Daphne
"Why is this trash so full?" Mr Mateo asks. "Whose turn is it to throw the trash away?"
Esther gave out a loud sneeze and looked at Daphne with pleading eyes that said, 'Please help me.' she had been cold all morning, and the recycling bin where the trash was to be thrown away was full of too much snow.
Daphne was cold too, but the weather was hitting Esther harder than it hit her. Esther looked as though she was already sick and it was her turn to go outside and throw the trash away. Daphne glanced around her if another person was willing to help Esther out, but the other employees who were all friends with Esther turned their faces away. Everyone was equally cold and couldn't wait to go home. Mr Mateo was about to close the cafe. Daphne turned to Esther's pleading eyes and gave out a long sigh. She didn't want to go outside, but since she was Esther's roommate, everyone expected her to help Esther out.
"It's my turn, sir," Daphne said with a low voice that was audible enough for Mr Mateo to hear.
"Thank you," Esther mutters at her. She wanted to say another word but she ended up sneezing loudly again. Daphne patted her back gently.
Daphne put on her thick coat and her boots, and she stepped outside into the cold, dragging two heavy piles of trash with her. Each breath she took felt like her lungs were going to freeze soon.
After Daphne had placed the trash in the recycle bin, she was about to rush back to the cafe but stopped when she heard a sound. It sounded like an animal running towards the cafe. Mr Mateo's cafe was close to the forest, that surrounded Rays city. Daphne wasn't scared of it because there weren't many trees, other than that, she had only seen little animals like squirrels and birds in the forest. The cafe locations help in making it more calm. Somehow almost perfect for a place anyone could come in to relax.
'this can't be real.' Daphne thought. She uses her hand to stop herself from screaming in fright. There was a big wolf, close to where she was. Daphne hid herself silently as she watched it and remembered Esther's story about a man-eating wolf. According to Esther, the wolf only came out, late out night, but the one in front of her was out in the day, the sun hadn't fully gone down yet. The wolf was so big that Daphne was starting to believe that she could be dinner if she got caught. There was no little animal around that could be used as a substitute for meat.
The wolf sniffs around its cold surroundings. Daphne held her breath and hid herself in the hope that she wouldn't be found out. She watches silently and wonders if the wolf knows that she is hiding. Perhaps it was sniffing around to find her. The thought increases Daphne's heartbeat as she tries to calm herself down.
The wolf changes into the form of a muscular man. Daphne watched in amazement with a slight blush on her cheek because the man was naked. Her mind couldn't understand what had happened as she continued to watch the man pull out some clothes that had been hidden behind the trees, he frowned at the clothes that were wet because of the snow. Still, he put it on.
'he looks familiar.' Daphne thought as she continued to watch him. Even though his clothes were wet, he didn't look as though he was cold. Rather he was only annoyed about his wet clothes, grumbling under his breath. He walked into the cafe, Daphne waited outside for a while before she also went inside. She was freezing when she waited outside and didn't want to go back inside because of the man that went in, but her lungs couldn't take the freezing air anymore.
"What took you so long? Mr Mateo is about to lock up the cafe. I have been waiting for you." Esther had already arranged her purse and Daphne's purse for both of them to leave together. Her voice was weak, she felt as though she was already sick, even though, no one had mentioned it to her already. "Drop your apron, let's go home." When Daphne was taking too long aside, Esther had almost gone out herself to check if something was wrong.
"If a wolf eats a man up, is it possible for the wolf to change into the man it had eaten?" Daphne ask.
Esther gave Daphne a bewildered look. She knew the cold weather was bad, but she didn't know that it was this bad. Could Daphne be sick? Esther thought. She couldn't understand Daphne's strange question. "Are you okay?"
Daphne didn't even know how to answer Esther's question, was she okay? She didn't feel okay with the cold, and after what she just saw, she didn't feel okay at all. "The stories you told me about Man-eating wolves, do they change to an actual man after they had finished eating someone?" Daphne almost let the word, 'naked man,' slip out of her mouth, but she stop herself.
"Are you feeling scared or something? Those stories aren't real, like Mr Mateo had told you earlier, they were told only to scare people. Newcomers like yo_" Esther sneezes out loud again. She couldn't wait to get home, her nose felt as though it was going to fall out. "Please change out of those things so that we can go home."
Daphne took her purse from Esther, ready to go home until she remembered that the man she had seen in the forest walked into the cafe with his wet clothes. Daphne had almost forgotten about him. She couldn't see him in the cafe, most of the other workers had gone home already. Everyone was alive when Daphne came to the cafe, and the memory of the man she had seen was like a ghost. But the wet footsteps on the floor prove to Daphne that she didn't imagine what she saw.
"What is it again?" Esther asks her hand already on the door to the cafe.
Daphne followed the wet trails to mr Mateo's office. "Did a man with wet clothes walk into the cafe, before me?"
"Are you talking about Kian? There's no need to worry about him, he has always been weird, nothing he does surpris_" Esther let out a sneeze. "Nothing surprises me, anymore. Please let's go home." She begs Daphne once again.
After hearing his name Daphne remembers that he was one of her co-workers. Kian Landon. She was only introduced to him on her first of work so that she could know who she was working with.