was Nathan.
But he was not Nathan. Not quite. As a matter of fact he wasn’t even human. As her eyes were transfixed on the spot where her step brother stood, writhing, she couldn’t tear her eyes away. Her breath was coming in gasps and her feet were shaking like it suddenly dropped below freezing point.
Nathan’s whole body was transforming. First, she thought it was becoming a wolf, like in popular books and movies, but it was not. Hair started covering his body and the whole structure of his physical being changed into a four legged animal. His human clothes were torn apart. The place where previously Nathan was, now stood a huge bear, his jaws exposed, moon light gleaming in its eyes.
Involuntarily Anna’s foot hit the door and it caught Nathan’s attention. The bear, not Nathan. It turned its head and looked at Anna, bearing its teeth. Anna thought she wouldn’t be able to do anything and was most certainly going to be ravished by this beast, when the bear started running in the opposite direction. Woods lined the back of the house and soon the bear disappeared in them.
Anna would never forget the sight of her half-brother turning into a bear and running into a forest in the dark of the night.
Chapter 2
He looked at me. It. It looked at me.
She somehow made it to her room and locked it immediately, somewhat foolishly thinking that a wooden door would be able to stop the huge monster.
She sat in one corner of her room, facing the door, not daring to move, lest anything bad should happen. Despite the tiredness earlier tonight, she was far from sleep at this moment. She wasn’t even sure if she would even move from her current position.
A thousand questions rallied in her mind: what was happening? Did werebears (are they really called that?!) exist? Is it like a vampire or a werewolf thing: you have to be bitten by a bear? Why Nathan? Where did he go? How long does this last? Is it the first time or has it happened before? How quickly can he change back? And most importantly: did he remember the things he saw as a bear? Did he see her standing in the doorway? If yes, what were her options? Tell Emma? Tell Jack? Would they believe her?
She imagined a conversation with Jack and Emma at the dining table. She thought how Jack would react at learning that his son and now his business partner doubled as a bear.
It sounded insane, even inside her head. Even if she told someone, there was fat chance anyone would believe her. After all, this happened in movies and young adult books.
Reality was supposed to be much more grounded in, well, reality. That’s the problem, she thought: we expect fiction to be real and our reality to be like fiction.
She didn’t sleep the whole night and only went to her bed when the sun was shining. Even then she stayed awake for a full hour before finally drifted off to sleep.
Chapter 3
The next day was Saturday and she was woken up by a knocking on the door. Groggily and still not thinking straight, she opened the door.
It was Nathan.
Her mouth instinctively formed an O shape and her eyes exuded incredulity.
“You’re…” she opened her mouth to say something, but words failed her. She was pretty sure that all color had escaped her face and she was as white as a ghost.
Nathan didn’t look much better. His otherwise handsome face had dark shadows beneath the yes, as if they had not seen any sleep last night either. Maybe the woods didn’t have a comfortable bed.
“May I come in?” Nathan asked her.
Anna didn’t know if she would be able to speak for a very long time. She was more scared than she had ever been in her life. She didn’t know if this man standing in front of her was her step-brother, who had been sharing this roof with her for the past few months (if only barely) or a monstrous creature who had bared its teeth at her in the gleam of moonlight.
Sensing her hesitation and silence as yes, he walked past her in the room and closed the
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