Noctis - Ch.5 - Relinquens Domum

Ch. 5

Relinquens Domum

Unlike before, this time I woke up well before dawn. It never really gets cold in Daisy, Georgia, but there was a chill in the air. My eyes opened suddenly and the world slowly came into focus. The air was crisp and filled my lungs. The insects were singing their songs as insects do.

Everything felt.... cleaner. Yeah, cleaner is the right word. Things were cleaner than they'd been before and, honestly, it was invigorating. I could hear better, I could smell more, I could taste..... I could taste everything. I could taste the air. I could feel the air on every inch of my skin.

I felt at peace.

I was at peace.

After a few minutes, my senses began to dull and return to their normal levels. The best way I can explain it was that things seemed less intense. This made me sad.

As my senses faded, I felt a tightness on my skin. Like some liquid that I hadn't wiped away had dried. As much as I didn't want to acknowledge it, I knew what it was. Without saying anything, Noctis confirmed it. I wanted to puke. I rolled over and rose to my hands and knees and began to wretch. But nothing came out. Just a few minutes of dry heaving. That boost of energy I'd felt upon waking drained away with each spasm of my abdominals.

I lifted my head and looked toward the far side of the clearing. Instinctively, I knew that whatever I'd eaten was there. What was left, anyway. I got up and walked over. It was a young buck.

The stomach and intestines were on the ground next to the body, but all of the other organs were gone. Upon closer inspection, I could see that the meat from both hind legs had also mostly been eaten. I knew that I'd done this. That I'd eaten the deer. It was definitely more "food" than I should have been able to eat. But I didn't feel overly full.

As I looked down at the body, a kind of cold calmness washed over me. Think cognitive dissonance. On the one hand, the thought of eating raw meat turned my stomach. At the same time, knowing that I'd eaten this buck evoked no such reaction from me. This was a meal and I'd eaten it. No different than stopping by McDonalds and eating a burger. It was clinical.

"Am I going to do this every time?"

"At first you will. Shifting isn't something your body is used to so it takes a lot of energy right now. The more you do it, the better you'll get at it, and the less frequently you'll need to feed."

"But at some point, I'll always need to do this?"

"Yes, love."

"Will I ever be able to remember it?"

"You already can......"

As if on cue, flashes of memory began to come forward. I was in the back seat, watching but not in control of anything.

There were a pair of large, brown bear paws and I could see a pile of ripped up clothing. My clothes. The bear leaned down and sniffed.

The memory flashed forward by a few hours and it had started to get dark. We were in a shallow part of the river just sitting there. Playing maybe. Suddenly, our head plunged down into the water and when we came up, a fish was in our mouth.

Fast forward again and we're in the edge of the clearing. For lack of a better description, we're on our belly; front legs stretched out in front and our hind legs out behind. Our eyes were focused on a few lightning bugs slowly floating about. We felt happy. A noise out in the woods drew our attention and our head turned to it.

More time had passed and we were running through the woods. We were hunting! I could smell the buck up ahead, running for its life.

Now our snout was buried in the buck's carcass. I could feel the blood running down our chin. We were ripping out organs and practically swallowing them whole. We tore into the meat and I could feel the fibers and sinews coming loose.

As our stomach filled, energy filled me. Us.

"Noctis, did I...... I mean, really?"

"We. We did, sweetheart. Remember, we are the bear."

The memory wasn't complete. There were lots of gaps and just missing time altogether. That being said, I was able to piece together, mostly, what had happened. I was relieved to know that I'd mostly stayed in this area. At least for this time I didn't have to worry about what would have happened if I'd gone near people. I knew I didn't have to worry about hurting anyone.

During this trip down last night's memory lane, the sun had started to come up. If I went home now, I would be late for school. Fortunately, Noctis had me bring a change of clothes.

It hit me that I'd been rolling around here in the dirt without any clothes on. There was so much going on that I'd forgotten to be bashful. It didn't matter that I was out here alone. Being naked was being naked. A quick dip in the river and all of the debris was gone and I could get dressed.

When I packed my bag, I wasn't expecting to actually have to use it. I had an old pair of jeans and a pink top with white hearts on it. Again, I never expected to actually have to use the bag. The jeans were a little tighter than I would have liked. Not like obscenely tight, but I'd need to change them when I got home after school. It was what I had.

I hadn't worn these clothes in quite some time, but I was cute.

I listened in on people when I got to school. There were gaps in time from last night so if I'd gotten into something, people would be talking about it. To my relief, there were no mentionings of a bear. The jocks were talking about the upcoming football game. The band kids were talking about how they could beat the football team at football. The rednecks were talking about hunting; one of them had seen a black panther. The shop kids were debating how realistic the latest Fast & Furious movie really was.

All in all, nothing interesting.

Once I'd confirmed that I wasn't the topic of anyone's conversation, the rest of the day was rather mundane. I suddenly had more important things to take care of than to worry about what has happening in school. The importance of geometry seemed rather trivial.

After school, I made my way home to change.

"You didn't come out for dinner last night," Mrs. Dees said.

"I wasn't feeling very well, I just went to bed early."

"You didn't eat breakfast either."

"I guess because I went to bed so early, I just left early for school. Took my time walking there."

"You guess?"

"....."

"You better not be sneakin' around with some boy."

"I'm not."

"You better not be. Last thing we need is for you to go whorin' around and get knocked up. Bad enough we gotta look after you. I ain't lookin' after no bastard, too."

"Mrs. Belinda, I promise I'm not. There aren't any boys."

"Better not be any girls either. We won't suffer a slut to live in this house. Praise the Lord!"

"I promise."

I didn't wait for her to respond. If I gave her half a chance, she'd preach to me for hours. No, preach at me. I think that somewhere deep down, she believed what she said. But her actions told me that she wanted the appearance of being religious. Actually following her religion would have taken entirely too much work. That wasn't something she was willing to do.

I was thankful that Tommy wasn't home.

Part of me was worried that if he hit me again, I wouldn't be able to stop myself from hurting him back. I wanted to. Fuck, how I wanted to. My heart rate started to increase as I thought about shifting into a bear and just swatting him across the face, my claws digging in scarring him forever, if not outright killing him.

"Calm down."

I had to take a few deep breaths.

"Go change."

On the way home, Noctis had told me that I'd need to pack another bag. We were going to go back out again tonight. And maybe I should pick out some clothes that fit a little more comfortably. Just in case.

It took maybe five minutes to change and pick out some spare clothes. I stuffed them into my bag and I was ready to head out. I opted to sneak out the window rather than confront Mrs. Dees again. She would only make assumptions and delay me as long as she could. She wouldn't really have a point, just stretch that time out.

The first thing I did once returning to the river was to drag the buck further into the woods. If this was going to be my secret spot, I didn't want it smelling like a dead animal. Noctis had me take it probably twice as far as I would have. She knew more about this than I did and I had to trust her.

I stowed my bag up against a tree and began working again.

My goal this time was to lift the emotion, feel it, and then push it out before I shifted.

I think part of me was afraid to shift again. In the back of my mind, I'd already had the thought about hurting Tommy. I didn't think I would ever actually do it, but I couldn't control the shift yet and who knows what would happen.

All of this was going through my head and I wasn't really able to concentrate on what I was doing. I didn't need to be able to see Noctis in order to feel her disappointment.

We tried for several hours, until long after the sun went down. I walked home with my hung down. Literally.

As I approached home, I felt Noctis tense up.

"Slow down."

I obeyed. I could tell by the tone of her voice, this was one of those times where I needed to shut the fuck up and do as I was told. I could feel the danger. Noctis was on edge and this was something I'd never felt from her before.

As I came out of the woods, I could smell the blood. The scent of blood coming from my house. Before I completely panicked, I noticed that all of the tires on Tommy's truck had been slashed. The front door of the house had been nearly torn off and was hanging by a single hinge. Next to the door there were four parallel slash marks going from top to bottom. It looked like a wild animal had clawed the side of the house.

The smell of blood was overwhelming. A part of me knew that with that much blood, there was no one alive inside. I didn't know if it were one or both of them. But whomever was in there had died.

A new feeling began to well up inside me. It was anger mixed with..... something else I couldn't quite identify. I felt the shift coming on and I wouldn't be able to stop it. I didn't want to.

"You have to run. Run now, goddamnit!"

My earlier instinct to listen to Noctis had been temporarily overridden. I didn't want to run. I wanted to stop whatever it was that had killed them.

"If you stay here we're gonna die, bitch! I said fucking move!"

I snapped out of my stupor. I was mid shift and I knew that I had to run. I can't say that I'm the one who actually ran. I'm pretty sure that it was Noctis. Once again, I was in the back seat watching as we headed into the woods.

Along with the shift came heightened senses. While I wasn't in control, I was aware of them. There was something more than the scent of blood. There was another animal. I didn't know what it was and Noctis was too preoccupied with getting us to safety to answer me.