<div style="text-align: center"><i>I never liked dreaming before I met you.</i>​</div><br/>Gingers really were cursed. They<i>had</i>to be. Growing up in today's society with freckles, a fragile figure and pale and tender skin was just asking to get beat up. It didn't help that God painted his hair the color of a flippin' target! So when the boys at his school started kicking him around and stealing his lunch money,<a class="link link--external" data-proxy-href="/proxy.php?link=https%3A%2F%2Fimgur.com%2FhsJ3d8N&amp;hash=4dec5447c9fbedb46c715edb036a4e5c" href="https://imgur.com/hsJ3d8N" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">Alex</a>didn't think anything of it, nor did he feel the need to tell his mother about it. With his father out of the picture--typically away on business trips, says his mother--he tried his best to hide certain things from her in a childish effort to minimize her grief and worry. Little did he realize his destitute silence only made her worry more, especially since he knew not the peril that awaited him in his near future.<br/><br/>So childhood became rather bleak and quiet, as did the boy that lived through it. There was a silver lining, however. A girl. No one he knew from school or even one he'd ever met before, but a girl from his dreams. It was infrequent at first. The first time he'd seen her in his dreams had frightened him. Before she had showed, he was simply staring down an endless tunnel of darkness. Part of him had assumed a monster would show, or perhaps his father. It had been so long now that he barely even remembered what the man looked like. But instead of something terrifying or even familiar, a small girl emerged from the darkness. She seemed like sunshine incarnate and he immediately found himself drawn to her aura. Through the years, he came to expect her presence and even sought it out sometimes when life became too difficult. The brutality of the beatings became worse and worse as the boys around him matured and found new strength in puberty. It wasn't the only thing bestowed upon them, however, as the boys he grew up with were found out to be more than human. They were wolves and his pack mates. The moment those boys found out who he was and where he fell in the hierarchy of their pack, the cruelty and brutality had all but stopped. At first, Alex had been solely against forging any friendship with the same kids who made his childhood a further mess than it needed to be, but his mother pressed him to set a good example.<br/><br/>He found himself more and more turning to the blissful serenity of his dreams and the girl he would walk with. When he was a boy, he was eager to tell everyone about the girl made of sunshine he would meet with in his dreams, but he lacked the friends to confide in and now that he had them, he knew they'd just make fun of him. So she quickly became a secret of his. The time they spent together grew even more precious to him. There was never any talk between them in these dreams, but there was also never miscommunication. The tranquility found in the silence became a boon for the growing boy as the rest of his life quickly turned on its head.<br/><br/>Opposite of his dreams, the closer he came to sixteen, the more his mother pressed him to hang out with the other boys, to learn from them and to guide them as he would one day be their Alpha and needed to gain their trust. His father had also come back into the picture and wasted no time laying into his son about how weak the boy was. Alex had dreams of his father and the kind of man he might be and although the reality fell far from his expectations, he still felt the need to prove himself to this man that decided to waltz back into his life and demand things of him. So the meek, little ginger started training. If there was any form of sport or self-defense class offered at and around his school, he was often found participating. In time,<a class="link link--external" data-proxy-href="/proxy.php?link=https%3A%2F%2Fimgur.com%2FPlMTHJ8&amp;hash=457692ef1518659915b398a1dde0e807" href="https://imgur.com/PlMTHJ8" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">Alex</a>even grew out of the petty needs to compete because of his father and fell into a passion for fighting and competition. It was in his blood, after all and the desire--the<i>need</i>--to be the best was an ache he felt in his very bones. His clan had always been one of violence and bloodshed; one his mother did well of shielding him from as a child. But, as he grew into adulthood, everything was slowly exposed to him. He realized his place in the pack and filled the role needed of him to the point that even his father had given him a pat on the back once. He'd become one of the better fighters even before his first moon and gained the respect of the very boys who used to punish him for his petite figure.<br/><br/>Still, even as his life started falling into place, he found himself looking forward to the nights where he would dream. The nights that girl would join him. She was slowly maturing into a woman herself and he found himself pining for her even more. There wasn't a day going by he didn't think of her. She brought a warmth to his heart no one else had ever managed to do before. And then came the night he turned sixteen. Unbeknowst to him, some of his<i>friends</i>had been plotting for this night for years. After all, where does someone get off going from a punching bag one day to the pack's star child the next? Alpha's son or not, his friends still felt Alex was flaunting his status and newfound strength, probably even lying about how good he actually was and so they were going to knock him down a few pegs. Unfortunately for the boy, this kind of practice was not only allowed, but encouraged as the pack wanted only the strongest to survive.<br/><br/>All the boys were permitted to change under the moon for the first time before the hunt began so they could get used to their second skins. Alex took to the form like a fish to water, further impressing and aggravating his peers as he took off on all fours in a flash of<a class="link link--external" data-proxy-href="/proxy.php?link=https%3A%2F%2Fimgur.com%2FnoK4qCP&amp;hash=cdfd729b931882d7a86f7a9e86414fe4" href="https://imgur.com/noK4qCP" rel="nofollow ugc noopener" target="_blank">orange and white</a>. Although his wolf form was beautiful, it was nature's further curse to ginger's that his sandy coat stuck out so much against the bleak darkness around him. Even with his head start, he was easy to find. While he had time to train his human form to peak perfection, his wolf form was fresh and sensitive and lacked the training to fend for himself when 3 other wolves came crashing down on him. Although his wolf form was weak, he was fast and he still had the knowledge of all his physical training, even if he lacked the strength. After the initial drop happened, he managed to scramble away with little more than a broken leg and some bite marks on his back and neck. The night ended in a few successful hunts and his own hide intact, though mangled. His parents weren't the proudest of him, but there were some wolves that night whom died to similar attacks; grudges held for six years just banking on that night to unleash revenge. Alex's leg healed after a few weeks and he was only left with more scars to add to those of childhood. In a desperate attempt to blame something, anything, he realized had he not been thinking about how nice running in his wolf form beside his dream girl would be, he would have heard those boys sneak up on him. It was her fault. More so, it was the feelings he had for her at fault. That was the day he realized love was weakness and it couldn't be tolerated in a pack where even your friends were your enemies. After that, he started treating her indifferently in his dreams.<br/><br/>Then she came to him that night, cheeks still red from whatever thoughts she'd been having before she fell asleep and for a moment, he thought it might have been him. Perhaps he was the cause for such a beautiful hue on her face, but no. It likely wasn't and he tried not to care. Hazel hues grew thin behind his heavy lids as he glared at her approach. The reality that she was just as likely to forget about him and be with someone else hit him harder than it should have. Even after two years, he still longed for her. What a disgrace.<br/><br/><div style="text-align: center"><i>I never liked dreaming before I met you. Hated the uncertainty of it. How aware I became of my feelings, and how empty I was just staring into that bleak hole for salvation or damnation to consume me. And then you appeared, with your smile and your kindness. And I no longer wanted to dream.<br/>
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