So, I was a werewolf. No big deal. For weeks, I went along like any other normal child. I barely noticed my mother and father's excessive worrying. The only thing unusual was my appearance. For a three-year-old, I had become amazingly lean. My green eyes went to amber, and my appetite for red meat went sky high. Max and the other dogs refused to be around me. They were scared. I had no real friends, just kids I saw at the grocery store who I played with because they had nothing better to do. But, back on track, I was--for the most part--normal. Then it happened. My first full moon. If you've never transformed into a werewolf, then you have no small idea of the pain it entails. Think about this: as a three-year-old, the top of my head just barely touched my mother's hips. As a werewolf, I could come to the middle of her torso. My bones had to reset. And that's painful. I've become used to it now, but my first full moon, I screamed until I could scream no more. Not only because of the pain, but because of fear. I was afraid of what was happening to me. The worst part were the questions tearing at my brain. Why? Why wasn't Mum there? She always used to be there. I did not fully understand until later that she couldn't be with me during my transformations. And my Dad. I was worried about him. Surely something terrible had to have happened for him not to be cradling me the way he had the night I was bitten. But it hadn't. My father simply sat upstairs, above the cellar, with my mother, worrying about me. At last, the pain was over. I saw the world through colorblind eyes for a short moment, then it went blank. I was in a sort of suspended animation until sunrise. I woke up covered in blood. I hated blood. I still do. So, at the sight of it, I did what most three-year-olds would do---I screamed, bawled, wailed, and screamed some more. And for the next five years, this agony of pain and fear continued in a vicious cycle I could not understand. By the time I was eight, we had moved to the country. I realized how tired my parents were. We were also ragged. My clothes became increasingly patched. Because we spent what ample amount of money we had on my treatments and other worthless cures, we were now labeled "poor." This became hell for my father. About the time I was four, he began to drink a strange, white liquid. His appearance began to look more ragged than myself. One night, shprtly after my eighth birthday, I heard my mother and him fighting. That was one of the most painful things that would ever happen to me. I remember their raised voices as if they were speaing (or yelling, as the case may be) in the room next to me.
"Elizabeth, we can't keep him!"
"John, you're talking about our son! Not some dog off the street!"
"Don't you get it? He's worthless! He'll never get a job or be able to support himself or his family! Not like he'll have one of those, anyway."
"Johnathan! Remus is our son--"
"No, he's your son! And as far as I'm concerned, he can rot in hell. He's cost our home, our belongings--Elizabeth, he's a monster!"
"It's your own fault! Why couldn't you have just paid Fenrir back the money!"
"Why did you have to borrow it from him! He's a wizard," my father said the word like it was forbidden. "Their kind aren't all there!"
"You mean my kind! John, Remus is just a boy. He needs his father!"
"Then you'll have to get him a new one." And with that, my father went out the door. I wouldn't be seeing him again for over fifteen years.
