~~
Talia
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I just screamed in fear as the blood of my parents started to rain down on top of me. That was how the vision ended. I was once again laying in my bed, in my room. I was safe. I was unharmed. But I couldn't stop screaming.
“AAAAHHHH! AAAAHHHH! AAAAHHHH! AAAAHHHH! AAAAHHHH!” I was holding my face and just screaming over and over again. I could feel that my throat was starting to tear and bleed from the effort of me forcing out these screams, but I didn't care. I just kept screaming over and over again. “AAAAHHHH! AAAAHHHH! AAAAHHHH! AAAAHHHH! AAAAHHHH!”
“TALIA!” I heard Lex and Rudy calling for me as they burst through my door.
“AAAAHHHH! AAAAHHHH! AAAAHHHH! AAAAHHHH! AAAAHHHH!” I just continued to scream more and more.
.....
“TALIA!?” Lex called for me again.
“WHAT HAPPENED!?” Rudy sounded so scared as he chased him.
“AAAAHHHH! AAAAHHHH! AAAAHHHH! AAAAHHHH! AAAAHHHH!” There was nothing that I could do to stop the screaming.
“TALIA!” It felt to me like Lex had just changed when he saw me. Something in the way that he was moving and calling out to me had changed, but I didn't know what it was. “TALIA, WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU!”
Lex and Rudy dropped to their knees next to me and I could see them in my peripheral vision, but that was all. I wasn't able to focus on them. I couldn't focus on either of them. I was still reeling from the vision that I had just seen.
“AAAAHHHH! AAAAHHHH! AAAAHHHH! AAAAHHHH! AAAAHHHH!” I could taste the blood in my mouth as it bubbled up from my throat with each scream that came ripping its way out of my mouth. “AAAAHHHH! AAAAHHHH! AAAAHHHH! AAAAHHHH! AAAAHHHH!”
“TALIA!” Lex grabbed me and lifted me from the bed. “What happened to you? Who hurt you? How did this happen?” I didn't know what he was talking about. I wasn't hurt. Just my throat, my heart, and my mind. I had just watched my parents die. Yes, it was just a vision, but I remember the way that their bodies looked as that thing mangled them. The sight of it was enough to destroy me. I couldn't handle that. My parents were always there for me. They were supposed to be a constant in my life. And now I needed to come to terms with the fact that they were going to die. Unless I was able to stop it, they were going to leave me and my siblings forever. I can't handle that. And I failed to save the girls from my school because I was too weak. I hadn't saved anyone at all. I was pathetic and I just couldn't do anything at all.
“AAAAHHHH! AAAAHHHH! AAAAHHHH! AAAAHHHH! AAAAHHHH!” I screamed again and again as Lex searched all over my body for something. I realized too late that he was looking for an injury on me. He thought that I was physically hurt for some reason. I didn't know why he thought that, but I was fine. It was all in my head. I was fine aside from the fact that I was screaming and crying uncontrollably.
That had been the moment when I realized that there were tears streaming down my cheeks. I didn't care. I couldn't stop the tears anymore than I could stop my screaming.
“Talia, please, you have to stop screaming and talk to me.”
“What is wrong with Talia?” I heard Reagan's voice coming from the doorway.
“Talia? What is wrong?” Rika was next.
“What happened to my sister?” Zaley's sweet voice was next.
“Is she hurt?” Zayden, the sensitive one of the boys, sounded like he was on the verge of tears.
“Why is she screaming?” Zachary was curious as well.
“What is wrong with her?” Zander was the one to wrap it all up. All of my siblings were calling out to me. I could sense more people, perhaps their guards. I didn't know for sure though. I couldn't see them as I stared at the ceiling and just watched the moment of my parents' death in my head over and over again.
“She doesn't appear to be hurt.” Rudy was the one that said this. I thought of a response to him, but all I could do was scream.
“AAAAHHHH! AAAAHHHH! AAAAHHHH! AAAAHHHH! AAAAHHHH!”
'Of course, I am not hurt. I am just going fucking crazy.'
“If she isn't hurt, then what happened to her?” Reagan was walking into the room now. I knew that he was scared and worried because I seemed to have lost my mind. I wanted to comfort him and make everything better like I always did, but I couldn't. I didn't know how to at the moment.
“I need to get her to wake up. Whatever happened to her, she is still not fully awake.” Lex's panicked voice came from very close by.
“Take her to the shower. Get her to wake up that way.” Rika suggested. “The cold might jolt her awake. Plus, it will rinse all of that off of her.” Rinse what off of me? That was strange. I didn't have anything other than my pajamas. Unless I was covered in sweat or something.
Lex didn't say anything in response to her words, he just cradled me against his massive chest as he marched toward the bathroom. Rudy, hands free, ran ahead of him and opened the door. I also noticed that he ran into the room and turned the water on. He was preparing for my sister's suggestion. Who knows, maybe she is right. It couldn't hurt, so it was worth a shot.
I wanted to scream even more when I was in the bathroom. The way that Lex was holding me I was able to see the mirror perfectly when we passed by the sink. And I saw that I was covered in blood from head to toe. Thick, dark, sticky blood.
I wanted to scream, but I couldn't. The moment that I saw that blood, my parents' blood, I was stunned into silence. I wasn't even breathing anymore. I was at a loss, and I was more scared than I had ever been in my entire life.
“It's OK, Talia.” Lex stepped into the shower with me in his arms. It was more than big enough for us both, so he just got under the cascading water and let the cold water rain down on top of me.
A split second before the water touched me, I felt something inside of me shift. I was scared. I was angry. I was more pissed off than I had ever been in my entire life. But I was also determined to make sure that nothing like that ever happened to my parents in real life.
“Talia?” I heard the wonder in Lex's voice when he called my name. I don't know what it was that he was seeing in me at the moment, but I knew that it was something strong and determined.
The moment that the water actually did touch me, that was when something inside of me exploded. Whatever it was that changed, it was what caused this. And one moment I was staring off into the distance with Lex's arms wrapped around me. And the next moment I could hear the other people in the room screaming instead of me.
“WHAT THE HELL!?”
“WHOA!”
“OH MY GODDESS!”
“TALIA!” Lex was the last one to yell out, and that was as he collapsed to the floor beneath me.
Why would he collapse? Well, that was because I was no longer the tiny little Talia that he was used to carrying. Now, I was something a lot bigger, and a lot more lethal.
I was standing next to Lex on four feet. I was covered in fur. And I was growling angrily.
“Talia?” Lex called out to me apprehensively. “Are you OK?”
“I am fine.” The sound of my words was clear and perfect. I didn't have a problem at all talking in this form.
“What happened?” Rika looked at me, her eyes opened wide and her mouth hanging open. “Why were you covered in blood?”
“I had another vision.” I sat on my haunches and turned to look at Lex. “And this one was a lot worse than the others.”
At that moment, a little delayed from the others, my parents came running into the room. I had a feeling that one of the guards went to get them, since the sound didn't travel up to their room very well, they wouldn't have heard me screaming like that.
“Talia!?” Mom was looking at me with wide, shocked eyes.
“You shifted?” My dad, dead tired and stating the obvious, stopped in his tracks as he looked at me.
I stood and walked over to the middle of the room. I wanted to see what I looked like. They were all staring at me like I was not normal. And I saw why when I looked in the mirror.
My wolf was not a normal color. Like my mom, I had one that was different. Actually, our dad's wolf was odd now as well. And Reagan and Rika had wolves that weren't normal, but I felt like I was the closest to mom's level of different.
Instead of a solid colored wolf, I was looking at one that was a deep purple, like wine. The dark purple color was broken by streaks of lavender that ran through my fur. And my eyes were glowing a bright violet. I was different in all ways possible. I didn't know why, but my wolf was unlike all of the others.
