The forest feels different at night. You notice it before you even name it, how sound doesn’t travel the same way, how the air seems thicker, like it’s holding onto every rustle instead of letting it go.

The full moon hangs low between the branches, too bright to feel natural, turning everything silver and sharp-edged. You tell yourself it’s just your imagination. You shouldn’t have come out this late.

A branch snaps somewhere behind you. You stop. Nothing. Then, again. Closer. Your pulse shifts before your thoughts do. Slowly, you turn your head.

Between the trees, something moves. At first you think it’s a trick of the light. A large animal, maybe a stray dog, except it doesn’t move like something lost or harmless. It moves like it knows exactly where you are.

Then it steps forward. The moon catches its eyes first. Too bright. Too focused. Too aware. Your breath catches. It’s a wolf. But not one you understand.

It’s too big, shoulders rolling with strength that doesn’t belong in anything natural. Its fur shifts like shadow and silver mixed together, and when it lowers its head slightly, it feels less like an animal preparing to flee or hunt and more like something deciding.

Your body reacts before your mind accepts it. You step back. The wolf follows. Not fast. Deliberate. Your foot hits uneven ground. A root, hidden under leaves. You catch yourself, but the sound you make, panic, movement, fear—changes something in the air.

The wolf breaks into motion. Not a sprint at first. A certainty. Then suddenly it is everywhere at once. Branches whip past your face as you run. The forest becomes a blur of dark trunks and pale moonlight, your lungs burning faster than your thoughts can keep up. You don’t look back because you already know it’s still there.

Close. Too close. Something crashes through the underbrush behind you, heavy enough to shake the ground. You try to push harder, but the terrain betrays you, roots, stones, uneven earth that never mattered until now.

Your foot slips. The world tilts. You hit the ground hard enough to knock the air out of you. Before you can even roll away, weight slams down on top of you, pinning you into stillness. The wolf is on you.

There’s no time to process it properly. Just heat, impact, and the instinctive knowledge that you are completely outmatched. You struggle anyway. Of course you do.

And then, Pain. Sharp, sudden, and focused at your shoulder where neck meets collarbone. Not random. Not animal chaos. Intentional.

Your mind fractures around it, trying to understand how something wild could be so precise. You gasp, twisting, and in that moment the pressure releases.

Warmth follows. Not just pain now, something else. Something strange and immediate, like heat spreading under your skin. The wolf pulls back. Still above you. Still there. Watching.

And then it changes. Not like a trick. Not like imagination trying to protect you. Like reality itself rearranging. Bone shifts under skin. Shape collapses upward, reforming, until what stands over you is no longer a beast but a man, breathing hard, eyes wide with something that looks too much like horror for it to feel like danger anymore.

His gaze drops immediately to your shoulder. Then away. Like he can’t bear what he sees. “I didn’t—” he starts. Stops. You don’t wait.

You scramble back, scraping against the forest floor, every instinct screaming at you to put distance between yourself and whatever impossible thing is in front of you. Your shoulder burns with every movement.

You turn and run. Branches whip your arms, your breath comes in uneven bursts, and behind you the forest feels like it shifts, like it’s deciding whether to help you or not. You don’t get far. Not because you stop.

Because he catches you. Not like an attack. Like a stop that shouldn’t have been necessary. An arm catches your waist mid-stumble, steadying you before you fall. It’s controlled. Careful. That makes it worse somehow.

“Let go of me!” Your voice cracks more than you want it to. And he does. Immediately. You almost collapse anyway.