Beast Below

I rolled over and pain assaulted me. I let out a groan and gingerly touched my pounding forehead. There was a bitter taste in my mouth, as if I ate something nasty. I slowly opened my eyes, letting them adjust to the near darkness of the night. I reached out to push myself up, getting my hands slightly dirty in the process. I went to wipe them off on my leg and realized that I was covered in something. I looked down at myself, but it was hard to make out what it was since it was pretty dark out and the trees were dense enough that it very little light shown through. Then I realized that the clearing I normally wake up in doesn’t have dense trees. In fact, it’s just a small meadow with a small pond near the center.

I turned around slowly, trying to figure out where I was. I could feel the panic starting to rise in my chest. Oh balls, I really made a mistake this time. I started to pick my way through the darkened trees, trying in vain to see the ground before me so I don’t stumble around like an idiot... well, even more of an idiot. I had stumbled along for a minute when I realized I could hear someone stumbling after me. Ice ran through my veins. I may be a giant man-eating monster during the day, but at night I was your average female who was scared of predators found in the dark. I may live in a small town, but I live near enough to the city to know that a sound in the dark is not always a safe thing for a girl walking around at night. Especially if that girl is walking around naked after just transforming back from a monster. I quickly hid behind a thick tree, hoping that whoever was following me didn’t see me. I heard the footsteps stop not far from where I was hiding. I crouched lower and held my breath.

“F-Freya?” A male voice said weakly. I let out my breath with a sob of relief and came out from behind the tree. There stood Bennett. He was holding his right shoulder closely to his side. There was blood running down the side of his head, and I was actually surprised to see him standing. I rushed over to him, completely forgetting that I was naked.

“Bennett, what the hell happened?” I asked him. He groaned and rolled his eyes up at me.

“Don’t you remember anything?” He asked, his voice was soft and weak. I shook my head, not remember much after running from our argument. Suddenly, he pushed away from me and turned around.

“Bennett?” I asked, confused. “Are you alright?” He started to cough and shuffle his feet against the ground, as if he were uncomfortable suddenly.

“Uh... I just realized that you were... very naked...” He struggled with the words. I looked down at my body and remembered that I was very naked, except for being covered in something that I was hoping was dried mud. It was thick and sticky. I looked up when I heard Bennett moving around. He was taking off his bag and holding it behind him out to me. I grabbed the bag and found a clean nightgown, but no food.

“You didn’t grab me actual clothes or food?” I blurted out. I could imagine him rolling his eyes at me.

“Well I am sorry, I didn’t think that far ahead or even clearly! I was just worried about finding you first, not that I could possibly find you after you had transformed back into a human.” I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at him and grabbed the nightgown out of the bag. It had Tinker Bell on the front, being her sassy self. It only came down to my mid-thighs, but it would do.

“Okay, it’s safe. Your virgin eyes will live for another night.” He turned and glared at me. I smiled sweetly at him and started walking again. He started to grumble and started jogging. I stopped so that he could catch up with me. He started picking his way through the dark woods and I followed. The silence stretched on for a few minutes, then I couldn’t take it anymore. “Oh come on, you aren’t going to talk to me now that you have seen me naked?” I joked. If it wasn’t dark out, I probably would have had the satisfaction of seeing him turn bright red. As it was, he did stumble. He righted himself and turned to me.

“Can we not talk about that, please?” He asked. He started to turn away and a thought occurred to me.

“Bennett, have you never seen a naked woman before?” I asked gently. He sighed in annoyance and turned back towards me, glaring. “Oh my god, you haven’t?”

“That surprises you?” He asked. I shrugged.

“I don’t know, I thought it was some sort of weird thing that all boys need to peep in on naked girls.” He just laughed.

“I was a nerd. I didn’t really have time for that.” He started walking again and I quickly followed him.

“Yeah, but nerds get action too.” He laughed again but shook his head.

“Not my level of nerd.” He chuckled. I smiled, glad that we were back on friendly terms.

“So what level of nerd are you?” He started chuckling again, like he was strolling down a very nerdy memory lane.

“Lets see. I played Dungeons and Dragons every Friday with my group. On Tuesdays I was battling other Magic players for the Magic Championship. I came in third place. On Wednesdays
I got together with my whovians and we tried to build our own Tardis and contact The Doctor.” At this point I had no clue what he was talking about, but I let him continue. “ And any other day, there was role playing.” I was starting to picture him in tights and wielding a foam sword and I burst out laughing.

“Role playing, like the running around in the woods wielding foam swords and talking in old english?” I was chuckling at the thought of Bennett wearing tights still.
“Actually, no. I would have loved to have done that but, well, see there was this girl.” He started.

“Oh god... now I am really interested where this one is going.” He glared at me again and I smiled innocently back at him. He seems to love glaring at me tonight.

“Anyway, there was this girl. Her name was Colby Jones. She had really soft blonde hair and the greenest eyes I have ever seen. Like it was as green as the grass in the late spring. She had freckles on her cheeks. I liked her. Like really really liked her. She was also nerdy, like me. Just not as severe. Like the only thing she liked doing was role playing. And it was a certain type of role play.” He stopped talking, distracted by a thought or memory. So I was dying of suspense on the type of role play he did with the chick. Wait... maybe I don’t want to know. I grimaced at that thought.

“Okay, so role play?” I urged him on, still slightly curious. He shook whatever thought he had out of his head and continued.

“She loved this character named Applejack...” I burst out the moment he said Applejack since I knew exactly what character he was talking about, and now I could imagine exactly the type of role play she forced him to do. He turned and glared at me, but I was too busy slapping my knee to care.

“She made you do My Little Pony role play?!” I could imagine him wearing a pair of wings or a little horn attached to his head now, and I couldn’t stop laughing.

“Yes. My Little Pony. The Friendship is Magic series, not the older ones. She had the same attitude as Applejack and believed that whoever created the series had used her to create Applejack. And I liked her so much, that I would wear whatever outfit she wanted me to wear. I think I even wore the outfit for Twilight Sparkle. But that was then, this is now.” He ended the subject quickly, which made me curious about what happened there. I put my hand on his shoulder comfortingly.

“What happened with her Ben?” My voice was gentle as I asked, feeling that this was one of those subjects where pain was behind the words about to come out of his mouth. What I didn’t expect was the anger that was on his face when he looked at me.

“Look, Freya, it’s none of your damn business. Just drop it.” He shoved my hand away and started walking. I sighed, slightly hurt, but walked after him. The silence that followed after that was the type that was thick and uncomfortable. I finally had to break it.

“I’ve only had one boyfriend.” I started. Bennett started to interupt me, but I shoved my hand over his mouth. “Shut up, let me speak.” He raised his eyebrows at me and I took my hand away from his mouth. “Anyway, I have only had one boyfriend. You may have remembered me mention him before, Hunter?” I stopped and he nodded his head. I nodded mine too and then continued. “We had been together for almost a year, and I thought we were happy. Then I started to notice that he wasn’t really listening to what I was saying. He would ask me about my day and then he would check out and be miles away as I told him everything. Then he would start blowing me off. Ask me out on a date and then hours later would call apologizing and give me some lame excuse. I thought that he was seeing another girl since I wouldn’t give myself to him, since at the beginning of our relationship I told him that I wasn’t going to give myself away until I was ready and at first he didn’t really respect that until later. I asked him about it and he laughed at me and told me there was no other girl. After that, I felt better for a while. I made myself believe that he was just worried about family or something. Then he wouldn’t text me or return my calls. I would go almost an entire day before I would see or even hear from him. I felt like I was losing him, so I called him up and left a message that I needed to see him. I was asleep when he tapped on my window. I opened the window to let him in and he finally did after he argued with me about coming in. That night, we, well, I, me and him, you know.” I was most definitely blushing right now.

“You what?” Bennett asked. I glared at him and it finally seemed to dawn on him what I was getting at. “Oh. OH! I get it...” He chuckled nervously and I gave it my best not to throttle him.

“Anyway,” I started walking again. “later that day he broke up with me. A few days later, I saw another girl on his arm. A few weeks after that, he just left. Basically, that bastard just used me to get what he wanted then left me.” I stood there for a minute, struggling with the feelings that were trying to resurface. I finally beat them back, letting out a shaky sigh. I started walking again, not bothering to see if Bennett was following me or not. But he was following me, since he coughed softly right next to me and startled me. He put his arm around me and pulled me into him for a one armed hug.

“I’m sorry, Freya,” he whispered.

“It’s okay. Anyway, moral of the story is to be glad you still have your virginity and didn’t lose it to a godless douche monster like I did,” I said, which I got a chuckle in response.

“I almost would have lost mine like that.” Bennett started. He swerved suddenly, dragging me along with him to keep me from tripping over a root. “Colby and I had decided to, you know, at prom. Like some sort of bad teen movie stereotype. She was a couple of grades ahead of me. I was a sophomore, while she was a senior. Prom was less than a month away, and we had been planning this since the beginning of the school year. I even had my tux already. I was starting to feel like a girl, with the butterflies and shit. Then, a few weeks before prom, Colby dumped me. She said that I was just a kid to her. She started dating Ethan McGregor, this kid who used to bully me around a lot.” I wrapped my arm around his waist and gently squeezed him. It was when he hissed that I remembered that he was hurt.

“Sorry! I’m so sorry, Ben.” My hands fluttered around, unsure what to do.

“It’s okay, I am sure I have a healing spell somewhere at home that will fix me up.” He started walking again, grabbing my wrist to pull me along. I caught up with him so that I was walking right next to him and he let my wrist go.

“What happened anyway?” I asked him. He avoided my gaze.

“You took a swipe at me, knocked me into a... tree,” he said gently. I groaned, and started to apologize but he held his hand up.

“It’s okay, Freya. It’s not your fault,” he said. I nodded and we continued walking again. I honestly don’t know how he did it, but soon the woods were starting to look familiar and then there was the familiar prickling sensation of the barrier crawling along my skin. It was only easy to walk through while I was in human form. Bennett told me that the first time I had turned into the monster, I had spent most of the day bashing myself against the invisible barrier while hissing and roaring at it. Apparently it’s very solid while I am a beast. Finally, our cabin was in sight and I almost started to weep from exhaustion and joy. Bennett ran ahead and turned on lights while I walked at a more leisurely pace. Bennett was in his room when I got in.

“I am going to bathe, I feel filthy,” I called out to him. He mumbled something that I couldn’t understand and went to my room, where I started to strip my Tinker Bell nightie to get into the bath. I looked at my reflection briefly as I walked towards my bathroom, then I froze and walked back and stared open-mouthed at my reflection. I couldn’t move. Dimly, I heard this wailing sound in the distance. It wasn’t until Bennett crashed through the door that I realized the sound was coming from me.

“Freya! What the-” Bennett stopped as he took in the scene. I was covered in blood. Head to toe. I even had streaks of it in my hair. It look like I had bathed in it. “Oh my god, Freya...” He said softly.

“What the hell happened, Bennett? Why the fuck am I covered in blood?! What did I do?!” I screeched. I was shaking, tears forming in my eyes. I blinked to clear my vision, and the tears started to fall. He grabbed a towel and wrapped it around my shoulders.

“Freya, I need you to listen. Go wash up. I will make some hot cocoa for you and once you are all bathed, I will explain everything. Now go take a bath.” He turned me towards my bathroom. I nodded and walked numbly into it and turned on the faucets, waiting for them to get to the right temperature before turning it into shower mode. I stepped into the tub and sat down, watching the water turn pink. I cried in the bottom of the tub until the water ran clear, and then I cried some more. I finally stopped crying and stood up, grabbing my shampoo bottle. I quickly washed myself and then rinsed off. Turning off the water, I grabbed my towel and wrapped it around me. Entering my bedroom, I grabbed my Tinkerbell nightshirt again and threw it on. It was a blue long sleeved nightshirt with a darker blue around the cuffs and neck. I grabbed my fuzzy blue robe and threw that on, tying the sash around my waist before I headed out into the other room where Bennett was waiting for me with a steaming cup of cocoa.