HIRAETH (Tagalog)

Ella’s POV

Before I jump into the story that is my life, let me tell who I am first. My name is Ella, I am 17; soon to be in a few weeks 18, years old. I have brown eyes that are a bit wider than most people, which scores me some beauty points that make up for having a common boring eye color like brown. My skin is snow white and my body is mostly skin and bone; meaning I am very tiny and slim. The most beautiful thing I love about myself is my hair. It’s golden, very voluminous, and curly. It makes me stand out in a crowd, which is exactly why I always have it in a bun and secure it in a beanie hat. Because standing out is the last thing that I want. Why you ask? Well…

I guess I can’t stall anymore, it is time to dive into my miserable story now.

Let me start by telling you about my parents. My mom died giving birth to me 17 years ago so I don’t really know anything about her besides her name, Sara, and the fact that she was human. I don’t know what she looks like as I have no pictures of her, so I don’t know if I look anything like her.

Having to grow up without a mom made things difficult, but I didn’t realize it until 10 months ago when the only parent I had, my father, died. My dad was a half blood werewolf; meaning his parents were also a mix of a human mother and a werewolf father, resulting in a half blood werewolf. Half bloods may have some or all characteristics of a werewolf of pure blood origins, but each person is different. Some half bloods have wolves and can shift like any pure blood whenever they want. Some can only shift during the full moon and are only able to maintain their wolf form until the moon disappears. Some only have the werewolf gene that lets them heal quickly when sustaining an injury but have no wolf.

My father had his own wolf but was only able to shift once a month during the full moon. Me on the other hand was totally screwed. The only sign of my werewolf gene was my healing ability, and even that gene sucked. While it may take a pure or a half with a wolf several hours to heal from a broken arm, it takes me a whole day to fully recover. Like I said, I was screwed over when it came to werewolf genes.

As you can imagine, being a half blood in a wolf pack didn’t exactly put you high on the food chain. On the contrary, half bloods almost never made it to a beta position. They were given trivial jobs that no pure blood would take like guarding the perimeter, fighting in battles, and serving in the pack house.

My parents lived in the human world before they had me. Given that my father could only shift once a month for several hours, he wasn’t exactly at risk of exposing himself. So he managed to live among the humans; along with my mother, working as a chef in a small restaurant, until I was born.

When my mother died, my father, being left all alone with a baby, decided to start looking for a pack to belong to as he did not want to be alone anymore. He found a pack called The Grey’s pack, named after its alpha “Grey”. Being a half blood, he was only given low jobs that nobody wanted, so he worked at the pack house where the alpha and the beta of the pack live, and where all gatherings and ceremonies take place.

He; along with other servants who also live at the pack house, was responsible for cooking, cleaning, washing dishes, and anything else that the alpha or beta asks of him. Me, being his daughter with no wolf and only poor healing abilities, had no hopes of being anything different from what my father was, a servant. I was raised at the pack house and educated at the pack school until the age of 10. That’s when alpha Grey issued a rule that all servants’ kids are to become full servants as soon as they turn 10 and are forbidden from continuing their education with the other members. He believed that servants do not deserve more than that as they do not need to learn anything else besides being able to read, write, and perform simple math.

That was the first time I realized that I hated him so much. After that, I spent the next 7 years of my life being nothing more than a servant, dreaming of the day I will turn 18 and escape this hellhole. I always kept to myself even among the servants. I wanted to stay as invisible as possible, that way no one notices you when you escape, not for a period of time anyway. Before knowing that my father was going to die after I turn 17, he wasn’t included in my escape plans. I was planning to escape him too. I didn’t hate him or anything - at that time- but I didn’t exactly love him, not when he gave me no reason to. I don’t know if it was the loss of my mother, or if he was always like this, but he was a very cold person. Never once, did I see him express any emotion that resembles love, affection, or tenderness towards me. Never once, did he hold me when I was feeling sick, lonely, or mad about the fate that was forced on me. He barely spoke to me in all my 17 years prior to his death.

Even when he left to do a job that alpha Grey asked him to do, he never explained where he was leaving to or how long he was going for. He only told me that he was given an order by the alpha and he wouldn’t return until he was done. That was the last time I saw him before receiving word of his death 3 weeks later. How did he die? Where? I wasn’t told anything else other than he is dead.

As you can probably guess, I wasn’t very heartbroken over his death, so I didn’t really care how he died exactly. Well, I did learn how he died 6 months later, but I am getting ahead of myself.