The look in Tom’s eyes said it all. Gary saw the way he had been staring at him. No matter what had happened so far, his best friend had never pulled a face quite before.
‘Stop it! Stop it! Why are you looking at me like that!’ Gary thought.
At the moment, Tom wanted to reach out to Gary but his body froze up. He didn’t know what to do as it was the first time he had actually seen his best friend slightly change. Sure the other had told him what he was, but seeing it happen appeared to have awoken a primal instinct in him that made him want to run away.
Tom had seen many Altered change into their beast form, but Gary’s case was clearly different. Shaking his head, he managed to get a grip on himself and started to look around to see if anyone else had noticed. It was at that moment, that Gary himself covered up, putting his head into his shirt.
‘Come on, Gary, calm down! Calm down!!! What’s going on, system? I should still have time! The last notification was about the full moon being 6 hours away, so why am I changing now?’ Gary asked himself in a panic, still covering his head.
“Gary, it’s going to be okay!”
He could hear Tom’s voice, but he refused to look at him, afraid of what might happen. “If you need to get out of here, then don’t let us stop you. It’s just a stupid high school rugby game anyway. Heck, it’s the first one this season. Look, I want you to head over to the Cipen side of town, to a storage warehouse called Yellow Stack.”
“There is a storage unit in my family’s name. My parents use it to store some items from the experiments they run, but I managed to find out their passcode to it. Just in case, I placed a few things inside that should hopefully help with your… situation. If you feel like you can’t control it, lock the door to stop you from going out. We’ll get through this together… okay?”
Gary had carefully listened to Tom’s entire speech. At the same time he had done his best to breathe in and out deeply, further helping him calm his heart down. His Charging Heart skill had finished. Eventually his heart rate lowered below 150 BPM, and slowly he came out from his shirt.
From the look on Tom’s face Gary could tell that his appearance had gone back to default.
“Thank you, Tom. I-I f-feel better now. I-I believe I know what was causing the problem. I should be able to stay.” Gary said hesitantly before quickly adding. “Just for a short while! I mean Mr Root practically begged the ref to let me stay, so I don’t want to upset everyone now.”
‘It had to be Charging Heart. Yeah, that must have been it. With how close it’s to the full moon, my elevated heart rate must be messing with me. Tom’s wound might have just triggered it. I swear, after this game, I’ll head straight to that storage unit!’ Gary tried to convince himself as he inched back to his position.
The game was about to resume, though Tom wasn’t sure if Gary had made the right decision since he had no idea how the other felt. He just knew that getting close to his best friend wasn’t adviseable right now, not because he was scared of him, but because he was afraid that his wound might be the cause of the other’s change.
As the game resumed, the two teams continued as normal. Eton had possession of the ball, and Leng was holding onto it tightly. He then looked over his shoulder for a second to see where his brother was, yet in that brief moment, the ball was snatched from his hands, by none other than Blake.
He quickly ran past all the others, proving why he was the team captain and team ace. Sren, who was further back, went in for the tackle, but with a jump, Blake narrowly avoided it and went on to score the try. Everyone from Westbridge unanimously started to cheer the star player’s name. The girls’ screams were especially deafening.
‘If you’re going to stop me from getting the ball from my own teammates, then I’ll just have to steal it from you guys instead.’
As the game continued, Gary had become far more passive than in the first half, not that it stopped his team from passing him the ball, after all that’s what had gotten them the points so far. However, it quickly became noticeable that Gary’s speed had dropped and something had changed in him ever since the fight.
“You’re slow, even slower than at the start.” Leng alone tackled Gary to the ground. Meanwhile, Sren picked up the loose ball and continued to run forward, but once again Blake was ready, as if he had predicted Gary’s fall.
He stopped their advance, and it was time for another turnaround. Alas, he alone could only do so much. Fortunately, they had managed to get a good lead in the first half. The game came to an end with a score of 9:9, making it a draw.
“We drew! We freaking did it!” Mr Root cheered. “I get to keep my job and I don’t even need to treat anyone to dinner!”
Of course it was all thanks to Blake and the team started to lift him into the air, throwing him celebrating their draw as if they had won. Although Gary had done a lot for the team, it had been limited to the first half.
It was strange, because the way Sren and Leng were acting, it was as if they had lost.
“What is wrong with you all?!” Sren shouted in anger, punching one of his own teammates, causing them to fall to the ground. The spectators could see this, but now that the game was over they could do nothing about it. Neither Eton High’s teachers nor the other did anything about it, seemingly used to this sort of behaviour.
“We knew that Blake was a good player. We knew if we played against them with him it would be risky.” Leng argued the outcome. “What we didn’t expect was for him to be good as well.”
As for who Leng was referring to, it was naturally Gary. The outlier looked to be staring into space with his head full of his own thoughts. His headache was becoming worse, and there was a slight dull ring that had appeared as well.
The high schooler felt as if all the noises were drowned out from the outside.
“That stupid git cost us a sh*tton of money!” Sren cursed. He picked up the nearby rugby ball and threw it directly towards Gary. Those in the crowd watching gasped but could do nothing as it hit its designated target.
It was a clean hit, connecting to his head from the side, making Gary fall to the ground.
“Arghh my head!” Gary yelled out, his hands on the grass and closed his hands together grabbing the mud.
“Is he seriously hurt or something, rugby balls aren’t that hard?” Innu asked with worry, looking at his gang leader. He was furious and was ready to give the twin a taste of his own medicine, but he knew it was impossible to get to him. Not with his entire team behind him.
“Arghh!” Gary shouted almost, but managed to hold it in so it sounded like a few grunts. The parents couldn’t hear because the students were still celebrating their draw, and Tom didn’t want to get close, afraid that the smell of blood would just worsen the situation even further.
“No, he’s acting really strange. I don’t think the rugby ball caused that. He looks to be in incredible pain and… it looks like he’s sweating.” Xin pointed out. It was hard to see from her position.
The two of them weren’t the only ones that had noticed this. Kai and Marie had both been keeping an eye on Gary as well. The action of the sore loser was way out of line, but Gary’s reaction was also unnatural.
“Gary, get out of here!” Tom shouted from what he deemed to be a safe distance. “You have to go home early, don’t you? Your mum and sister are waiting for you.”
This was a lie. As far as his family knew, he would be staying at Tom’s tonight after the match. So they wouldn’t get suspicious when they returned, but he was just hoping his words would get through.
“Was that a…wolf howl?” Those from the crowd wondered. It sounded so clear and clean, it was a sound they had only heard in movies, and they could tell it had come from the direction of the woods that were near the fields.
“A wolf? Here in our backwood’s town? That’s crazy.” Innu nervously laughed it off, but glanced in the direction of the nearby woods.
When they turned around to look back on the field though, Gary was no longer there.