Third Person P.O.V:
Edwin, Jasiri, Jamal and Kendall continue their drive to the venue where the reunion is taking place, for a large portion of the time they were just sharing stories about their lives and their work.
"...and that is why I stopped leaving my lunch in the breakroom fridge." Kendall said.
"Yeah, I definitely know what that feels like, when I was completing my PhD in Los Angeles, I used to always leave my water bottle in in a small cabinet outside the geoscience lab I worked at, but it kept getting accidentally stolen because I had a colleague who owned a similar water bottle and whose initials were also J.F, so at one point or two, I accidentally drank someone else's water. I basically got a new water bottle after that." Jasiri said.
"That's an unfortunate coincidence, but workplace food and beverage conflicts are not so rare. I once saw two people almost get into a heated debate of where to place the coffee pot in the break area." Jamal said.
"And that's why I usually bring my lunch from home." Edwin said.
"Yeah, luckily my colleague in the fossil preparation lab keeps his beverages in his office." Jasiri said.
As the conversations continued, Jasiri still was thinking about how Edwin's friend and classmates might react when they see her in her hyena form. Would they just stare? Think of an excuse to leave? Would they cower and fear even when there is no reason to? Would they try to poke fun of it? No matter will, she has seen it all sometimes combined, even when she was used to it by this point, that does not mean they still hurt.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the voice of Siri, on Edwin's phone.
In 100 feet, turn left and your destination will be on the left
"Okay guys, looks like we are here, now let me just find some parking now." Edwin said.
They went to a nearby parking lot, and since they might be there for several hours, Edwin had to pay the $35 parking fee. They soon got out of the car and approached a red brick building with small rectangular windows. The walls surrounding the ground floor doors and windows were made of light gray concrete and large square windows on each side of a black revolving door. Above the door was a large sign that had a white background that read "Oak Trail Hotel" in turquoise letters.
"Well guys, I believe this is the place the email mentioned." Edwin said as the group approached the door.
"Yeah, this is it, Oak Trail Hotel. I wonder how many of our old classmates will be here?"
They all walked through the revolving doors into the hotel lobby where in the center was a black sign with white letters that said "Hemingway College Prep 10 Year High School Reunion" and below it was an arrow pointing to the right. They turned to the right to see that there was a table with two women sitting behind several rows of name tags and the table was next to a set of blue and yellow balloons behind a sign that said "Sign In". They approach the table to see that the woman had black wavy hair and a black velvet dress, while the other woman had short blond hair with bangs, wearing a red dress. Edwin and Kendall recognized them as former classmates and approached the table.
"Hey Clara, long time no see. Nice to see you too Aubrey, how's life been?" Edwin said as he and Kendall shook Clara and Aubrey's hands.
"Hey Edwin, Kendall! Were doing fine, how have you been? I'm doing well, so far I've just been continuing my nanotechnology research at my lab Northwestern" Clara said.
"Oh yeah, you told me about that a while ago. How is that going?" Edwin asked.
"It's going well, although it will be going better when the student interns come in this fall." Clara said.
"That's funny, at the genetics lab at the Field Museum, our groups of summer interns just left this week. Even though our lab will have a few interns this fall, it is not exactly as high of a number as the interns we had over the summer, but still a fair amount to help us with our research." Edwin replied.
"Well at least your lab still has some interns.." Clara said.
"So Aubrey, how have you been doing?" Kendall asked.
"I'm doing good, I work at a law firm in Portland. It can be exhausting at times but I still enjoy it. Now I'm just trying to work my way to become a partner, though I know that probably won't happen until years from now. Anyway how's your life going Kendall?" Aubrey said.
"It's going great, I just got a promotion as a marketing coordinator at the Chicago headquarters for Whole Foods." Kendall said.
"Congrats! I hope you are enjoying your new position." Aubrey said.
"I am, thank you, the position provides some financial benefits that I think could really help me at the moment…." Kendall said, As soon as she said that she looked at Jamal and then to Edwin and Jasiri, and started to develop a guilty expression on her face, with Edwin starting to develop that same expression, each of them turning to Jamal and Edwin to Jasiri.
"I am so sorry that we were inconsiderate to you guys...Clara, Aubrey this is my plus one Jamal.." Kendall said.
"And this is my plus one Jasiri…" Edwin said, as she and Jamal shook Clara and Aubrey's hands.
"Nice to meet you guys...so Jamal, so do you work with Kendall?" Clara asked.
"Actually no, I am a programmer for a medical software company called CodeNet." Jamal said.
"What about you Jasiri, how do you know Edwin?" Aubrey asked.
"Well we actually both work at the Field Museum but in different labs. He works in the genetics lab, and I work in the fossil preparation lab." Jasiri said.
"That's neat…" Aubrey said as she marked the two couples' arrival in her laptop. She then grabbed four name tags and started to hand them out.
"Okay, here are your name tags, Edwin Mariani, Kendall Smith, Jamal Wilson, and Jasiri Fisi." Clara said as she gave them their name tags. As they put on their name tags, they noticed that Edwin and Kendall's tags had their high school yearbook photos on it.
"Have a good time at the reunion, we should talk more when we are finished with our shift signing people up." Clara said,
"Okay, see you later!" Kendall said.
The two couples walked into the large room where around three dozen people were already in there, with Edwin and Kendall recognizing a little over half of them as former classmates while the others were either guests of the other alumni or their former teachers.
For the first fifteen minutes, they made some small talk with a few people there.
"It's nice to talk to you again Ms. Salsberg, I hope Anders has a good first year of middle school." Edwin said as she walked to another group of people, he turned back towards the group..
"Man….I still remembered when she was first pregnant with her son. Time really does pass by fast." He said.
"True...I saw our old orchestra teacher and he now has a combover, I remembered when he still had a full head of hair." Kendall said.
"Really? I never would have expected that to occur over ten years. I also saw my old AP Calc teacher and even when he still has his perm, but it's much shorter than it was when we were in school." Edwin said.
Soon a man started to approach the group, who was about the same age as the, but he was closer to five foot seven, he had short dark brown hair, black framed-glasses, brown eyes and a small birthmark on his cheek. He was wearing a brown suit jacket with a white undershirt and black tie, brown dress pants and black shoes.
"Yeah, I saw that, but he told me that he cut it because his youngest son used to play with it too much when he was a baby" The man said, which caused the group to turn around. Edwin and Kendall approached the man while opening their arms and started to hug him.
"Hey Marino! How's it going?" Kendall said.
"Long time no see Marino, how's life been as an associate professor so far?!" Edwin said as he and Kendall hugged their old friend.
"It's been good, busy, but how about you guys? Kendall, is your job at Whole Foods' administration going?" Marino asked.
"It's going great, I recently just got promoted as a marketing coordinator for the Chicago headquarters." Kendall said.
"That's great, congrats! I hope you enjoy it." Marino said.
"Thanks!" Kendall said.
"What about you Edwin, how's it going, are you still at that pharmaceutical lab?" Marino asked.
"Actually I left that lab a few months ago, now I have a new job doing research at the Field Museum's genetics lab." Edwin said as he gestured for Jasiri to come closer.
"That's good to hear, I think the last time we met in person was about two years ago, you actually did tell me about how you were starting to get miserable at that job." Marino said.
"Yeah, I eventually did and left two years after that because mostly the general work environment was toxic and most of my colleagues there were more focused on getting a huge bonus rather than doing thorough research. So I eventually got my current position at the museum -and speaking of this is my guest Dr. Jasiri Fisi, she works in the fossil preparation department." Edwin said as Marino and Jasiri started to shake hands.
"Nice to meet you Marino." Jasiri said.
"Nice to meet you too Dr. Fisi." Marino said.
"Oh please, just call me Jasiri." She replied.
"Oh and Marino, this is my boyfriend Jamal, he programs for the CodeNet medical software company." Kendall said as Marino and Jamal shook hands.
"Nice to meet you too Jamal," Marino said.
"Likewise...and wait, Marino?...Kendall is he the guy whose face you elbowed when you guys got the first iPhones?" Jamal said.
"Yeah, that was me! But Kendall and I are cool now, so no major tensions after that incidence" Marino replied.
"That's good to hear." Jasiri replied.
"So Marino, are you still dating that woman Michelle you told me about a few months ago?" Edwin said.
"Actually we broke up last month, the long-distance relationship just was not working out." Marino replied in a slightly solemn tone.
"That sucks man, we are sorry to hear that." Kendall said.
"It's fine, it was heading that way for months anyway, and besides I moved on from it already, and now I'm just focusing on my career right now." Marino said.
They continued to talk for another five minutes until they separated to walk around and talk with some of the other people who recently arrived.
Hours by, it is starting to get dark outside, and the DJ was continuously playing the music from artists that were popular over a decade ago. Music from artists such as Beyonce, Flo Rida, Justin Timberlake, and so on, played for hours on end. At one point, all the alumni present including Edwin and Kendall took part in a group photo.
At some point, Kendall and Jamal were talking to her old crush Julius Steele, with his wife Tatiana. Julius was around six feet tall with short dark brown hair and blue eyes, wearing a black suit jacket with matching pants, a white undershirt and a black tie. While Tatiana had short wavy black hair, wearing a light yellow dress with a "guest" name tag on her lower shoulder. They were just catching up on their lives and such. Although, Kendall was disappointed when she unintentionally overheard a phone conversation Julius was having with another woman while Tatiana was in the bathroom.
"I can't believe that I ever once had a crush on that guy." Kendall said, disappointed at what Julius turned out to be after high school.
Meanwhile, Jasiri and Edwin were talking to a group of Edwin's old classmates.
"So wait, you guys actually made cheese in the lab of your biotechnology class?" Jasiri said.
"Yeah, we did, it was quite interesting when we retrieved those results." The female classmate responded.
"It took us five minutes to collect the cheese from that particular sample, none of us expected that the sample with lemon juice added to the milk and rennet solution would have increased the curdling of the milk." Edwin said.
"Oh yeah, I think I was supposed to be in your group during that lab but I was sick that day." A male classmate responded,
"Yeah, that was a bad day to have the stomach flu." Edwin said, which provoked a laugh from the group.
Eventually within a few seconds, Jasiri started to feel a familiar pain in her abdomen and she knew what was going to come next.
"Hey guys….I'm going to the bathroom….I'm just having some….digestive distress." Jasiri said while giving Edwin a look, which he understands as hinting towards her transformation to her anthro hyena form.
"Okay no problem, I hope you get better…" Edwin said.
"Yeah and it was nice meeting you Jasiri." The female classmate said.
"Thanks, it was nice to meet you too Arijana, and you too Dylan." Jasiri said while holding in the pain and began to rush near the nearest bathroom.
She entered an open stall and locked the door, and for the past couple minutes, she slowly felt and saw her body into the anthropomorphic hyena form she transforms into every night for the past twenty one years. After the transformation was complete, she looked to see if it caused any tears in her dress and so far she did not find any except for an incredibly small one that was already there from a previous time she transformed.
"Hey, are you okay in there?" A female voice called out from outside the stall.
"I'm fine, I've just been having some...digestive distress." Jasiri said while trying not to seem suspicious.
"Okay, hope you get better. Plus I totally get it, I just had some digestive problems ten minutes ago, I think it might have been that tuna salad from the buffet." The female voice said.
After a few seconds, Jasiri walked out of the stall to see a woman with long reddish-brown hair and a dark red dress washing her hands at the sink. Soon Jasiri approached the sink to wash her paw-like hands and decided to reply to the woman's question.
"Actually, I never had the tuna, perhaps it might have been from something I had before I came." Jasiri said as she washed her hands with a slight tint of anxiety.
As she finished washing her hands, she noticed that the woman never replied to her and she was just standing there staring at Jasiri with a sense of shock and fear in her eyes. Jasiri eventually just dried her hands and left the restroom. The woman just continued to stand there.
"Okaaay….I think I definitely had enough to drink for tonight…...and the next week." The woman said to herself.
As Jasiri walked back to the main venue area, she was treated by a chorus of stares, awkward looks and whispers from the people she walked past. A few people even started silently running towards the building's exit.
She then walked towards Edwin who was just walking around by himself.
"Hey Edwin…" Jasiri said.
"Oh hey Jasiri I see that you are in your hyena form now, and I apologize if some of the staring bothers you…" Edwin replied.
"It's okay, I've gotten used to the staring by now…."Jasiri said with a slight hint of discomfort.
"Alright then...perhaps we can get something to drink." Edwin said.
"Sure I would love that." Jasiri said.
They soon approached the concessions area where they saw Jamal who was just drinking a glass of wine.
"Hey Jamal, how's it going?" Edwin asked.
"I'm good guys what abou-" Jamal was saying until he froze when he saw Jasiri's hyena form and he just stood there in shock, with his eyes wide, not knowing what to say at the moment. The wine glass he was holding slid out of his hand and fell to the floor, shattering.
"What the…" Was the only thing that could come out of his mouth at the moment.
Then within a few seconds Kendall was approaching the groups almost speed walking towards them, wanting to tell them what she found out about Julius cheating on Tatiana.
"Hey guys, you'll never guess what I found out about Juli-...WHAT THE FUCK?!" Kendall said as soon as she saw Jasiri's hyena form and just continued to stand still and look at Jasiri. Sometimes even looking towards Edwin periodically as well.
After a few seconds, Edwin and Jasiri turned around to see that almost everyone at the reunion was staring at them, standing still….almost the whole reunion was looking at them. There was a fifteen second silence until one person, who Edwin knew as the arrogant leader of one of the school's cliques, began to laugh with a few of his friends.
"Hey guys look! Edwin Mariani's date ditched him and he was so desperate for companionship that he put a stray dog in a dress!" The man said, which sparked a chorus of judgemental laughter from his group of friends and several others at the reunion.
"Yeah, but it probably wouldn't last. She'll probably ditch him for whatever moving car, squirrel or whatever hotel doorman hands her a treat." Another person from the groups said as others continued to laugh.
"Hey man, she's not a dog!" Edwin said to try to defend Jasiri, who seems to be growing increasingly uncomfortable as the laughter continues.
"Oh yeah, you're right Mariani, she's not a dog….she's man's best friend." The other guy said in a derisive tone, only fueling laughter from that crowd, which consisted of almost half the people in the room except for Jasiri, Edwin, Kendall, Jamal and several other former classmates and teachers they encountered.
As this laughing continued, Jasiri thought that this night was almost similar to one she had experienced a similar level of formation...
Flashback: May 22, 2009, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
It was that time of the year where high schoolers across the world engage in festivity known as the Senior Prom, where high school seniors dress in their best formal wear for a celebration to celebrate their final year in high school.
It just got dark out and a younger Jasiri was in her bedroom, looking at a mirror to make sure that her prom dress still fits after her transformation into her anthro hyena form.
She was wearing a plain black strapless dress that went down to her knees while wearing a pair of lavender shoes. She also had her black hair down to just an inch below her shoulder blades, and with her hair are the same indigo streaks that she still has in her hair today.
"Yep, it still fits. I hope tonight will be alright." Jasiri said as she grabbed her bag and headed out of her bedroom and into the living room, where she found Makuu, in his anthro crocodile form, sitting on the couch and working on something for his PhD thesis on a laptop.
On the opposite side of the couch was a woman of moderate height wearing a light blue T-shirt and black sweatpants, who was just watching a documentary that was on the TV at the time. This woman was in her mid-to-late forties, black hair tied into a bun, with brown eyes and black framed glasses.
This woman's name is Chausiku, and she has been with Jasiri and Makuu since the day that 'the shaman' selected her to be their human guide when they first became their hybrid for. Through both the first two years in Tanzania and when they moved to Milwaukee. At that point, Jasiri and Makuu were the only hybrids still living with her since the rest of the others in the initial group moved out to other places, though they still remain in touch once in a while, to whom Jasiri and Makuu still remain in touch with her in the present day even after they moved into their own places.
As Jasiri walked into the living room, Makuu and Chausiku turned their heads as they heard her went up from her seat and headed towards Jasiri and began to hug her.
"Oh Jasiri, you look absolutely beautiful. I really hope that you have a good time." She said.
"I hope so, because I have tried to ask a few people to prom, but they all said no, and eventually Cindy and I planned to go to the prom as friends, but she got a severe case of the stomach flu and had to miss the prom." Jasiri said as Chausiku handed her a corsage for Jasiri to place on her hand.
"Yeah, while that is unfortunate, but the past is the past, you have a bright future ahead, with you graduating high school in a few weeks and going to college soon, I think everything will be fine." Chausiku replied.
"Thanks, I'm going to go wait for the bus to take me to the venue." Jasiri said as she was about to head to the door, until Chausiku interrupted.
"Wait, you are not leaving until we get a picture. Makuu, come with your new camera phone and take a picture of Jasiri." Chausiku said and Makuu started to get up.
"Actually it's called an iPhone 3G, and it's more than just a camera-" Makuu said.
"Whatever Makuu, just take the picture." Chausiku said as Makuu walked right next to her and used the camera app on his phone to take a picture of Jasiri standing next to the front door.
"Okay guys, see you later!" Jasiri said as she headed out the door.
"Okay, See you later, have fun!" Chausiku said.
Jasiri walked to press the button for the elevator, which took her to the first floor after it arrived. She edited her building to walk to the bus stop that was down the block. She waited for five or seven minutes until it arrived. After swiping her bus pass in the scanner and taking her seat, she thought of how she cannot believe high school was almost over. Four years of constant abuse from her classmates will end, and even when she is excited for college in the academic sense, she would rather not think about the social aspect because along with maybe four or five other people from her high school, there will be another group of people to judge her for being a hybrid, just like the verbal and sometimes physical abuse she has experienced during her eleven years in the human world and a little from the Pride Landers who initially judged her for being a hyena. But on the other hand, she had also heard from somewhere that the prom was when many of the old grudges, rivalries and teasing stopped for a moment some kind of temporary truce, and she was wondering if that might be what will happen at her school's prom.
After a 20 to 30 minute bus ride she finally arrived at the venue which was just at a banquet hall that was located seven blocks from where her high school was. She got off the bus, walked two blocks to the banquet hall. She entered the building to check in and after she received the name card for her table for when the food will come. As she walked into the main hall, she walked towards a table, traversing through a current of stares from her classmates. She was about to place her tag on the table until she heard one of her classmates shout.
"Hey guys, look! Someone called the news, we just found out that werewolves are real!" The male classmate said, which ended up catalyzing a chorus of laughter from many of the other classmates there.
"Hey Jasiri, how's it going, did they let you out of the pound early? Did a new family adopt you yet?" A female classmate said.
These comments essentially only made the laughter and verbal harassment worse. Jasiri was hearing an inundation of many of the names she has been called before: werewolf, dog-girl, she-wolf, beast, monster, with many other names more hurtful than the last.
She decided to move to the other side of the banquet hall to try to ignore the group of classmates that made fun of her. As she was sitting at a new table, a group of five people from her graduating class, with one, a young woman with blonde hair, blue eyes and a red dress starting to approach Jasiri while carrying a flat white box in her hands.
"Hey uh...Jasmine, right?" The woman said.
"It's Jasiri, Helena, don't you remember? You sit behind me in our Honors Sociology class." Jasiri said.
"Okay whatever, anyway, I saw how those people treated you like a couple seconds ago and I am sorry they treated you that way. Also I wanted to give you this gift, we were originally going to give it to you on graduation but I think now would be a better time." Helena said while handing Jasiri the box.
"Wow...thanks Helena, this is totally unexpected. I originally thought that you never really liked-" Jasiri said while opening the box, only to refrain from speaking when she took a look at what was inside the box and just started to feel a combination of anger, humiliation, and heartbreak….inside the box was a long black dog leash with a matching collar that had a silver tag in the shape of a dog bone that had the name Jasiri engraved on it. As she stared at the leash the other people around her including Helena, just started to laugh at her.
"Yeah, we wanted to make sure that you have something nice to wear on graduation." Helena said as she and the others laughed at Jasiri, while Jasiri was just standing there in shock, anger and sadness, with tears starting to form in her eyes.
"Oh just go fuck yourself Helena! You were always such a jackass to me since the first time we met, why would I expect things to be different by senior year.."Jasiri angrily said.
"Whatever dog-girl, just go back to the doghouse you live in, you're kind of killing the mood." Helena said
"No Helena, your attitude and your group of manicured dimwits are killing the mood, I'm just leaving." Jasiri said, throwing the leash, collar and box towards Helena and her group of friends and just bolted out of the room.
As she was heading towards the building's exit, tears leaked from her eyes and when she got outside, the mascara that she initially put on for the night started to drip down the fur on her face. She crossed the street and just walked along the street towards the direction home, not caring whether she makes any bus or not, she just wanted the night to be over already.
Present Day
With the memories from that night, Jasiri could not help but begin to cry as she is starting to feel the same level of humiliation she felt that night as several of Edwin's former classmates. Out of concern, Edwin started to approach her.
"Jasiri, are you okay? Because, if you-" Edwin said before Jasiri interrupted him.
"Actually, I need to go now. I'm sorry but I just need to go." Jasiri said between tears and just bolting out of the room to head for the building exit.
"Wai-Jasiri Wait! Wait Jasiri, I'm sorry…" Edwin said while trying to approach Jasiri, but she was running too fast for her to even hear him. He then quickly turned towards the group of classmates with a stern and furious expression on his face.
"YOU FRIGGING ASSHOLES! WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU!? Did you guys stop growing up after high school or something? You're twenty eight years old now, I thought that you would have grown out of such behavior, but I guess many of you haven't grown up yet." Edwin yelled, as he then began to turn towards Kendall.
"Kendall, why did you react that way to Jasiri's transformation? That did not help at all. I would have expected that kind of reaction from the jackasses over there, but not from you. You are supposed to be my friend, why would you react that way?" Edwin said.
"I'm so sorry Edwin, I guess I was just shocked in seeing….wait, what do you mean by transformation? What exactly are you-" Kendall said apologetically before Edwin interrupted her.
"I can't talk right now, I need to find Jasiri." Edwin said before he made a beeline to the exit.
"JASIRI! WAIT! I'M SORRY ABOUT TONIGHT! PLEASE FORGIVE ME!" Edwin yelled as he ran towards the door.
As Edwin was running, Jamal noticed that Edwin's umbrella fell out of his jacket pocket and so Jamal grabbed it from the floor and tried walking towards Edwin's direction to try to return it to him.
"Hey Edwin! You forgot your umbrella…." Jamal said as Edwin ran further away until he was no longer visible. After Edwin ran out of the room, Jamal then turned back towards Kendall.
"What are you standing there for, Jamal? We need to find Edwin and Jasiri to talk things through and apologize to them." Kendall said.
While Jamal was walking towards the exit, Kendall turned towards the group of her former classmates.
"Why am I not surprised that several of you guys are still the immature assholes that you were in high school. Won't you guys ever just grow up." Kendall said before her and Jamal started walking towards the exit, until Kendall turned to the classmates again.
"Oh and Julius, I know that you have been seeing another woman behind Tatiana's back. Tatiana, check his phone, the proof will be there." Kendall said before she and Jamal finally headed out towards the exit.
Edwin P.O.V:
I ran outside of the reunion into the hotel lobby to see that Jasiri just exited the hotel and started to run along the sidewalk to who knows where at that point.
"JASIRI WAIT!" I yelled trying to catch up to get her attention, but she is too far for me to hear me now.
I ran outside the hotel only to be welcomed by the rain, I initially reached into my jacket to get my umbrella, only to find it wasn't there, must have fell out in the ballroom...but I don't care how drenched I get from the rain, I have to find Jasiri no matter how long it takes.