I was not surprised by how I was woken up, Noah had come downstairs and whacked me with a metal spoon. My eyes widened as I woke up in shock from the impact on my skull, that little twerp was going to get it. He's thirteen for crying out loud, shouldn't he be more mature? It was the least of my worries right now though, my mum had opened the curtains, the sun was blinding me.

"Gah," I mumbled, "What in tarnation is this? Shouldn't we be allowed to sleep longer, mum?"

She looked back from the window, the curtains in her hands. Her eyes were somewhat red, we must have kept her up last night with the screaming. She looked at me and then scowled before shutting the drapes again and stalking off, her a-line skirt flapping around her legs. Why was she mad at me? Just because I wanted to sleep longer? It didn't matter to me anymore, grogginess was trapping me in it's cage again. I could feel the cool touch from a bar actually, my mind just made dreams become realistic before I could fall asleep. I rolled onto my side and snuggled up to the side of the couch, that is, until I felt it start to hug me back. I screamed and pushed myself away, startled by the action. I opened my eyes to see Aster with his eyes wide open in surprise, like he had just saw the music video Wrecking Ball.

"What just happened?" he asked, a little bit dazed.

"You hugged me! That's not okay! You know I don't like hugs!" I shouted. The others started to stir around us. Molly shifted and rolled her back up against my leg, a loud snort came from her as she dozed back off into a dream.

"Nic, shut up. Can't we sleep?" Brent asked, a bit irritated at me. His glare wasn't the most pleasant either, after a moment of silence he went back into his sleeping bag and started to snore only moments later.

I sighed and lied back on the thick carpet, my arms had gotten cold and I was still deprived of my precious sleep. I pulled the brown and white quilt up to my neck and then turned to face Molly's back, her black hair had been braided into two pigtails when I had left apparently, the ties were a hot pink with gold thread stitched through them. I yanked the quilt over my head hoping to block out the sunlight trying to break through the curtains. Thudding came from the kitchen, why wouldn't Noah respect that my friends and I wanted to sleep? A sudden thud of a spoon hitting me in the temple made me lose it.

"NOAH! I'm going to kill you!" I ripped the blanket off of me and got to my feet to chase after the damned child. Austin, Brent, Tammy, and Gwen groaned, getting pissed at me for yelling. He started running towards the back door, I was hot on his heels. These little games had to stop, he had to act more mature or else our parents will send him to military school. He had already escaped into our foggy backyard. The fog was somewhat okay, I could see some things far away depending on the color, it felt thin as I entered it. Dew and dirt started to stick to the bottom of my bare feet as I walked out into the cool morning. A flash of red went behind the gray shed, Noah shouldn't have worn such a bright color.

I darted towards the shed, picking up a fallen tree branch as I went. He glanced at me and bolted for the fence. He grabbed the top of the fence and started to pull himself up, it didn't help that it was six feet tall and a bunch of spiked wooden boards, to top it off the wood was slippery from the moisture. As he tried, mud was smeared all over the nice, smooth cherry wood. I still gained ground, getting closer and closer with each step. Noah hoisted himself again in an attempt to escape my goal to murder him with a two inch diameter stick, this time he was able to jump and succeed. I jumped up and looked over the fence to see him on the ground, he was lying on his back, his breathing labored.

"I'll just destroy you later," I sighed and walked back inside; I grabbed a towel out of the laundry room and wiped off the dirt on my feet. The sound of small talk reached my ear, it seemed everyone was awake now. I entered the living room to see everyone awake, they still seemed tired. A few had violet bags under their eyes, some others having red eyes from a bad night's sleep. "Morning, guys," I said in a friendly tone. They all stared at me, anger and irritation in their eyes. "What's wrong?" I asked, tilting my head slightly to the side.

"You woke us all up with your yelling and chasing! Not cool at all, Nic!" Brent yelled, he was clearly pissed off.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up. Noah is just a--"

"Brat, I know," he scoffed before getting up and walking past me to the bathroom.

Molly just shook her head, apparently she wasn't impressed with how Brent was behaving. Gwen just sighed and pulled our her phone, checking facebook. Austin started to pick at his nails, cleaning the dirt out from under them. Tammy went back to sleeping, this time zipping her sleeping bag up over her head so she was cocooned inside of it. Well, looks like Brent was leaving right now due to me being loud. I took a step over Tammy's legs and sat between her and Aster, the tv remote was over here somewhere.

"Anyone want to watch some tv?" I asked once I found it wedged between the couch cushions, along with a few pieces of popcorn and chips.

"Sure, this room does need entertainment," Gwen said as she moved to face the screen. For once she looked normal, her ash brown hair had no dye or chalk in it and she didn't have her usual heavy load of make up on.

"Put it on the news, I want to see if we're going to have any storms this week or rain," Austin said. he was on the boy's basketball team and a runner for the football team, I could see why he wanted to know. No sports equals hyper Austin, more hyper than he usually was in general.

"Okay," I clicked the power button and then put it on the local news, just the normal morning stories.

"Good morning, people of Sanford. We welcome you to this lovely fall day, right now it's sixty-four degrees outside with partly cloudy skies," the reporter went on and on. A few stories went by along with the weather, and being the bums we were we didn't change the channel due to our laziness. A report that a burglary happened down at one of the gas stations didn't surprise me. The Federal Government was still trying to make a solution to our debt, plus Congress wasn't working with President Obama, those Senators had to stop being stuck up. There was a new proposal at our school, no biggie, just trying to improve the arts by getting a little more money to keep the classes. Shoot out with police down at one of the Flagstar banks, the dude was arrested after he was shot in the shoulder.

"And last but not least, there was an attack just five miles away from Stanford Senior and Junior High School. No one was killed, but a elder woman reported seeing a dog attack a man out on the streets."

I was now paying attention to the television, dog attack? Was this me they were talking about?

A video stream from two blocks away appeared on the screen, the background was filled with all the trees turning their reds, oranges, and browns, Mrs. Hans - our elder neighbor on that road- appeared on the screen.

"All I was doing was putting my plates in the dishwasher when I heard a loud growling outside. When I looked up I saw a big fluffy dog attacking a man. It was horrifying," she said.

"And you say you have a picture of this dog?" the journalist with her. Everyone in this town knew Mrs. Hans was an amazing artist, usually she did all her work from her mind.

"Yes," she said.

"May we please see it?"

She pulled a piece of nine by twelve paper with a very fierce animal scratched onto it. It looked like a mix of Husky, Saint Bernard, Australian Shepard, and possibly actual wolf as well. She had colored it as well, there were different shades of brown and golds in it, the eyes a startling amber color. The cropped ears were flat against the creature's head as it's face was in a snarl. In some ways I could see how that could be me.

"Pfft," Austin scoffed, "I bet she made that up. She's nuts, at the age of 107 she can't see things straight."

"True," I agreed with him, she was a crazy old lady, but she did see me and whomever the vampire was.

A scene appeared showing a part of the road blocked off, yellow police tape wrapped from street lights to stop signs to house fences. In the taped off area was a large bloody ground with tuffs of golden brown hair sticking to it as well. I saw what looked like claw marks in the asphalt and even areas where it had been blown out by something heavy. One area showed what looked to be where a man was thrown, by the depth and length of it the person had to be about six feet and one hundred and sixty pounds.

Footsteps came down the stairs as we all now watched the news, just interested in the story. I only was because I wanted to see what damage I had done. The screen then went black, we looked around the room for the culprit before all of us looked in the direction of the stairs. My dad stood there, his black hair all messed up, gray eyes slightly red from the lack of sleep, his almost white skin looked as if he was a zombie. The gray bathrobe and black pajamas didn't help much, they only made his skin paler.

"Mr. Dalca, why did you turn it off? That story was pretty cool," Austin said with a somewhat pleading look upon his face.

"You guys shouldn't see that kind of stuff, it's not for kids." He walked away into the kitchen then to grab a bite to eat. Too bad he had work today, I wonder what it's going to be like having a full moon on a school night. He said something else, but I didn't quite catch it.

"Got it," everyone said around me.

"Wait," I turned to face Aster, "What did he say?"

"He said our parents would be here in about two hours. Tammy and Gwen's as well."

"Oh, I see. So Austin and Brent are driving home themselves?"

"Yeah, you didn't see the red Ford truck and the small black Toyota in your driveway?"

"Nope, I didn't notice at all."

It went silent after that, I stared at the blank television screen with my mind clouded. I was exhausted, like everything was drained out of me. Was this an effect of my metamorphosis? Would it pull this much energy from me?

"Hey, kids. If you want breakfast, then come in here for it. There's doughnuts and apple cider." My dad called from the kitchen, his voice sounded a little different, most likely the lack of energy.

We were all up on our feet in seconds, there was no way those doughnuts were going to survive now. Austin was the first one through the dark oak door, Molly and I right behind him, Tammy and Aster came in only moments later. Apparently no one wanted to notify Brent about food. After Austin has attacked the box, I snatched a chocolate doughnut covered in sugar powder and a long john doughnut. Everyone else grabbed two to four after me and also filled their glasses with apple cider or water.

"Thanks, dad," I said as I put a mug of apple cider in the microwave to heat up.

"Welcome," he replied as he left the kitchen. I wouldn't blame him, he was pretty beat from last night.

After the microwave went off I returned to my friends at the table. Well, most were at the table, Gwen was leaning against the wall, considering there were no more chairs I had to stand as well. There was a fifth chair, but my dad said he had to use it for something. Now we had about an hour before everyone would be gone, we were going to be idiots until then.

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