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The light had started hitting Enid on her eyes. She opened them and saw that it was another day of school and social life. Her roommate was already getting ready to go to breakfast. Enid started to get out of bed but could not move very suddenly.
“Ouch.” She tried to make her legs move but they felt like they were made out of stones.
Enid tried to stretch them away but met with no luck. Now that she moved, she felt that the rest of her body was not any different from her legs. Her mind and body begged her to stay in bed and not do anything for the day.
She tried to get up quickly to make her body’s pain go away but she immediately fell back to her bed. Enid put out a yelp while she was getting back to bed. Falling also made the pain worse somehow, until it went back to being a dull ache.
The noise of the falling perked Wednesday to look at her roommate. “Bad pain day?”
Enid moved her head. “Yeah, I guess so.”
Ever since she first Turned, Enid was dealing with pain from her bones close to the full moon. When Ms. Capri cornered her after Enid had to skip yet another class because she barely was able to get out of bed to get water, she said it might be because she wolfed out so late in the first place.
With the others in the Pack, they were able to have a wolf form, while they were very early on their development. So their bodies were used to getting bigger and changing to their wolf forms. They were able to grow with that.
But with Enid, her body was able to develop a lot already before she wolfed out. Now, every time before she changed, her body and her ability were fighting and she was paying the price. Capri also told her it might not go away and she might have to deal with this for the rest of her life too.
Great. Before she was complaining that she could not wolf out, now she can wolf out but has to deal with immense pain before she actually can. A struggle that no one in her pack can relate to either.
Just her luck.
“Still no cure?” Wednesday asked while she was doing her tie from the mirror.
“Every single one of them is useless life advice like how I can ‘try to not stress about life’ or ‘do paintings’.” In fairness, Enid paints sometimes but they do not particularly help with her physical pain.
Wednesday hummed as an answer and started packing her books into her backpack. “There must be something out there.”
“It is not something that is seen in a lot of wolves so science does not care that much.” Enid said as an answer while checking the classes that she probably needs to miss today.
Ugh, she wanted to go to the Alchemy because their new topic was actually interesting but she guessed it was off-the-table now.
“Well, we can do experiments about it ourselves.” Wednesday said, while she wore her school jacket.
Enid tried to not sound weirded out for Wednesday’s sake, but she also remembered that Wednesday would talk about her torture of her brother as ‘experiments.’ Even though, she claims that she did many important discoveries from them and that they were not torture at all. She says that the torture was done after the experiments to celebrate the discoveries. “I am not that much of a science gal, Wednesday.” Enid tried to not close her eyes back but the pain was getting harder for her to deal with by any minute.
Wednesday ignored her comment and opened the door to their dorm room. Just as she was texting the group chat about her condition, Enid yelled bye to Wednesday and went back to sleep.
After a few hours had passed, Enid opened her eyes again to be greeted by Thing on the nightstand next to her bed. He was not moving so Enid assumed he was sleeping as well. Mostly because she cannot actually see if he was sleeping, given the fact that he did not have eyes, but that was another conversation.
Next to Thing, was a sandwich on a plate. She was able to smell the peanut butter and jelly from it.
“OMG! Thank you, Thing.” Enid said while grabbing the sandwich from the plate. She did not mean to react that much to not wake up Thing but she was starving because she had to miss breakfast.
Thing moved back to life and started standing on his fingers. He started spelling something.
“I know, I am sorry I woke you up.” Enid said sincerely.
Thing continued to move his fingers.
“Yes, I know that Wednesday does not appreciate you enough.” But she had no idea how that was related to her sandwich.
Until he moved more. “Oh.”
If she understood it right from Thing’s spellings, it was actually Wednesday who had sent Thing with the plate upstairs. Thing was complaining about how hard it was to get a whole plate up here with his hands.
“Well, I see your struggles.” Enid tried to sympathize with Thing.
While he continued to complain, Enid finished her plate clean. “While I do love our chats, Thing, I still do not feel well enough to take on the world so would it be alright if I went back to laying down?” Enid tried to put on her most kind face.
Thing suddenly stopped his complaint and gave a serenade, confirming that she can go back to sleep.
When Enid woke up from her nap this time, her body actually felt better than before. She got up from her bed and walked around a little. The hard aches became lower dull aches so she counted that as a win. On some days, she would wake up from her nap and the pain would have gotten worse.
She looked around the room but could not see Thing anywhere nor his dollhouse so she thought that he probably went back to doing whatever crazy thing Wednesday was making him do.
She checked her phone and saw that her classes ended already. She needed to see Capri about her classes for the day so they would not count as absences.
After she wore her daily bright outfits, she left the dorm and went to the courtyard. Her new school year was better than her last because now she had friends. Still, the pain days made her FOMO act up sometimes.
She saw Wednesday outside a couple of times, but whenever she tried to talk to her, she would find a way to just quickly go away.
Realistically, Enid knew that Wednesday did not interact with people she did not think necessary and since they were outside, there were people she did not tolerate. But still, Enid had to accept that she missed hanging out with Wednesday sometimes.
After a couple of hours, she said bye to the Pack and went back to the dorm to see Wednesday sitting at her table reading a book.
“Hi,” Enid tried to open the conversation with Wednesday. “How is the current investigation going?” Wednesday was not sharing the details about the new, completely insane investigation and Enid did not want to force her to share.
“So far, unfruitful.” Wednesday said without looking up from her book. “How are you feeling?” She asked.
“Wow, Wednesday you are starting to make me think that you care about my well-being.” Enid said, but she was only meaning to tease.
“If I lose you, then I might have to find another friend and I do not particularly like that many people in the school.” Wednesday said, but Enid knew the truth.
“To answer your question, since we are close to the full moon, I will never not have pain I guess but it is better than the morning. Walking around helped a little.” Enid said, while she was putting her beanie and her bag on her table.
Wednesday only said “I am glad.” and went back to her book.
Enid knew the conversation was over because nobody could get in between Wednesday and her books when she is in the mood. But she did notice papers that did not belong to her on her table.
Enid lifted them to see what the content of the papers was about.
It was the notes for the classes that she had today.
With neat, clear writings written in ink that was black (and only black).
Enid was confused. “Wednesday, I think you somehow forgot your notes on my table.” Which was strange because Wednesday did not have Normie History.
Wednesday did not bother to turn around from her table. “No, I have my copies here.”
“Oh.” said Enid. It was the only thing she could say.
Enid knew that she should not say something and it would make Wednesday conscious. But it felt weird to not say anything at all too. “Thanks.”
Wednesday did not say anything back. She did not have to.
Some time passed, some promises were exchanged between them.
Now, Enid was alone in the woods. Stuck in her wolf form. Running away from ones that are like her. Running away from her own.
Sometimes, when she was running from the wild that was not familiar to her, she would have random surges of pain on her legs and arms. It was especially hard on her when it was cold and rainy. She always hated the feels of rain on her fur.
She could not form sentences in her head anymore. This was not the case when she was able to change back. Since now she was stuck on her wolf form for god knows how long, she felt distance from her humanself.
She was not able to form sentences but she knew that some words were important. She did not understand what some of them meant. ‘Wednesday’ was one of those words.
But she knew, deep down, that ‘Pack’ was the same as ‘Wednesday’, and Pack was going to find her soon.