Chapter One : The Night Bites First
881 Words
I don’t wait for the full moon anymore.
It hunts me early now.
It starts in the tremble of my fingers when I try to hold a glass of water. In the dull, persistent ache behind my teeth, like they’re remembering bones they were never meant to crack. In the way the air itself feels too thin tonight, as if the world is only a fragile skin stretched over something older… and something very hungry.
I glance at the clock on the wall for the third time.
11:42 PM.
Still too early.
The moon hasn’t even climbed high enough to spill silver across the rooftops, but my body has already betrayed me. It always does.
A sudden, vicious cramp twists through my ribs, sharp as a blade sliding between bones. I grab the edge of the bathroom sink, knuckles bleaching white, and force air into my lungs.
“In… out… just breathe, damn it.”
It doesn’t help. It never helps.
I lift my head slowly.
My reflection stares back.
For one sickening heartbeat, it doesn’t move when I do.
Its eyes—my eyes—narrow with something cold and curious that doesn’t belong to me. The corners of its mouth twitch upward, just slightly, before my own lips catch up.
I slam my palm against the mirror, as if I can pin the thing inside me back into place.
“Not tonight,” I whisper, voice cracking. “Please. Not tonight.”
But the thing wearing my skin only smiles wider behind the glass.
It never listens.
---
The first time this happened, I thought I was dying.
Now I wish I had died.
At least death doesn’t remember the taste of blood that isn’t yours.
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Another wave slams into me, harder. My spine arches violently, and a sound claws its way up my throat—low, guttural, nothing a human throat should make. I choke it back, tasting copper.
It’s earlier than it’s ever been.
That’s new.
That’s dangerous.
The pattern is breaking. And when the pattern breaks, people get hurt.
People like the ones who live across the street. People who laugh too loud on warm nights. People who have no idea what’s watching them from the dark.
---
I stagger out of the bathroom and into my cramped bedroom, catching myself on the desk. Papers fly everywhere—old newspaper clippings, half-finished sketches, frantic notes I don’t even remember writing. I don’t bother picking them up. None of it matters when the night decides to claim me.
It always claims me.
And it always leaves souvenirs behind.
Long scratches down my back that I couldn’t have made myself.
Dried blood under my nails that smells faintly of someone else’s fear.
Names whispered in my sleep that make me wake up sobbing with guilt I can’t explain.
I stopped asking questions a long time ago.
Some answers are sharper than teeth.
---
Then I hear it.
A soft laugh drifting through the open window.
Carefree. Feminine. Close.
Too close.
My entire body locks up. Not from the pain this time, but from something far more terrifying.
Hunger.
Raw. Sudden. Mouth-watering.
No. No—no—
I press both hands to my temples, digging my nails in until I feel skin break, trying to crush the thought before it takes root.
“Not them,” I growl through gritted teeth. “Anyone but them.”
But the voice that answers inside my skull isn’t mine.
It’s older.
Amused.
Starving.
*Then who?*
---
My breathing turns ragged. The room starts to tilt and warp at the edges, like reality is thinning out. I can feel it now—not just inside my bones, but all around me. Something ancient. Something patient.
Watching.
Waiting.
Like it’s been here longer than I have. Like it knows how this story ends… and I don’t.
---
Moonlight finally slips through the window, thin and cold at first, then brighter, sharper, slicing across the wooden floor like a warning.
My body answers instantly.
I drop hard to my knees, a strangled cry dying in my throat.
This is it.
Too fast.
Too soon.
Something is very, very wrong—
---
And then…
It stops.
Completely.
The pain. The fire in my veins. The whispering hunger.
All of it… gone.
As if someone flipped a switch.
---
I stay on the floor, trembling, waiting for the other shoe to drop. For the agony to come roaring back twice as vicious.
But there’s only silence.
Heavy. Unnatural. Wrong.
---
My heart is hammering so loudly I can barely hear anything else. Slowly, carefully, I lift my head.
That’s when I see her.
Through the window.
Across the narrow street.
Standing perfectly still under the sickly yellow glow of the lone streetlight.
A girl.
Long dark hair catching the faint breeze. Face half-hidden in shadow. But her eyes… I can feel them on me.
Watching.
Not afraid.
Not curious.
Just… watching.
---
And for the first time in years, the wolf inside me doesn’t snarl.
It doesn’t rage.
It doesn’t beg to tear and taste and destroy.
It goes deathly quiet.
Not calm.
Not gone.
Just…
Waiting.
The same way she is.
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Like it finally found what it’s been looking for.
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**To be continued…**
- Writer
