«Aren’t you a fool! It is indeed so dark and scary, and he… horror stories.»
«Well… then what?»
«Something distracting. An… interesting story.»
«I do not know such a thing.»
«Well, for example, which of the girls did you like in the class?»
He burst out:
«What are you talking about? I’d never say this?»
«Why not? Didn’t you like anyone?»
«Well… no… I liked some, of course».
«So… tell me.»
«What for? You don’t know my class anyway?»
«I do know. Almost everyone.»
«Really?!»
«Yes. Here, listen. Guys are… Yurik Ganeshev, Pashka Smirnov, Vaska Glinkov, Taras Gromychko…»
* * *
Kanny stopped under the tree and, rising on his hind legs, stretched himself up along the trunk, suppressing the bestial growl inside of him. When he stood up like this, his height would have been more than two and a half meters. If he jumped, he could easily reach those two and rip them down. But for some reason he hesitated and could not do it. Something stopped him, as if some unknown force, completely different in nature in comparison with the power of the Spell, stood between him and these two, not allowing him to approach people and holding suppressed his bestial essence.
From here, a distance of fifty meters, he could smell every centimeter of their skin, every element of their clothes, the plucked bark of the tree where they fastened their belts, his and her metal buckles, the smell of sweat mixed with the smell of her not very expensive perfume, mushrooms in their plastic boxes, the scent of her and his emotions, changing every few seconds…
He sniffed and thought, and that was something very strange, since usually in this state he was guided more by reflexes and animal instincts, and not by human thought.
«Well… now they are settled down for the night. To the secret place there are 756 meters. They won’t go there today. There is still plenty of time until morning. I will calmly run to the place and reincarnate. Why should I touch them? If I kill them, it will strengthen the beast in me, and then the transition will be very painful…»
Nothing like this had ever happened to him before. Never before has the animal nature in him fought to such an extent with the human mind. Because of this increasing tension he wanted to shrink and hide somewhere where no one would find him, fenced off from the whole world. And that was what he tried to do, grouping and sitting on his hind legs, and lowering his head low to the ground, in between his front legs, although no one saw him anyway. This went on for quite some time. For some reason, the werewolf hesitated and could not make a decision, tormented by the choice he had to make and feeling on himself the attentive gaze of someone unknown and enormously big. It was a very strange feeling.
Finally Kanny let out something between a growl and a human sigh, abruptly jumped up on all fours and rushed away, moving in heavy leaps on the ground chilled from the chill of the night that had fallen on it.
Chapter 2
«You’ve heard it?!» asked the frightened girl.
«Yes,» he replied, peering into the darkness of the night.
«What was it?»
«It’s hard to say. I think that, most likely, judging by the size and heavy steps, it was a bear.»
«A bear?!»
«Mm… well… yes… most likely.»
«And now what?»
«Well… calm down. You can see for yourself that he did not even come close to us.»
«Maybe he didn’t see us?»
«Are you kidding? This is the animal! First of all, he heard us much earlier than we heard him. And secondly, he sensed us long before he heard us.
«Why did he leave?»
«This is exactly what you should be happy about. Since he left, it means that he realized that he couldn’t reach us. And now it’s no longer dangerous.»
«Why are you so confident? How do you know everything?»
«Well… hmm… I’ve been coming here every year for ten years in a row. And you’ve only been a couple of times, and even then… you’ve been mostly sitting at home, instead of walking in the forest and talking with the villagers.»
«They are rude, and therefore do not communicate well enough.»
«Ok, what a city-girl you have become, ah! Too touchy! Have you forgotten that you spent your entire childhood here? Rough, aren’t rough, what’s the difference? The main thing is that they know all the signs, and share their experience if you are friends with them…»
* * *
Kanny ran to a large house in a clearing, surrounded on all sides by a solid wall of forest.
He went up to the porch and, reaching out with his paw to the bell, pressed it.
Inside the house sounded a very quiet and completely unmelodious bell. Than he heard footsteps. A man being in his place would not have heard anything, but not Kanny. He have not only heard all these sounds, he also felt the vibration, and caught the smells.
«Master!» thought the werewolf, and whimpered plaintively, not realizing his actions.
«Kanny?» sounded at the door.
«Why does he ask? He sees me through the camera, doesn’t he?» a thought flashed in the back of his mind, but he only whined even more and scratched his claws against the door.
«What are you scratching? Can’t you answer?» the same voice asked irritably.
«After all, he knows that I can’t,» another thought with a bit of irritation flashed somewhere either in his head or in his stomach.
«Ok, wait, I’ll open it now,» the voice said, and the bolt inside creaked.
The door opened slightly, remaining locked with a chain, and a bearded short man in a beige cap peered through the resulting opening. The master’s eyes were small, gray and prickly. He seemed to see through Kanny’s every thought.
Seeing the master, the werewolf lowered his head and, placing it in between his huge paws, prostrated himself in front of the door, barely fitting on the rather spacious porch, expressing complete submission, as dogs do.
