F e r a l A w a k e n i n g

A/N: Kay. Ch 4 is up. ;D Enjoy!

After carefully laying Dakota on the couch downstairs and making sure she wasn't hurt, we sat around her.

"Okay. What the hell is going on?" Tarah asked, frustrated. She stood up and began to pace frantically.

"Well, apparently this Eneri girl wants revenge… but why from us? What have we done to her?" Trinity wondered.

"How many people have we done something to where they would want revenge?" I inquired, trying to recall people. Suddenly something hit me.

"Oh my god, how could we have not seen this before?!" I exclaimed, with widened eyes.

"What?" Sasha asked impatiently.

"Crystal." I said, and I saw Tarah wince at the name.

"But why?" Trinity asked.

"Well…. remember…in Florence Forest?" I asked them…

--F L A S H B A C K—

"Oh God, SPIDERS ARE MATING IN OUR TENT!" Trinity screamed, running out of the flaps hurriedly.

I laughed at her hysteria and crawled out of the tent also.

"Gross. Horny spiders." I muttered.

The commotion seemed to have attracted the rest of our friends, and four other people crawled out of two other tents.

"What did I hear? Spiders and sex?" Sasha asked, standing up and walking toward Trinity and I.

"Pretty much. Spider porn in our tent, go look if you want." I offered, sitting on a log near the brightly crackling fire.

"I think I'll pass," Sasha replied, sitting on another log nearby.

"I think I saw a couple spiders in my tent too," A different girl announced, sitting onto the log I was on.

"Thank you so much Crystal for planning the trip during spider mating season!" Dakota said sarcastically, snatching the bag of marshmallows from Tarah and wolfing them down.

"No problem!" Crystal replied fake happily, grinning. Crystal was a tall girl, and had long, brown hair. She was part of our tight circle of friends. We were all about 16 at the time, and thoroughly enjoyed driving and camping out wherever we wanted.

A few more s'mores and ghost stories later, the sun had gone down completely and we were all chatting amiably around the fire.

Suddenly, a scream echoed through the night and morphed into a full-blown howl, ending with a snarl. It hadn't sounded too far off, either.

We all glanced around each other nervously. That didn't sound like a normal howl at all. And that was a very humane sounding scream.

Before one of us could speak up, the snarling erupted from behind Crystal and Dakota's tent.

Without even needing to think, we all jumped up, startled, and dashed in the opposite direction.

Without flashlights, we were at a pretty big disadvantage. The snarling seemed to have caught up with us, and then suddenly I tripped over an uprooted branch. Oh God. I hate these cliché things. But, I tried to grab onto the nearest thing to keep my balance, which happened to be someone's arm. And suddenly we had both ended up in a ditch of some sort.

Disoriented, I lay there for a few moments trying to gather my thoughts. I could hear the snarling fade away, and my heartbeat was pulsing insanely. Kneeling now, I felt for whom I had grabbed.

"Who did I grab?" I asked.

"Ungg…Me, you idiot," Dakota mumbled, sitting up and shaking some leaves off her head.

"Sorry. Reflexes." I said, and slowly stood up. I heard Dakota do the same.

"We should find the others. Oh God. I hope nothing…" I trailed off, because I didn't need to finish that sentence.

"Ugh, shit. How are we gonna find them? If we start wandering around, we might run into that…thing." Dakota said worriedly.

Before I could reply to that however, something started to vibrate in my jean pocket. My cell phone. I pulled it out and pressed the talk button. The caller ID said "Trinity".

"Hello?" I whispered.

"Oh my god, thank god. Ariel! Are you okay?" Trinity whispered back through the connection.

"Yeah, and so is Dakota. I accidentally pulled her down with me when I tripped over a branch. What about you?"

"I'm…alone…I don't know where. Shit, I'm paranoid." Trinity started to sound anxious, as if something would jump at her at any second.

"Okay, just stay on the line. It's about 11 pm now…damn…far from daybreak," I replied, then handed the phone to Dakota, who started chatting with Trinity to try and calm her down a bit.

Then, a howl echoed nearby from the right.

"Shit," Dakota said, and I instantly scurried closer to her.

"We should run," I said, and so we did just that. I don't think it heard us, or maybe it just didn't want to follow us. I'm just glad it didn't so far. We were still running, when suddenly we collided with something. Or someone.

"Oh Jesus Christ, tell me you're human!" Sasha.

"Sasha!" I whispered happily and Dakota greeted her as well.

"Hey, we found Sasha," Dakota relayed to Trinity.

"Great. Now we just need to find Trinity, Tarah, and Crystal. Before the other thing does." Sasha said, frustrated.

"AH!" Trinity screamed through the cell phone. Which was pretty loud cause we all heard her.

"What?" Dakota asked frantically.

"Oh, she found Tarah, guys. Well…Tarah found her. Whatever," Dakota told us.

"Man, where is Cry—RUN!" Sasha screamed, and ran off without even looking back.

I looked around and saw a pair of bright, amber-red eyes glaring hatefully at us not more than 60 feet away.

I stood frozen, like a deer in headlights.

Dakota dropped the cell phone, taking small steps backward.

"Guys!" Suddenly, Crystal's voice broke through the terrifying silence- but not for long. She obviously hadn't seen the werewolf's eyes, and by now it was too late. The werewolf lunged with a ferocious snarl, intent to attack Crystal.

"NO!" I shrieked, pushing Crystal. But it wasn't enough. The creature was too fast, and whipped around in mid air biting hard into Crystal's arm.

Crystal was screaming bloody murder, and Dakota started to pull on my arm.

The werewolf paused, and glanced over at us, narrowing its eyes.

"W-we have to GO!" Dakota shouted, and pulled harder on my arm, making me run with her.

Daybreak

Dakota and I trekked back to our campsite, hoping the others would know to do the same. Sitting on the tree logs next to the smoldering fire were Trinity, Sasha, and Tarah. They bleakly looked up at us, in somewhat relief.

"Glad you're alive," Sasha replied, and I sat near them on another log.

"I-I can't b-believe…" Trinity muttered, and I looked over to her. She looked pale as a ghost, but we all did.

"So sorry Crystal…" I whispered, and burst into tears. This caused a chain reaction of crying, well, except for Sasha, who is incapable of the human emotion sadness.

"We have to go." Tarah said meekly.

"Yeah…it isn't safe…" Dakota replied.

---- END FLASH BACK ---

"Of course," Tarah said, and we all nodded mutely.

"Crystal wants revenge." Trinity clarified. This we all now knew. But how could we stop her?