I never believed in monsters.
Not really. Not in the way that mattered.
I believed in hunger, in violence, in the way the city learned which of us were weakest and pressed down harder because of it.
I believed in alleyways that smelled like rust and rain, in flickering streetlights that buzzed like dying insects, in the quiet knowledge that if something happened to you after dark, no one would come fast enough.
But monsters with claws and fangs? That belonged to stories meant to scare children into behaving.
If I had believed, maybe I wouldn't have gone out that night.
My body had already been betraying me for weeks, dizzy spells, shaking hands, the kind of weakness that made climbing a flight of stairs feel like punishment.
The doctor said stress. Everyone always said stress when they didn't want to say you're breaking. I told myself I could handle one more errand, one more walk home after sundown.
I was wrong.
The forest edge crept too close to the city on the east side, where old factories rotted into the ground and the streetlights stopped caring whether you made it home.
I took the shortcut because it shaved ten minutes off the walk and because I was tired…tired in my bones, tired in my soul.
That was my first mistake.
The second was ignoring the smell.
It hit me halfway down the cracked asphalt path: wet fur, copper, something wild and wrong. My stomach clenched, instinct screaming even as my mind tried to explain it away. A dead animal, maybe. A dog.
Anything normal.
I heard footsteps then, too heavy, too deliberate.
I turned.
At first, my brain refused to name what I was seeing. It stood upright, but not like a man. It's shoulders were too broad, it's arms too long, it's joints bending at angles that made my teeth ache.
Moonlight slid over coarse black fur, caught on claws that dug into the earth as it stepped closer.
Its eyes were yellow.
Intelligent…
Focused on me…
I couldn't scream. My lungs locked, my throat closing around a soundless plea. Every story I'd ever heard told me to run, but my legs shook so badly I nearly collapsed where I stood.
The creature tilted its head, nostrils flaring.
I was prey. I knew it in the same deep, awful way I knew I was weak. This thing didn't see me as a threat. It didn't even see me as a challenge.
It lunged.
I don't remember deciding to move. My body acted without permission, stumbling backward as claws tore through the air where my face had been. I fell, palms scraping raw against the pavement, pain blooming too bright and sharp.
It should have been over then.
But desperation is a kind of strength.
My hand closed around something cold and heavy and broken length of metal pipe, discarded and half-rusted. The creature was on me in a heartbeat, weight crushing the breath from my chest, hot breath washing over my face as jaws snapped inches from my throat.
I swung.
Once. Twice. I don't remember how many times after that.
The pipe connected with bone. There was a wet sound , final, wrong and the creature howled, a sound so full of rage and pain it vibrated through my skull. It reared back, and I swung again, sobbing now, screaming as the pipe came down with everything I had left.
It fell.
Its body twitched once, then went still.
For a long moment, I couldn't move. I lay there beneath the moon, gasping, my heart trying to claw its way out of my chest. My hands were slick with blood, too much blood and when I looked at the thing I'd killed, my vision blurred.
It was still a monster.
That was the only thought holding me together.
I staggered to my feet and ran.
I don't remember getting home. I remember locking the door, sliding down against it, and shaking until my muscles screamed. I scrubbed my hands raw in the sink, but the smell wouldn't leave. No matter how much soap I used, I could still smell it, blood and fur and something sharp and electric beneath it.
I didn't sleep.
By morning, the fever had started.
At first, I thought I was dying.
My skin burned like I'd been left too close to fire, every nerve alive and screaming. My heartbeat thudded so hard it hurt, my bones aching as if something inside them was twisting, rearranging. I vomited until there was nothing left, then lay curled on the bathroom floor, shaking and crying and begging a god I didn't believe in to let it end.
It didn't.
The pain came in waves, each worse than the last. My senses sharpened in ways that made me nauseous, the sound of traffic outside was too loud, too close, every smell too strong. When I closed my eyes, I saw flashes of yellow light and dark forests and teeth snapping shut.
By the second night, I stopped pretending like it was an illness.
When the moon rose, something inside me woke up.
It was subtle at first, a pull in my chest, a restless energy crawling beneath my skin. Then my muscles tightened, cords of pain lacing through me as my spine arched against my will. I bit down on a towel to keep from screaming as heat tore through me, my heartbeat syncing with something older, heavier.
Predatory.
I could feel it then, clear as my own fear.
The thing I had killed was not gone.
It was inside me.
I don't know how long I lay there, half-delirious, clinging to consciousness by sheer stubbornness. When the pain finally receded, it left me hollow and shaking, my body changed in ways I didn't yet understand.
I dragged myself to the mirror.
My eyes looked the same at first glance.
Brown.
Human.
But when the light hit them just right, I saw it, a flicker of gold beneath the surface, like a reflection that didn't belong to me.
I pressed a hand to the glass.
"I survived," I whispered, my voice hoarse.
The reflection didn't look convincing.
That was when I smelled it again.
Not blood.
Other wolves.
They were coming.
And somehow, I knew the worst part wasn't the curse crawling through my veins.
It was that when they found me, they wouldn't see a survivor.
They would see something weak.
Something pitiful.
Something that should never have lived long enough to become a monster.