Spring, Summer, Winter, I Am The Forgotten Autumn Chapter 08

Spring, Summer, Winter, I Am The Forgotten Autumn Chapter 08

The breathing on the other end of the line faltered for a split second.

“When I was eight, the whole family headed to Moon Cove Amusement Park. You locked me inside the house

alone for an entire day and night.”

“At the Luna Ritual when I was fourteen, you bought new outfits only for your three daughters, then scolded

me for wearing an old jacket and embarrassing you.”

“At Grey Pine Lake when I was sixteen, you headed back to Silverbay early, locked the doors and cut the power, leaving me trapped on the sweltering second floor. If a neighbor hadn’t heard the window shatter, I might have died there.”

Marina rushed to defend herself at once. “Those were all accidents! Why do you cling to the past endlessly?”

“What about this time?” My voice remained calm.

“I reminded you to book six plane tickets. Yet only five names appeared on the Silverbay Airport passenger list. In Mistbridge City, you managed to lose me at every attraction. On your way home, you checked out of

the hotel before dawn and left me stranded there alone.”

“Was that also an accident?”

“Do you really have to count every single thing?” she snapped, burning with indignation. “Every family makes small oversights. You’ve always been petty and bitter since you were little!”

“Oversights.” I repeated the word quietly.

In her eyes, me nearly starving, suffocating to death, or abandoned in foreign territory counted as nothing

more than trivial oversights.

“If every part of me is so unworthy of being remembered, then continue forgetting me just as you have for all

these years starting today.”

“Autumn, don’t you dare hang up-”

I pressed the end call button. Quiet settled over the room.

Seconds later, my phone vibrated violently once more. A flood of messages arrived from April.

[Mom’s upset with you to the point of heart trouble; she’s already been taken to the treatment center. Transfer money back immediately, or we will travel to Hyperion to speak with your advisors. Everyone will learn how you abandoned your family!]

I finished reading the messages and blocked her number.

Next came Summer, Winter, and Calvin.

One by one, every phone number, social media account, and email address was permanently cut off.

I pulled out my old SIM card, snapped it cleanly in two, and tossed the pieces into the trash bin. That faint

crack sounded like the door slamming shut on eighteen years of my past.

I paid no further attention to any news from the Grey family.

Hyperion’s coursework was brutally demanding.

Alongside Pack Law, Territory Economics, Crisis Management, and Alpha Ethics, I endured high-stress

training to maintain control over my wolf shift.

I spent three weeks reorganizing a decade’s worth of border patrol records and volunteered for simulated combat zones, testing my absolute limits under varying concentrations of wolf venom.

During one team meeting, a senior researcher stalled on a complex synchronization model.

I picked up a whiteboard marker and pointed out three critical flaws.

“First, the model assumes all werewolves shift at identical speeds.”

“Second, it fails to account for the unique tactical resonance generated by an Alpha’s wolf.”

“Third, olfactory signal degradation accelerates as wolf venom spreads…”

I rewrote the derivation formulas and designed a layered early-warning framework.

A hush fell over the conference room for several seconds. Professor Smith was the first to clap. “Autumn,

you were born to be an Alpha.”

I was formally transferred into the core combat research team.

Inside the training grounds, I also found my first real friends.

Emma hailed from the Northern Tundra Pack and specialized in combat equipment. Noah was a former

border warrior, in charge of combat simulation design.

We would argue deep into the night over tactics, and silently cover each other’s workload when anyone pulled an all-nighter.

They knew I took my coffee black, and they never dismissed my opinions simply because I came from

another pack.

On my eighteenth birthday, they lit a small cake out on the training grounds. “Make a wish, Autumn.”

Staring at the candlelight, I suddenly realized I no longer needed to beg anyone for love or belonging.

I had my own apartment, my research, my friends, and my future. More importantly, I finally grasped the true meaning of being an Alpha.

An Alpha does not stand above everyone else.

An Alpha is the one who sees every person who might otherwise be left behind when chaos arrives.

Before the semester ended, I submitted my first official research paper. The name Autumn Grey began to

circulate among packs across the territory.

They knew I held an S-Class Wolf Trial ranking, and that I was far more than a warrior who won training

exercises.

I could interpret data, understand the howls of separate wolf packs, and had the conviction to challenge flawed assumptions in front of Elders and the sitting Alpha.

Shortly before graduation, I received an invitation to attend the North American Young Leaders Summit,

hosted by the SilverBay Pack.