Semua Bab The Third Year of Wolf Decay: Bab 1 - Bab 10

The donation consent form I'd sent hadn't gotten a response in days.By the time the call connected, my fingers were so stiff I could barely hold the phone.I set it flat on the table, hunched forward, and called out, "Mother."A pause on the other end, then the rustle of turning pages."Laila?" Her voice carried the irritation of someone interrupted. "What is it?""I... want to donate... my body. Needs... family signature. I sent... the form."My brain was sluggish. The words came out in fragments.Her voice went taut."Laila, how many times have I told you, I'm busy! Stop making things up."I hesitated, then said, "My wolf... has been deteriorating. For three years."A scoff."Three years?" She said it back slowly, her voice laced with icy disdain. "Laila, wolf decay doesn't last three years. You're lying again. And the last time you showed up, your color was perfectly fine."That was the cruel irony of it. The worse my condition got, the healthier I looked.A false flush. I'd read a

I followed my mother everywhere.She took a detour through an import grocery store. She looked at the wild berry jam for a long moment, then put it back and picked up a jar of wildflower honey instead."Lily likes sweet things," she murmured to herself.Wild berries were my favorite. When I was little, she'd buy them sometimes and spread them on fresh roasted meat.I followed her home. She'd moved to this apartment after the divorce, and I'd been left with Grandma out in the countryside.My first visit here, I was nine years old and had been on a bus for six hours.That day was my mother's birthday.I'd spent a whole year saving up sun stones to make her a necklace, and I'd stared at it every day until I could finally come.Grandma had stroked my hair gently before I left. "Go on. It's been so long. Give it to her yourself."But the moment my mother opened the door and saw the necklace resting in my palms, her face went cold."You heard I made professor? Think you can get something out

Under the warm amber lamplight, my mother sat reading.Three years ago, when I first realized my wolf was deteriorating, I'd worked up the courage to go to her.She had books the university library didn't carry.I stood quietly in her doorway. "Mother, could I borrow some of your books?"She didn't look up. "Even doctoral students struggle with them. You think you can handle them?"I stayed quiet.They were hard. But I didn't have a choice.I wanted so badly to live.Just in case. What if there was a treatment I didn't know about."There's something I want to look up.""What?" Her eyes passed over me."...I haven't been feeling well," I said carefully. "Something's off with my wolf.""Your wolf?" She said it back with a faint sneer. "You're standing right in front of me. You look better than ever. And you're telling me your wolf has a problem?"The disgust in her eyes sharpened."I don't lend my books."I gripped the hem of my shirt.She hated me enough not to even let me look at them

That afternoon, medical students came in for a lecture.My heart sat quietly on the display stand."The early symptoms of wolf decay are often overlooked. Stiffness in the lower legs. Loss of smell.""There are subtler signs too, like unusually bright color in the face.""That's because before the body loses its ability to repair itself, it goes through a brief period of compensatory overactivity. During this phase, patients are often told they look great."She stopped mid-sentence.I watched her shoulders tense.She gave her head a small shake, and her gaze dropped to the specimen on the stand."This specimen lasted three years, so it shows—"She stopped again.She checked her phone impatiently."Professor Astrid?" A student in the front row said it quietly.She came back to herself. "Sorry. I got distracted."She pulled out her phone and opened my contact thread.[Whatever you're doing out there, call your grandmother back. Now.][Mom. You started to feel it, didn't you?][You're rem

My mother swayed.Her face had gone white. She kept shaking her head."No. That's not possible. It can't be."[It is, Mom.][That heart your students were looking at on the stand. That was mine.][You left because of Lily's phone call. You never came back to look.][You never once thought about it. Yesterday was my birthday.][My twentieth. My coming-of-age.]Grandma crumpled to the carpet."Astrid. You got what you wanted. You really do have only one daughter now. My Laila... how could you do all of this alone? How could you die on your birthday, alone and forgotten?""That's not possible." My mother's voice was sudden and sharp. "She had wolf decay. I would have noticed. I'm the one who studies this. No one at the institute knows this disease better than I do.""You hated her father, so you hated her."Grandma's voice went very quiet."You saw his blood in her and you didn't want to see her. When you looked at her, you never really looked. Of course you wouldn't have noticed she was