Chapter six: The Morning After


A ray of sunshine seeped through the crack between the drawn curtains of the living room as Anna lay on the sofa.

"Mmmm... Is it morning already?"

Anna stirred as she opened her eyes to the same room she was in when she woke up in the early hours in the morning. It was still a little dark due to the drawn curtains, but she could still see everything just fine, even without her wolf sight. That thought reminded her- she quickly felt her face and could immediately tell that it was back to it's original shape. She also looked at her arms and saw that they too were back to normal. In addition, her tail was also gone.

"I'm human again, I see. I wonder..."

As Anna thought to herself, she lifted her sheet and looked at her chest.

"Awww, man. Oh well, easy come, easy go. Less back problems as well, I suppose."

Anna laid back down and looked at the ceiling. It was surprisingly blank compared to the rest of the room, but there was a big, expensive looking chandelier in the centre. As she looked at the chandelier, she noticed her hearing and sense of smell had improved significantly. They weren't as good as they were the previous night when she was a werewolf, but her senses were still leaps and bounds above what they once were. She couldn't help but wonder if any of her other new abilities had carried over to her human form. Her thoughts were soon interrupted by a knock on the door.

"It's open!" shouted Anna.

The door opened to reveal Amanda and Lucy, both of whom were also now back in their human forms. This was the first time Anna had seen Lucy as a human, and she found her to be very beautiful. No wonder Amanda fell in love with her.

"Good morning, Anna." said Amanda. "Did you sleep well?"

"It took a little while to drift off." said Anna. "Guess I still have a lot on my mind. That said, once I actually did get to sleep I slept pretty well."

"Good to know." said Lucy. "Anyway, I'm afraid I have to be off. I need to open up shop after all. However, Amanda will stay here with you while you sort yourself out, okay?"

"Sure thing. So, what do you do for a living, then?"

"I own the costume shop. I'm not only the manager there, but I make all the costumes, too."

"Really? I knew Amanda worked there, but I didn't think you owned the place. And you make the costumes as well? That's pretty impressive."

"Well, Amanda helps from time to time, but yes, I do make them myself. That's what sets my shop apart from the rest. They do sadly tend to be a bit more expensive than the ones you buy in party shops, but I think you get what you pay for. My customers certainly agree. Speaking of clothes, I left some in the room next to the bathroom for you since you didn't have any when we found you. I hope they're to your liking."

"Thanks. I appreciate it. So, uh... I'll see you around, I guess?"

"I think you will. See you. And I'll see you at the shop later, okay honey?" Lucy said as she turned to Amanda.

"Sure. And don't worry, I'll make sure Anna gets fed before she leaves."

"I'm sure you will. Later!"

Lucy gave Amanda a peck on the cheek and left.

"Alright, so the bathroom is upstairs in the left wing. Second door on the right." said Amanda to Anna. "I'll be making breakfast while you're washing yourself too. Does a Full English sound good to you? Or are you more of a cereal person? Oh, and do you want tea or coffee?"

"Full English sounds great right now! I'll have a tea too, please. Three sugars."

"Three?!"

"Yeah. I have a major sweet tooth. Sugary things just do it for me, you know?"

Amanda laughed.

"I can tell. Okay, three it is. How do you like your eggs?"

"Scrambled, please."

"Coming right up. Anyway, don't let me stop you from getting ready. I'm sure you're pretty desperate for a shower, after all."

"Yeah, I could really use a hot one right now. Thanks."

Amanda left for the kitchen, leaving Anna on her own again. She waited a few minutes before getting off the sofa and heading for the bathroom. As she expected, it looked quite posh. All the surfaces were made of marble while the wall tiles were a brilliant white colour, and the floor tiles were grey with red bath mats in place. The shower was to Anna's left, and she had a quick look at how it operated. It was just a simple button press to turn it on, and a dial to set the temperature. Anna set the dial to hot and turned the shower on. Standing under it, she looked around to see what shower gel she could find and found one particularly strange bottle.

"Flea shampoo?! Who the hell puts flea shampoo in the shower? Then again, I guess that must be a major issue when you have fur..."

Anna shrugged, deciding not to question it any further. She decided she may as well use it herself- after all, who knew what she may have picked up while she was unconscious in that forest clearing...




Amanda was just finishing up with cooking breakfast as Anna came downstairs again. She was now wearing the clothes Lucy had left for her, and it looked like they fit perfectly. They consisted of an elegant looking black top with white sleeves went halfway up her biceps, a white skirt that went down to just above her knees, black leggings and black shoes.

"Those look good on you." said Amanda. "What do you think?"

"Not bad." Anna replied as she sat down at the breakfast bar. "It's nice to wear more fancy stuff sometimes, though I can't wait to get back into my hoodie back home."

"Glad you like them. Lucy said you can keep those, by the way. If you want to give them back afterwards, that's fine. But don't knock yourself out to do so."

"All righty then." Anna replied, sniffing the air. "Oh man, that smells really good. Especially now my sense of smell is better than ever. Oh yeah, that reminds me- do any of my other werewolf abilities stay with me when I'm human? Obviously to a lesser degree, but still..."

"Yeah, they do. You're probably aware you can still heal wounds much faster than you used to. Not only that, but you're now immune to disease and you also keep a decent amount of your agility and strength. Just try not to use them to show off. Might make people suspicious, you know?"

"I hear you. What about weaknesses? Aren't we supposed to be hurt by silver or something?"

"Nope, that was just something made up by Hollywood. In reality, silver doesn't hurt us at all. It's fire you really need to watch out for, though I guess that's true regardless of whether you're a werewolf or not I guess. You probably need to make sure you don't get shot in the head either. We can heal our wounds quickly, but a headshot will still kill you. There is one more thing that can harm us."

"And what's that?"

"Wolfsbane. I'm not one hundred percent sure what it actually is- some kind of plant I think, but what I do know is that in small doses it can greatly weaken our abilities, and larger doses can outright kill us. It's possible to mix it with bullets and the like to make them more effective against us. Thankfully though, I've heard Wolfsbane is rare around these parts, so you shouldn't have to worry about that."

"Let's hope not. That stuff sounds nasty."

"It certainly does, eh? But now isn't really the time for talking about stuff like that. I'm sure you want your breakfast. Here you go. Hope you enjoy it!"

Amanda handed Anna a whopping two plates. On one, was your typical cooked breakfast- scrambled eggs, bacon, beans, mushrooms, a hash brown, sausages, and some toast. On the other plate was more sausages and bacon, and a hefty pile at that. Anna's first reaction should have been "That's a lot of meat..." but in reality she could only drool at the sight. Amanda also handed her a cup of tea in a large blue mug.

"Thank you!" said Anna as she grabbed her knife and fork and got stuck right in to her food. It tasted even better than the food she ate earlier in the morning.

"It's really good." she said, still stuffing her face. "Can't believe I have so much room in my stomach for all the meat, though."

"Well, what did you expect? You're going to have a major craving for the stuff from now on. That's one of the not so great things about this- if you're not careful, you may just end up having to raid the local butchers or something. So yeah. You may want to watch out for that. I still can't believe you managed to go as long as you did last night without doing anything about your appetite."

"Heh. I guess I was just too preoccupied with not getting seen and finding somewhere safe to hide. I dunno. But I guess it's like Lucy said- we all probably react to the change differently. I think it's safe to say the hunger's caught up, though."

"I think that much is obvious. You're really laying into that bacon. You made short work of the sausages too."

Anna just chuckled, though she nearly choked in the process. Taking a sip of tea to clear her throat, she decided to change the subject. There was something else on her mind anyway.

"So, Lucy's the manager of the costume shop, eh? How long has that been going for?"

"Only a few months, actually. But she's really happy. This is exactly what she's wanted to do all her life, and I've been happy to help out too."

"It's been her dream, huh?"

"Yeah. Ever since she was a little girl, all she ever wanted to do was to make dresses for a living. As time went on, she became really inspired by the outfits she saw in video games and anime, and wanted to make outfits just like those too. The problem was, her parents didn't share that passion. They wanted her to have a successful career in finance, just like them. Only her aunt and uncle were ever supportive of her back then."

"So her family is successful, then?"

"They sure are. They're very, very wealthy. The whole family is. However, they didn't spend much money on Lucy since they didn't want her becoming a spoiled brat who got everything handed to her on a platter. They wanted her to earn her way in life."

"That's understandable. They obviously didn't want her to be lazy as a result of her wealth."

"True, nothing wrong there. The problem was, they wanted her to be like them, career and all. They didn't stop her practising her dress making, but they also made it perfectly clear that it was only ever going to be a hobby. When she went to college and university, she was forced to take courses related to finance. She passed effortlessly, and they soon found her a job at Red Sun Finances. You've probably heard of those guys."

"Oh, have I heard about them. Not just big in that field, but they've been gaining a monopoly in other departments as well. Entertainment, shipping, military contracts... They've even been dabbling in technology. They're becoming a major rival to Solstice Technologies, I hear. And they're known for being pretty damn ruthless."

Amanda nodded.

"Yup. And Lucy was put straight to work in their financial division. She hated it. The pay was great, but her boss... Holy shit, her boss. One hell of a bitch. Ill tempered, nasty, just plain unpleasant. And she was proud of it too. She pretty much crushed all her competition underfoot with no mercy. You could tell why she's part of the main Red Sun empire. One day, she started to set her sights on a successful financial group based in South London, and sent a small team there to meet with the bosses and see if they were interested in a merger. Lucy was a part of that team, and it was while she was there when I first met her. I was part of the team representing my company, so we ended up crossing paths in the meeting room that day."

"You're shitting me." said Anna, laughing. "You, working in finance? That's kinda hard to believe."

"You laugh now, but I'll have you know I'm great with numbers. I even do the figures for the costume shop. Well, needless to say I fell in love with Lucy as soon as I met her. But I honestly didn't think she'd be interested in me. Perfectly straight and all that. But the next day I saw her again in a coffee shop, and we got talking. We initially didn't seem to have much in common, but in the end we got on like a house on fire. She eventually said she wanted to see me again and gave me her phone number. I was a little sceptical of it at first, as she was working for a rival company and was probably only pretending to be interested in me so she could use me to steal information about us. But we met up again a few days later at her house and it was pretty clear she had no intention of talking about my job. In fact, she ended up talking about hers and how much she hated it. She showed me some of the costumes she'd been working on in her spare time, and told me this was what she really wanted to do. After telling me everything, she just broke down crying. I comforted her, and the next thing we knew we were kissing. So that's how we became an item."

"Hmmm. Workers for rival firms falling in love? Almost sounds like Romeo & Juliet. Only instead of dying in the end, you both became werewolves."

"I wouldn't say it was exactly like that. In any case, some people felt a little uneasy about our relationship due to Lucy's connections to Red Sun, but I didn't care. I knew who she really was. At the time, I just wished Lucy would have the courage to give up her job and pursue her dream."

"Is that what happened in the end? Obviously neither of you are in the finance business anymore..."

"Well, as you probably may have guessed, the original merger talks where I first met her didn't go very well. My company decided it was going to stand up to Red Sun and refused to have anything to do with them. But whatever Red Sun wants, it gets. They threatened to destroy us. Then, a few weeks after Lucy was turned, it happened. They bought us out. There were rumours going about that they did it through less than legal means, too. Our company was destroyed, just as they had threatened. And I was out of a job. But what happened next was beautiful, and I honestly wish I was there to see it. After finding out what had happened, and learning I had lost my job, Lucy actually stood up to her boss! Totally gave her hell. At that point she quit, refusing to work for someone so dishonest. Normally, she was rather timid and always did what she was told, even when it went against her better judgement. But back there... She just stopped taking any shit and finally did what she wanted to do. I think that was something to do with her new wolf instincts. Gave her the confidence to fight back."

"Haha, Go Lucy! I guess her parents were less than happy about it, though?"

"They were furious. They couldn't believe she'd throw away such a lucrative career like that. Lucy finally stood up to them too, saying she didn't want to have her life dictated to her anymore. She then walked off, and they haven't spoken since. However, they also cut her off from her fortune, leaving her with just the money she earned at Red Sun. That meant we were both out of work and had to earn our way somehow. We looked around and found nothing. Thankfully we both had just enough money to keep us going for a while, but that didn't change the fact we really needed to find work."

"I know that feel. Jobs are so hard to find these days."

"Got that right. But then, opportunity came knocking in a rather tragic way. One day, Lucy had received word that her aunt and uncle had died in a car accident. You may remember they were the only ones who supported her dream of making dresses and costumes for a living? Lucy was genuinely upset by their deaths. She felt closer to them than she ever did to her parents. They didn't forget about her though- in their will, they left her not only this mansion, which is where they used to live, but enough money to help her start her own business. With that, she bought a shop and made it into what it is today. She asked me to be assistant manager, which I accepted. We've been running it ever since, and it's been pretty successful. It's sad that it took the death of her loved ones for Lucy's dream to finally come true, but I think that's why she's never been more determined to make it work. She wants to make them proud, you know? They put a lot of faith in her, and she wants to make sure it wasn't wasted."

"Wow. That's quite a story. I'm just glad it turned out all right for you in the end."

"So am I. We're working again, and Lucy's so happy right now. Couldn't ask for anything more."

Anna finished off her tea and took both of her empty plates.

"Anyway, do you need help washing up?" she asked. "I can give you a hand, and then I think I'll be off."

"Sure, if you're offering. Thanks!"




After Anna and Amanda were done washing up and putting everything away, the pair made their way out the front door. Anna could see the path to the front gates was pretty long, and was surrounded by a beautiful garden. She could tell this was indeed the same mansion she saw with Alice on her way to the restaurant on that fateful night.

"Are you okay getting back home from here?" asked Amanda. "Or would you like me to drive you there?"

"Nah, I'm good thanks. I've been this way before and I remember the route home. I'll be fine."

"Okay. Oh, by the way- remember that friend we mentioned? We're meeting her again on Thursday at eight o'clock in the evening. If you'd like to meet her, you're more than welcome to come along. Just be here by seven. Of course, if you don't want to that's perfectly fine. In the end it's up to you if you want to be more involved with us or not."

"I'll think about it. Who is she anyway? You've said very little about her apart from the fact she's been helping you hone your abilities. If she's not a werewolf, who is she? And how can she train you if it isn't a full moon?"

"That would be telling. You'd be surprised, I'll tell you that much. But again, it's your call if you want to meet her or not."

"Up to me, huh? It does make me wonder what I'm gonna do every full moon from now on?"

"That's also your call. You could just spend your time hiding, or just dick about with your abilities. You could even bite and turn other people if you really wanted some more company."

"No, that's something I'll never do. I've taken a liking to all this, but I don't want to burden others with it. Besides, if there's a chance they'll go feral, that makes it even less worth it."

"A wise choice, if I do say myself. But just like Lucy said last night, you're not alone in this. Nor do you have to be a monster. You have a gift here, and it's your choice on how to use it."

"I guess. Well, I'll see you when I see you. Maybe on Thursday, maybe never. Or maybe the next time I trip over next to your shop!"

"Haha, just don't make too much of a habit out of that! Bye!"

Anna started walking down the path, waving goodbye to Amanda as she did. As she made her way towards the front gate, another thought crossed her mind.

"My choice on how to use my gift... But what do I use it for?"




It took about twenty minutes for Anna to get back home. As she approached her front door, she was full of dread about what Alice was going to say. Anna had an excuse lined up, though it wasn't the most believable one. The fact she wasn't very good at lying didn't help, either. Looking to her right, she saw Cookie roaming the front path. He saw Anna and paced towards her. As he approached her, he seemed unusually hesitant to move any closer, as if he didn't immediately recognise her. But it wasn't long before he started rubbing himself on the back of Anna's legs like he always did.

"Hey, Puss." said Anna as she picked Cookie up, stroking him. "Sorry if you didn't know it was me at first. Kind of gone through a few changes, you see. You wouldn't believe what happened to me last night!"

Cookie looked at her nonchalantly and gave a big yawn. Anna put him down and walked up to the front door. Taking a deep breath to calm herself, she knocked on the door. No sooner had she done so, she heard footsteps coming down at an incredible rate. The door opened to Alice, who immediately threw her arms around Anna and started crying.

"Anna! You're okay!" She said, trying to fight back her tears.

"Alice... I...I'm so sorry..." Anna replied, also crying. "I must have had you so worried..."

"You don't know the half of it. Steve and I were up all night trying to find you! We looked everywhere and we just... I- I honestly feared the worst."

"Yeah. If you'd been missing any longer, we were going to report it to the police." said Steve, who had just come down himself. "It's good to see you're safe, in any case."

"So where were you?" asked Alice. "What happened last night?"

"W-well... I don't really remember. Remember that mansion we passed on our way to meet the gang the night I got attacked? I woke up there this morning. Apparently I was sleepwalking or something."

"Sleepwalking?" said Steve. "You climbed out of the window, then sleepwalked your way through the streets?"

"I think it might have been a side effect of the fever I had." Anna replied. "I was feeling really out of it. It was so weird."

"So the owners of that mansion found you? They didn't do anything to you, did they?" said Alice, panicking slightly.

"No, they didn't. They're actually the owners of that costume shop in the shopping district. They explained they saw me when I was sleepwalking and decided to take me to their place before anyone could take advantage of me in my state. They're quite nice, actually. A little frisky with one another, but very friendly, and they both fed me and let me borrow these clothes I'm wearing right now."

Alice raised an eyebrow at Anna's story, but she could tell at the very least she wasn't harmed in any way.

"So, how are you feeling now?" said Steve.

"Much better, actually. Better than ever before, in fact. I don't think I'll be worrying about shit like that happening ever again."

"We can hope." said Alice. "But please, don't scare us like that again, okay? I don't want to hear you've been attacked again, and this time you didn't survive..."

"Yeah. I won't." said Anna while thinking to herself.

"Sorry, Alice. I don't think I can guarantee that anymore..."

"Well, now that the drama's over, how about I make you both a cup of tea?" said Steve. "I think we all need one."

"Sure thing." said Anna. "I had one at breakfast, but I could always go for another one!"

"When is there not a good time for a cuppa?" said Alice. "I'll have one too, please."

"Okey dokey, I'll put the kettle on then."

As the three went inside, Alice had one more thing to say to Anna...

"Oh yeah, you wouldn't believe what Steve said when we were looking for you. He said that because it was a full moon last night, you became a werewolf or something. Pretty silly, isn't he?"

"Hahaha... Ha... Yeah. Pretty... um... silly. He does have a right imagination, that Steve..." said Anna nervously, knowing just how right he actually was. Not that she could tell her, though. She thought back to everything she was told earlier, and her mind kept going back to just one thought. What to do with these new abilities?