Raised by wolves

Prologue 

I was hiding under my bed when I heard her steps. A flush of emotions ran over my eyes, I was scared. I remembered what she would do to me if she founded me. I hold my breath when she came into the room.

I knew she would sacrifice me to her strange gods, I knew it I knew it I knew it!

The door opened as soon as the steps coming from the hallway stopped. I had to cover my mouth with my hand not to shout.  She called out my name, searching for me desperately.

- Kyle? Kyle where are you? –Her worried voice wouldn’t fool me, no it wouldn’t – Kyle why are you hiding from me? – Her voice broke down in the middle of the word ‘me’ I could hear her broke into tears, but tried to hide it anyways.   I stood silent, holding my breath as long as I could, waiting for her to got tired and search somewhere else.

She wasn’t good. She wasn’t good AT ALL. She had raised me only to sacrifice me to the gods. I knew it.

- Kyle? – She sighs. Waits a few seconds and then leaves the room. I waited a few moments till I was sure she had left the upstairs floor. I let go, my breath, my tense muscles, and my brain. I stepped out from the bed and walked directly to my wardrobe where I had my secret bag, in case I had to escape, full of food, clothes tooth brush, and anything I could need. It isn’t safe with her; maybe if I run away, I could go with Phelan, he has been my friend since…well, since I have any memory. I often stayed over his house to sleepover, so maybe one day I could go, and never come back.

Anyways, I would deny myself such thing as talking to her, maybe she had given birth to me, but no. Absolutely no.

I heard back her steps coming upstairs, I turned back to down the bed, and hold, finally, the door cracks open, and the smell of pizza and melted cheese enters the room. Now, why in all heavens did my mother had to be such a good cook.

-Kyle? –She wondered without coming into the room - my love, food is ready; you need to eat something – her voice show sadness.  She stood in the door  like waiting for a response, when she didn’t get it, said -  ok, -sighs – I will leave this yummy pizza outside your door…if you need anything else there it will be…-she took a deep breath and hold –ok…bye then. – She sounded like if she had her heart broken…

But she didn’t own one.

I waited just enough for her to leave and so I quickly opened the door, and grab the pizza which was on the floor, but the noisy door didn’t helped me, as soon as I came back inside the room I could heard the steps climbing upstairs , she got me.She came inside the room and grabbed me with her arms, pushes my head into her chest, tears would be all over my head.

-Why? Why wouldn’t you talk to me?

-i….i ah….

CHAPTER ONE

Today I’ve met a special girl, a girl whose soul must not be caged, someone really special, someone whose wilderness I want to have. She is of a wild nature, that roses anguish, but is also dynamic, trying to give an impression of strength to the ones surrounding her, but she isn’t that strong at all and she is a mix of passion, exaggeration, activity, authority and impulsivity, reflection, interiority and sensibility. I am so curious about her. I want to have her only for me, to teach her what I know and to learn from her as well. I hope she says yes. I hope she will stay with us and explore the world with us.

Blessed be,

9 years later.

I searched all over my room to find my matches box. I was crying, crying all over the place. No only because I had a nightmare, but because I liked to cry, it was like, drinking to much water, you got to take it off somehow, and I didn’t like sports. Or sweating.

I was very careful on making every tear drop fall into the cardboard box, it would really frustrate me the fact that they would get absorbed by it, I wanted to collect somehow my tears, but I would deny myself to do it some other way. I just never finished understanding myself; I am such a compulsive person with some stuff at times. By the time I stopped crying, I walked straight to the small bathroom, which was located inside my room.  I opened the cold water from the sink and splashed my face with the water; I looked myself at the mirror.

I had dark brown hair and brown eyes, I wasn’t tall, I wasn’t small, I wasn’t skinny and I wasn’t fat, I was pretty much normal, I admit all I can count on is my brain, my mind which I think it's a house full of sandy apples, poorly defined and hyper plastic artificial it is obvious that they are more chemically modified chickens that will end up being grated apple with honey. (They are sad because they do not let in any worm them, inspect them and know them)

I looked at myself again, I felt fat. I am going to start on a diet. I SHALL AND SO I WILL I said to myself, so I was already making plans for the day, which were, making plans to make my diet perfect.

So for the moment when I come out from the bathroom,  I could see the light of my cell phone light up and then it began buzzing, ricochet from the shining toy guns started ringing, I walk directly to my bed, where the phone was, and see the name of the one calling me. ‘Phelan :D’ it said.

-hi Phel, how are you doing? – I said

--Awesome, hey, there is an anime convention beginning in an hour or so, wanna come?  -he said,  he was 3 months bigger than me,  my best friend since kids

-Gosh, PHELAN! You should have told me before….i mean, I need time to prepare and all that stuff

--oh, c’mon, I know you, and you don’t need any more than one hour.- I hated when he was right.

-I still would like to put something nice, or maybe do my hair, like any other girl, you know?

--I think you don’t need anything else, plus, like that there wouldn’t be any kind of pedophiles asking you to take pictures at you

I blushed all over, laughing, I gave thanks he wasn’t watching me…

-So, you should come over to my place, or me to yours?

--Lets meet in your house, K?

-Sure, I’ll ask Cybele, adieu – I went back to the bathroom to put some eyeliner, did my bags with the common necessary stuff like my camera, money,  cell phone, etc.

I ran downstairs calling for my mom, crossing the entertaining room, or piano room, the living room, and down to the kitchen. The smell of brownies filled the room

-What’s up honey?  - She said when I got there. May god save her; she was the best cook ever. –Do you want some my love? – Well, since I had the convention, diet could wait, right? –I’m sure that’s the real reason you came down here. Go on, have one –she smiled at me handing me the brownies, I didn’t have such a sense of smell and hearing as she always thought I had, but there was no way to convince her of the contrary. I asked her about the convention with Phelan, and she happily said yes. He was here no longer that five minutes after I called him back.

He was wearing his all-time favorite black jacket.  His, also, dark brown hair with light blue eyes, would all match with his pale white skin, and black skinny jeans. I was just wearing a stripped black and purple jacket, jeans, leg warmers and boots.

-Hi there Phelan, how is everything doing? – Cybele said from the kitchen, which was no far from the entrance hall.

-Hello Cybele, everything is going well, thanks - he responded her, while leaving his bag at the living room coach. He new the house as it was his own.

We both run upstairs, we where more the kind of people who got to the places late, we would skip introductions since they where…oh, so boring. It’s like; you have nowhere to look, or anything. Plus we where just going to check out the place, and see if there is something fancy to buy. We sat on the puffs in my bedroom and chatted, we where thinking on writing some kind of novel together, about treasure hunters, werewolves and journeys around earth. While thinking I stood with my head down my body, it would always help me thinking, Phelan ate all the brownies a refused to eat on secret, on moms version, I ate half of them. He would always be so comprehensive.

We took the bus together and made our way to the convention, outside we could observe some akatsuki guys smoking around with neko girls next to the men with the ticket, no so surprisingly, Phelan had already bought the tickets. As we entered the huge place, we could se lots of stands with kawai stuff, Japanese food, comics and mangas, a hair stylist, some guys selling katanas and doll pieces, a stage where there were some haruhi suzumiya girls dancing hare hareyukai, and a lots of cosplayers all around, no one looking in our direction.

We started walking around, watching the stands and recognizing some cosplays, observing my surroundings, I didn’t noticed a girl, who I crushed in the middle of the hall accidentally.

-Sorry- I apologized to the girl, when I looked at her I was so surprised by her style; I could tell she wasn’t wearing any cosplay. She had this colorful hair going from pink to purple upside down and a group of people following her dressed in the same style, yet not exactly the same and this porcelain skin, with big, beautiful light brown eyes marked by surprise.

-Nice aisha neko outfits- Phelan said and so the girl smiled. She was so skinny, yet not enough to say she could be anorexic.

-thank you so much! –She grinned and then stared at me with those big, light brown eyes and asked –what is your name? –but to my surprise was Phelan who answered.

-My name is Phelan; she is Kyle- that’s when I realized why he had talked for me. I was simply speechless.  They looked really awesome.

-woah, I love your names- she really…didn’t stopped smiling, so I can’t say she smiled again.-my name is Isleen. –she laid her hand on her chest in order to symbolize herself- he is Haley –she pointed out to a little boy, like 12 or 13 years old who was standing the closest to her, he grinned in a way you could see all his teeth, it was a funny cute, yet evil smile.

-hi- his infantile voice which matched his small body said. –want to join us? –he said shyly. Isleen smiled at him, like if she were greeting him about the idea, or participation. It was really weird, but no one else noticed. Then after a pause I realize Phelan decided to stop talking for me, and was looking at me waiting for my answer.

-ehm…sure- I said. We walked through and the most communicative one was Isleen, who was really cool. The strange thing was people seemed to be following her, instead of going as a group. Yet the most she talked about was her friends, but I could see how original and spontaneous she was. Their Aisha Neko outfits, as Phelan said before, weren’t at all from an anime, but from a DA digital artist one of her friends was obsessed with at the time.

-it was Lasair’s idea; she was so into it, we decided to do a group thing. Anyways, I would deny my soul for ever to actually WEAR a cosplay. This is as close as I’ll get. Now you tell me, what do you like? I mean…-she laughed-you don’t really seem like an otaku or so.  You are here just for spending free time, right? –She looked at me for a second –Me too, don’t worry. –she hurried on saying. Yet she was right on every word.

-uhm… I guess...- I thought about what things I enjoyed.- I really love novels, and music…well, like any other teenager, right?

-No, not like every teenager not- she almost laughed again- I really love reading novels too, especially fantastic literature. Have you read the girl who could fly? It’s soooo beautiful! I seriously recommend you to read it.

We chatted for a long time during the convention we had really similar tastes, like music and reading or paintings. She said she loved to draw and use watercolors and I told her my mom makes watercolors as well, so some day maybe they should see each other paintings one day.

Then it was time to come back home, Phelan agreed and we said good bye to everyone else. I feel something weird about that group. How they were all so close and looked at me in a suspicious way, And this strange…energy coming from their bodies.

Isleen gave me her phone number and e-mail, she said she is constantly online so we could talk whenever I wanted to. She also said we had to see each other someday soon, and that she was just organizing a ‘meeting-tea-party’ for this Saturday and that we were both totally invited.

Phelan stayed over at my place, not to sleep, but to talk all night long like we always use to and play some computer games, maybe read comics or books. He fell asleep at my bed, tired. But as I didn’t felt asleep I went to my computer. Isleen was, like she said she would be, online. So we talked for a little while until I fell asleep in the chair.

When I woke up Phelan wasn’t in the bed, then I heard some voices coming from downstairs, I recognized them easily, it was Cybele’s and Phelan’s, the voices came from the kitchen, I knew that because the kitchen was the only room far enough to hear just the mumbling of the voices but not recognize them, the other rooms which were even further away, were the greenhouse and Cybele’s bedroom and you couldn’t hear anything. And if they were in the living, or entertainment room I could hear them more clearly, and if they were in the upstairs hall or balcony, I could understand every word.

So I stood up and changed, then as I walked downstairs I could start smelling the sweet scent of vanilla cake, which grew stronger as I got closer to the kitchen. It was Friday today, so tomorrow would be the tea party we were invited. Its summer vacations, so it’s kind of normal for my mom and Phelan to be cooking billions of things all day. And all I wanted to do is start on a diet, go to the gym, but NOOO, they say I am fine and they continue giving me more food, like if I were a chicken to be fed and afterwards killed.

Today was a quiet day, Day to think and blog. So I took the time to write this.

Something always changes.

Every decision matters, even the silliest one, everything you do, matter, Changes something.

Influences. Everything is relevant.

That's why I think being impulsive is not always "that cool". Because your decisions reflect who you are, so be careful with them.

People tell me that it’s not good being as I am. I meditate about things, I think them over. They think I’m not being myself, that’s not natural.

But I disagree.

Cause that’s who I am. And it’s not like i think over stuff like: oh she may not like my skirt! Everyone’ll talk about it, it makes me look fat! I don’t care about that stuff. I decide to think over other things, to think with my head and not with my heart. That's me, not Ronald Macdonald. I’m the one that has decided that i care about my life that I want to make good decisions while I’m alive.

It’s not what’s on your mind, but what you do, your actions, what shows who you are.

"It's one of the great tragedies of life — something always changes."

But that's just my opinion. 

Next morning the alarm rang but I just didn’t felt like coming out of the bed to turn it off.  I took a bath, I ate breakfast, but choose not to have lunch cause there might be quite lots of food and If I have lunch I might not be hungry and not eat anything and so like that, I would look rude. Phelan came just in time and Cybele took us in her car to the address Isleen gave us.

She lived in a private neighborhood in the entrance of a forest, almost outside town. It was a three floors wooden house. The first floor was larger than the others, and in the extra part it had a sign which said ‘echo studios’ and it had a huge glass door, and you could see that, in the side of the house which was facing the forest, it was a glass window, full of microphones and instruments. It was Isleen’s father’s studio; she had told me he was a musician.

In the second floor you could only see a big window door which leaded to the big balcony, and in the third floor, normal windows.

We got off the car and the scent of wood and forest and rain (because the night before it rained, and in the woods the smell of rain lasts longer) crashed my nose. When we toed into the line the little rocks were proud enough to make themselves be felt by our feet, even when we had shoes on. We made our way to the front door of the house, not the studio, and Phelan pressed the button which would be the bell which rang we could hear from outside. Less than a minute later some curious eyes opened the door, which sounded loud and creepy, like in a horror movie. Isleen welcomed us with a melodious hi, and guided us into the house.

It was a small room, with a large table and a big double-library, in one side it was full of books (which titles I hadn’t the time to read) and in the other it was full of pencils and brushes and other similar things, there was a little tea table with two coaches, which were dark red. But she didn’t let us observe too much, and guided us to the wooden stairs, like is there was nothing interesting in the first floor, yet, coming from a door in the other side of the room I could smell brownies, vanilla cookies, tea and other smells I didn’t recognize.

We climbed up the stairs to the second floor, you could hear people talking as you got nearer, there were two doors, one closed, and the other opened, we walked to the last one, it was a space-full room, in the backward there was the glass door that leaded to the balcony. But in front of me there were 3 long tables, with many chairs accompanying them.

On every table there were teapots and teacups and spoons and bowls with cookies, cupcakes, waffles, brownies; you could hear a light Scandinavian music played as background and there was pretty much people, but not enough to fill the entire room, or occupy all the chairs. Were there more people to come?

-well, now that all of us are here, we can now start the tea party! –most people stood up and clapped, other screamed, other simply jumped on their food. Turning to face us, Isleen said – c’mon guys, find a place you like, and enjoy. Please –and she walked away to the last table, the one nearest to the windowed door. She sat down in the middle, next to a girl with long curly dark-brown hair and dark eyes, who was in the convention as well, yet I didn’t remember her name. Her body was thin and she was just 2 centimeters smaller than Isleen, who wasn’t tall, neither short. She grabbed a cup of tea and whispered some soundless words to the girl who nodded and glanced at me for a second, then turned around to talk with some other boy.

I felt Isleen’s eyes on me as I realized I hadn’t sat down and was still standing there, so I just grab the nearest chair and sat down. When I came back to my senses, Phelan was looking at me because I just sat next to someone else and there was no space for him. I panicked and looked at him saying sorry, since we were friends for ever, we could understand each other with our looks, looking at me, he said that it was ok, that after all it was a MEETING tea party.

So he kept walking and sat in the table between mine’s and Isleen’s. He sat down next to the light brown, with pink bangs short haired and crazy eyes girl who I recognized as Lasair, from the convention.

-what kind of tea would you like? –Haley voice turned me back to reality.  I felt speechless, I didn’t knew him and didn’t know how to talk to him or anything and this is a meeting tea party so the point was to be as social as I could, but I am not, that much of a social person- or do you prefer normal tea?- he said, trying to make me feel more comfortable. He looked really shy, and didn’t smile much, like he did in the convention when he was next to Isleen.

-uhm…I’ll have normal tea, thanks –I said. Haley looked very much like Isleen, they could even be brothers, the only difference would be the age and the fact Isleen dyes her hair. But she told me she was an only child, like me, so they could be cousins, or just friends who looked alike.

He made me tea and smiled, we stood silent as we felt uncomfortable and I just stared at my teacup, when a loud voice broke into the room with great strength, wanting to be heard.

-CHANGE, CHANGE! IT’S TIME TO CHANGE PLACES! –I didn’t know whose voice was it from or where did it came from. Alice in wonderland was, of course, the first thing that crossed my mind after disorientation, yet I didn’t know what to do, so I look at my surroundings. People were standing up from their sits and moving to the other sides of their tables or to other tables, Lasair and other boy moved together, others grabbed their teacups and took them with themselves to wherever they went, others didn’t, Haley got up and walked away, I try to find Phelan with my eyes but then a short girl with light brown hair, big cheeks and green eyes came to me.

-hello, I am Vanessa, we’ve met at the convention, remember? –I remembered her talking to Lassair during the convention; she looked cutie in every point of view. –According to Isly, you sound like a c00l girl –she giggled.

-Oh…thank you –I felt weird by the fact Isleen was talking about me to her friends, and saying I am cool- you look cool too, I guess. –she smiled looking into my eyes with her big curious ones.

-it must be really weird, coming to a tea party where you know almost no-one and being obliged to talk to strangers, like me. But I really like you and want to let you know you are welcomed to our group. –She smiled, and then quickly I saw a shadow of desperation and alarm in her eyes –to our group...of friends, yeah, of friends of course, yeah –she hesitated on saying. She made a nervous giggle and looked away. What did just happen? –sooooo…aren’t you going to eat anything? By the time you’ll want to there will be no more food left –she smiled.

At the same time I hear several chairs moving and then saw Isleen, Haley and the other girl going downstairs. I watch them go and then make my hand find her way to a pink cupcake. I slowly ate it, it was sweet and delicious. I felt Vanessa’s eyes on me in a strange way.

-do you like them? –I nodded yes – I helped cooking them with Scott- she points out to the boy sitting in front of us, he was incredibly big, with crazy short black hair, cute cheekbones and brown eyes, as she pointed him out, he looked at me.

-HIIII –his voice sounded quite feminine, despite his enormous body, so high pitched that if he screamed or talked louder you could have quite a headache- I am Scott, you?

-Hello, I am Kyle– I smiled at him-nice to meet you- he looked really cute, not sexy-cute, but teddy-bear-cute. He was wearing a red and white striped shirt and blue jeans; in his hand he was holding his cell phone, which had strawberry, cupcakes, pucca, and other similar cute things-stickers on it.

-Oh, thankyou! - His voice WAS kind of annoying. He smelled strongly like vanilla. We chatted about random things, Vanessa, Scott and I. mostly cupcake-related things. He showed me some clothes design he does, really cute. When I saw Isleen, Haley and her other friend coming back upstairs with EVEN more food, I heard again,

-CHANGE! CHANGE! IT’S TIME TO CHANGE PLACES! –the strong voice came from Isleen’s brunette friend.

-oh, well, this is it then, see you later Kyle, nice meeting you, see you later- Vanessa said as she got up from her chair, then hesitated to me –you don’t need to change sits, since everybody else is moving, don’t worry. –and she blinked me an eye with her Roundy-cheeky-heart-shaped face, and walked away. I looked around and saw how Phelan gave a broad smile welcoming Isleen next to him. she sat there like a statue, with deep lost eyes,  her lips from time to time moved just a bit, almost unnoticeable, to form a hidden smile. She casually blinked her eyes, but it felt like if she really didn’t needed to, Phelan and her looked cute together, I started wondering if he liked her or something.

-Kyle, right? I am sorry I haven’t introduced myself before; I am Isleen’s best friend. –When I turned around I saw the other girl, who was in constant company with Isleen –my name is Lanna.- and she sat next to me. Even though I was so curious about her before, now my concentration faded to the other table where Phelan and Isleen were talking peacefully, the only times were she moved was to play with her red hair or to drink a little bit of tea, listening carefully with lost eyes to whatever Phelan was telling her, asking questions regularly and nodding frequently.

Lanna and I barely exchanged words, and by her body language I could tell that maybe she was very similar to Isleen, but she had also a stricter, stronger, harder, tougher personality, and I could also tell that she didn’t had any secrets with isleen. Lanna, as I, was distracted by Isleen at the same time, we discreetly stared, but in one of the times Lanna was looking at her, they both nodded their heads, and Lanna stood up, at the same time Isleen did.

-CHANGE! CHANGE! IT’S TIME TO CHANGE PLACES EVERYONE! C’MON!-Lanna yelled. Then she smiled and nodded at me and walked into Isleen’s direction. I didn’t move, but sat there watching my teacup. I felt Phelan sit next to me, and saw how he grabbed a cupcake to bite it.

-soo, how has it been for you? –I asked

-I can tell for sure, Lassaire  is completely nuts. I mean, she is mad, so weird.

-I am beginning to think everyone in here is, but every each one in their one unique way. –I turn back to find Vanessa talking with Lassaire and Scott talking to someone else, Lanna and Isleen were talking together once again, and Haley was talking to some other girl with short blond hair who I recognized was in the convention.

The rest of the time it was all natural, time run off quickly, we laughed and closed ourselves to everyone else existence, like we always did. Like if it was just the two of us, in home, at tea time. I was really curious about what was he talking about with Isleen, but I didn’t dare asking him, it should be something he chooses to tell me, I thought.

 Sometime later, Isleen and Lannawalked together to the stairs but didn’t go down, but faced us all, so we could all see them. Lannawas the one to talk.

-so guys, this is when the tea party comes to its end. So let’s all put the garbage in the trash, ok? If you don’t help cleaning I’ll go to your houses in the night and murder you…slowly – with the last phrase Isleen poked her in the arm with a reproach look. I heard people standing up –Remember, the ones who would like to stay longer, can –nobody moved, or said anything, but Isleen changed her expression and looked in our direction, like a warning. And I felt half the people moving and starting to clean – I’ll remind you, the ones who stay, we are going to make a circle – and grinned as she saw how the ones who stopped cleaning to stay started cleaning again to leave. Then Isleen sat her deep eyes on mine, analyzing me, in a different way everybody has done it.

-What’s a circle? - I whispered to Phelan, maybe he knew about it ‘cause of his little chat he had with Isleen.

-No idea –he said in a low voice. Like hearing my question, Isleen came toward us. Lanna and Haley helped cleaning the tables and floor and taking things to the kitchen, but after that only Haley came back.

-wondering what is a circle? –she gently smiled at us. –a circle is a way of celebrating nature; we join hands and dance and sing peacefully. I know you are going to love it –she giggled in happiness. Then looked specifically at me – you are going to find it… quite amazing. You’ll see, you lose nothing if you don’t like it. Just, stay and see. –now in the living there where around eight more people apart from us, and the tables were clean, I felt bad for not helping, but I got the feeling that even if I volunteered they wouldn’t let me. I feel like I am the new one. –pleeaase stay and be part of it, if you don’t like it, or don’t feel good, or whatever, you don’t have to worry, you can go, I won’t feel bad, and I won’t bother you about it ever again. – dancing, singing, celebrating nature, it sounded quite peculiar, quite curious; I looked at Phelan, who had a disapproving look. I didn’t see the reason why wouldn’t he like to stay and experiment something new. We always had liked adventures, and this sounded like a cool one. With, or without him, I was going to see what this circle was about.

-I am in. –I said, smiling for the first time in a while (apart from the time I was chatting with Phelan) then I turned to face him. –c’mon Phel, stay with me, she said so, there is nothing to lose.

-I am sorry, I won’t stay. I am going home. –he said. This would be the first time he would leave me alone.

Isleen nodded, showing sadness and we waited for him to go. He took the bus home, and I suddenly felt empty, alone, and naked without him. But Isleen’s presence made me feel calm and in peace, almost protected, but not like Phelan.