Sanctuary: Part 1

    My name is Lydia Joseph Stephenson.  If you’re reading this, then you must be interested in this circus act called my life for some reason.  Well, I might as well start where all stories start; at the beginning.
    I grew up in a small town called Lacuna.  It only has about 4,000 people in it.  Since dear old “dad” skipped out on the day of conception, I was technically raised by my mom.  I only say technically because she only truly took care of me until she thought I was old enough to take care of myself.  This age, it seems, was seven.  I guess it did kind of work, since I learned how to watch after myself after I realized that no one else was going to.  I even got myself ready for my first day of school, no thanks to my mom.  All she did was leave some money under a magnet on the fridge for my school supplies.  You have no idea how awkward it is to walk to a supermarket and shop by yourself at seven.  Needless to say, my taking care of myself left me with little to no social skills, since I spent all my time at home.  This led to me getting into a lot of fights at school. 
    One memorable day, some stupid second grader was making fun of my name since he apparently thought “Lydia” was a dumb name, so, naturally, I beat the crap out of him.  His teasing had left an impression on me, though, as it so often does but so less often is admitted to, so from then on I’ve gone by “Joe,” which is short for my middle name.  My genius mother had planned on naming me Joseph because she thought I was a boy, but when I came out, she picked the first girl’s name that came to her mind, but being as creative as she was, she stuck Joseph in as my middle name.  That tangent aside, since I got such a bad reputation about beating kids up, I didn’t have any friends for a few years.  However, in third grade, I made my first real friend.  His name was Jacob Phillips.
    His life is pretty much a polar opposite of mine.  He lives with both of his parents, and they’re insanely overprotective.  They don’t let him eat junk food, they don’t let him stay up past 11, they don’t let him drive since he might get into a car accident, and they certainly don’t let him hang around people like me.  Since they’re hell-bound on his going to college, they won’t let any “bad influences” corrupt him and interrupt his studies.  Fortunately for Jake, he does all of these things.  They just don’t know about it.  He figures that at 18, he should be able to make his own choices.
    That’s where I come in.  Since I live by myself most of the time, Jake comes and hangs around me a lot.  But again, his parents don’t know about it.  He’ll tell them he’s going to a “study group” and end up at my house.  If he told his parents where he was really going, they’d lock him up in the basement to keep him safe and away from me.  I still have that rebel reputation and that whole bastard-child thing following me around, so I guess I can’t really blame them.  But I do anyway.  Since we both can’t stand our parents, we became really close friends very quickly.
    Now, I may have a bad rep, but the thing is most of it is pretty unwarranted.  Yes, I am practically a truant.  This does not reflect on my grades.  I’m in the top 5% of my class; I just don’t care enough to show up every single day.  Monotony is not my thing.  I can get an A on an assignment even without putting any effort into it.  I ace tests without studying.  Since Jake and I take the same classes, I look over his notes once and know all that I need to know.  Jake needs to study a little now and then, so I quiz him. Even then, he’s at the same level as I am in terms of grades.  The only difference is that he has the morals of a saint and thinks that it’s a waste not to go to class every day.  We both hope that he’ll be the cure to my inner wickedness, but we both know that’s not possible, so the hope exists merely as a little inside joke.  We’re both in our senior year of high school, and I don’t know about Jake, but I can’t wait to be free.  The thing is, even though I want out of this stupid little town so bad, I won’t leave, all because of him.  Even if he doesn’t know it, he’s all I have.  All that I connect with.  He is my home.



1

    It all began one day when that I skipped school.  Jake doesn’t understand what I do with all my self-created free time.  There really isn’t a lot to it.  I do whatever grabs me at the moment.  Sometimes that’s walking into the city, sometimes it’s walking to the river and throwing rocks in the water, sometimes it’s going to the library and reading a few books, and sometimes it’s nothing more than sitting and staring.  Staring at the clouds, staring at the passing cars on the highway, staring at the odd people going in and out of the corner gas station-slash- grocery store, or staring at my current video game displayed on my TV.  He thinks all that is boring, and that it’s not much better than school.  At least when I’m out in the world, I don’t have to sit still all day and get preached at by some teacher that thinks they’re above me.
    On this particular day, I was sitting on a counter in the corner gas station-slash-grocery store watching the usual unusual people go in and out.  Since our little town was on a major highway, we had lots of people come through just to get gas.  Here was a guy that looked like he was going on a safari.  Khaki hat, button-up shirt, and shorts along with tan hiking boots.  He drove an old station wagon with his large, dumpy-looking wife who looked like someone just told her the most offensive joke in the world sitting in the passenger seat while he came in and paid for gas.  He also got a king sized chocolate bar before leaving.  “Must be for the wife” I said to the clerk after the man drove off.  He chuckled and shook his head.  His name was Benji and we got along fairly well. 
    The next customer was a chick in a cowgirl outfit – and bright red rubber goulashes.  I stifled a snicker at her odd clothing choice, but when she asked if he accepted the same money they did back in Wisconsin, or if we only accepted money from Minnesota, I couldn’t control my laughter.  I left the store to go laugh until I was coughing outside the door.  The girl left as I was finishing my laugh attack and shot me an extremely dirty look.  I went back inside, wiping the tears of joy from my face.  Benji gave me an exhausted look.
    “Do you really have to treat my customers like that?” he asked me in a tone that matched his face as I hopped back up on the counter.  “Mr. Edwards is gonna make me throw you out of the store permanently if you keep doing that.”
    “I’m sorry, but I can’t help it when I see people that excruciatingly dumb.”  I answered back matter-of-factly, just to annoy him a little.  “She wasn’t even blonde!”
    “Joe, really.  Haven’t you ever heard the phrase ‘do onto others as you would like them to do onto you’?”
    “Maybe she dyed it.  That’s the only explanation…”
    “You’re not even listening to me!” he yelled exasperatedly.  “Why do I even bother?”  I smiled a little apologetically at him.  I enjoyed pushing buttons, but not completely distressing people.  Especially people I could stand being around for more than ten minutes.
    “Sorry Benji.  I promise that I will try to be on my best behavior from now on!” I said as I slid off the counter, snapped to attention and saluted him.  “Scout’s honor.”  Just then, my cell phone rang.  It was Jake.  School had just gotten out and he was in need of a “study group.”  I was surprised.  His parents usually made him stay home from school for an hour or two before letting him escape.
    “Well, Benji, it’s been a blast and a half, but I gotta move out.  I am being summoned.” I said as I tucked my phone back in my pocket.  I’d give Jake a call when I left.
    “Be back to chase off my customers soon?”  Benji said as I reached the door.  I paused to put on a theatrical “thinking” expression before answering with a “maybe” and a smile.  I left and gave Jake a call back.
    Well, I had been right about being surprised.  Apparently not one minute after he called me, he had called his parents to tell them that he wouldn’t be home right away which had received an answer of “absolutely not,” so it seemed that our little “study group meeting” would have to wait.  I went home anyway to grab a snack and watch something mindless on TV to pass the time.  Before I knew it, it was dark.  I was starting to wonder if I was ever going to get a call from Jake telling me that he’d managed to elude the captors that were his parents when he called.  It was rolling around 8:30 pm, but I had nothing else to do.  He apparently wanted to go see the newest blood-and-guts zombie movie at the little movie theater a few blocks away.  Being a fan of the horror genre myself, I happily agreed.  The movie started at 9:15 and we agreed to meet there and make the rest of the night’s plans afterwards.  Since the theater was only a ten minute walk for me, I made a sandwich since I hadn’t really eaten dinner.  With twenty minutes to movie time, I grabbed my keys and wallet and headed for the door.
    I strolled through the familiar streets and alleys.  For a Thursday night, there was a surprising amount of people out.  I passed several unfamiliar people while some others were walking the same way I was.  I wasn’t worried; the crime rate in this city was somewhere near non-existent and are-you-kidding.  I heard someone coming up behind me somewhat quickly, which made me a little nervous, but not enough to really care.  As it got closer, I did get a little tenser, despite myself.  I even jumped a little when a middle aged man tapped me on the shoulder to ask me if I knew the time.  Muttering something in my head about being paranoid, I took my phone out of my pocket to check the time for him.  Just as I was pushing a button to make the screen light up, a pair of strong arms from a person I didn’t even know was there wrapped around me.  One of the hands pressed a cloth to my face.  The cloth smelled like a sickly sweet alcohol.  Almost instantly, I felt dizzy and was going limp.  It had all happened so fast that I didn’t have time to react, let alone fight back.  Whoever was doing this to me was now carrying me down the street.  The last thing I heard before everything went black was the sound of a van door sliding open.

»••••«

         Everything fuzzy.  Hospital smells.  Doctors.  Why?  Nurses checking pulse.  Pain.  Tired.  What is this?  Machines beeping.  Vision swimming.  Sick to my stomach.  Why?  Can’t move.  Can’t think.  Can’t hope.  Why?  Why?  Why?  Why?

»••••«

         I was running through a forest on gently rolling hills.  It was the middle of a winter night on a full moon.  Everything glowed blue.  The cool, fresh air washed over my face and filled my lungs.  It felt so good. The expanse of woods before me covered with untouched snow felt more like home than I had ever experienced.  I felt light.  I felt happy.  I felt like I belonged. 
         Behind me, wolves howled.  At first the sound startled me, but something inside me told me that this was normal.  Nothing that I shouldn’t expect.  I felt calm.  The howling came again, but closer this time.  Then I heard a river. As I ran, I noticed a clearing in the woods ahead at the base of a small hill.  I slowed my pace when I got to the clearing and went to sit by the river. I looked down to casually look at my reflection when I realized that I wasn’t staring at myself.  What I was staring at was the reflection of a wolf that’s fur was the same reddish-brown color as my hair.  The eyes were the same purple-blue as my own eyes.
         This is me.
         The thought came to me suddenly as if I’d known it all along, but hadn’t noticed until now.  I stared at myself in disbelief, wondering how long I had been like this and not known it.  Suddenly, the howling was merely a few feet behind me.  I tore my eyes from my newly discovered self to see five or six wolves entering the clearing behind me.  The second I saw them, the word “family” popped into my head.  This was my family.  I didn’t know how I knew it, I just did.  They came up to me and I looked at each of them, seeing that they knew and loved me in each of their amber eyes. 
         Abruptly, they all looked up in the direction of the hill that I was now turned away from and began to growl fiercely.  I turned to look where they were.  There, in the fringe of trees that followed the top of the hill, stood Jake.  He looked down at us, looking quickly from the other wolves to me.  A look of pleading in his eyes to me, a look of fear to them.  The wolves behind me continued to growl and snarl at Jake.  Then, one of the wolves that had remained calm the whole time and which was clearly the largest of all the wolves stepped forward and barked.  The other wolves fell silent. The large, calm wolf padded softly up to me.  It looked at me appraisingly, then looked at Jake, as if sizing him up, then back to me.  It pushed me gently on the rear leg with its nose.  It was pushing me toward Jake.  A simple look in its eye told me just what it wanted.  A look back at the other wolves showed me that they were all looking at me with looks of encouragement.  I looked back at Jake, my eyes full of apology.  I took a step forward and my lip curled over my fangs, which flashed in the moonlight. 
         A look of comprehension flashed across Jake’s face.  Then, he screamed.