I had expected to see a mass of Pied Piper officers outside the exercise area with guns at the ready and Officer Black Hair (as I had come to think of him) leading the way in to murder each and every one of us; or at the very least those of us who had used our powers or transformed into something monstrous (they had murdered George for that).

Instead it was Mike of all people who led the way inside with a mere three armed Pied Piper officers following in his wake. Mike had looked a bit rough the last time I had seen him and he looked even worse; his face was gaunt, his beard and head of hair unkempt, and his general appearance made him look like he had just rolled out of bed after a night of zero sleep.

I felt a pressure at the wound in my shoulder and for a horrible moment I thought the wound was somehow opening up and getting worse, releasing yet more blood. To my surprise it was Tiffany who had her hand to the wound. I looked back and forth from her to Mike and the approaching Pied Piper officers.

"Everyone line up against the wall," said Mike, pointing to the left-side wall.

We did as we were told. Tiffany helped me to my feet and propped me up on the way over to the wall. She didn't say anything, she wasn't even looking me in the eyes. I could have walked, albeit slowly, without her help but I wasn't going to refuse the help she was giving either.

We reached the left-side wall and turned around to face Mike and the three officers. Blood was pooling a deep dark red from Holly's throat where she lay dead on the ground. The murmurs among the lined up teenagers built with each passing second.

Are they going to kill us? I wondered.

For some reason it seemed unlikely to me. Maybe it was because of the lack of Pied Piper officers. Or maybe it was because it was Mike, and not Officer Black Hair, who was in charge of the small squad. Mike didn't strike me as the kind of guy that would give killing orders. There was however a chance that I was wrong and we were about to be murdered for the chaos that had broken out in the exercise area.

"I need volunteers for clean up," said Mike, "About five of you should be enough."

Nobody put themselves forward. Mike, realising this, pointed out teenagers instead.

"You," he said, picking out Blain.

"You," he said again, picking out Tiffany.

Mike carried on like this until the Scottish Young Man, Mikayla, and Jay were picked.

"Go with this officer," Mike said, gesturing to the Pied Piper officer standing closest to him, "You're going to need to get supplies for the clean up. Do everything he says and stick with him."

The newly formed group followed the Pied Piper officer out of the exercise area.

There came a sudden growl from Adam from where he lay on his back still in his were-lion form. The two remaining Pied Piper officers aimed their guns at his head.

"Permission to terminate, sir," said one of the Pied Piper officers.

"Wait!" I shouted.

Mike and the two officers turned their attention to me.

"Stay out of this," said Mike.

"No please!" I said, clutching my shoulder-wound as more blood leaked from between my fingers, "He's not dangerous. He just needs to wake up and he'll go back to normal."

I could see a twinge of sympathy in Mike's eyes as he looked over my sorry state. The stomach area of my overalls was also caked with blood from the small gash Holly's claws had punctured there.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Mike looked at the humanoid-lion-creature with its face bloody and beaten.

"Stand down," said Mike to the officer.

Both officers lowered their guns away from where they had been aimed at Adam's skull. Mike gestured for me to come closer to him. I had powered down from my coiled up state and was freshly feeling the pain of my wounds; each step towards Mike made the wounds throb and the pain climb.

I wanted to scream and panic about all the blood and the severity of my wounds like a little boy crying for his mother after scraping his knee; I had to fight this urge because Adam's life was on the line.

I reached Mike and stood before him. He towered over me and, up close, I could smell he likely hadn't showered in a while.

"I need this area good to go for any teenagers that need to exercise," said Mike, "You've got until the clean up is done to handle things; if not then it's out of my hands. Do you understand, Burgess?"

"Yes," I said, in a small voice.

"Too easy," said Mike, and he patted me on the shoulder.

I winced from the agony of the slap reverberations reaching my shoulder wound.

"Far out," said Mike, "My bad."

"It's okay," I mumbled.

I staggered my way over to where Adam lay. Up close I could see one of Adam's eyes was swollen shut, and his face was lumpy and red-raw from the savage beating Blain had given him.

I didn't know how best to go about trying to wake Adam up so I just nudged him and hoped for the best.

"Hey," I said, quietly, "Adam?"

After several nudges Adam's yellow eye opened and fixed on me. A growl, like the sound of a large wooden barrel being rolled, grew in Adam's throat.

"It's okay," I said, forcing a smile.

I had to think of something, anything, that might bring his human-self back to the fore.

"Want to see a magic trick?" I said.

The yellow eye widened and the growling stopped.

"Okay, watch," I said.

My right hand was trembling from the post-adrenaline rush and the loss of blood. I opened up my blood-stained right hand, showing Adam the back of it. I had my right thumb bent. Then using my other hand, which was also trembling.

From Adam's point of view it would look as if I were detaching my right thumb. It was the only pseudo-magic-trick I knew how to do (my Dad had shown me a few times) and performing the trick before Adam also happened to be the first time in my life I had tried doing the trick to anyone outside of my family.

The lion-creature started to convulse and for a terrifying moment I thought Adam was going to attempt to attack me again. Instead I was able to experience what it was like to see a lion-man-creature laugh.

I could hear the rattle of the officer's guns behind me. They were ready to murder Adam at the first sign of him being a threat and I doubted they would care much if I were collateral damage.

"You need to power down," I said.

Adam's yellow eye fixed on me and then searched its surroundings. As sanity returned to Adam, so did his human features. It was mesmerizing watching the predominant animal features which had taken hold of his face revert back to normal; it didn't happen all at once, but instead slowly over the course of several minutes.

"That's not how you do it," said Adam once he was finally back to normal and sat upright.

Half his face was still a swollen, red-and-purple mess. His good eye however had returned to its normal blue hue.

Adam did the thumb trick how it was supposed to be done. After smiling at the novelty of seeing the trick done better than I had done it, I looked over my shoulder (again ignoring the immense pain from my wounds as best I could) and saw one of the officers was giving us his full attention, his finger on the trigger of his lowered machine gun.

I turned back to Adam.

"Listen," I said to him, "They will kill you if you change again. You need to stick with me."

"Okay," said Adam, nodding, "I didn't mean to change. I didn't. I just lost control. Completely lost it."

"I get it," I said, "Just learn your lesson okay? No more cat stuff?"

Adam nodded. "Okay," he said, and I noticed his fangs were no longer there.

He glanced over and flinched at the sight of Holly's dead body.

"Hey," I said, gripping Adam by the shoulder with my left hand, drawing his attention back to me.

"Don't look, you just need to stay calm okay?"

Adam began to sob pitifully, saliva leaking out of the left corner of his mouth which was swollen. I kept a firm grip on his overalls.

"It's okay," I said, "Everything's going to be-"

My eyes grew heavy all of a sudden and I felt myself fall backwards as if I were a puppet that was no longer attached to the puppeteer's strings. Then everything went dark and all sound faded to silence.