Runt (BoyxBoy)

Do you know how to tell the difference between a werewolf and a normal wolf? It’s all in the eyes. A normal wolf will have brown eyes, and on rare occasion, blue. A werewolf will have eye colour that is unheard of on a wolf; green, purple, grey, anything. This eye colour also took to the wolf’s human form, so most of us have to wear contacts so that the public don’t ask questions.

Personally, I’m a special case. I am not allowed to go outside. My odd colouring can’t be hidden from the world, so I must stay on the pack’s property. I can’t go to school, I can’t go shopping, and I can’t leave the premises unless I’m in wolf form - even then, I must stay hidden.

I can’t ever recall being called anything other than ‘Runt’; but that can’t be my real name. It’s too cruel. Besides, all my siblings are named after birds, so I should be named after one too, right?

As I stare at myself in the mirror, I can’t help but hate everything. Honestly, I would like my reflection if I could. I’d been told I was hideous by so many people, so, naturally, I began to think that way as well. I had very fair blonde hair - almost white - with pale skin and red eyes. At 5’4”, I was short and I was skinny (some would say too skinny for a boy my age) and wore thick black-rimmed retro glasses; not because it looked cool, but because I was a blind mole without them. Now that I think about it, the fact that I was too slim was probably because I only received half the portions of food that everyone else in the household did. My brother, Cole, was the alpha of the Red Wing pack and believed that food was wasted on tiny me who didn’t need the energy that everyone else did.

He wasn’t wrong, but my job of pack-babysitter required more energy than one would think. Chasing after cubs who have just learnt to morph is terribly tiring - especially when you care for up to twelve at a time.Werewolf cubs are weird things. If conceived in human form, the mother will only have one or two, and the children will be born looking human. If the babies were conceived in wolf form, the mother will have a litter, and no one knows how many kids you’ll wind up with then.

I was the only one of my siblings conceived in human form. Maybe this was why they didn’t like me very much. My brothers and sister were all twenty one and I was eighteen.

On the other hand, though, my older sister, Raven, wasn’t as mean as the others. She would occasionally give me some of her food and take me outside to go running. To her, the whole abusive sibling thing was a facade used to keep my brothers’ respect. Raven, like her name, had jet black hair and coffee coloured skin, as well as striking violet eyes. Aside from the eyes, this was how most of my siblings looked, with one or two with lighter skin and dark brown hair. Cole and Kite both had the same colouring as Raven, and the younger two, Swift and Perry had the colouring previously mentioned.

I didn’t hate my family. As a pack, we were brought up with the fact that the strongest survive; and I was weak. I was the skinny white wolf who could barely hold his own against the youngest of his brothers. It was a known fact that I was the runt of the litter.