footfalls until she closed her bedroom door with a thud. I rolled my eyes and shook my head in expiration; she could never let anyone else have the last word.
Living is such a small, close community, practically everybody knew about our "secret", excluding the kids of the tribe. In some ways this made life a whole bunch easier, I mean I couldn't imagine how hard it would be if my parents didn't know. But then again it can get seriously annoying when all the gossipers "simply must know" about all the pack details. But it couldn't be helped I supposed, there was bound to be people like that everywhere you went. We were just lucky that there weren't that many here…
I could feel myself slowly drifting between sleep and conciseness, never really one or the other. My mind would jump randomly from topic to topic, not ever really settling on one particular subject and never really making much sense at all.
At first I thought that the almost silent knocking at my window was nothing but a pigment of my imagination, maybe just the wind possibly blowing a branch onto the glass. But as it became louder, more persistent it drew me out of my not-quite-sleep and I recognised it to be someone actually banging on my window. "What the…" I slurred in my sleepy daze.
My feet dragged heavily over my cold wooden floor and I blearily peered out from under the thin curtain.
The storm was terrible! Raging through the knight it didn't ever hint at stopping. It was so bad that, although I could see the silhouette of my visitor, I couldn't make out anything else even though they were standing less than a meter or so away. The shadow gestured to my front door then left, heading in that direction.
Confused, I shrugged on a clean tee-shirt and soundlessly crept passed my parent's room and into the kitchen. From there I walked across the room and gazed out onto the porch. Shocked I scraped opened the door from its frozen hinges, and stared.
The small figure of a girl, that could be no older than sixteen, stood faced away from me in nothing but a black tank top and cut off cotton pyjama pants. Her thick golden hair flew around her head like an unholy halo, with tight curls down to her back. I stood, shocked; no normal person would ever be able to withstand such temperatures in those clothes. But that was not what had left me completely speechless, this was no ordinary girl. As she turned, tears flooding her eyes, the wind gave an unexpected turn of direction and hit me flat out with her sent. Not entirely human; this girl had phased.