Arnold lived about twenty minutes walking time from me. Most of the walk was on back roads through residential neighborhoods, low on traffic and street lights. I couldn't help but be acutely aware of the moon in the sky, buried behind a cloud bank. Its light was muted but still fascinating now, drawing my eyes skyward. I did my best to ignore it, making small talk with Arnold about school and girls who we had crushes on. But every few seconds, I would glance skyward, knowing what hid behind the clouds.
For a second there was a break in the cloud bank, and a sliver of the moon peeked out at us, bathing me in light. An immediate electric surge passed through me, causing me to gasp in shock. It didn't hurt; rather the opposite. I could feel my teeth beginning to lengthen, my ears stretching upward into a point. Then the clouds covered the moon again, and the sensation stopped, and my changes reversed quickly.
"Dude!" snapped Arnold, "What the fuck, man? Let's get going, I have a serious videogame itch I need to scratch!" Arnold was a videogame junkie, and he wanted to continue his new obsession with kicking my ass at Tekken 5, I realized.
"Yeah...sorry, I kinda zoned out," I said, still glancing up at the sky. I noticed the cloud bank had started to slightly break up. Somehow, in my mind, I could calculate that in five minutes the moon would be free of the clouds, based on wind speed. Almost magically, the wind picked up, pushing the cloud bank quicker past the moon. Somehow I had known that this would happen. Perhaps it was a werewolf instinct kicking in?
I picked up my pace slightly, now unsure of myself. What if I didn't simply attack and bite Arnold? I had never changed before. What if I killed him? But the call of the wolf inside of me was powerful. I WANTED to change, wanted to feel the full power inside of me let out. I wanted Arnold to see it, and I wanted to bite him. It was a war inside myself, and now I could understand the struggle between the beastial side and the human side portrayed in so many movies.
So I...