Lunar Shadows

The city throbbed with neon lights that flowed vibrantly on liquid streets-blue, pink, and red. Elena stood on the balcony of her apartment, gazing out onto the sprawling metropolis. The city was always aglow, but tonight, things were different. The atmosphere itself seemed tense, as though the world were holding its breath. A big blob of a blood moon loomed in an eerily bright, deep crimson-spotted sky over the skyline of the city. Elena had always been drawn to the moon. She didn’t know the reason, though every time it rose in the evening sky, its strange pull seemed to tug at her. However, the intensity was stronger than normal today. Within her, something stirred and began to awaken deep within her-a flicker of something ancient, something wild. She shook off the feeling and turned from the balcony into the rooms. Another day at the coffee shop-dragging, uneventful evening. Yet tonight, the air was charged, and she couldn’t seem to be able to shake the feeling that something was about to change around her. It startled her with a knock at the door. She stood in hesitation for a moment, learning who could actually visit at such an hour. But when she opened it, her breath caught at the back of her throat. It was a man who stood at the doorway. The man was tall, deep and piercingly dark-eyed, with a gaze that seemed to see straight through her. The man had sharp, almost predatory features, and his very presence sent a shiver through her. "Elena," he said in a low, gravelly voice. "We need to talk." Elena instinctively took a step back; her breath quickened at the thought of a man standing at her threshold. Something about him, almost unnatural, triggered those instincts. His gaze didn't waver as the intensity of his eyes sent a chill through her. She swallowed; the desire to pull the door shut battled with the impulse to turn and run. But she couldn't get her feet to move. “Who are you?” she got out, her voice shaking from her best efforts to sound casual. The man didn't answer immediately. Instead, he scanned her with a look that seemed to pierce through her very soul. It was as though he could read her every thought, every fear, every hidden piece of her. “I’m someone who knows what you are,” he finally said, his words dripping with an unsettling certainty. Before him lay a much-chastened Elena, “What I am?" “Yes,” said he, his voice softening ever so slightly. “You've felt it, haven't you? The changes. The dreams. The pull of the moon.” Elena's breath caught in her throat as she listened. Otherwise, she had tended to dismiss the peculiar dreams and heightened senses as mere anomalies, other signs of stress or even overworking. Now, as she listened to this man discuss such personal matters so directly, his words falling heavily upon her chest with his matter-of-factness, she found herself in a situation for which she had once thought herself immune. "Who are you?" she repeated once more, this time feeling urgency gather in her voice. The man's head tilted slightly as though he were taking stock of her with the hint of amusement in his dark eyes. "My name is Rafe," he said. "And I have come to help you understand who you really are." All at once, Elena felt a great deal of confusion and terror. "I do not understand what you are talking about." Rafe took one slow step forward, his presence almost stifling inside the apartment. He held up a hand, palm open, and, to her horror, his fingernails elongated from his fingers into sharp claws. It was a subtle transformation, but unmistakable-a predator revealing itself. "I'm a werewolf," he said plainly, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. Elena stumbled back and breathed in spurts when she said, "No... no, that's not possible." She shook her head and said, "This... this is a joke. You're not..." "I'm not joking," Rafe interrupted, voice suddenly sharp, no longer soft or calming. "And neither is what's happening to you. You are one of us, Elena. You always have been one of us." Her mind reeled, and in her heart, thumping wildly in her chest, she tried to reason through the impossible words: A werewolf? Her? She was just this girl trying to get by in a city that never slept, that never cared. This couldn't be real. It must be some kind of dream or strange hallucination. But the pain started soon after. It was quite subtle; it just gave that dull ache so deep within but conveyed by the touches of pain at the reminder of its presence. She looked down at her hands, and her fingers began to throb with acute tremors, as an unnatural heat so flooded her veins. She staggered against the wall, seeing her heart race with the body's response to something beyond her control. The pain intensified, sharper now as if it would tear apart her whole body from within her. Gasping for almost the air of life, she clutched at her chest, her mind all in disarray; panic and confusion flooded it. Her muscles twisted; her joints crackled, as though they were forced painfully into new shapes. "Breathe," Rafe's voice cut through the chaos, calm and steady. "Let it happen. You're not going to die. You're becoming what you truly are." But Elena couldn't focus on his words. She could only focus on the excruciating transformation taking over her body. She felt her skin tighten, stretch—her vision narrowing as the world around her blurred. The pain surged again, overwhelming her, until it reached a point where her body finally gave way. And then, in a flash, it stopped. Elena gasped, her lungs burning for air. She stumbled, looking down at herself. Her body had changed—no longer was she the woman she had been only moments ago. Her senses were heightened, the world around her clearer, sharper. She could hear every rustle of the leaves outside, every distant murmur of voices in the city. Her vision was impossibly sharp, the faintest details of the room standing out in vibrant clarity. Rafe's eyes never left her. "You've just shifted for the first time," he intoned, a note of assurance and sternness wrapped around the word. "It's not going to be easy. But this is who you are now. You can either fight it or you can learn to control it. The choice is yours." Elena was shock-stunned, her brain a whir over the unreal happening. Her legs had turned jelly-like beneath her, and her heart thudded like a hammer in her chest. She could hardly tell, not now, if she might trust Rafe-or even trust herself. The blood moon without shone ever brighter, casting long dark shadows into the room with a brighter-red hue. And at that moment, Elena knew her life would be forever altered.