MasukThe first pale light of dawn seeps through the slats of my office blinds, painting thin lines across the carpet. I stand at the window, pulling back the edge of the blinds to watch the city wake beneath me. The streets are quiet, peaceful—unaware of the betrayal I've uncovered through the night. My
The evidence glows on my screen like a digital confession, but it's not enough. I need more—something concrete, something undeniable. My fingers move across the keyboard with deliberate precision, each keystroke a small act of vengeance. The wolf in me wants blood, wants to tear through the building
The light from my computer screen casts blue shadows across my office, the only illumination besides the small desk lamp I've angled away from the door. My body aches with the recent memory of transformation, muscles still remembering a different shape, but my mind is sharp, honed by suspicion and t
By the time I reach the final button, my breathing has steadied. My reflection in the cracked mirror shows a woman reassembling herself piece by careful piece. The scratches at my collarbone will be hidden by the high neckline. The shadows under my eyes can be concealed with makeup. The wildness in
The crisp trousers slide over my legs, covering the scratches and bruises that map last night's journey. The fabric whispers against my skin, a language of civilization, of humanness, of control. I smooth nonexistent wrinkles from the material, a ritual of normalcy that grounds me in this form, in t
Lucas in the park that night weeks ago, his silhouette backlit by streetlamps as I completed my transformation in the shadows, thinking myself unseen. His strange calm when he approached, as if finding a colleague hunched and feral among the trees was nothing extraordinary. Lila noticing my monthly
I leave it. I leave it. The forest is empty and endless. It waits for me. I pretend it’s not too late, pretend I can still change my mind. The stillness surrounds me, fills the car with its presence, fills the air with the pull, with the pull of what I know I have to do. The trailhead is unmark
The car is as lonely as my thoughts, a dark streak through the edge of the city, through the raw edge of my fear. The road is more empty than I expect, more empty than I am, more empty than I think. I drive. I drive and lose myself in the motion, in the distance, in the blur of it all. The bag is at
I fill the space with my uncertainty, with my resolve. I fill it with the tension of solitude, of old words and old remedies. The small, leather bag stares back at me from the desk. It holds more assurance than I feel, more composure than I want, more than I can be. Wolfsbane, chains, the inevitabil
We don’t move, we don’t breathe, we don’t let it slip, let it slip, let it. We don’t let it slip. He is more than I can be, more than I can be in this moment, in this moment. We are alive in the silence, alive and full of the silence, of the silence and the world, the world that is more than I t







