Luna's Choice

Deep breath. In, and out. I looked at myself in the mirror in my bedroom, trying to figure out if I looked good or like a child playing dress up. My dad had bought me a special dress for today, a soft white one that stopped above my knees. I had on a pair of white sandals and had even painted my toenails a soft pink color. My white blonde hair was smooth and brushed, over and over again out of pure nervousness. I had put on a small amount of makeup, a little mascara around my light green eyes and some lip gloss. But I didn’t have much to put on in the first place, so this was as good as it was getting.“Here goes nothing.” I mutter to myself, turning away from the mirror finally to grab my duffle bag off my bed and head out. My heart was in my throat as I made my way down the hallway for maybe the last time. I glanced at the pictures on the walls, swallowing the lump in my throat at the pictures with my mom in them. She looked so young, happy, and healthy. Not like she was now.

The first to be pulled from the group is Emily. She goes with Laura and a group of cameras outside where they’ll be filming the introductions. A guy named Thomas tells us he’s the second in command on set, and he takes the rest of us around the house. He seems a little more… uptight than Laura. He doesn’t smile and speaks in a clipped tone.There’s a fully equipped gym, a library, a very modern kitchen, two game rooms, and upstairs there’s ten bedrooms and five bathrooms. Everyone has their own room that is connected to a bathroom that leads into another room. I’d never been in a house this big before and all I could think about as we walked around it was how long it would take to clean the entire thing.As we walk around and Thomas goes on about how to turn this on and what to do if this happens, we’re all pulled one by one. I’m pulled third, after Violet and Emily. I guess they were doing the girls first.I walk behind Laura as she leads me back through the house and outside. “Ca

“This is where the cast members will have most of their meals so we need to make sure there’s never any sticks or leaves laying around, got it? We don't want to look messy on TV." I nod along as the producer of the show, a woman named Laura explained to me my duties around the set.This was my first day on set and my first day working a job like this, period.The truth is, I’m hiding. Three months ago my father, the current Alpha of our pack, fell ill. It started slow; it seemed just like he had a bad cold, but within days he was bedridden and I was taking over his duties temporarily as Alpha. We all thought he would get better, but one day he asked to speak to me and my brother alone. He laid in his bed propped up by a stack of pillows so he could look at us as he talked. That was how weak he had grown; he couldn’t even sit up on his own now.He had told us he could feel his time growing short, he knew he was going to die within the year. When we asked how he knew he said he just

My lungs were begging for air, my hands were raw and shaky and I could hear my blood rushing in my ears. I had finished almost all of the course. I had climbed across the monkey bars, climbed up more walls and fallen on more padded floors. I’d swung from ropes, crawled, and dragged myself to the final feat: the giant slime pool. Lucky for me, it seemed the others were having a hard time with it as well. I had lagged behind quite a bit, by almost three whole minutes. I’d halfway been expecting to reach the pool of slime to see everyone already on the other side.Violet, Quinton and Peter were all stuck in the slime currently. It seemed to be really, really sticky. Every time they stretched an arm forward, it was pulled back again by the stuff. When I had first seen it I had assumed it would be difficult to get through, but I didn’t think it would be anything like this. I hope the producers had a plan for getting the people stuck in the slime out.“Seems as though we’re at a standsti

That night I’m the last to return to the house. I’d done the stupid winner’s interview, which had consisted of spilling even more information about myself. They’d asked me things like how I thought of the idea to use my wolf to make the jump, who I was planning on picking in the next round since I’d won. Those kinds of questions were things I was expecting. I was not expecting them to ask me what my type was, where I saw myself in ten years, if there was anyone I looked up to. I guess the other’s might have seen an appeal to getting more screen time; more of a reason for the fans to love you and all that. But I didn’t like it. I found myself hesitating every time Laura asked me a question and giving half truths whenever possible. I don't know, maybe I just didn't want a bunch of people I’d never even met before knowing everything about me. When I finally sat down on the couch in the main living room around nine pm, I was exhausted. Both mentally and physically. I hadn’t even had a