Henry's Journal

Sunday, September 28, 2012

LOG: Facebook chat between Henry & his sister Chris.

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

LOG: Phone Conversation between Henry & Dr. Katherine Davis, PHD.

• Dr. Kate: Hello?
• Henry: Dr. Kate. It's Henry.
• Dr. Kate: Henry? Why are you calling me? It's almost four in the morning.
• Henry: Oh. Sorry, I forgot about the time difference over there.
• Dr. Kate: So you think it's fine for you to call me at one in the morning then? Wait, nevermind. I'm not your doctor. Actually I still have that restraining order.
• Henry: I think I might be going crazy.
• Dr. Kate: You think? Have you recently attacked any other psychiatrists or their employees?
• Henry: I'm serious. Something is really wrong. I'm kinda fucked up.
• Dr. Kate: Are you drunk Henry?
• Henry: No. Dead sober. There was a party the other night and there was a wolf attack. People died.
• Dr. Kate: <silence> I saw that on the news. Wow. Henry. It never occurred to me that you might have been there.
• Henry: I got bitten pretty bad. Or at least I thought I was. I woke up the next morning and I was fine. My shirt was slashed up and bloody where it had bitten me, but there wasn't any wounds - no scars. Nothing.
• Dr. Kate: <sighs> Alright Henry. But I'm charging your Mom for this call. Tell me everything.

Henry proceeded to fill Dr. K. Davis in on the details of the UA wolf attacks of Saturday, September 27, 2012.  
 See attached folio for relevant news clippings & medical reports.

• Henry: Since then things have been. Off. Strange. I've been...sensing things. Like my senses have been turned up to 11. I can hear conversations rooms away and I can smell things. Like, not smells, like food - but...emotions. My cat is terrified of me. And everything and everyone is just pissing me the fuck off - like worse than before. I've been keeping to myself, going to classes and then going back home and locking myself in. I just want to...fucking strangle everyone I see.
• Dr. Kate: Henry. You really need to talk with someone. Someone local. This is serious. Are you still on your meds? I can look up doctors in your area and send you a reference. Don't bother with the campus counselor, they're generally useless quacks with associates degrees.
• Henry: No, I stopped taking the meds a year or so ago when I was going to school in Texas. I've been doing really well. Things have been pretty awesome...until now. I beat up a guy I like today. He came over to bitch at me about abandoning him at lab. I snapped, everything got hazy. I was doing all I could to keep my temper in check, doing the mental games you taught me. But then he punched me and...well, I lost myself for a moment. The next thing I know he was sprawled on the floor.
• Dr. Kate: Is he okay?
• Henry: Aye. He was just shaken up a bit. I helped him up, apologized and ran back to the sanctuary of my room. He yelled at me through the door that I'd better show up at lab. I took out my frustration on my bean bag chair.
• Dr. Kate: You go through so much furniture. At least your friend seemed to take your assault relatively well. Sounds like a keeper.
• Henry: Heh. Yeah. He's kind of an ass hole. But he's growing on me. <sigh> I can't go through this again. It's like...that time.
• Dr. Kate: The Arby's Incident.
• Henry: Yeah. But this time it's just hovering over my head like a black cloud that wont go away. Threatening to come down on me at any moment.
• Dr. Kate: Henry, this is a serious matter. I can't make you do it, but I urge that you start regular sessions again. And you really need to be back on your meds. Just please do not attack whoever the poor soul I end up sending you to. That would reflect poorly on me.
• Henry: I know. I'm sorry Dr. Kate. How is Janice?
• Dr. Kate: She quit after you broke her nose.
• Henry: Sorry.
• Dr. Kate: You should be! And if you are, do as I say and get some help. Also, don't call me at four in the fucking morning again.
• Henry: Sorry.
• Dr. Kate: There it is again. Don't apologize. Do something about it instead. At least you're not screaming profanities at me. Progress at last.
• Henry: <chuckle> You're still kind of a bitch.
• Dr. Kate: It's the only way to get through to some people. That's why they pay me the big bucks.
• Henry: Tell mom I say hello.
• Dr. Kate: I will when I send her your bill.
• Henry: And thanks for listening.
• Dr. Kate: Good night Henry. I'll email you a list of references tomorrow.
• Henry: Night.

Friday, October 5, 2012

LOG:  Dr. Emma "TigerLily" Tate, ND.'s Session Notes on Henry Mulgrew

Henry is a fascinating new patient of mine. He explained that he has been coping with extreme bouts of anger. His prior physician had diagnosed him as suffering from intermittent explosive disorder (IED) and mild schizophrenia, though I believe that these are simply modern physician tropes that merely state the symptoms of problems rather than the problems themselves, thus is the failure of modern medicine.

I believe that Henry's spiritual balance is askew and that his carnal self has been allowed to grow to be far more powerful than his spiritual and mental selves. He personifies his anger as a "werewolf", which clearly shows exactly how creative he truly is.

Henry says he had been isolating himself from others around him, focusing himself entirely on his professional and academic requirements and otherwise only playing video games alone, which explains why his psionic chi was becoming more and more off balanced, as the toxic psionic energies that televisions and other modern devices radiate are pure poison to the souls.

He says that his anger and discontent continued to grow stronger and that all he could feel towards the outside world was rage and agitation. He explained to me how his cat had been avoiding him, that is clearly because animals, being pure spirits, are naturally psionicists and his cat could sense his imbalance and that his carnal self was taking control, so the feline was keeping distance and likely spending time astrally projecting, seeking the minds of others, to summon them to Henry's aid. This clearly worked, as Henry stated that his friend, Thomas, had suddenly appeared and wanted Henry to join him and others for a gathering of social interaction. Another boy, Reece, who I believe to be a psychic vampire that feeds off of negative energy as he only ever seems to be present in Henry's sphere when dark humors are present, had been hovering, so Henry decided to leave the vampire boy behind and go with Thomas, who I believe was the one Henry's cat had called out to.

Others were also clearly contacted and drawn together, likely by other concerned psionic animals. Henry says that he arrived to find Ms. Jalo, Dr. Lichfield and his friend Warner present. Dr. Lichfield is clearly a wise woman who is in tune with the true world, as she recognized the "werewolf" in each of them, except for Thomas, who I believe may be a natural empath attuned to the greater music of the universe, thus his role in bringing them all together. Ms. Jalo, Warner and Henry had all been dealing with similar imbalances, causing their personal "werewolves" to rise to the surface. They had a good long chat with each other, relating their experiences and finding solace and comfort with one another.

As I would expect, Henry stated that his cat began to come around afterwards and the dark boy Reece's presence seemed to fade. Unfortunately Ms. Jalo had lost her way on her path of harmony and allowed her "werewolf" to take over. As is the nature of such negative spiritual entities, she had been drawn straight to the lair of the vampire, Reece. Henry attempted to calm her down and cleanse her dark energies by grounding her with cold water. I've never considered using the healing potential of water to ground out carnal energies, I will have to bring that up at the next gathering of the Coven of the True Light. Sadly, her beast had gained too much control of her and he said he could see it manifesting upon her, using wolf imagery to describe how he felt her eyes had begun to glow green and that she had gained a spiritual mien of claws and fangs, like a wolf.

Henry stated that she had tried to attack him, but that he instead embraced her and held her, pouring his love and calming energy into her until she stopped struggling (although to hear him tell it one would think he'd tackled and held her down until she stopped breathing). He pulled her into the shower with him and allowed the water to cleanse the "werewolf" from them.

Henry finished up our last session discussing one of his work evenings at the Wet Dog Cafe. Several of his friends were in attendance, including Thomas - obviously drawn to where the universe needed him to be, Dr. Lichfield and her "sidekick" Avery, his friend "Snips", and his friend Jace that he seems to enjoy speaking of with some frequency in our sessions, though he denies (too insistently I think) any serious feelings for the young man.

Henry says that Dr. Lichfield seemed to have received some startling news, though from his stories of her, she seems to always be either obsessive or startled. And that she had stepped outside and was accosted by a young man named Victor, who had berated her about her presence at an upcoming excavation of a Native American burial site. His friend Rene, who had taken some time off to be with her family recently following the tragic wolf attack in the forest near campus, had returned to campus and after giving Henry a quick hug was drawn to Thomas' balanced aura at the restaurant to discuss the condition of a mutual friend who had also fared poorly in the wolf attack (though better than many given that he lived).

This concludes our latest session. I very much look forward to our next one.

DATE GOES HERE

LOG:  Entry from Henry's Journal

Dr. TigerLily insists that I keep a journal. So here, I have a journal. Midterms are coming up soon. I've been trying to focus on studying in my spare time. Trying to keep focused with everything that's been going on has been difficult. Everything and everyone gets under my skin so much easier than before, it's difficult to block out a lot of times, especially when I'm crossing through campus - I can smell the anxiety of everyone under the pressure of midterm crunch, smells like fear - smells like prey. Ugh.

Jace has been unusually on edge as well, and I can tell it's not about school. He's a very private person, so I'd avoided saying anything, but decided to risk his derision and casually offered a friendly ear, he said that he'd prefer to focus on studying for now. All good. I let it be. We were studying in the ATO study hall when Renee showed up. She was asking if we'd seen Jerome. I'd not seen him since the bonfire myself, but I know he'd been around. He's a friend of Warner's, so I texted and asked if he'd seen him. Warner said that he had been unusually absent for a while. Renee looked worried and said that she'd not been able to get in touch with him for the past week and that he'd not been to his classes. Jace set his book down and stared at us, looking very serious. He said that maybe it was time that we have that talk now after all. That's not grim at all.

Jace makes a couple of calls and we head into my room. A little bit later, Thomas and Davis showed up. Davis looked extremely nervous, as if Jace had invited to some sort of surprise orgy or something. Jace told us about his friend Harris, that he'd gone missing. Add to that Jerome, Hand-Job and now Reece (although I'm pretty sure I know why Reece ran off, but I didn't share that). Jace is concerned, most of these were people taken to the hospital after the bonfire. His friend Harris had withdrawn, but never claimed his stuff, his parents didn't know anything about it, nor had he returned home. Jace and I decide to head over to Harris' dorm and check out his room and talk to the RA to see if they can shed any light on the subject. The RA wasn't much help at all. All he managed to do was piss Jace off by claiming Harris was into some "shady online stuff". Jace is kinda hot when he's angry. I remember thinking that when we were fighting that time. Aaarhg. Bad thought. Bad.

I get back to my room and decide I need a break from werewolves, missing people, physics equations and studying - so I dive into the new Gears of Duty expansion, GoD: My Gun is Bigger. I've barely gotten past seven of the 14 company logos before the game menu when Mama J pops in. Covered in filth, it was obvious she'd been in the woods again, whether crazy-willing or another annoying woods-wake-up I'm not sure. She says that the head of campus security approached her, identified himself as another werewolf and told her to keep her Saturday evening open. He told her to invite along any others like her. Seemed fishy to me, but if she intended on going, which she did, I wanted to have her back. We installed a tracker on her phone and arranged for her to have her phone active and my side muted so I could listen in. I suggested she tell Warner in case he wanted to be a part of it. Turns out he did.

Mama J left and I finally logged in to get my bloody massacre on. That's when I got a text from Dr. Lichfield. She said that she may have come up with something to help with our problem. Well...as much as I wanted to play - that was a bigger deal. So I headed over. Turns out I was also a guinea pig for some new anti-werewolf warding she had been dabbling with. It didn't work, but I encouraged her to keep trying. I have a list of people already I'd like to seal away in nice werewolf proof dorm rooms. She presented me with an asthma inhaler, explaining that it had a belladonna based mixture in it that might help calm, or at least, slow the wolf inside of us. She affirmed that it wouldn't be harmful in the dosage she had created. I decided to give it a go.

I woke up an hour later on the floor of her study. She was delighted with the results, though she admitted she hadn't expected it to be quite so instantaneous or debilitating. She would cut back on the dosage. Very handy to have. Dr. Lichfield may be our saving grace in this whole debacle.

I'd just gotten back to the ATO house, determined to get just a wee bit of gaming time in before bed. I must have fallen asleep. I woke up at 2am to a terrified Renee calling me because someone was outside her window. I didn't even think about it, a possessive urge hit me and I was out my window and standing in my underwear outside her window moments later. I could smell...fear, anger, desire. It was Jerome's scent. I'm so not okay with this. I suggested Renee call campus security and make a report that someone had been out there. She asked me to stay at her place that night, so I ran back to my room to grab some clothes. Gears of Duty teased me with it's menu screen. I shut it off and headed back to Renee's. The head of security werewolf was there investigating the call. I headed into the dorm and crashed on her floor.

Next morning...I feel foolish even writing this down, I "marked" the outside of Renee's room, hoping that it would clearly broadcast "MINE" to anyone else. It just seemed the thing to do, and nobody goes and messes with my padawan. In order to keep him in the loop, I texted Thomas, updating him about the security chief and Jerome. The day grew more and more gloomy until a storm rolled into town. That evening we heard the howl. It...conveyed information. An invitation and a location. I heard it twice more. I knew Mama J and Warner were likely following it. I turned on the tracker on Mama J's phone and made the call to listen in. Once the location of the meeting was known, I decided to ping Thomas with an update, just to let him know to avoid that area. Hindsight, never never never tell Thomas NOT to go somewhere. His curiosity is apparently far more powerful a force than his self-preservation instincts.

2012 Halloween Costume:
Marko Fennec, Gears of Duty

So I listen in on this other pack's join us spill. I was most surprised to hear Dr. Lichfield's voice. Turns out she is likely "something" as well. Another werewolf? Or a wolf-born I think they said. Huh. Although I've seen her handling silver before. She didn't seem overly surprised. That woman is truly bizarre, like the cliche saying, a mystery wrapped in an enigma. Or is it the other way around. Anyway! They have an alpha who refuses to identify himself, but they want us to join regardless - submit to some guy before knowing who he is?? Ms. Simonson and the campus librarian are amongst them. As well as douchebag Victor, the park ranger Mama J and the others had met in the woods and of course the head of security. They talk about anchors and packs and that Astoria belongs to them. The concept of Alpha, Beta & Omega are discussed. They also spoke of an evil rival pack led by the Clooney-look-a-like that tortures new recruits to make them into monsters. They say that this "Volk" guy (Clooney) had taken Jace's friend Harris, Jerome and that Reece was part of that pack now, having once been one of them - I'm curious about the background of this story. Just as they were about to give a lesson on how to "slip the leash", to channel ones wolf without giving into it, my GPS and our phone signal were snuffed out. Silence. Uneasy silence. My anxiety began to wind its way up my spine. I tried to calm myself. Tried to focus on advertising principles in the 1980's.

And I was standing in the rain in my underwear again near the building they were meeting in. I was fighting down an urge to go running in there to make sure my friends were safe when something caught my eye. Up above me, on one of the girls dorms, was a MASSIVE WOLF MONSTER. It was crawling up towards someone on the roof. That someone was my friend Thomas, who seemed unaware of the danger that was approaching him. I yelled out. The creature stopped, dropped down in front of me, regarded me for a second and then scampered off. Thomas quickly vanished from the roof. Good. Safe. Within seconds, the pack wolves were up in my face, along with my friends. Victor and the park ranger were yelling, stating that they should have never invited any of us and were right not to trust us with their alpha's identity and that I'd revealed theirs to an outsider. I stated that the observer was aware of the situation and was one of our friends and I was protecting him. Ms. Simonson and the other two were attempting to diplomatically diffuse tempers. Warner was expressing his ignorance of the nights events. Everyone split up unhappy and went their own ways. This may not have played out how I would have liked, but my friends are all safe and we know a little more than we did.

I'm not down with this whole drink our kool-aid and submit THEN we'll tell you who we are type thing. And I dislike Victor and Park-Ranger. I don't really know the other two, but I do know Ms. Simonson and she's always been super nice. I think I'll have to square away some time with her and discuss things. I don't trust them, but I'd be wiling to work with her and we need to know more. I may not want to join their little cult, like Warner clearly seems to want, but I'm open to cooperation and it's in everyone's best interest if we share and work together. This whole pack rivalry thing I think is completely stupid. But at the same time, Sparky (my wolf) seems to think it IS a big deal. This is frustrating.

School. Midterms. We have the big costume party thing coming up. My Marko Fennec costume from Gears of Duty is finished and perfect. I've taped a photo of it on the next page. Yeah, I'm awesome. And there is like a dozen other things coming up. At least I don't have to worry about dealing with family weekend crap. On top of it all I have a spoiled, explosive rabid dog named Sparky that lives in my head. My anger issues seem so small and insignificant these days. Laughable really. I messaged Dr. Lichfield, told her I'm all in - whatever things she wants to test, whatever experiments and such she wants to do - I believe her my best bet to control and beat this thing - I'm hers to do with as she wishes.

She replied with only a smiley emoticon. Somehow that just makes me more nervous.

Friday, October 26, 2012

LOG:  Entry from Henry's Journal

I'm not sure what to write. I'm not sure about my life. How it fits. How I, who I was a month ago, fits. Sparky isn't going anywhere. Packs and alphas and territories are likely not going anywhere. These are aspects I need to figure out how to fit into my life. The life I came here for, the future I planned on, I don't think I can have those now. How do I perform damage control? How do I have the life I want?

Tonight was the big fraternity row Halloween party. I had a hard time caring. I'd worked so hard on my Marco Fennec costume, but it just seemed...insignificant. A prop my fake life cared about. Seeing Renee all dressed up as Ahsoka did nearly bring a tear of glee to my eye, though even she seemed...not really there. All this shit has landed on everyone. Tainting everything.

Fucking Reese showed up. Wah wah, sorry for ruining your life, my bad - oh and you should get out of town or you're going to fucking die - everyone else too. He confirmed that Volk does have Harris and Miranda, but squirreled away from the entire "fighting pits" thing. Fuck off Reese. You are nothing good in my life.

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Yay. I'm wrestling team captain. This should matter. A lot. Instead it feels more like a distraction. Something that seemed pretty damn important not so long ago - now some sort of baggage of responsibility to juggle until I drop it and likely eat someone. :(

One bright point. The inhaler seems to help a little. Carter was being a dick (shock) during the match. Sparky wanted to taste him. I was hard pressed to argue, but murder and cannibalism generally goes over poorly, so I tried Dr. Lichfield's inhaler. It didn't knock me out this time, but it did seem to drug both myself and Sparky to a degree though he was still being insistent on bloodshed. Fortunate for me, Desmond was lingering - seems we're all being watched most of the time by one of these guys, either that or one of "those" guys. He demonstrated a nice new way of chasing off Sparky, by BREAKING MY FUCKING ARM!!! He reset it and it healed. Fuck. Ow. I'm having pain flashbacks just writing about it. He blocked everyone view, but I have my suspicions that Jace thinks something is going on with me. He's been giving me a look. Not *that* look that he's perfected and trademarked, but a different look. Ugh. Well, fortunately, the broken arm send Sparky yelping off somewhere into the dark forest of my deep brain.

Then my life decided that kicking me repeatedly wasn't good enough and decided I should be slapped as well. Enter Mom, Chris and Aunt Bethany. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

After the match, they drag Jace and I off for breakfast. I try to convince Jace that this would be entirely too boring for him, but he was in one of those BFF "chummy" moods that really confuses me.

I hate this feeling tragic all the time now. I imagine everyone who looks at me just sees some emo kid pretending to be fine. I never liked goths.

Sunday, October 28, 2012

It's 2am. I'm awake. I can't even fathom lying down to go to sleep. I feel so useless.

Earlier was the big formal. I showed up, playing the role of college student and frat brother. Woo hoo. I was doing pretty well as keeping a low profile, but the wrestling team decided it was time to celebrate their new captain. Oh yeah - that thing. I put on a mask, a happy face, drank and took part in the camaraderie and cheer, but I wasn't feeling it. It wasn't going to be able to last and really at this point just feels like a mockery. More and more, I realize that I just can't have "that life". I'm barely keeping things in check, eventually something will snap and someone will die, by my hands. Its worse than the anger I used to struggle with. That was anger. Now I struggled with rage and murder, and I'm barely winning. I admit, I need help. It's not something I'm going to be able to handle on my own.

So tonight I set pride and distrust aside and accepted the second invite to attend a meeting with the other werewolves, Desmond and crew's pack. Mama J was there with me, having just returned from her foolish as fuck clandestine dinner with Darth Volk. The college pack revealed their alpha to us, and it was....fucking Aedia. REALLY??? They discussed full moon flavors and we began making plans for us to have babysitters the following night in order to keep us under control until we could learn to deal with it ourselves. So yeah - I'll take their help. Most of them are relatively cool, save for Victor and that jerk with the pet duck, though Victor seems to be trying to extend the illusion of patience with us, something it's clear he doesn't naturally possess. Aedia did us right by answering all of my questions I had for her, pretty clearly. So I'll give her that. And she doesn't plan on infecting Jace with this crap, which was a fear I had for a moment once she had walked in the alpha-revelation door. In fact, she was partially sticking close to him to protect him from the other pack. And sex. Can't blame her for either. So I dislike her a little less. She's still the Harpy Queen, but I'll stop dropping pianos atop her head in my minds eye when I see her now.

So after plans are made for the following night, I head out. Jace is throwing an after party and I need to get changed and over to his place. As Mama J and I are leaving, we find a bloody Davis hiding in the bushes. He tells us he was attacked by werewolves, oh and that he is an ex-werewolf hunter. Greeeeaaaat. He came to find me as he had already figured out what I was, and wasn't able to get hold of Jace, came to the conclusion that people in that little meeting Jace called in my room were being nabbed. My ice froze solid.

I tried to get Jace on the phone. No answer. Called Renee. No answer. Mama J called Thomas. His friend Teresa answered, said he'd bailed and vanished on her.

Fuck. All the fucks.

I sped over to Jace's and broke into his room. Blood. Fear. A chemical smell. I followed the scent down to the street, but lost it where I suspect he'd been tossed into a car. I headed over to Renee's dorm and the RA told me she had left with her dance instructor. Dance instructor? Renee can barely skip without falling, much less dance. I called Vanya and told her what was going on. She knew of this werewolf "dancer" and said she'd call the others. Mama J and I met back up outside Jace's dorm (coincidentally also Thomas' dorm - funny, Thomas never struck me as a dorm type, I imagined him living in some expansive and rustic loft on top of a warehouse with Christmas lights strung about the rafters). She had tracked Thomas scent outside to where he'd been taken and then back to the same spot Jace's scent vanished. Vanya showed up, she and the others were "on it" and said that we would be more of a danger than any help and to sit this one out.

My friends have all been taken. And I can't do anything about it. I'm failing at being normal. I'm failing at being a werewolf. And I'm failing the people I care about. And all of this is happening because they are tangled up with all of this crap. Because they have the distinct misfortune of knowing us.

I hate this.

I really need something to punch.

Grr... Something to bite.

Someone to hunt. Someone to KILL.

/sigh/ [uses inhaler] Shut up Sparky. Nobody likes you.

Monday, October 29, 2012

The world changed last night forever.

Mama J and I finally get in touch with Warner and Dr. Lichfield. Volk's pack apparently made a grab for the doctor as well, though she...somehow wound up back in her home, in an attic full of books she wasn't aware she had. The four of us meet up at her place to discuss everything going on. Side note - some of the books in her mysterious attic are those that had been stolen from the secure library that the Astoria pack were lamenting the loss of. Weird - I'm sure that will become important later.

Davis called me, he found where the others were being held. He had me promise not to involve the other pack before he would tell me the location and that if they were to show up, his family - professional werewolf hunters - would have no choice but to become involved. I took his warning to heart and told the others. We made some pit stops for weapons and were on our way.

They were being held prisoner in an abandoned warehouse at the docks. Several of the other werewolves were there. There was a really awful fight, some bitch stabbed me in the leg with a big ass knife. Fuck I don't think I'd ever felt that much pain. Jace, Thomas and Renee were all there tied up to chairs, Thomas looked dreadful and Jace appeared to have had his throat cut. Davis was there, looking closer to dead than the last time we saw him. Hippy and the Big Bad Wolf were there and this new Knife Bitch. The others focused on Big Bad, I tried to charge in to defend and release our friends, seeing that the Hippy was hovering over them. That's when Knife Bitch jumped me. We tussled and I eventually caught her up in joint lock that she couldn't escape from. Jace and Thomas had escaped her bonds and Jace came over with a look of panicked, mindless rage on his face and began stabbing at the woman I was holding. She stopped moving.

And I stopped being me. I was still there, I felt the need, the want, the hunger, the rage and ecstasy of release. I delighted in it with Sparky as he enjoyed his first hint of freedom from his cage. He was furious and starving and we feasted upon the life blood of the woman who had hurt us, tearing her throat open and gorging upon the still warm, living meat. I don't recall the reactions of my friends, I didn't care. There were not my friends, they were prey or rivals and I would take them all down in time. But first, the weakest lamp, so pathetic, so fragile - a useless anchor that did nothing but weight me down and hold me back from my true potential. I would kill her and free myself. I relished the thought. Thomas, a nuisance of no consequence thought he could protect her by stepping between us. I'd kill him first, then finish her off. Two birds, one stone.

And then came a sound, an unearthly growl from a monster greater than myself, suddenly - I was fearful, I had gone from being the master predator to the prey if I did not submit. No. If Sparky didn't submit. I'm Henry. I'm not a monster. I would never hurt my friends.

Aidia was there as a wolf and she had terrified Sparky that he'd fled so deep into the back of my mind I couldn't even sense him for the first time since the bonfire.

Suddenly I was just me. The taste and smell of warm blood was all over me, in my mouth, on my face, on my hands - I was saturated with it. I could feel my stomach full of...the woman lying dead next to me with her throat torn open, her neck all but gone. I could feel my intention for Thomas and Renee, the lust for their death...

I wanted nothing more at that moment than to die. Just be dead and to cease existing forever. I don't recall much after that - I began to vomit and it seemed to go on forever. People were talking and then nothing.

In the darkness I was alone and naked, hugging my knees. Directly across from me was Sparky, blood still dripping from his muzzle. He simply stood there, staring at me. I knew his intention clearly then, I was his cage and he intended to break me so that he would be free. There was no reasoning with him. He would do whatever was necessary in order to free himself of my consciousness. I stopped shaking and looked back at him, realizing that I only had two choices: to give in and let him win, to lose myself and all those I cared for, or to take charge and learn to harness and control him. I stood up. There was no cure. There was no going back. I could try and suppress him, but it would never be a solution, only a stalling technique until eventually it failed and he would take control. I was here first. Sparky is a part of me now, I know this - but I was here first. This is MY life. Sparky is part of me - me. Henry. And I am in control. Sparky is unbridled emotion, ignorance, passion, chaos and death. In order to reign him in, I must embrace that which he lacks, to create a balance; peace, knowledge, serenity, harmony...the Force. The mantra was born of fiction, but it has always resonated with me and was inspired by traditions and philosophies that had stood strong in the real world for centuries. Now it would serve me, a focal point to remind me of who I want to be and what the consequences are if I fail.

I woke up this morning in Mama J's home. I'm not sure how to face my friends after what they witnessed. After what their associate with me has caused some of them. I would go on, now I had an idea of what I needed to do in order to do so. I would work with Aidia and her pack. I would learn everything they had to teach me and I would keep Sparky on a very short leash, but I would acknowledge him as well, I would give him some freedom, but never control. He cannot help his nature, but I can contain and control it. The two packs have made it very clear which side is on the up and up and who are evil. Volk and his crew must go, for the safety of everyone.

I smell pancakes. I don't think I'll ever be able to talk about last night. It's not denial, I know what happened. But I don't want to relive it or dwell on it. That threshold has been passed and I have learned its lesson. I am Henry. I am also Sparky. But I choose to let Henry do the driving. The world has changed forever. This is my life now.
Pancakes.