WHAT HAVE I BECOME?

Chapter 5

Alex POV

"NO!"

The word tore from my throat and I jerked backward so hard I nearly fell, my whole body shaking with the effort of stopping myself.

"What the hell is happening to me?" I said out loud, my voice cracking.

I scrambled away from the dead rabbit and pressed my back against a tree, gulping air like I was drowning. My pulse thundered in my ears and nearly drowned out the sound of my own ragged breathing.

I'd been about to eat it raw and the very idea made me sick, but the hunger remained and clawed at my insides and demanded satisfaction.

"Get it together," I whispered to myself, but my hands were still shaking. "You're not an animal."

But what if I was becoming one?

I didn't sleep that night because I couldn't, so instead I wandered the forest like a ghost and put as much distance between myself and that clearing as possible.

I walked until my legs gave out and I collapsed beneath another tree, staring up at the stars through the canopy.

The dying man's words circled in my head like vultures. "Protect her and yourself," I muttered, repeating what he'd said. "Protect everyone around you."

Had he known what his bite would do to me, that I'd become like him and be caught between human and beast and fight a war I didn't know how to win?

Dawn came eventually and brought with it birdsong so loud it made my skull ache. My whole body was sore like I'd been beaten with baseball bats, but the fever was back along with the restless energy that made it impossible to sit still.

I sat up slowly with my back against the rough bark and faced the truth I'd been avoiding.

"I can't go back," I said to the empty woods. "Not to my family. Not like this."

If I hurt Ryan again or if I hurt Mom or Dad or my younger brothers, I'd never forgive myself.

"No," I said, shaking my head. "I'd rather die out here than risk that."

The woods could have me and maybe they were where I belonged now.

But first I needed shelter, real shelter and not just whatever tree I could collapse under when exhaustion finally won.

I was getting weaker and the hunger was getting stronger, so if I was going to survive long enough to figure out what was happening to me, I needed a base where I could rest and heal and maybe find some kind of control.

That's when I stumbled across the hut.

It was hidden so well I almost walked right past it because vines had grown over most of the structure and moss covered the rotting wood like a thick blanket.

The roof sagged dangerously and half the windows were broken, but it was still standing and still solid enough to keep out the rain and wind.

I pushed through the tangle of vegetation and tried the door. The hinges screamed like wounded animals as it swung open and the smell that hit me was dust and mold and decay, but it should have been revolting.

Instead it felt like coming home.

"Perfect," I whispered, stepping inside.

The inside was a disaster with broken furniture scattered across the floor and covered in years of dirt and animal droppings.

Spider webs hung like curtains in the corners and something had clearly been using the place as a den at some point, but there was space and there was privacy and there was silence.

I let out a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding and stepped inside, closing the door behind me. For the first time since leaving home I felt a sliver of safety settle over me.

My legs gave out then when all the adrenaline and terror and exhaustion hit me at once. I sank to the floor and let my head fall back against the wall with my eyes closing as sleep finally claimed me.

When I woke it was dark again and I'd slept the entire day away, my body finally getting the rest it desperately needed. The hunger was still there and gnawing at my insides, but it felt manageable again and human.

I spent the next few days making the hut livable and cleared out the worst of the debris and patched the biggest holes in the walls with whatever I could find and made a rough bed from pine boughs and my jacket.

"It's not much," I said to myself, looking around at my work, "but it's mine."

More importantly it was far enough from civilization that I couldn't hurt anyone.

I learned to hunt again though it felt different now because my senses guided me to prey in ways that should have been impossible.

I could track a deer for miles just by scent and could hear the heartbeat of a rabbit hiding in the underbrush. The bow felt strange in my hands at first but muscle memory took over eventually.

But cooking the meat was getting harder and every time I made a fire and every time I watched the flames dance over raw flesh, part of me wanted to just tear into it and taste the blood while it was still warm.

"Stop it," I'd tell myself, gripping the bow tighter. "You're still human."

Those thoughts scared me more than anything else that had happened.

At night when the fever returned and my bones ached like they were trying to reshape themselves, I'd sit by the fire and stare into the flames and fight the urge to run and to hunt and to give in to whatever was growing inside me.

Sometimes I could hear howling in the distance from other wolves calling to something they sensed but couldn't see and calling to me.

And God help me, part of me wanted to answer.

I'd been in the hut for almost a week when I finally admitted the truth to myself.

Sitting alone by the fire and listening to the night sounds of the forest, I spoke the words out loud for the first time.

"I'm changing," I whispered to the darkness. "I'm becoming something else."

The words hung in the air like a confession and like a prayer and like a curse.

I thought about my family probably lying awake wondering where I was and wondering if I was safe. Mom would be beside herself with worry and Dad would be organizing search parties and my brothers would be blaming themselves and thinking they'd done something wrong.

"But they didn't do anything wrong," I said, my voice barely audible. "This is on me. This is my burden to carry."

Staying away was all I could give them right now.

"Tomorrow I'll go deeper," I decided, staring into the flames. "Find somewhere so remote that when I finally lose control completely and when I become the monster I can feel growing inside me, there'll be no one around to get hurt."

The fire crackled and popped and sent sparks spiraling into the night sky. In the distance a wolf howled, long and mournful.

This time I didn't fight the urge to howl back, and the sound that came from my throat was barely human.

"What have I become?" I whispered afterward, but the forest gave me no answers.

Only the echo of my own voice and my thoughts of what I was becoming.