Life on the Dark Side of the Moon

I'm not sure how I ended up here. Well, I guess I know how I physically got here. One foot in front of the other, right? But I feel like my situation is somehow a little more complicated than that. I was normal, once upon a time. Human. Well, almost human. I guess I've always been carrying the gene. It wasn't until recently that I've started shifting. And it wasn't until I came here that I even understood what shifting really was.

Here. Forks.

Which is apparently overrun with werewolves...

And vampires...

And crazed humans who hang out with them both.

But hey, I don't have any room to complain. At least now I know I'm not alone.

I guess I should start the story at a very obvious place.

The Beginning.



I was born in Manokotak, Alaska. If you don't know much about it, then you probably never will. It's just that sort of place. I'm mostly Yup'ik, though my mother claims my father had some Russian in him. You wouldn't know by looking at me, so I've decided those claims may or may not be credible. I was born more or less a poster child for Manokotak, from my slanted brown eyes to my knack for fishing. No one would have ever guessed the secrets that coursed through my veins, and to be honest, neither would I.

I started noticing I was different when I turned sixteen. Things shifted in me, in a way that was different than average teenage puberty. I started running fevers regularly, not that they bothered me. I would feel fine until my mother would feel my forehead and curse under her breath. She thought evil had posessed me, and many nights I could hear her pray in her smoke filled room for the spirits to help me. It was hard, seeing my mother so distressed, but no matter how long I stood naked out in the snow, I never cooled down.


My temperature was only the first sign. I've always been small for my age, but soon I was eating enough for three grown men. My mother went into debt trying to keep fish in front of me. I knew I couldn't keep asking her for more food, so I started hunting on my own. I know it sounds odd for a sixteen-year-old girl to go hunting alone, but it was suprisingly easy. Out in the woods I could run, and marvel at the new muscles that were developing in my legs. By then I knew something was definitely wrong with me, but I didn't know what I could do about it. People would think I was crazy if I told them I was out in the woods catching squirrels and eating them raw.


And then I shifted for the first time. It's hard to describe to anyone who hasn't done it before exactly what it's like. It's like you've lost your mind and finally found it at the same time. I had trouble controlling it at first. I would feel it coming on in the pit of my stomach, and it would drive me to my knees. It drives me crazy now, thinking how lucky I was that I never shifted around my mother, or anyone else for that matter. I always managed to slip away before I surrendered.


It was early fall. I had only been shifting for a few months when it happened. He was an average looking man, nothing to set him apart from anyone else in Manokotak, except of course for the fact that he was there that day and saw me. I had just gotten done hunting, and had gone back to my human form already, redressed and ready to return to what I considered my semi-normal life. I was walking through the woods when all of sudden I heard a crunching of footsteps. The scent of blood still filled my nose, so I couldn't smell anyone else around. Then my ears were split by a deafening bang as I saw red. It took a moment for the searing pain in my arm to register, but once it hit me I was gone, my clothes tearing off as I shifted into the giant white wolf I had been doubling as for so many months. Something wet and warm was trickling down from my shoulder. I saw him then, standing with his gun, pale faced and big eyed. The gears in my mind clicked into place and I realized I had been shot. He must have thought I was an animal, and shot, only to realize he had hit a girl. I'm sure he wasn't expecting the girl to transform into a snarling wolf. His arms were shaking as he raised his gun again. The poor man was probably in shock. Before he could take aim, I was gone, running with my injury forgotten in the only direction I was concerned with. Away from Manokotak.