Crimson Moon

The unexpected transformation

>>

School let out slower than usual.

People drifted through the gates in clumps, talking, laughing, shoving each other like they had all the time in the world. My head wasn’t in any of it. I kept replaying the dream from last night, the wolf, the forest, the way it felt too real to be a dream at all.

No matter how much noise the world made, my mind stayed somewhere else.

Kael had already run off to deal with something Pack-related. He’d been distracted all day, Although he looked calm but his eyes were restless. He told me to go home ahead of him. Said he'd catch up. While Selene went on an ice cream date with Darian.

So I waited by the school gate.

The breeze was cold but soft, brushing hair against my cheek. Cars hummed on the road. Familiar. Comforting.

Then everything went quiet in my head, like someone pressed mute.

I didn’t hear him approach. I didn't even smell him nor did I feel footsteps.

I only knew something was behind me.

When I turned, he was already there.

Lucien.

Standing a little too close. Still like he’d been carved and placed in front of me while I wasn’t looking.

For the first time, I actually saw his face.

Not the quick glances in class.Not the corner-of-my-eye impressions. No. Full view.

And it hit me like a cold wave.

He was… perfect. But the wrong kind of perfect, I felt so small, vulnerable even, standing close to him. He looked so tall and I had to look up to get a clear view of his face.

He was like a statue made with the idea of a human instead of an actual human. Sharp cheekbones. Flawless skin. And when he pulled back his jet black hair, I could see his eyes. His dark eyes that held darkness, yes, the kind of dark that held secrets and somehow they pulled you to them.

Beautiful, yes, but in the same way night is beautiful. In the same way deep water is beautiful. The kind of beauty you don’t walk toward, Yet, I found myself being drawn to that darkness.

I looked down at his hands, they were pale and slender.

My breath got stuck somewhere between inhale and panic.

My wolf reacted instantly, shoving forward beneath my skin with a low, warning prickle.

Enemy. Threat. Move away.

Lucien didn’t blink. Didn’t shift. Didn’t even pretend to act normal. He just watched me with his earth- dark gaze, like I was something he was trying to solve.

His voice came quiet. Low. Too smooth.

Like velvet hiding a knife.

“You’ve started hearing and seeing things, haven’t you.”

My chest tightened. I opened my mouth but nothing came out. How would he even know that? That my senses had been acting weird all week? That the forest dream felt like more than a dream?

Lucien tilted his head slightly, eyes still fixed on me.

“You should go home, Amara.”

He said my name. He shouldn’t know my name.

A sharp chill climbed up my spine.

My legs finally remembered how to move, backing up a step like instinct dragged them.

Lucien didn’t follow. He didn’t smirk or warn me or try to get closer.

He just stood there.

Looking at me like he knew something I didn’t. Something I wasn’t ready for.

I turned and walked away fast, heart hammering, senses buzzing like a broken radio. And I didn’t look back.

But I felt him watching me until I disappeared into the crowd.

>>

Humans bustle past me, loud and clueless.

Wolves linger at the edges of the campus, pretending not to see me. As if any of them could hide their fear.

Only she doesn’t know what she is.

Amara.

The name tastes familiar.

A warning in itself.

She looks exactly like her mother before... the incident.

The same radiaht eyes.

The same unawakened quiet.

The same softness that will soon be gone.

I shouldn’t have spoken to her. I wasn’t supposed to. My orders were clear: observe, report, do not engage.

Yet the moment she turned and looked at me, something inside her stirred. Not recognition. Not memory.

Instinct.

Her wolf is already waking up.

That’s the real problem.

A half-formed wolf like her is unpredictable. Dangerous to herself. Dangerous to everyone.And worst of all , dangerous to me and my kind.

I watched her walk away, fast footsteps, shoulders tight, pretending she wasn't running.

She felt it.

The pull.

The alarm.

The beginning of what she’s becoming.

Good.

She needs fear.

Fear will keep her alive.

But Kael is watching closely. Too closely.

His wolf already senses what I am.

It won’t be long before he understands the rest.

And when he does… things will stop being quiet.

It is nearly time. She's almost ready.

>>

By the time I got home, my head was still buzzing with… everything. Lucien’s voice.

The look in his eyes. The way Kael acted like he was one second away from a full meltdown.

I pushed my bedroom door open with my shoulder, dropped my bag somewhere on the floor, and flopped face-first onto my bed. My whole body felt wired and weird, like my nerves hadn’t caught up with me yet.

I lay there for a while, staring at the ceiling.

Trying to breathe normally.

Trying to feel normal.

As my eyes closed slowly, I couldn't stop replaying Lucien’s stupid unreadable face in my mind.

Suddenly, everything inside me snapped awake at once.

Heat slammed through my body so fast it stole my breath. Not fever heat. Not panic heat. More like something ancient and wrong was trying to claw its way out of my chest.

My vision blurred.

My hearing sharpened.

The whole world tilted sideways.

And then

Black.

It was like I was pulled into this deep, black hole. It wasn't sleep.

Just gone.

When consciousness finally crawled back,

I looked around, wondering why I was hearing the sound of crickets because i knew I lost consciousness in my room.

I felt was cold air on my skin.

The sharp bite of leaves.

Damp earth pressed under my palms.

And this wild, feral pulse beating through me that didn’t feel like mine.

I opened my eyes.

Trees. Darkness. The forest.

My heart nearly punched out of my ribs.

“What… what is this…”

I pushed myself up, dizzy, trying to piece together the blank space in my memory. But flashes kept hitting me.

Running.

Branches breaking under white paws, not feet.

A howl that burned my throat but didn’t hurt.

Eyes.

Someone’s eyes watching me from the trees.

Red. Cold. Unmoving.

Lucien.

Just a glimpse of his blank expression. Not enough to understand. But enough to know he’d been there.

The next thing I knew, I saw a flash if something or someone, I could barely even tell because within seconds, I felt the sharp cold wind on my face, I shivered. And the next blink transported me again, this time I was back in my room, on my bed, shaking, wrapped in the blanket that definitely hadn’t been there a moment ago.

No dirt.

No leaves.

No scratch marks.

Nothing except the pounding in my chest and the certainty that I had not imagined any of it.

I dragged a hand through my hair, breathing fast.

I wasn’t supposed to shift yet. Not without a full moon. Not without warning. Not like that.

And what was that? How did I get back to my room? I think I'm losing my mind. I'm definitely crazy. This can't be happening to me ...

I swallowed, the truth hitting me like cold water.

Something is wrong with me.

Something my parents never told me.

Something that makes me… not just a wolf.

I need to talk to someone. Not just anyone. Selene! Yes. She might know something.

>>>>>>>>>>

I didn’t go to school the next morning.

I didn’t need anyone to see how messy and lost I looked.

My whole body felt stretched thin, like I’d grown into a shape I didn’t remember choosing. And the memory kept replaying behind my eyes: the forest. The running. The cold air in my lungs. Lucien’s face half-glimpsed through the trees.

I needed to talk to someone before I exploded.

I called Selene.

She arrived in ten minutes flat, breathless, hair rushed into some chaotic bun that screamed emergency.

“What happened? You look like someone unplugged you from reality,” she said. “Sit. Talk. Now.”

I didn’t ease into it. I just said it.

“I think I… shifted.”

Selene stared at me like she was waiting for the punchline.

“Shifted like… transformed? As in wolf transformed?” she clarified slowly.

I nodded once.

She blinked three times. Hard.

Then sat down like her legs suddenly remembered gravity.

“But it wasn’t even a full moon,” she whispered. “And you didn’t smell weird yesterday. And your wolf hasn’t even started pushing yet and... Amara, what do you mean you shifted?”

So I told her everything. The heat in my chest. The blackout. Waking up in the forest with dirt under my nails. The way the world felt like it was alive.

And right at the end, the moment that wouldn’t leave my mind:

“I think I saw Lucien.”

Selene shot up so fast the chair squeaked.

“That Lucien? Lucien Lucien?”

“I don’t know,” I murmured. “Maybe I imagined it.”

She shook her head.

“You don’t imagine that guy. He’s literally nightmare-coded. If you saw him, you saw him.”

We sat in silence for a few seconds.

Me, trying not to panic.

Her, absolutely panicking.

“This doesn’t make sense,” she muttered, pacing again. “Wolves don’t transform out of nowhere. Not without signs. Not without pain. Not without anything. You just... shifted? Why? How?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t understand any of it.”

She stopped pacing and turned to me, eyes wide with the kind of fear that comes from not having any answers at all.

“Amara… this is serious. You need someone who actually knows how this stuff works.”

“No,” I said instantly. “Selene, no. Don’t call...”

“Kael,” she finished with the finality of someone filing a complaint to management.

“Selene.”

“Amara, this is above my pay grade.”

“Selene!”

But she was already grabbing her phone with frantic fingers.

“For the record, I’m not snitching,” she said while typing. “I’m… escalating.”

“Selene!”

She didn’t stop. Not even a little.

“He’s coming,” she announced.

I dropped my head into my hands.

Perfect.

Amazing.

Fantastic.

My life was officially a group project.