005 - Ashina

I barely registered as her weight slammed into me.

My instincts kicked in faster than my fear and thoughts could catch up. Thanks to muscle memory I’d once had from handling convulsing patients or psychotic breaks, my arm shot towards the scattered kit on the floor, fumbling through glass and metal until my fingers closed around a small, glass-capped vial of sedative. I didn’t even think as I plunged the needle straight into Maya’s neck.

“Please,” I whispered before I even realized I’d said it as the roar that came from Maya faltered mid-growl.

Her full weight crashed into me, pushing me backward and slamming us both into the cold floor. Air whooshed out my lungs as I hit the ground with a hard thud, with my arms pinned in between Maya’s twitching form pressed against me.

My breath hitched as I held it and stiffened.

Please work.

Please work.

Please, goddamn it—

Maya twitched some more before she finally stilled and there was just the sound of my thundering heart.

For a second, I didn’t move. I couldn’t. Scared that if I even moved an inch, she’d twitch again. I blinked back the tears burning behind my eyes and gave Maya’s shoulders a light shove.

She didn’t react.

A sob clawed its way out of my throat as relief tumbled through me, so intensely that it made my chest ache. I let my head drop back onto the floor, my tears leaking down into my hairline. I couldn’t tell if I was crying from relief, shock, or sheer emotional exhaustion.

Does this nightmare ever end?

First, the dead came back to life, and now a human being was turning to a wolf—or whatever the hell Maya was becoming. I felt like I’d been dropped into a fever-dream sci-fi horror script with no warning, no cue, no director yelling "Cut!"

This was supposed to be over. All of it. The chaos. The grief. I’d rebuilt my life from rubble and trauma, damn it. I was supposed to be healing. Stable. Normal.

Why me?

“What did I do?” I rasped to no one. “What cosmic law did I break to deserve this?”

My ribs protested under the pressure of Maya’s dead weight slumped over me, making each breath hurt.

“Okay,” I whispered to myself, my voice shaking. “Okay. Get up.”

I wiped the tears off with the back of my hand, more to feel like I was doing something than to actually clean my face, and took in a deep breath.

With all the strength I had left, I gently pushed Maya’s limp body off me, careful not to jolt her neck or spine. Maya rolled limply to the side, her chains dragging after her in a grim, metallic whisper.

I stumbled to my feet, knees trembling beneath me, and swayed for a second before I caught myself. A blazing headache was creeping in, the kind that starts in the back of your skull and wraps around like a vice.

My heart hadn’t stopped pounding either.

I crouched again with my knees screaming this time, and slid my arms under Maya.

“I’ve got you,” I whispered, though I didn’t know if it was for her or for me.

I took a deep breath and moved to drag her towards my lab.

Dragging her was not graceful at all. Her arms flopped uselessly, and her legs scraped the ground. The chains clinked like ghost bells around us. I winced every time she bumped against the floor, guilt digging into me like nails.

But I couldn’t deal with the guilt from using her body to basically mop our apartment. That was the least of my concerns.

The lab had stronger reinforcements, built as a second fail-safe should the chains fail. I wasn’t taking any chances. And thanks to that, at least, I have something to restrain this whole Maya situation that I can’t control.

I slumped her body against the wall, sweat sliding down my spine. My hands fumbled with the heavy iron cuffs I’d never expected to use again. They slipped from my grip once, twice.

“Come on,” I hissed, teeth clenched.

On the third try, I got the first cuff on. My hands were shaking so hard I almost dropped the second one before it clicked shut with an unnerving finality, locking Maya into the mounts I’d drilled into the reinforced wall years ago.

Then I stepped back, and I stared at Maya.

My best friend. My only family.

Bound like an animal.

Like a monster

I took two steps back, then three. My chest heaved. My throat tightened.

And then, I cracked.

I clutched my hair and pulled hard, hoping the pain would ground me. I spun in place, then slammed my fist into the wall with a scream.

“What the bloody hell is happening?!”

The sound reverberated around the room like thunder.

My breath caught again, and I braced my palms on my knees. In. Out. In. Out.

Breathe, Ashina. Focus. You’re still here.

I looked up at Maya again. Her chest was rising and falling. Thank God. But what about next time?

I was a scientist. I had a lab. I had equipment. Knowledge. Skills. This was horrifying, yes, but it was also data. And I knew how to work with data.

“I can figure this out,” I said aloud, forcing my voice to be steady. “I have to.”

I opened my eyes slowly, a little more focused and a little more steady. I unclenched my hair. The world hadn’t stopped spinning, but at least for now, I could walk through it without falling apart.

I just need it to sort this out.

First of all, I needed to reverse this. Whatever this was.

That meant I needed to understand what she was going through.

I took in another breath and then turned on my heel and rushed back to the bedroom and retrieved the blood kit from the mess on the floor, and then returned to the lab.

My fingers were all over the place, but I forced them to be precise. Glove. Swab. Needle. Draw.

Once I had just enough, I slid the sample into the analyzer.

My foot tapped furiously against the floor, and I bit my fingers, anxious. Time stretched unbearably thin.

Then the results began to scroll across the small monitor. I leaned in with my brows furrowed.

What in the…

The genetic markers weren’t right. Not for a werewolf’s own. Some were close, yes, but others were completely wrong. So different, I could almost refer to them as Alien. I’d never seen anything like it before.

I glanced at Maya again. Was she not turning into a wolf?

There was a flicker of hope and relief just as the analyzer beeped again, and my eyes snapped back to it.

The readings had shifted. Spiked.

The replication rate jumped so high, the machine stuttered. Her cells were out of control. Her mitochondrial levels were off the charts. Her DNA was mutating so fast the machine couldn’t keep up.

I staggered back a step, nausea rising in my throat.

“This… this isn’t a werewolf,” I whispered.