The cave was colder than before.
Blake sat on the stone floor, wrapped in silence, the chains coiled beside him like sleeping serpents. The iron cuffs felt impossibly heavy in his hands, like they knew what was coming.
Outside, the last rays of sunlight were dying behind the trees. The air hung thick with tension, like the forest itself was holding its breath.
Blake wasn't breathing either.
He stared at the entrance—at the sliver of fading light—and waited.
His heartbeat was steady, but there was a pressure under his skin, like something was pressing against it from the inside.
Waiting.
Scratching.
Whispering.
He chained himself to the boulder, the cuffs locking around his wrists with finality. Every clink of metal echoed like a countdown.
He caught sight of his reflection in a shallow puddle near the cave wall—normal, human, but not for long. His jaw tightened.
"Don't lose it," he whispered. "Don't let it win."
But the truth was, he didn't know if he had any say in the matter.
The sun disappeared.
The moon rose.
At first, it was nothing.
Then it was everything.
The change didn't crash in all at once—it crept. A slow burn crawling beneath his skin, hotter with every second. His vision sharpened, colors shifting. The wind outside whispered louder, carried voices that weren't there.
His jaw clenched.
His hands trembled.
Then the pain hit.
Not bone-breaking. Not snapping ligaments or tearing skin.
But deep, raw, electric.
His gums flared as his canines extended, pressing down against his lips, sharper than they had any right to be. His fingernails blackened, thickened, and curved into claws that dug into the stone beneath him without meaning to.
Hair spread across his cheekbones and jaw, bristling like thorns growing from his skin. His breathing quickened, became ragged.
The cuffs rattled.
Then the hallucinations came.
He was back in his kitchen.
His dad was standing in front of him, yelling.
"You're not my son! You're a freak!"
Blake blinked. "No… I didn't—"
"You should've died in those woods."
"I didn't—"
"You're just like your mother. Weak."
His hands curled into fists. The wolf inside him pushed up, rising like a tidal wave.
"Stop it!" Blake screamed.
But his dad kept talking.
Then it wasn't his dad.
It was Thorne.
Leaning against the counter, smirking.
"This is who you are, Blake," he said. "You don't cage a wolf. You unleash it."
"Get out of my head!"
"You're not afraid of losing control. You're afraid of what you'll become when you finally let go."
Blake roared.
And the cave walls trembled.
He snapped back to the present, but barely.
The chains were shaking now. His muscles bulged, his arms pulled against the cuffs as if his body had stopped listening.
Then he saw it again—his reflection in the puddle.
Golden eyes. Snarling lips. Clawed hands.
A monster.
He howled, yanked one hand free—metal screeched, tearing open skin, leaving red rings and blood down his forearm. But he didn't feel pain. Only instinct.
He grabbed the chain around the boulder with his free hand and ripped it loose, stone cracking, metal snapping.
He was loose.
He exploded out of the cave like a shot fired from a gun. Rocks scattered behind him, dirt flying in his wake. He didn't just run—he charged, wild and unchained, a blur of shadow tearing through the trees.
The forest no longer felt familiar. It felt like a hunting ground. Like it was bending around him, leading him toward his prey.
His breath was animal. His body moved with terrifying grace, muscles pulsing, claws slicing through bark and branch. Every heartbeat in the woods echoed in his skull. Every scent was vivid. Alive.
Then—the deer.
It bolted, but Blake was faster. He could see the terror in its twitching legs, hear the blood rushing through its veins.
And then the hallucinations surged again—
The deer turned. It was his father. Bleeding. Begging.
Then Thorne. Laughing.
Then just a blur—something between all of them.
Blake didn't care anymore.
He lunged, full force.
They tumbled through the underbrush. His claws dug in. His jaws opened. His fangs—long and gleaming—sank deep.
The heartbeat he'd heard so clearly began to slow.
Thump.
Thump.
Fading.
And Blake held on until it stopped.
Warm blood spilled across his mouth, his hands, the earth.
And for a moment—
He liked it.
That terrified him more than anything.
Then—
The sun.
Golden light broke over the horizon.
Blake's vision blurred. The strength vanished. His limbs trembled.
He collapsed beside the deer, gasping.
Eyes wide.
Blood on his face.
And then—
Darkness.