CHAPTER FIVE.

Harold Girard's right foot collided against a large stone in the shadowy blackness of the cavern and he went sprawling on the ground as excruciating agony stung and bit and crunched on his toes intensely like a stray dog was gnawing at them. 

He sat alone, in the mysteriously dark cave, nursing his toes which he knew must be bleeding hard through his sneakers. His nose twitched uneasily at the unusual whiff of the cave that seemed to have been heightened considerably over the minutes. It was as though the pong was overhanging from the high walls like ghosts floating around.

What was the university holding back from the thousands of undergraduates that was so important it had to be stashed far away underground in a cave? 

Harold Girard couldn't push the hundreds of thoughts that flooded his subconscious per nanosecond  out of his head as he sat on the earth, so he stood up to continue his journey.

A new wave of sturdy, unshakable courage and fiery anger swelled in him and he understood why all along, he had kept on pushing when he could turn back. He was tired. Wearied. Beaten and exhausted of being a pushover. He wanted more to his life. More purpose and importance, and although he was an Omega, he was the pup of an Alpha! He was a machinery built for battles and combats and warfare! He had to prove it; his worth.

With a throbbing leg supported by the pristine walls of the grotto, Harold continued in the darkness while the strong stench that oozed and danced around his nostrils, pricked the insides like little needles.

The cave seemed to become a labyrinth as Harold tunneled deeper into it. It arched a semi-circle and Harold with it—still with his hands tapping here and there on the walls, laired on. If there were sconces like the ones that hung on the walls of his hostel were available; metres underneath the school, buried in a cavern—with him, he'd have felt a lot better, but the school apparently misplaced its priorities and that was why they were up there, useless.

As he came to the other side of the arc, he halted, and the blazing fire which was aflame in his heart a few minutes ago quenched as bewilderment with a tint of fear deluged it.

A miscellany of white and blue light glutted and burst forth—like a torpedo, from a very high opening up above. The walls that had expanded from the semi-arc as Harold came around the corner, moulded in—towards each other, as it hiked upwards, to the opening like a volcano. The only missing features was the absence of red, boiling lava churning and scorching the insides, and it was replaced by two great waterfalls that protracted out from above—close to the hollow.

Harold gasped at the sight before him. The water gushed and jutted out from above, heeded gravity's decree, sloped by hundreds of metres along a craggy rock that slanted downwards before colliding with the earth and splashing all over as droplets—like a faulty fountain. The liquid which Harold suspected to be crystal clear and drinkable was bright blue; the hue of a newly found gem, due to the luminescence that bath everything within reach—Harold's skin included. But that was not what held Harold Girard's attention.

In the middle of the beautiful chaos was peace—like a garden dotted with butterflies and caterpillars feasting on green leaves in the middle of a warfield. There was a stool, a few inches shorter than him, and fixed to it was an auspicious bowl that threatened to make Harold go blind; on an exalted surface. 

The spilled liquid from the waterfall teemed a circlish drain that encompassed the sublime commode on an elevated plain, and a plank of wood; quite long, connected the dry land where Harold was, to the ‘island’.

It took a lot of spirit and intrepidity, spunk and nerve, too, for Harold to walk on the stout plank that extended to the other side—threatening to turn over, time and time again. 

After a wobbly two minutes for Harold Girard, he got to the other side.

As his bleached sneakers touched the ashen ground after successfully sauntering over the lath, a fast-growing, aggressive and belligerent voice like the clashing of all the world's oceans against each other whammed, threatening to grind and disintegrate the cavern. 

“You came a few weeks early, that's strange. What do you have for me?”

Harold's heart began to drum roll against his ribcage and he could feel his veins and arteries which extended down; to the back of his leg, and limbs, too, stretch and contract—a consequence of the bloodcurdling voice. 

“Nothing?” The voice boomed louder than the first, with more intensity.

Harold was scared. Terrified. Panic striken and aghast, and the dread which had clenched every molecule of his being heightened when he looked into the auspicious bowl and saw blood; human blood—red gore drained from the insides of a human—a student—students, perhaps, dancing left and right sluggishly, in the dish.

“You do not belong here!” The feminine voice screamed. An earache which Harold was sure will last for a couple of days echoed, using the antiquated walls as the material of reverberation. 

Harold's eyes which had adjusted to the whitish-blue radiance from above, rapidly shifted from the bowl of blood to the cascades. The water was no longer crystal clear and drinkable. It was a meshed slimy goop of black and red. 

There were shadows, too, lots of them and they encircled him and hovered on a spot like a troop of soldiers waiting for a command from the leader. Just shadows, no body—no human flesh. 

Harold's broad eyes shifted again to the blood in the bowl. As he did, an invisible, floating frame rammed into his stomach, pushed all the air in him out through his lungs and sent him sprawling on the quiescent ground, almost off the elevated plain and into the reddish-black goo which encompassed him. 

“You will never see the sun again. Neither will you have a chance to smell the coolness of the firs that rim this school,” the shrill feminine voice chanted in a sick and sluggish manner which caused Harold to grow dizzy as a milky daze cloaked his sight. “This is your end.”

Then the sensation came upon Harold Girard like an hawk plunging, sinking and descending to seize a chick!

For a few seconds, Harold's emotions were as distorted and scattered, strange, too, and unexplored like the  billions of stars dispersed all around our cosmo and he wreathed and curled in pain, trying to keep himself; attempt to keep his wolf confined. 

“Any last words?” the voice joked. “My bad, you can't speak.”

As she said that, another shadow—invisible, too, gripped his oesophagus with its hands which felt like cold wind. Harold knew his throat will compress if the pressure was kept up and if increased, his lungs will be badly damaged and serious injury will be done to his jawline and other parts of his skull. Then he lost it.

A throaty howl escaped his trembling lips as his last resort to remain a human crumbled, and his body parts began to transform and remodel. His leg skin tore open; with a revolting shredding as his bones enlarged then bent inwards—forming his hind legs. His hands followed the same procedure as his legs and his fingers squeezed in before taking the cast of paws. His throat expanded considerably and he felt the grip of the ‘shadow’ loosen, and his nose pinched on his face as it turned as hard and dark as a rock. Then Harold Girard got on all four in grandeur and magnificence while the shimmering whitish-blue light casted from above, dousing his black fur. The Alpha's pup.

“Who are you?” He heard the feminine voice whimper like an injured puppy.

At a daunting velocity, he leaped onto the timber which was beginning to submerge into the reddish-black gunk and he leaped off it and into the dreary darkness of the cavern. 

He could easily see in the dark and it didn't take him up to a minute before he got to the ladder where he transformed painfully back into a human. 

He climbed the chill ladder hurriedly and came up on the other side. He reclined the upper part of his body on the ground and wriggled the lower part free; from the warm, dark and mystifying hole. He was safe—for now.

Drops of sweat trickled down his face as he jugged over to the hole in the wall and tugged at the metal string. The welcome noise of the hole closing up filled the room then he heard footsteps at the front door.

He clumsily raised the pile of books to put them back in their place and as he did, the door opened, revealing a short man with a thick nose and full lips. He had a frown on his face.

As Harold stole a glance at the scenic, breathtaking and all-embracing nature from the window, the man who was filled with suspicion asked the same question the lady down below in the cavern had asked.

“Who are you?”