A/N: Hi everyone. Unable to think of any immediate ideas, I decided to take a little break from my TftFC series and work on some of my other stuff. Then, I realized I couldn't think of any immediate ideas for any of those either and decided to write something new. I'm not really sure how good this is, because it's in first person from a guy's point of view, and I'm a girl, so I had some trouble thinking of what to make him say. Originally, the main character was going to be a girl, but then I realized that a guy would probably fit the story better, and writing from a guy's first person point of view for a whole story could really only make me a better writer, so yeah. Anyway, I hope you like it.

Chapter One

Let’s All Go Hunting

For as long as anyone can remember, the town of Fang Hollow has carried on a tradition as old as time itself. You see, Fang Hollow is right on the edge of Full Moon Forest, one of the vastest and darkest forests left on the continent, the last retreat for all North American werewolves. Where all of them live while the moon is waxing and waning, I don’t know. All I know is that when the moon is full, they come to us; or, as I should say, we come to them.

Everyone in Fang Hollow hunts werewolves. The men hunt werewolves, the women hunt werewolves, the children hunt werewolves… I used to hunt werewolves. Travis and Morgan, my two best friends, used to hunt werewolves. My dad used to hunt werewolves and my mom used to hunt werewolves. Even Mr. Bane, my decrepit, cane-wielding high school biology teacher, used to hunt werewolves; apparently he was the best hunter the town had ever seen. No matter who you talk to in Fang Hollow, it’s almost a guarantee that they either have hunted werewolves in the past or still continue to do so today.

I was born in Fang Hollow, as were all three of my siblings and both of my parents. My father’s family had been in the area since before the village was even founded; my grandfather hunted werewolves before my father did, my great-grandfather before him, and so on. Somewhere along the line, our family name had actually been changed to ‘Wolf’; none of my living relatives have any idea what it was before. Hunting was in my blood, and this my dad had drilled into my head since before I could walk. More than anything, he wanted our family legacy to continue on, generation after generation of highly accomplished hunters. I can remember him rousing my sisters and me for early morning target practice when we were younger, constantly drilling the differences between werewolves and true wolves into our little heads, and- perhaps what he felt was most important- making sure we understood what we needed to understand in order to make it as hunters.

“Remember,” he would tell us after every lesson or round of practice, “killing people is wrong. Werewolves, however, aren’t people, but monsters. If we didn’t kill them, they would certainly kill us. It’s our duty to destroy them, and as long as it is, we might as well make a sport of it.”

I grew up believing in that philosophy like I believed in the air I breathed. I went on my first hunting trip when I was eight and killed my first werewolf when I was ten; by the time I was sixteen, my two best friends and I had over fifty between the three of us. Every full moon, we would go out into the woods and hunt, just me, Travis, Morgan, and Biscuits, Morgan’s black mouth cur. We had a lot of fun during those trips, just us, three kids and a dog, but eventually we got a sign telling us to stop and we heeded it.

I can remember the day we got that sign perfectly. It was the October of our sophomore year, a Friday, the day of the first night of the full moon. I had woken just as I did any other school day, gotten dressed, eaten breakfast, brushed my teeth, walked to school. Math class first period, English second, then lunch with Travis and Morgan as usual. After lunch, we went our separate ways to our different lockers to get our books for Biology, the one class the three of us had together.

I whistled a tune as I spun in my combo. Self Esteem. The Offspring. Thirty-two, four, seventeen. I remember catching a glance of myself in the mirror in the locker beside me; average-sized boy of almost sixteen, brown eyes and wavy golden brown hair, a scattering of small freckles across the middle of my face. I was young and invincible; I had nothing to worry about.

“Ryan!”

It was Travis Silver, my partner-in-crime since kindergarten. If I’m an idiot, then he’s an idiot and a half; no inhibition, no common sense, and no sense at all of when to shut up. Tall, dark, and rugged, the only non-athletic or non-useless thing he could do properly was get stuff from his locker. He could get to his locker on the second floor from the first floor cafeteria, then to mine in the other wing in under a minute, according to the clock on Morgan’s cell phone.

“How do you do that so fast?” I demanded of him as I pulled out my own stuff and closed my locker.

Travis shrugged. “Dunno. Just a talent, I guess. You going hunting tonight?”

I grinned. “Hell yeah.”

We liked to go hunting as early in the full moon as possible, when the werewolves were at their peak speed and strength; it made hunting much more of a challenge.

“Hunting again?” sighed an obnoxious female voice from behind me. “What did those poor creatures ever do to you?”

I rolled my eyes at the thought of anyone referring to werewolves as ‘poor creatures’. “What do you want, Summer?”

Summer is my twin sister. She has dark brown eyes like me, but that’s where our similarities end. Well, her hair is like mine as well, but at the time- and for some time after- it was bleach-blond and straightened about as much as it could take without fading into nothingness. She was petite and wore too much makeup, but not enough clothing. However, to compensate for her wild appearance, she was- and still is- one of those pro-environment, pro-life, vegan, Green Peace supporting modern hippies. Cool of her to be so passionate about that kind of serious stuff, but sometimes she took it a little too far. She was strongly opposed to hunting and I enjoyed it immensely, which definitely paved the way for a healthy bit of sibling rivalry.

Scowling, she handed a flyer from the large stack she was carrying to me, then one to Travis.

“Fang Hollow High School’s First Ever Vegan Potluck?!” I read aloud, positive I wouldn’t have believed the words if they weren’t right in front of me. “Tonight? During a full moon?”

“An alternative to hunting,” Summer explained. “Besides, it’s for the sake of school spirit.”

I laughed. The only school spirit that possibly existed at FHHS was the ghost of a janitor who had fallen off the second floor balcony and broken his neck. Fang Hollow was all about werewolf hunting; no one cared about football or basketball or school plays or anything of the sort. Most people at the school didn’t even have any friends apart from the people they hunted with every month, excluding Summer and her posse of animal rights enthusiasts.

“Good luck getting anyone to come,” teased Travis as kindly as you could tease your best friend’s sister. “I’ll pay you a dollar for every person you can get to go to this salad thing instead of the woods tonight, okay?”

Clearly not in the mood to be ridiculed, she ripped the flyers from our hands, surely giving Travis one hell of a paper cut. “Assholes!” she snapped as she stormed off.

“What was that all about?”

It was another girl, dressed in more practical clothing, dark brown hair tied back in a ponytail and green eyes questioning as they looked us over. About average height, she was curvy without being fat at all, just the way Travis liked them. This was Morgan Hunt, the third member of our trio and the brains of the operation; smart, witty, but sometimes rather bossy.

“Summer,” I sighed in exasperation. “She’s organized this potluck thing tonight and doesn’t realize no one’s gonna show.”

Morgan shook her head. “Poor Summer. If we weren’t hunting, I’d go.”

“But you hate salad,” pointed out Travis.

“So?” Morgan demanded. “Just because you go to a vegan potluck doesn’t mean you have to eat. I’d just go because I feel sorry for Summer and her friends.”

“You’re too sweet, Mor,” I told her, shaking my head. “Now let’s get to Bio.”

We headed down to the very last door on the right side of the hallway and entered the biology lab just in time to nab our usual back table. Travis was looking uneasy and Morgan was looking suspicious; clearly, he hadn’t done his homework and clearly she wasn’t about to let him copy hers.

“Where’s Bane?” I asked after quickly scanning the room, interrupting my friends’ brief battle of glances and glares.

Morgan shrugged. “That’s like asking where’s Waldo.”

She was right. Our Biology teacher was one of those people who could be sitting in a room in the most obvious spot for as long as you’ve been there but still be overlooked entirely, which was weird because he often wore a red bathrobe to class.

This time, however, Mr. Bane was not already in the room, as he walked through the door almost immediately after Morgan had spoken, wearing that red bathrobe over a pair of old jeans and a grungy t-shirt, limping along supported by the cane he used on most days. He wasn’t any older than my dad was, which was forty-five, but his sea green eyes always looked tired and his neck-length black hair, sometimes tied back on his better days, was streaked with the gray of winter skies. It wasn’t even streaked in the salt-and-pepper way common in a lot of guys that age; just the occasional gray lock in an otherwise perfectly preserved curtain of hair. He was thin, but you could tell he used to be toned, and despite his stooped appearance, he was actually quite tall. According to some of the other teachers, he was once the most decorated werewolf hunter in Fang Hollow, but had retired from the sport a little less than twenty years ago when his health had started to decline.

So here he was now, an athlete of unsurpassed achievement, sporting a cane, badly-streaked hair, and a bathrobe as he taught Biology to a group of high school sophomores. Life was cruel to him.

“I won’t check your homework,” he yawned as he collapsed into his desk chair. “Too damn tired. Damn meds are making me drowsy; I’m not up to going over a load of bull like those worksheets. No, today is the perfect day for something special.”

“A movie!” exclaimed Travis excitedly.

Mr. Bane shook his head. “No, Silver.”

“An experiment?” asked someone else.

“Nope.”

“Early dismissal?” about five people chanted.

He laughed vindictively at this one. “No. I have something else, something much better- a pop quiz.”

Everyone except Morgan groaned because everyone except Morgan was unprepared. You see, Mr. Bane was a joke, a laughingstock; no one took him seriously. When he taught something, you forgot it, because he looked pathetic and ridiculous and there was no possible way anything he said could ever matter.

Well, I was taking all those thoughts back as I stared over the quiz. I didn’t know any of this… and to make matters worse, Morgan’s paper wasn’t in view.

Damn, I thought to myself. What a way to ruin a full moon.

-

“That Bio quiz was awful,” moaned Travis for the umpteenth time as we walked through the woods that night. School was over, dinner was over, and now it was the time of month we lived for- hunting time.

Morgan rolled her eyes. “Oh, come off it, Trav; it wasn’t that bad.”

“That’s because you’re a genius,” I told her. “It wasn’t fair of Bane giving us a pop quiz on a hunting day. Just because he can’t hunt anymore doesn’t give him any right to ruin it for the rest of us.”

“Right,” she muttered, gently tugging on her dog’s leash. “Now, both of you keep your voices down; otherwise, the werewolves will hear you.”

Travis laughed. “The werewolves won’t run. They’re tough. The only ones that might run are the registered ones, but we aren’t allowed to shoot them anyway.”

In a town so close to a werewolf-infested forest, it’s inevitable that every once in a while, some unfortunate citizen ends up getting bitten and turns into one themselves. That’s why we have the Werewolf Registry. When someone gets bitten, they can call the registry and set up an appointment with one of the specialists there. At the appointment, they get signed up to have a specialist come by every afternoon of a full moon and give them a shot that enables them to retain their normal mental state during transformation. They’re also issued a reflective collar to wear on nights during the full moon. According to town council’s Lycanthrope Rights Act of 1963, no hunter is allowed to shoot a registered werewolf; these collars identify the registered ones.

However, not all werewolves choose to register. Some of them are in denial, or just afraid to admit to what they’ve become; which is understandable in a town like Fang Hollow, although the registry keeps all your information strictly confidential. It’s estimated that about half the area’s werewolf population isn’t registered, which is fine by most Fang Hollow locals, because if all werewolves were registered, there would be no game.

“Unregistered werewolves are predators,” Morgan argued in an undertone, “They’re just as dangerous to us as we are to them, so keep your voice down, unless you want us all to join them- or worse.”

Yes, in addition to biting some of the local population, unregistered werewolves have also killed some of the local population. But I won’t go into that.

It was after Morgan shut Travis up that we reverted to hunting mode, complete silence, night-vision goggles on, rifles ready. We knew what we were doing; after all, we’d been doing it for eight years.

We traipsed quietly through the trees for minutes. Hours. I don’t know how long, exactly. All I know is that Travis broke the silence first.

“Ryan! Mor!” he addressed us, whispering sharply. “I see one!”

Exchanging a quick glance, Morgan and I scuttled to his side, Biscuits in tow. Sure enough, there was a werewolf right in front us, separated only by some bushes and ten feet of a clearing, hackles raised and ready to attack anything that moved, but…

“Weird,” mused Morgan as she examined it, “It’s registered. Registered werewolves aren’t supposed to be that aggressive-looking.”

I nodded. “She’s right, Trav; let’s go find another one.”

“But who knows when we’ll find another one?” argued Travis. “Here, why don’t we throw something at it? If it runs, that means it’s tame and we won’t go after it, but if it comes after us, we’ll shoot it, ‘kay?”

“Travis-” Morgan began, but she was too late; he’d already picked up a rock from the ground and thrown it at the werewolf.

It took less than a second for all of us, including the dog, to realize that this werewolf was not tame and that Travis was an even bigger moron than we’d originally taken him for.

“Run!” I yelled, grabbing Morgan by the hand and dragging her and the dog with me as I took off reflexively.

“Travis!” she called back, “Travis, get your ass in gear!”

I quickly glanced back at him; sure enough, he hadn’t moved an inch.

“Either shoot it or beat it!” Morgan screamed at him once more.

“I…” began Travis, his voice increasing in volume and tremor, “I… can’t… m-move…”

“Stay here,” I instructed Morgan before heading back to Travis’s side. I may not have been the sharpest note on the scale, but I wasn’t about to let my best friend get mauled by a full-grown werewolf.

“Ryan-”

Not listening to Morgan’s pleas, I stupidly leapt between Travis and the approaching creature.

“Run, you idiot!” I hissed at him.

Suddenly, I was on the ground, and the werewolf was upon me. I kicked at it relentlessly for a good ten seconds, but to no avail; it was as if it was growing stronger by the second. Panicking, I fumbled for my rifle and managed to fire off a shot into the sky, hoping against hope to scare it off…

I felt something spiky clamp onto my upper left arm. I wasn’t looking, but I could tell I was bleeding. Trembling, I turned my head so I could see what was happening…

Yep. The damn beast was gnawing on my arm.

Another shot was fired, this one not by me. The werewolf’s eyes met mine, then, its pupils shrinking and growing at an alarming rate, it released my arm from its mouth and ran off into the heart of the forest.

“Ryan!” Morgan exclaimed, rushing to my side and dropping her rifle. “Oh, Ryan…”

My vision was blurry, but I could tell she was crying as she softly brushed my hair back with her hand.

“Uh, thanks man,” started Travis awkwardly as he entered my reduced field of vision. “You probably saved my life there just now. You’re really cool.”

“Travis…” I addressed him in a moan, the pain from the bite beginning to spread.

He nodded. “Yeah?”

Half delirious, I swiped my good arm at him, grabbing him by the throat and pulling him closer. “I’m gonna… kill… you…”

Considering that Travis is still alive today, I must have released him as I blacked out.

A/N: So... yeah. In case you haven't read any of my recent stuff, I don't update stories until I have at least three reviews for the most recent chapter. Anyway, I hope you liked it. Please review.