The campus had never looked like this.
Strings of glowing paper lanterns crisscrossed the courtyard, swaying gently in the cool evening breeze. They bathed the crowd in shifting colors—amber, crimson, pale jade—like flickering fragments of a hundred sunsets. Music spilled from the stage in the center, upbeat and warm, blending with the chatter of students and the crackle of food stalls grilling skewers. The scent of sweet pastries, caramelized sugar, and spiced cider drifted in the air, wrapping the night in an almost dreamlike comfort.
Ryan lingered near the edge of it all, hands tucked into his jacket pockets, letting his eyes wander over the scene. Festivals had never been his thing. Too many people. Too much noise. Too many moments where someone might notice him acting… wrong.
But tonight… tonight he'd promised himself he would try. Try to act normal. Try to forget about crimson eyes in the shadows. Try to forget about the mark beneath his sleeve that felt like it was waiting for the right moment to burn again.
He needed to remember what normal even felt like.
A group of first-years ran past, laughing, paper lanterns swinging from sticks in their hands. Somewhere to his left, a caramel stall owner barked out, "Fresh batch, still warm!" to lure in customers. The crowd moved in swells, voices overlapping, the rhythm of campus life at its most alive.
"Ryan!"
He turned to see Ethan waving at him from the ring toss booth, grinning like a kid who'd just won the lottery. "Get over here, man! We're about to crush these guys, but I need a tall dude for the last round!"
Ryan considered pretending he hadn't heard, but Ethan's enthusiasm was hard to resist. With a sigh, he crossed the courtyard and stepped up to the booth. A girl in a bright green apron handed him a small stack of rings.
"Three in a row gets you a prize," she said cheerfully. "No leaning."
The bottles were set far back, angled just enough to make the game frustrating. Ryan glanced at them, already mapping the throw in his head before he even realized he was doing it.
[Distance: 2.13 meters.][Required trajectory: 42° arc. Force: 1.9 N.]
He blinked. "Really? You're giving me math now?" he muttered under his breath, earning a confused look from the girl.
He threw the first ring. Perfect arc. It landed neatly around the neck of the bottle with a satisfying clink. The second followed, then the third, each one falling exactly where it needed to.
Ethan stared at him like he'd just witnessed sorcery. "What the hell? Are you practicing in secret?"
Ryan shrugged, accepting a small wolf-shaped plush toy from the booth girl. "Lucky shot," he said, though the system's quiet hum in his mind told him it had been anything but luck.
"Man," Ethan said, shaking his head as they moved away from the booth, "if there was a ring toss team, you'd be captain."
Ryan smirked faintly. "Let's hope that's not a real thing."
They moved on to the food stalls. Ryan kept his steps steady, even though every sound, every scent around him was so sharp it was dizzying. He could hear the clink of coins from a stall three booths away, smell the faint trace of coffee from a thermos someone had opened on the far side of the crowd. Somewhere behind him, he could hear the unsteady heartbeat of someone anxious—too far away to matter, but impossible to ignore.
The human world was suddenly… too loud.
It happened near the stage.
The band had just finished their first song, and the crowd surged forward, cheering. Ryan and Ethan were weaving through the press of people toward a skewers stand when a sharp crack split the air.
His eyes snapped upward in time to see the wooden frame of one of the lantern poles give way. The heavy beam, lined with swaying lights, tilted dangerously toward a group of students standing directly beneath it.
Ryan didn't think.
One second, he was beside Ethan. The next, he was moving—faster than he should have been able to. His hands caught the falling beam just before it crashed into the students. The sudden weight jarred his shoulders, but his grip held.
Gasps and shouts rippled through the group. Someone dropped their cup of cider. Ethan gawked. "Dude! How did you—?"
"Adrenaline," Ryan said quickly, setting the beam down with what he hoped looked like casual effort. "Happens."
But the way some people were looking at him—shock edged with curiosity—sent an uncomfortable prickle up his spine. Too much attention. The kind of attention that could lead to questions.
An older man working the sound system gave him a nod of thanks, and Ryan forced a quick smile before turning away.
The rest of the night passed in bursts of color and sound. Ethan dragged him into a dart game he barely paid attention to. He met a few people from Ethan's literature class and got roped into taste-testing some kind of cinnamon pastry. A first-year girl challenged him to a tug-of-war match at the athletics booth—he pulled her and two friends over the line in seconds, earning groans and laughter.
For a while, it almost felt easy. Like maybe he could exist here without every shadow feeling like it was watching him.
Until the end.
The festival was winding down. The crowd thinned as students drifted toward the dorms, laughing and clutching prizes. The stage lights dimmed to a soft glow, and the music faded into a slow acoustic tune. Ryan found himself wandering to the far edge of campus, where the lanterns gave way to darkness and the noise was only a distant hum.
That's when he smelled it.
Not food. Not smoke.
Wolf.
Slow. Deliberate. Familiar in a way that made the hairs on the back of his neck rise.
He turned, scanning the rooftops.
And froze.
On the roof of the science building, silhouetted against the moonlight, stood Vaelrion. Not in full wolf form—human-shaped, tall and lean—but unmistakable. His long white hair stirred in the wind, and even from here Ryan could see the crimson glint of his eyes.
They didn't speak. They didn't move.
But Ryan understood the message all the same.
I'm still here.
The sounds of the festival seemed to vanish, swallowed by the steady thump of Ryan's heartbeat. The air between them felt heavy, like a taut wire that could snap at any moment.
Vaelrion tilted his head ever so slightly, a predator's gesture. His smile—small, deliberate—didn't reach his eyes.
Ryan's hand tightened around the little wolf plush, the fabric crumpling under his grip.
Then Vaelrion stepped back, swallowed by shadow, and was gone.
Ryan stood there for a long moment, breathing in the cold night air, until the system's quiet chime broke the silence.
[Quest Reminder: Identify the White Alpha before the next Blood Moon.][Timeframe: 18 Days.]
The mark on his arm pulsed once, faint but warm, like it was reminding him this wasn't a game. Not anymore.
He looked back toward the courtyard—the glowing lanterns, the fading laughter—and felt a sharp pang in his chest.
No matter how normal this night had felt, the hunt had already followed him here.