The moon had long seeped into my pale skin, but, yet I still continued to sit there, wide-eyed and paranoid. The tips of my pointed nails tapped gently, slowly, against the glass window as I counted the many stars that were helping to light up the night sky, and as I did so, my lips moulded into the numbers, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, as the quiet whistle of the wind flowing in through the small crack of my window nearly lulled me to sleep.

But how could I possibly sleep now? The question appeared at the top of my mind in big, bright, bold letters.

There was not a single bone in my entire body that would let me fall asleep again, and there was a lot of bones. No matter how hard I would try to, my body would ache with fear and the inner voice in my head would beg, 'don't go to sleep' over and over.

Both of my knees groaned once I stood up from the window seat, and as I stretched my arms up high above my head, my whole body followed with a string of loud cracks before I stumbled over to my bed. I fell straight down onto the side of the cushion, and tightly wrapped myself up like a burrito in my comforter until I rolled my way into the middle of it.

I stared holes into my ceiling as the darkness of the night paired up with the whispering winds, and they both continued to play with my mind as though I was a broken toy, just ready to be messed with and then thrown away.

The sound of a quiet, yet annoying, double beep steered me away from my wild thoughts. Turning my head sideways, my hand wiggled its way a path out from under the tight hold of my blanket, and I reached out to grab my phone that was resting on my side table next to my tipped over picture.

My eyes flicked to the glowing time first, 1am, and then towards my new text message. Groaning, I read the top that said it was from 'Daddio', but the message under it was so short that I could easily read it without going into my texts, and even though it went like this, 'hi, wmmy, I ak staaaaaayinf at eicks. Loventou', I knew that he was meaning for it to go more so like this, 'Hi, Emmy, I am staying at Ricks. Love you'.

Sending back a quick, 'Alright, love you too, and don't forget that you have work in the morning', I placed my phone off to the side of my bed so that it was right next to me, and rolled onto my side, shrugging off the firm hold of my blanket until it was loose against me.

The hypnotic shadow of the moon dancing around my ceiling made my eyes droopy, and the need to sleep worsened, but the moon was oddly comforting during my night of restlessness as it acted like a nightlight.

Sighing sadly, and sleepily, I tugged my blanket up to my chin as I closed my eyes, and sunk into my bed.

However, I was reminded, yet again, that the moon wasn't truly on my side. A familiar howl had snuck back into my room while I was attempting to forget the reality of my messed up life for just a moment so that I could let sleep take over, but it had crept back in through my window. An eternity seemed to have passed before it ended with a final heartbreaking whisper of a long howl, and my eyes had already been snapped open.

Turning to go back onto my phone, my thumb shakily flew over my contacts list before it hovered over one labelled 'Meh Hawt Italiana' hesitating for a second in fear that I would be interrupting or bothering her, but I pushed that aside before tapping the screen quickly and pressing my phone right up against my ear.

A groggy voice answered, "Hewwo?"

"Hi," I whispered innocently into the phone.

"Emery?" My best friend spoke clearer, and I could hear the confusion evident in her tone, but the sound of blankets rustling nearly covered her next words, "Why are you calling so late?"

"I can't sleep," I answered and rolled onto my back. "Did I wake you?"

"It's okay, who needs sleep anyway?"

The corners of my lips turned up as I listened to her sweet, soothing voice, "Would you mind coming over?"

"I can come over, honey, of course."

"Are you sure?" My voice came out slow as I questioned her, and then asked, "Will Max be upset with you?"

"He-" there was a pause, "-He's doing something with his pack tonight, he isn't home. I'm sure he would be over the moon if I went to yours for the night. If you can't sleep we can pull an all nighter, if you'd like? We can use face masks, eat junk food, watch movies, play board games, and most importantly we can eat junk food."

My brows furrowed together, "Yes, I would love all that, but he actually left you alone for the night? I don't think he's done that yet. He never likes leaving your side in the day, let alone at night."

"Yes, well, it seems very important and it was a, uh, last minute decision."

"Do you know what it is?" I asked with a knowing hum as I waited for her answer, Viviana always knew.

"Well, uh, Max didn't tell me this time, so I figure it must be something super duper important."

"I'm a big girl," I told her once she finished her obvious lie, my voice soft, "you don't have to hide it from me."

"I-I don't want to scare you."

"This is getting way too real for me, Viv," I admitted, my voice cracking, and I bit down on my bottom lip as the image of his captivating green eyes came into my mind, as if he was really there beside me, watching me. "I was kind of hoping to wake up and everything would be the same, but how is that supposed to happen when I can't even get to sleep in the first place."

"Oh, babe," she whispered sadly through the phone.

"Just tell me, please? I can handle it," I promised, already knowing what it was about, but half of me needed to know for sure.

"You must have heard their howls by now, they're very hard to ignore, and now each one is louder and different, not the same as their usual call, but instead it's like they're all worshipping something, er, I mean, someone. Everyone in his pack shifted to celebrate his return, Emery. Max didn't want to leave me alone, but-"

"Max was scared of him," I finished for her as the feeling of unwanted hurt pulled at my heart strings, "scared that he might harm you, a human."

She fumbled over her words as if she was trying to fix something, "Maybe the rumours aren't true, maybe he doesn't hate humans as much as everyone thinks he does. He might be good, he might be really good, a good ma-"

"Are you on your way?" I interrupted her with a shake in my voice as the surrounding air seemed to tighten against my stiff body, the darkness threatening me as I stared into it. Quietly reminding myself, true stories are real, they're not made up.

"I'm coming over now, be ready."

The click ringing in my ear told me that she had hung up, turning it off and placing it back on my side table before I pushed myself up from my bed. Making my way downstairs, I got the TV ready and set up the couch, throwing pillows and blankets down on top of it.

Waiting patiently, I skimmed through the many television channels.

A knock on the door made me instantly stand up at the sound of it, and I walked to the front door. My hand was just about to unlock it, but as I stood there, a sliver of fear stabbed my hand and warned me not to open the door.

'It could be him', my inner voice said, but pushing it to the back of my mind, I opened the door to come face to face with blue eyes.

She stepped in, her tall form still high above me even without her heels. "Hi, my baby," she cooed and leaned down to wrap her arms around me, I followed along by wrapping myself around her and resting my head against her chest as she started swaying me from side to side. After our little hug, she turned around and closed the door, and I found myself surprised that I hadn't rushed to close the door in the first place.

"Hi," I greeted and smiled up at her, my eyes drooping down as I showed her nothing but gums.

Viviana pulled out three rental movies from her bag that she had hanging off her shoulder, waving them in front of me as she grinned, "The Lion King, The Lion King two, and The Lion King three."

"Did you jus-no, you cannot call it that," I groaned teasingly and made my best disgusted face, scrunching up my nose as I corrected her, "it's The Lion King one and a half."

"Same thing," she shrugged and skipped into the living room, throwing herself onto my couch before she started pulling snacks out from her bag, a lazy smile on her face as she did so.

I went with her back into the living room, where I took the first movie case and popped The Lion King one in before sitting down beside Viviana. Once I relaxed into my seat, I glanced down at her attire, she was clad in fluffy Elmo pyjama pants with a simple, well-used black shirt.

"Did you really wear that to the store?" I asked and poked the side of her thigh, a giggle escaping me once she smirked in response.

"I'm not changing my pants for nobody," she said confidently, shoving her hair behind her shoulder, "and you know what, I'd like to see someone say something to me about it."

I couldn't help but laugh at her as she pulled her arms up and hit her fists together, she continued, "They don't want to mess with mini Viviana one and mini Viviana two." She kissed the side of her muscles before sticking her tongue out. She then looked me up and down with disapproval, clicking her tongue, "Why aren't you wearing your Cookie Monster ones? Get with the program, Emery."