Ohmigosh I'm stupid, now let's forget about the rules of grammar as I create such a run-on sentence! I'm so sorry for taking so long it was like a month or so and I really should've gave this more thought but what happened was that the file I was going to post was deleted or something and I lost it forever so my urge to write left me for a while but I'm back to end that deadly cliffhanger and now let's cut the chitter-chatter let's just jump in shall we?

"Laney?"

…

"Laney! Wake up!"

Huh? "Agh!" With a panic-filled jolt I leapt to my feet, a sudden urgency coming to me. It was Corey's voice. The need in his tone was loud and clear. "What happened? Where are you?!" I swung my head around frantically, too startled to think clearly. My thoughts were blank, my fur was on end, and my tail was frizzed up like crazy.

I blinked. Then I blinked again. I glanced down and consciously took note for the first time that I had fur, and a tail, and instead of feet I had red-gray paws. My wolfish snout wrinkled up in confusion before the events started to drift back to me, of all the previous events, the thoughts and discovering I had before I had fallen asleep. No, I didn't fall asleep, I was knocked unconscious. What was it from again?

"I'm behind you!" Corey chuckled, yet urgency was still mixed in the tone. It was that calming, familiar chuckle though. I swerved around and faced him, seeing those pure blue eyes, that blue-gray pelt. Things that helped me regain my memory. There was a witchcraft dude, a missing book, a curse that was set a hundred years ago and that was the cause we weren't human anymore. I remembered I passed out. Where were Kin and Kon? Weren't they wolves too?

"Hi… Core." I honestly had no idea what else to say. The thoughts were infesting my mind, recovering at such a rapid pace that I could barely even talk. I remembered there was a gun…

His paw gently rested on my shoulders. "Lanes, relax," he drawled, stressing the last word in a calming way. Just like he always did, what the leader of Grojband always acted like. He was acting normal again. Wasn't he panicking majorly earlier though? What happened?

More events clicked to me. Kin and Kon were wolves. Last time we were all in the garage, Kin and Kon in the middle of a whip cream sugar crash, and there was a gun. I was shot with it I think. Yeah, I definitely passed out from it; I was shot in the side and instantly lost consciousness. Wait a minute, if I was shot then how was I still alive? What happened to Corey when I passed out, did he also get shot? Memories came back on how obedient Mina was at the time, basically as shivering and scared as a Chihuahua. Mina shot us with a gun? What's up with that?!

"Core, clarify please."

He crossed his eyes. "Exactly what do you want me to 'clarify'?"

I withheld the urge to fume at his words. "How we're alive, where's Kin and Kon, you know, the basic stuff that I'm clueless about?"

He laughed out of all the responses he could've given, showing he just joked slightly. "Sure Lanes!" he laughed. He was acting so calm. How? "Well… we were shot, and we're alive." He gestured to our surroundings. "And apparently we somehow spawned out in a forest!"

Wait, a forest?! I took notice of our surroundings for the first time. We were in a small field of grass, barely stretching far till trees surrounded us in a perfect circle. The sky above held a few drifting clouds and the sun showed it was midday; the scene was oddly calm with a hint of spite. "How could we be alive… if we were shot?"

Corey laughed again, except this time it was a nervous chuckle. His eyes unnaturally shifted while he raised a paw, scratching the back of his neck. "I'm… not sure."

Another thing seemed to click in my mind. "I don't remember hearing a gunshot though." The statement caused his eyes to slowly widen, his mouth forming a small 'o' shape.

"It didn't!" the wolf exclaimed, holding his paw up from the sudden realization. He acted as if he came up with an idea. "Hey, maybe it was a nerf gun!"

I deadpanned at his logic, but he was on the right track. It wasn't a real gun; it was something similar. It was something not damaging enough so we weren't killed, but just enough so that we fainted. Hey, wait a second… "What about a tranquilizer gun?"

Corey grin grew bigger. It was hard to believe he was so at peace; before we were knocked unconscious he was like a babbling lunatic. Now here he was, acting normally as though nothing happened. That was a good thing though. "That makes sense!" he yipped, forming a sort of sideways, open-mouthed grin. He was acting so adorable I wanted to laugh. He may have acted stupid once in a while, but that was him; Corey Riffen. The guy with a last name strangely sounding like it's about a guitar riff. The oblivious, big-hearted character that rarely fell out of his happy thoughts, always cheering up band members whenever a frown adorned their face. Being normal was way better than acting so panic-stricken.

But now we had to figure out so much more. Well, really it was more 'I' more than 'we', but still he offered some good points from time to time. "So we were tranquilized… that means we're out here because someone decided to put us in the middle of a forest." Thinking out loud helped me process my ideas better. "They possibly thought that killing us was a bad call. Maybe Trina and Mina took us somewhere like animal control, and then they decided not to kill us…"

"You sound weird when you talk to yourself."

I shrugged off that usual quirkiness. "…and they dropped us out in the wild. Hmm… but Corey, did you find Kin or Kon anywhere?" In response he shook his head and gave an awkward smile. It was the kind of smile that you knew was being forced, his face deceiving that he really wanted to frown. "Then why would they drop us off but not them? Or it's possible they woke up before us… but they wouldn't just wander off. They're not that stupid, hopefully. Then there has to be a reason why they weren't dropped off, or at least not with us, hmm." I continued to say a few possibilities for a while before Corey interrupted.

"I don't think it'd be that complicated," he reasoned.

"What are you trying to say? Do you have an idea?"

"Uh… a bit."

"Like what?"

"What if they just wanted to keep them? Maybe they thought they had rabies or something, maybe, from the whip cream…" His voice lowered in volume as he talked, becoming unsure of his suggestion from the stare I gave him. "…maybe."

I eased up on the stare though, considering the option for a moment. It'd be idiotic if I just passed over every idea he thought up like everything he said was stupid. I pondered it, a minute went by, and then I recalled how some people could just be insanely dumb. Like dumber than dumb; some kind of stupidity that occasionally infectious. There were all kinds of strange people in Peaceville; very paranoid, extremely idiotic, filled with so much hatred and angst they acted like a demon spawn –i.e. Trina-. Maybe those paranoid freaks thought that the whip cream was foaming from rabies and kept them in for inspection. Or maybe they ate something more than whip cream, possibly something like chocolate, which could've been poisonous, so they took them in.

There were too many possibilities. But just sitting there and thinking about it, there just wasn't enough info to deal with. Who knew; maybe they actually did wander off. People could've been so stupid though that they shot them with a real gun because it looked like they had rabies. They could've been dead. I barely stopped myself from shuddering; if Corey found out the dark thoughts I was having then who knew what he'd do. His drummer and keyboardist were dead? Not only that, but they were his best friends. The possibility would worry him more than cat locked up in a dog pound.

"Lanes? Whaddya think?"

His words snapped me from my thoughts. "I think that's exactly it," I lied. "Great idea Core!"

He sent one of those numerous smiles my way, and I had to choke down my relieved sigh. There was no way Kin and Kon were dead. The twins always got out of any form of trouble. They were probably locked up in animal control for some stupid reason…

"LANES!"

"Wah! What?!" I nearly snarled at him. I started to feel bad at that impulse though… I didn't want to actually act like a wolf.

"I realized something! I recognize where we are, we're in Maplewood!"

"Maplewood? You're saying we're in the forest that surrounds Peaceville?"

"Exactly! See, these trees are all pine with a few aspen, just like what we see in Maplewood! We have to be near Peaceville, no doubt, and plus… yep, I definitely remember this place!"

My ears fell in a lopsided way naturally, like it was a wolf-y way to show my confusion. "How can you remember this specific clearing?"

The blue-gray wolf was beaming even more than before, if you counted that as possible. "My dad one time took the family on a hiking trip the next town over! I forgot what the place was called, but my dad took us on a hike through this forest no doubt! It took a couple days, and at night we camped out in small clearings. One of them was here! It was the best night in this clearing… and Rocklympus, Trina totally freaked in the morning! She had the worse hair day ever and I couldn't stop laughing…" He shook his head and shoved his head in my face, our noses practically touching. "Anyways, I know the way back to Peaceville!"

I barely could hear his words. It was like my heartbeat disabled that sense, my fur stood on end, and both my triangular ears and face started to heat up. I desperately hoped that the red-gray fur covered up a blush. He howled a few more words about the camping trip that I couldn't manage to listen to with the feeling of butterflies making me feel lightheaded. It was hard to think until he pulled away and then started off into a random direction. By then I shook my head and pulled myself back to reality, taking all the ideas of my crush and locking them in the depths of my mind. There was no idea I would think like that. Not at a time like that, not as a wolf. Out of everything I'd do as an animal, thinking about my crush and how one of my biggest wishes would come true would've been the last thing I'd think about. Doing stuff like that as a wolf? That'd just be awkward.

There was no way I'd be able to keep down the feelings I had though. We were alone in Maplewood forest, going to be traveling for at least a few days together, and most emphasis on being alone. There was no way I'd be able to act like the tomboyish character I was the entire time. I'd slip some time, no doubt about it. I just had to hope I'd keep myself together long before I did something I regretted. If I spilled my secret…

"Laaaney!" Corey chirped. I glanced in his direction to see his head sticking out of some undergrowth, a smile still plastered on his muzzle. "Hurry up! I nearly raced back to Peaceville without you!"

"Um, are you sure you're going in the right direction? How can you tell which way's which?" I quickly questioned, extremely reluctant.

He laughed. "I'm not sure!"

I groaned. "Corey, this isn't some silly adventure for getting a gig! We're isolated in the wild with so many problems to deal with, and you don't wanna take it seriously, even a bit?!"

"Lanes, I'm just trying to lighten the mood… now come on!" His head disappeared in the shrubs.

"You better be going the right way!" I yelled after him. When he didn't reappear I knew I had to follow, dashing as much as I could with the uncomfortable feeling of wolf legs, soon reaching the trees to see the blue-gray wolf sitting there with the happiest expression. He waited for me with a tail that wagged so hard leaves were stirred off the ground. It was strange. It wasn't like Corey was acting like his natural self, he was way too happy for that; it was like he was one of those overexcited dog memes. Almost as if he was being more wolf than human.

We started to walk side by side, trampling past the trees and avoiding several clumps of uncultivated vegetation. Corey was singing 'Hungry like the Wolf' from 'Duran Duran' as he bounded to tree to tree, very energetic all of a sudden, but I trudged behind in deep thought.

Most of the thoughts were from my new usual; how crazy it was being a wolf and partly arguing with that voice in my head. The main thing on my mind overall though was my brother, Lenny. He didn't cross my thoughts at all since the wolf transformation, and now it was coming back to me like a guilty conscious, making my ears flatten against my head. Corey was too distracted in howling that song in order to notice. What would Lenny be thinking? He was probably worried to death. How long had I been a wolf anyways, two days, a week? Did that strange witchcraft festival already end? It was too tough a call; I had been unconscious for most likely a night when I first transformed, but the second time I fell unconscious I could barely estimate. It wasn't like it was extremely long like a couple weeks, but the exact amount of days that had passed was impossible to tell. Hopefully it wasn't long.

I could easily imagine his stressed face in my mind. Sometimes we brawled out at each other like we despised the other's guts, but deep inside we had the biggest sibling bond that anyone could ask for. And he was sometimes overprotective, taking the being-born-ten-minutes-earlier thing too far and pretending to be a personal big brother guardian. It was funny at some times, but he probably was mortified when he realized I wasn't in bed when he woke up. I had been missing from town for at least a few days and his spirit must be being torn on the inside; his little sister suddenly gone without a trace. My whole family had to be devastated.

But then there was Kin and Kon's family, and Corey's too. I wasn't the only one who was probably being procrastinated about back in Peaceville. All of us disappeared, most likely made some huge article in the newspaper, and Trina of course had thoughts of how it was a good riddance like the no-heart she-devil she was. We had to get back soon, to our families, to Lenny, but we didn't even know if we could turn back to normal yet. Corey and I had no clue if the curse could've been reversed, and if there was a way than it'd take a long time to figure it out. After we made it back to Peaceville and searched for Kin and Kon there was nothing else we could do.

Corey didn't even know that Lenny was my brother. If we turned back to normal, hopefully Lenny and I's reunion wouldn't be in front of him. Now that I thought about it, there were two gigantic secrets I never let Corey in about; my crush and having Lenny as a twin brother. That actually was only because telling him would result in a catastrophe. Telling him that I took the last soda pop from the fridge was one thing, saying that I've been in love wasn't the same. Ha… and like he'd ever return the feelings. I'm just a 'bro'. On the bright side, that sounds better than some stupid couple pet name like Sweetie Pie.

More thoughts, more ideas. Soon it trailed over to how not only Corey could find out about my crush on him if I couldn't keep it together, but he could've discovered about the secret sibling relationship as well. It was possible I got so frustrated or pressured enough at one point that I spilled both colossal secrets. My tail went half-tucked between my legs at the thought, which Corey was of course oblivious to. What if he found out? Would our friendship shatter into a million pieces? Would he kick me out of the band, would he become so ashamed that he could barely stare at me? Well really that was overthinking it on that last thought, but still, it wouldn't be pretty.

"Hungry like the WOLF!" He screeched it in a rock-and-roll hardcore metal tone, hopping up on his hind legs for a moment and pretending to shred a few guitar riffs before toppling backwards, his body disappearing into a group of shrubs with only his hind legs and tail sticking out. "Uh… Lanes, help?

I laughed, slowly shaking my head as my eyes drifted close. He managed to distract me from the thoughts for a while, but they still lingered, somewhere in the back of my mind. "I'm coming..."

A/N: Yes, they're not dead, blah blah. You really expect Mina to be so heartless to actually SHOOT AND KILL TWO INNOCENT ANIMALS?! Nope! Tranquilizer darts for the win! Well I typed all of this in a few hours, I'm exhausted, yet at the same time I'm hyped up from eating so many Raman noodles and milkshakes (bad combo, DO NOT TRY) and it's three in the morning. Yep… this is only because I neglected this chapter for so long. Sorry! Reality continues to ruin my life… I probably won't be able to post this till I go to a library or something though. But it's Sunday and the library will be closed… meh, I'll force my mom to take me to Mcdonald's. They have hecka good Wi-Fi there. NOT HAVING INTERNET AT MY HOUSE WON'T STOP MY POSTING RESPONSIBILITIIIIIIIESS! *Overdramatically stares upwards with epic-challenge face, holding up Link's sword and pointing it determinedly at the sky, giving out very obnoxiously high war cry*

Yesh. Now wish me a g'night everyone! I swear my eyes feel like they're being taped down and my neck has so many crooks in it right now. Didn't know that was possible. And now I feel old. :P