Prolouge
Midnight on the cliff side. The torrential rain and wind bowed the thick trees like crippled old men. Lightning flashed fitfully, briefly illuminating the shape of the swollen river below.
A wolf emerged from the bent trees, grey fur matted and slick with mud and woodland debris. She squinted up at the sky, searching for the moon; but the dark clouds had stolen its light.
The wolf howled, her ancient body shuddering with exertion, her song pouring from her grizzled, grey muzzle.
The howl gathered on the edge of the cliff in the form of a shining, multihued light. More and more leapt from the old wolfs jaws and it grouped, massing together as a new, glowing wolf formed of the luminosity. The light-wolf paused a while, watching the old she-wolf. It threw its head back and howled with her, weaving a new song, two voices raised in harmony.
In that eternal moment, the inhabitants of Earth were still; even the plants ceased rustling their leaves, although the storm had not passed. A passing fox halted and pricked its ears, listening to the song. Cities came to a standstill; traffic lights turned green and no cars leaped forwards. They heard only the song.
The old wolf opened her golden eyes, face illuminated sharply by a flash of lightning, listening to the searching of the song still sung by the light-wolf. All heard it, but the song searched for the six. First came fire, in the form of a girl, and the song poured into her soul, shaping her future and changing her destiny forever. She was followed by water and earth together in a boy and girl. Air echoed in the soul of another girl and electricity and spirit in two boys.
In unison with the songs' discovery of each element, the ancient wolfs' golden eyes burned new colours; red, blue, green, grey, yellow, then deepest black. She clenched her eyes shut, the light was blinding.
Elements found, the song thundered back to the old wolf, its power knocking her off her feet. The wolf of light morphed to a raven and flew back through the rain into the dark trees, it could do nothing for the old wolf now, the song had completed its' task.
Panting heavily, the ancient she-wolf opened her eyes to hear the last echoes of the song. The lightning still flashed, but the wolfs eyes saw nothing, they were bone white. She knew that her work was done; the burning of the elements had blinded her and bleached her coat colourless. She would live in darkness until her death. The old wolf turned from the cliff edge, last thing she ever saw, and walked back into the forest. Destiny had been set into motion; nothing will ever be the same again.
Emily ran. She ran for what she thought was her life, and, even if it wasn't for that, she ran for her freedom. If anyone had gathered their wits together and told someone what had happened, Emily was in danger.
She was scared, shaking, in shock. As she remembered, a shiver of horror rippled the thick fur of her hackles on her lupine body and she stumbled for a moment, her legs giving way. Her fur was clotted with mud and sweat. It was because of Amy. It was Amy who Emily had thought was her friend, but who had done nothing to help her as she lay on the concrete floor of the playground, convulsing with the pain of her transformation. Also Emily growled viciously and lifted her lip to bare her sharp, curved fangs as she remembered, but this wasn't because of Amy, it was her, not so much friend, rather 'acquaintance', Chloe. It was her fault, the feral snarl said, she made me like this. Emily shook her head. She was overrun by the memory.
*Before*
"Oi, ginger!" spat a deep voice.
The old Emily hadn't stopped walking, and was trying to ignore the voice, closing her eyes and praying she would be left alone. She'd squealed as the hand grabbed her long, red hair, ripping some of the flowing strands from her scalp. Chloe laughed. "You afraid, ginger?" Chloe then slapped her, right across her face, so hard that Emily had fallen over backwards. She winced and felt the back of her head, she had hit it hard. She brought back her hand, it was dyed red. The blood trickled down her neck and seeped into the dark blue fleece and blouse of her uniform Chloe laughed pitilessly. She was short and circular with a round face encased with thick dark hair. She had a tall sidekick with short black hair called Hannah who was loitering behind her, smirking spitefully, she had large buck teeth which were often laughed at by casually cruel children. Hannah had one comeback that she recycled over again when someone mentioned her teeth, "Yeah, well, I can get braces for my teeth, what you gonna do about your face!"
Emily wasn't scared of Chloe, not this time. Her body shuddered as she felt a hot, surging anger pouring through her like an acid; she honestly wanted to attack her, but she was a petite girl, and doing this would most likely cause more damage on her then the her persecutor. Now there was a crowd of children gathered to watch the action, chanting 'fight, fight'. Another wave of anger crashed through Emily, leaving her gasping for air, as she saw some of her old friends laughing, they never helped her when Chloe bullied her, but it still gave her a twinge of hurt, like pain from a long healed wound.
But, maybe if Amy hadn't had been there nothing terrible would have happened, Emily wouldn't have changed, she would still be a normal human going about her normal life, even if it meant being beaten up every lunch. But Amy was there and something terrible did happen; Emily's life was changed irreparably. Instead of helping her, Amy had glared down at Emily contemptuously, back from the safety of the jeering crowd. As yet another surge of red hot fury raced through her bloodstream, unstoppable as the sea tide, rage wasn't all that Emily was feeling. Now a fiery pain was tearing her limb from limb, and she wasn't the only one screaming. Chloe was staring at her with a mixture of horror and shock letting out a long, strangled gasp.
Her uniform shivered into a thick pelt, her arms and legs shortened and thinned, fingers shrinking and fusing into paws, she felt her stubby nails lengthen and sharpen forming vicious claws. The base of her spine grew, sprouting long fur that waved in the breeze. Her knees inverted, hocks taking their place. Her jaws jutted forwards, sharp canine teeth erupting from the freshly formed muzzle. Skin loosened around her neck, the longest, wiriest hair flowed over her shoulders and down her spine, her hackles. She flexed her paws and the superfine velvet fur between her pads moved luxuriously.
As Emily lifted her new wolf body, raised her new wolf head and sang out in her new wolf voice, most of the jeering crowd that had been watching her torment ran away shrieking and crying like ghouls. Emily started as she finally realised what had happened to her and she, quite literally, turned tail and ran.
She pelted towards the remaining stragglers that were standing gaping, open-mouthed. Her muscles felt slick and smooth and strong, her new body was so much more adapted than her human one. Emily could smell the fear and confusion on the nearby school pupils and, remarkably, hear the cars thundering by on the faraway motorway. Each part of her was taut and usable, no energy went to waste. Emily pushed through the crowd and the students recoiled as the huge wolf brushed past them, she leapt over the low gate and shot into the hedge, crawling on her belly under the branches towards where she knew there was a forest.
Emily tried to cross at a deserted road, but cowered back into the bush when a truck rattled past, and seeing the drivers astonished expression she laughed quietly, and listened in wonder to the low barky growls that came from her pointed muzzle. She poked out her head and looked around, turning her large dished ears this way and that. It seemed empty. She saw adults in their homes, cooking, watching television, working at computers and thought, wistfully that she would never live a normal life again. She trotted out, passing a nursery. Emily heard a small child calling out to a parent: "'Ook, 'ook, mummy, dats a big 'ox!". She ran away before she was seen, thinking scornfully and slightly indignantly that young children should make it their first priority to learn to tell the difference between foxes and a wolf. Maybe a large dog, but not a stinking, sneaking, mangy fox! Anyway, wolves are grey, black or brownish. Foxes are red! Emily shook her head in exasperation and moved on.
*Later*
She was running fluidly and quickly through dark back alleyway smothered in rubbish towards a scent that she half recognised, that she had never smelt before. As she splashed through a muddy puddle she caught a glance of her reflection and stopped. Emily looked down at it through the plastic bag floating on the murky water and stared in shock. Instead of a pale human face with ginger hair and a scattering of golden freckles over her nose, looking back at her was a huge, furred wolf face with bright green eyes, green as oak leaves in the sun. If Emily had been a strange human she was an even stranger wolf. Not only did she have the same piercing green eyes that she had had as a human instead of golden lupine ones, but she was red, a deep, fiery red, with flecks of orange and ashy grey. That's what that kid had been talking about. As a child, she probably would have confused a red wolf with a fox. Emily sighed, which sounded to her like a wheezy whine, drooping her magnificently bushy tail. Could she ever be normal? She sighed again and carried on with her journey to nowhere.
*Later*
Emily had reached the woods; the trees were dark and comforting. After the panic and general shock of finding yourself a wolf, and a red one at that, the calm of being under cool, shady trees was a relief. Emily suddenly felt an impact on her back, lurched forwards and shuddered. Then, for the second time in that hectic day of change, pain hit Emily. But, instead of pain mixed with hot anger; the bitterest tasting cocktail, this was sharp pain and fuzzy weariness, contrasting; she felt she just wanted to go to sleep, despite the mind numbing pain. Emily shook her head in confusion. Her eyes were being fogged by a blanket of grey. Emily turned and saw a man with a gun half hidden among the trees, grey, grey. Another thing that she saw made her wolf blood run cold, not the other black-clad men running towards her, but the dart in her back, grey, a dart with a strange, bristly red flight. Grey. A tranquiliser dart. Grey. Emily cried out in disgust and shock. Grey. Emily collapsed, head resting on the forest floor, whining softly, pitifully, please, help, leave me, please. The grey claimed her. Emily passed out.