Ten: Wren

The door shatters under me, splinters flying like snow. The world outside is knives of cold and blue, the air so sharp it hurts to breathe, but my lungs are built for it now—wide and empty, built to drink down all the night at once. I stumble on the steps, legs unfamiliar, claws skittering on the cracked cement. For a heartbeat, I am lost, legs tangling, the weight of a new body making me stupid. Then I find my footing, drop to all fours, and the rest of me falls into line.

Movement is everything. The sidewalk is rough, patches of ice and grit, but I skim over it, paws catching the pattern. Every stone, every flake, every crumbling cigarette stub left by a hundred winter drunks. My body runs itself; all I have to do is let it. The world is so much louder, the sky so much closer. The moon is a coin stabbed through black velvet, fat and ugly and perfect. I want to eat it.

I crash through the alley behind the bar, my bar, but the place means nothing now. The smells are overwhelming—a week of spilled beer, garbage, rusted metal, piss and antifreeze, but above it all: the sweet rot of something small, dead for days. I lap at the air, tongue catching the layers, cataloguing without effort. It should disgust me. Instead, it makes me salivate. I catch myself gnawing the edge of a Dumpster, teeth craving the taste of iron.

Noise above—shutters slamming. Someone screams, high and thin, a woman’s voice cut short. I know the taste of her fear, the way it blooms through old wood and glass, a signal that makes my hackles stand straight. I want to go to her, want to see the face, want to feel the panic break open, but the body has other plans.

I leap the chain-link fence, bending it almost flat. Muscles coil and spring with a precision I never had in human skin. The landing jars but does not hurt; the pads of my feet are shock absorbers, the joints elastic. I run, faster now, finding a rhythm: back leg, front, back, front, each stride a little longer, a little smoother.

The forest waits at the edge of town. The pines gather like a mob, branches scritching at the sky, the scent of sap and bark so thick it drowns the stink of humanity behind me. I slow, sniff, hesitate. There are other things out here—foxes, cats, rodents, each note distinct and raw. Somewhere a buck pisses on the snow, and I know exactly where to find him, but hunger is not the thing driving me tonight.

I move between the trees, each step less conscious, more true. The world is a current and I ride it, surfing scent and sound. A chorus of mice scatter underfoot, tails thrumming; a screech-owl cuts the night with a single perfect cry, then falls silent as I pass. The moss is slick on the rocks, but I know it before I touch it. The mud squelches between my toes and freezes there, a weird, living glove.

The moon follows. The moon leads. The moon owns me. I tilt my head and see its ghost in every puddle, every shimmer of frost, every bead of dew on the bare branches. It’s in my eyes, behind my skull, a pressure that wants out.

Something inside me flickers. Human memory: the taste of whiskey, the echo of laughter, a girl’s name I almost remember. I try to hold it, but the claws tear it apart. There’s only now, only run, only want.

I break into a clearing, paws flinging up clods of frozen grass. The night creatures have all gone to ground, burrowed or burrowed into themselves, but I am the only thing above the snow. I stand panting, steam billowing from my jaws, and for a second I am king of the fucking world.

Then I smell them.

At the edge of the woods, far but not far enough, is the scent of others. Like me but not. Stronger, older, layered with a thousand stories I don’t know. My muscles lock, tail rigid, a growl hissing between my teeth before I even think to stop it. Instinct wants to bolt, wants to submit and slink away, but something else rises up—a bristling challenge, a question of who gets to own the air tonight.

I throw back my head. The howl is not a sound, it’s a wound in the fabric of the dark, a ripple that shakes the frost off every branch in a mile radius. It hurts to make it, but it’s a beautiful hurt, a hurt that proves I exist.

I listen for an answer. There is none. The world is silent, shivering, waiting.

That’s when the real panic sets in.

I am not prey, but I am not pack. I am alone.

I launch myself into the trees, speed doubling, tripling, smashing through undergrowth and not caring what I break. I run because there’s nothing else, run until my lungs ache, until my claws wear grooves in the frozen mud.

The moon keeps pace, cold and relentless.

I run until I disappear.

I run until the night swallows me whole.