Shades of Grey: Althea's Story
Chapter 2 - Shattered Hope
The next time Althea opened her eyes, everything was a swirl of sensations around her. She couldn't quite focus her eyes at first, and her field of vision was nothing but a mess of colors. She thought she could hear people talking, but it all seemed jumbled and nothing made sense to her. She smelled cleaning supplies so strong, they made her head pound. Her skin felt itchy all over like she had been covered in poison ivy, and everything hurt.
It was almost like waking up after a bout with a long fever when things still felt completely disorientating. Althea took some deep breaths and closed her eyes. She rubbed at them, hoping that the world around her would make sense the next time she opened them.
Things were still blurry, so she blinked her eyes, objects slowly forming and taking shape around her. The first thing she realized was that the room she was in was mostly white, and a very scary thought occurred to her. The last thing she could remember was leaving work and Apparating to her favorite forest. She thought she'd fallen asleep there, but everything went strangely blank after that. Had she died? She didn't quite feel normal anymore, and perhaps this was what death was like.
But no. As she looked around, more and more things started to make sense to her. She was in a bed in a very long room, surrounded by even more beds with people sleeping in them. Some were sectioned off with curtains, and they all had bed trays on wheels next to them, some of them with trays of food. She was in the hospital.
She desperately tried to think back to the night before - if it had even been last night - but for the life of her, she couldn't remember what had happened after she'd fallen asleep. Then it occurred to her that she might still be sleeping, curled up on the forest floor, and that this was all a dream. It would certainly make more sense than something happening to her that she couldn't even remember.
"Oh, good. You're awake."
It took Althea a moment to register that whoever had spoken, it had been directed at her. She looked around to see a young black woman with her hair in a bun coming towards her. The woman set down a tray on Althea's bedside table with a noisy clank, and Althea flinched away from it.
"How do you feel?" the woman asked loudly.
Althea looked up at her like that was the stupidest question anyone had ever come up with. Not to mention, Althea was the one who didn't know what was going on, so she thought she should be the one to ask the questions. "In pain," Althea said flatly.
"Do you know where are?"
Althea's eyes darted around the room. "Er…in the hospital."
"Indeed. St. Mungo's to be exact, and I'm Healer Reagan." The woman had picked up a clipboard from towards the end of Althea's bed, and she was currently scribbling something on it. Even the sound of the quill on parchment seemed impossibly loud to Althea. "And do you remember what happened?"
"No." Althea waited, thinking she would get some sort of explanation for what had happened, but no such luck. "What did happen?"
Healer Reagan immediately stopped writing. She pressed her lips together and relaxed her arms, letting the clipboard and quill drop to her side. After what seemed like forever, she finally said, "You were attacked."
Althea blinked. "By who?" She couldn't put her finger on why, but the word 'attack' seemed to ring true to her for some reason. She still couldn't remember what had happened, but being 'attacked' felt right. Of course, that would account for why she was in so much. Clearly someone had hurt her.
"It wasn't a person," Healer Reagan corrected grimly. She paused again, like she really didn't want to be having this conversation. Althea thought she had picked the wrong profession if she didn't want to be telling patients what was wrong with them. "It was a thing."
"What?"
"It was…an animal that attacked you." Healer Reagan sighed heavily, and if Althea wasn't much mistaken, there was a look of pity on her face. "It was a werewolf."
A large lump seemed to have settled in Althea's throat that she couldn't swallow away. There were about a million questions whirling around in her head, but she wasn't able to voice ask any of them. A horrible truth began to dawn on her, and her breathing grew hard and fast. She gave Healer Reagan a pleading look, as if asking her not to tell her what she already knew.
The truth hung there like a horrible black cloud over the entire room. Althea didn't even need the healer to say it. It was why Althea felt so odd and different since she woke up. It was why she felt like she was in a dream world or some other alternate reality. It was why she didn't feel human anymore. It hadn't even occurred to her until just then that that was she was feeling - not human. That she was now a "thing" as the healer had so eloquently put it. Althea didn't know anything at all about werewolves, about what they felt like after they were bitten, but she knew that was what she was now. She knew.
"I'm sorry," Healer Reagan said, recognizing the look of complete and utter shock on Althea's face. "You were bitten-" She broke off like she was about to say more, but had changed her mind.
Althea closed her eyes in defeat, feeling just about every single emotion possible coursing through her. She was angry, partially at herself for being stupid enough to fall asleep in the woods when it was getting dark, but mostly at the damned werewolf that had done this to her. She was scared and confused, and she almost wanted to burst into tears, but she desperately tried to hold them back. Even though she now had some answers, she had no idea what this would mean for her, or how it would change her life. She felt disgust for herself, because that was how her parents had always regarded werewolves. How would they react to her? Would they hate her now?
In the very back of her mind, Althea even felt denial. It still didn't seem completely real to her. How could she be a werewolf? She had trouble wrapping her head around that. That she would transform into a wolf every time the moon was full. That she would never again look upon the full moon with human eyes. To be honest, being bitten by a werewolf was something that happened to other people. Not her. She worked for the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures for Merlin's sake. She wasn't supposed to be one of those creatures herself.
Althea clung to the idea that she was still sleeping, that she was dreaming and that she would wake up in the woods exactly where she had fallen asleep, under the shelter of her favorite tree. She tried to ignore the very real fact that she'd never had any dreams where every single one of her senses felt like it was being overloaded. Where everything seemed unbearably loud, where the unnaturally clean smells of the hospital were making her sick to her stomach, where every part of her body hurt, even the parts that were simply lying on what seemed like a soft enough mattress. No, what was happening was very real, and she knew it.
"I'm a werewolf," Althea said, but it wasn't a question. It was a statement to try and make this entire nightmare seem real to her.
"Yes," Healer Reagan said apologetically, needlessly. She finished writing a few more things on her clipboard before returning it to the foot of the bed. Next, she reached for the curtain and pulled it around the bed, sectioning Althea off from the rest of the room. That at least made Althea feel better, because she was beginning to feel like a sideshow freak. No doubt that the other patients near her overheard what had happened, and they were doing everything in their power not to stare at her outright.
Healer Reagan reached for the thin sheet covering Althea, pulling it down a bit. Next, she pulled up Althea's hospital gown, revealing the healed scars that now littered her stomach. There was also a very large bandage across Althea's right hip. She didn't need to ask what it was hiding. Even though every single inch of her hurt, her right hip was possibly the worst, screaming in pain at even the slightest movement. It had to be where she had been bitten.
For the briefest moment, flashes of claws, teeth, screams, and growls flew through her mind. It mingled with an awful smell, one of blood, and sweat, and dirt, and fur that seemed completely out of place in such a spotless hospital. Almost as quickly as it had come, however, it was gone, leaving Althea to think she had only imagined it.
"We were able to heal everything just fine," Healer Reagan explained, beginning to pull up the edges of the bandage from Althea's hip.
Althea sucked in a breath at the sensation. Every little bit of the tape around the bandage that came free sent even more bolts of pain resounding through her midsection.
"Sorry. I'll get you something for the pain in a bit," the healer said, turning her attention back to removing the bandage. "Unfortunately, werewolf wounds are cursed, so your scars will never fade completely."
She finally succeeded in freeing the tape from Althea's hip. At first, Althea let out a relieved breath that the tape was finally removed from her skin, that the pinpricks of pain were fading, but then she saw what it had revealed - a large and ugly crescent-shaped scar that curved around her hipbone. Althea immediately squeezed her eyes shut and looked away, feeling thoroughly repulsed at the sight.
Healer Reagan frowned, but said, "It's really not as bad as it looks." She then retrieved a bottle from the cabinet next to Althea's bed, and used a cotton swab to dab some sort of ointment onto Althea's scars.
It burned horribly, and Althea scowled, but not in response to the pain. Just what in the hell was that supposed to mean? 'It's not as bad as it looks'? In Althea's opinion, it was as bad as it looked. In fact, it was much worse than it looked. It was those stupid marks forever burned into her body that were condemning her to a life of transformations, pain, and being an outcast. Althea didn't think it could get much worse than that.
She supposed the healers probably said that to all the patients. Telling them it wasn't as bad as it looked seemed like a good way to reassure them that their injuries weren't so bad. Becoming a werewolf was clearly completely different, and Althea suspected they really didn't know the first thing about it.
Not that Althea did either. She worked for the Ministry for the Werewolf Support Services. She certainly wasn't stupid, and she had a good understanding of how werewolves were treated. On the other hand, she had absolutely no idea about what it was like to be one. She had no clue about what it would entail, or what she would have to do in order to prepare for it. She was running head-on into a life that she didn't know the first thing about, and it scared her senseless.
"I think it is," Althea snapped.
Healer Reagan opened her mouth to respond, a slightly surprised expression on her face at Althea's annoyed tone. Then she apparently thought better of what she had been about to say, because she snapped her mouth closed again. She spent a few more minutes cleaning Althea's wounds before covering her with her hospital gown and blanket once more.
"I only meant that your wounds have healed just fine," Healer Reagan said. She returned to the head of Althea's bed to fluff her pillow. "They may not look very nice, but once the pain stops - typically after the first transformation - they won't cause you anymore problems."
"They already are," Althea muttered. She suddenly felt thoroughly frustrated at everyone and everything around her, and she really didn't know why. She even had the urge to get up from her bed and begin to wreck things. The bed tray on wheels for instance. It would go sailing across the room nicely and would shock the hell out of the healer. The thought made Althea smile.
And that was utterly insane. She was normally a very easy-going person, and it usually took a lot to make her lose her temper. She definitely wasn't the type of person to destroy anything just because she got mad, or to take pleasure by doing so. She had no idea what could be causing her to feel that way. Or maybe she did, and she just didn't want to admit it. She tried telling herself that it simply the fear and uncertainty that had her so rattled, but deep down, she knew that wasn't it. After all, she was a werewolf now. Admittedly, she didn't know the first thing about them, but when it came right down to it, she was more or less an animal. It wouldn't be a stretch by any means of the imagination to assume that that would be why she might now have some animal instincts.
She didn't want to think that. She didn't. During her time working at the Ministry, she often felt like the only one in that damned place who didn't think all werewolves were animals. They at least deserved the benefit of the doubt and a little bit more credit than they were given. Sure, there were some werewolves like Greyback who were clearly monsters, but that didn't mean they all were.
Or were they? Because she was now feeling things that weren't her at all. She was feeling things that could very easily be described as animal instincts. Was that really what she was now, an animal? Were werewolves really deserving of the intolerance they received from society? Had Althea been fooling herself the entire time by trying to tell herself that they weren't all bad?
She was so confused, and she had absolutely no idea what to think anymore. Her entire world had been turned on its head, and there was no place she could go for answers. The healers obviously didn't know much more than she did, not about anything other than the physical aspects of what she was now facing anyway. Althea desperately wished for another werewolf to talk to, one that had been through all of this already and could give her some answers. But she realized that there was no one there to help her. St. Mungo's most probably didn't have an advisory board of werewolves to come in and mentor her.
If she could have, Althea would have gone straight to the files in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. She would have looked up the addresses for some of the registered werewolves and gone to bang down their front doors in order to get some answers. That didn't sound like the most logical thing to do, but Althea didn't know where else she could go. She was completely and utterly alone, and that too scared her. Perhaps even more than the revelation that she was a werewolf had.
What the hell was she going to do?
Then her mind seemed to latch on to what were perhaps the only people that she might be able to turn to. Given, they hated werewolves, but she was still their daughter. Surely they couldn't hate her now as well, not just for making a stupid mistake. Althea was nothing like werewolves such as Greyback, and perhaps her parents could understand that. Maybe this would open their eyes to some things. Maybe they would help her and take care of her. Maybe.
"My parents," Althea said, sounding a bit desperate. "They're going to be so worried since I didn't come home last night."
"Last night?" the healer repeated, blinking. "You've been here for a week. That's how long it typically takes lycanthropic patients to wake up after first being turned."
"Dear Merlin. They probably think I'm dead!" Althea sat bolt upright, fully intending to go and find a fireplace to Floo them with, but she immediately regretted her actions. The pain in her scars flared to life, and she thought she could feel every single one of them, sense where they were on her body, like someone had set burning hot pokers across her skin. The scar from her bite was the worst by far, throbbing so heavily it made her entire hip feel like someone had set fire to it. The sensations seem to overload her brain, because the room started to grow fuzzy around her, causing her to sway.
Healer Reagan immediately stepped forward, gently placing her hands on Althea's shoulders and guiding her back down to the mattress. "You need to relax. You lost a lot of blood, and you're still going to be in pain for a while. You're not ready to be up and around yet." She tucked in the blanket around Althea as if to emphasize her point and added, "But you don't need to worry about your parents. We were able to identify you from the Ministry of Magic employee identification you had on you at the time. We were able to track down your parents, and they've already been notified."
They already knew. That thought alone sent a renewed sense of fear pounding through her. How were they handling it? What did they think about their daughter now being a werewolf? Had they already decided what they were going to do about it without even knowing how she felt? Was her future with them already decided when she had been asleep, oblivious to the turn of events her life had taken?
"Have they been here?" Althea asked frantically. "How did they react?"
"They have," Healer Reagan replied curtly, "but I'm sure I don't know. They weren't here very long, and they didn't say much while they were, except to ask some questions about what this would mean for you."
Althea wanted to ask that same question - what would this mean for her? But she knew they couldn't give her answers, not the ones she wanted. She had gone to Hogwarts, and they had studied the textbook definitions of a werewolf. It simply meant that she would be transforming into a wolf herself every single time the moon was full. She knew that, and she didn't need a bunch of healers to tell her that. What she wanted to know was what it would mean for her future, for her family, and her ability to earn a living. Those were things Althea knew the healers couldn't answer. No one could. The only way she could get some answers would be to live it.
Also, the fact that her parents hadn't been there for very long made Althea's fear even stronger. Did that mean they were already distancing themselves from her? Althea was well aware of the fact that she was jumping to conclusions, but she didn't know what else to think. If someone was really, truly worried about their hospitalized child, wouldn't they want to spend as much time as possible by their bedside?
"I can contact them again for you right now," Healer Reagan offered, "and let them know that you're awake."
Althea simply nodded, at a loss for words. She was torn. She felt like a little child that wanted nothing more than to run to her parents for comfort, but for obvious reason, she really didn't want to see them at all. Because if she saw them, they would tell her how they felt. They would tell her that she was a monster now, and they wanted nothing more to do with her. Althea's deepest fears would be realized - that not only did she have to deal with this new life that had been thrust upon her, but that she would have to do so alone.
On the other hand, however, Althea wondered if they would even come to see her at all. Maybe they were already too disgusted to even stand the sight of her. They might just send a letter telling her never to contact them again. Or if they were feeling particularly vindictive, they just might send the message through the healer like a ridiculous game of Floo Network.
The healer bent over, returning her supplies to Althea's bedside cabinet before straightening up. "I'll bring you a potion for the pain along with some literature about your condition and the options that are open to you. You just missed lunch, but I can run down to the cafeteria and bring you back a sandwich or something to drink if you want."
Althea shook her head and grimaced, her stomach curling up into tight knots at the thought of food. "I'm not very hungry."
Healer Reagan pursed her lips, giving Althea that look again. The one that gave Althea the sense that she was being pitied. Althea suspected that she'd be seeing it a lot more in the days, weeks, months, and even years to come, and she despised it already. It made her feel like a bug trapped under a glass.
A moment later, the healer bustled out of the room, leaving Althea alone, still behind the privacy of her curtains. Althea was grateful for that, that she hadn't felt the need to expose Althea to the prying eyes of the rest of the ward again.
Althea still felt like she was in shock, like it hadn't really begun to settle in yet. That she was a werewolf. Those words still seemed absolutely foreign to her, like some obscure language that she didn't understand. None of it made any sense. At all. How could she be a werewolf? The very thing she had been talking to her father about not very long ago. The very thing she had been working at the Ministry to try and "control". The very thing that her parents told her were monsters.
It seemed like just yesterday that her biggest concern was her stupid, boring job at the Ministry. She had been desperately hoping for something to change that, to give her a life that she could be happy with, but this most definitely wasn't what she had had in mind. This wasn't what she wanted. In fact, if she could go back in time and correct her fatal mistake of going into the woods that night, she'd go back to her stupid Ministry job and never complain about it again. She'd work there forever, day in and day out, hating absolutely every minute of it if she could only wake up from this nightmare.
She most certainly wouldn't have a job now. Althea was well-versed in the Ministry's anti-werewolf legislation, and they definitely didn't hire werewolves. They were even making it difficult for werewolves to get jobs anywhere, so Althea wasn't sure what she might be able to do to rectify that, if anything. She felt like the only option she had left was her parents. She clung to the hope that they would help her and take care of her through this, but even that was a huge question mark. What if they didn't? Would she possibly end up on the streets with absolutely no way to support herself?
This was probably the most insane situation she could have ever imagined finding herself in. Just last week, she would have done anything to get out of her job at the Ministry. Now she would do anything to have it back. Althea almost laughed right out loud at the irony, but just as she opened her mouth, something seemed to click inside of her. It was a horrible realization that no matter what she did from this point on, her life was well and truly ruined. That as much as she tried to cling to it, there was absolutely no hope left. Not for her. Her future was very bleak at best, and it had been her own stupid fault.
Instead of laughing, a sob escaped from her throat. It had been threatening to come out ever since the healer had first told her the news. Althea wasn't one to cry in front of people or to even cry in a public place at all, so she'd pushed it down as hard as she could. But it had broken free now, causing her chest to heave as the cries began to consume her.
She turned over onto her right side, pulling her knees up towards her chest. She felt like a little child once again, a stupid, silly child wanting to curl up into a ball in the hopes that it might block out the world around her. Her bite screamed in pain at being pressed into the mattress, but she barely even noticed it now, because something else was hurting her much more deeply. Her heart hurt. It hurt at the thought of her parents hating her. It hurt at the thought of becoming an outcast. It hurt at the thought that every single one of her dreams had been reduced to a pile of rubble in a matter of moments.
Althea was terrified, and she didn't know if anyone would be there to help her. She didn't even think she needed her parents to confirm that for her. It was something she just knew, like the way she knew she was a werewolf without needing to be told. She was completely and utterly alone.
To be continued…