Moonlight

Written By: Felipe Rubinstein Ortiz

Deep in the woods bordering the west side of Faroe County, the ones that met Route 39 running southbound parallel to the Llanwelly town line, something large limped out of a cave.

Scarlet dripped from its injured paw and matted its fur. It sniffed around, looking for something, then turned its head to the sky. It had been a dark and stormy day, but the night looked like it would be a bright one. It licked its chops once, then let out a loud, long, melancholy howl at the full moon. Out of the 2,578 inhabitants of Llanwelly, Pennsylvania, only one of them heard it.

-:-

Eric’s beat up white sneakers slammed on the forest floor as he jumped down from the highway embankment, sending an electric jolt up his legs that he didn’t have time to worry about. The jocks had crossed half the asphalt already, and he didn’t have much time. He ran.

Panting, he beat through branches and busted through brambles, feet thudding on dirt and leaves that threatened to slide out from under him at any second and send him sprawling into the muddy undergrowth. It had rained all day, but the canopy made it so he could barely see the wet patches of ground in front of him. Bright beams of moonlight shone only occasionally through the trees, lighting up mere inches of his path. Eric didn’t know where he was going anyway. He just knew he needed to get away, away from the drunk assholes in sports gear that claimed to be his classmates that were now chasing him down to beat him up within an inch of his life, or further.

“Hey queer!” One of them yelled from somewhere behind him, the word hitting Eric like another gut punch. “Get back here!” Laughter from the others with him echoed through the woods.

“Shit, shit, shit,” he repeated under his breath. His worst nightmare had come true.

Eric’s ears pricked up a second before he registered what he heard. He couldn’t afford to stop, but the night had gotten quiet enough that he just managed to hear…was that a wolf howling? He glanced up at the foliage cover, and between patches of leaves he saw the full moon. Then his foot hit a rock and his whole body tipped forward.

-:-

An hour earlier, Eric walked to the park, staying in the shadows of the buildings of Main Street ignoring the lights coming from the high school football field. He wore a tee-shirt and jean shorts for the unseasonably warm night, but still kept a jacket on to be inconspicuous. He snuck as best as he could across the rest of the small town, hiding from that night’s unusually bright moon, until he finally arrived at McCormick Park at the edge of town. The road that separated it from the woods formed part of a seldom-used section of highway that only logging trucks and lost tourists went through nowadays. The park itself was littered with benches and old jungle gyms and playgrounds that parents avoided in fear of their children wandering out onto the road.

Because of this, it was the perfect place for a clandestine meeting like Eric was about to have. He trotted across the grass and spotted a figure sitting on a bench bouncing a leg in anticipation. He smiled, walked faster, until the figure spotted him and stood up, at which point Eric ran, laughing, into his arms and kissed him.

Mark and Eric had first gotten to know each other through band. Eric’s clumsy playing on the bass drums had only gotten clumsier as he got distracted by the new guy’s long, slender fingers playing the flute, his cute smile, his dark tightly-coiled hair tied back with a bandanna.

They became quick friends after Eric finally had the courage to introduce himself, and thus started the best time of his life, even with its ups and downs…

“What the fuck are you looking at, fairy?” One of the jocks pushed Eric against a locker as he walked to class and accidentally spaced out in his direction for too long.

Eric adjusted his glasses, trying not to look into his eyes. “I didn’t…I wasn’t…” He couldn’t help but think the whole scene looked straight out of a cheesy teen movie.

A flash of movement, and suddenly the same jock got pinned to the locker next to him.

“You wanna call him that again?” Mark looked down on him, his face coming up close.

Six feet tall and toting a ton of muscle, the new kid stared him down until the poor guy muttered something about his class and skittered out of there.

Mark looked at Eric with a kindness he’d never seen in anyone’s eyes before. “You okay?”

“Y-yeah…I’m fine.” He looked back up at him with a small smile.

“Good. Those guys are assholes. Don’t let them get to you,” he replied. “I gotta get to class but, see you after school?”

Eric nodded and watched him walk away. He couldn’t deny it. He had a gigantic crush on him.

It all came to fruition one early September afternoon, when, after band practice, they snuck off to the bleachers of the gigantic football field after everyone else had gone home. After too much talking and too-close sitting, Eric finally confessed his feelings, expecting a sucker punch. What he didn’t expect was for Mark to kiss him full on the mouth and say that he felt the same exact way.

Of course, due to the conservative nature of their town, they could never show their new relationship in public. Douchebag jocks calling them gay were one thing, but confirming their suspicions would only open them up to a whole new kind of abuse. So they met in secret, hanging out in each other’s rooms, in Mark’s car, going to the mall in the next town over, and Eric would get showered in kisses and praises whenever they were alone. Even though he had to hide it, Eric felt happy. Mark made him feel happier than he had any right to feel. Eric didn’t know what he would do if he didn’t have him.

As for tonight, Mark’s car had broken down a few days earlier, and the shop still had it, but they found the perfect place. The deserted park, under the cover of night, at the outskirts of town. Perfect. No one would discover them together here, they thought, especially not at eleven at night. And yet…

They didn’t realize that every few Friday nights, especially for a home game like tonight, the same crew of asshole jocks that tormented Eric for years in school used this park to drink beer bought with fake IDs. Unsuspecting, Mark and Eric sat on one of the old benches, letting their masks melt away and finally being themselves with each other. Some cuddles gave way to kissing, then making out, blind to the world around them and only focusing on the world within them. So when this group of friends showed up, fresh from losing a home game and ready to punch something, they saw Eric and Mark together and knew what they wanted to punch.

They ripped them apart, one guy grabbing and pinning Eric to the ground with an arm behind his back, while three others pulled his boyfriend away, taking advantage of their numbers, and went to work.

“P-please! No! Leave him alo–” A knee slamming down on his back knocked the air out of him and silenced his pleas, and a hand pulled his head back enough so he could watch the rest of them begin to throw punches, landing on Mark’s jaw, his gut, his side. He tried his best to defend himself, using his height to his advantage, but a kick to the back of his knees sent him to the ground. They rained down more kicks on him as he curled into a ball. Eric kept pleading for them to stop, but his supplications fell on deaf, bloodlusting ears. Then one of them grabbed Mark by the collar, lifted him up and started punching him, over and over, until blood poured from his nose. He let him go, and Mark fell limp on the grass.

Eric’s scream would’ve been heard for miles if they hadn’t been at the edge of town and so many people were asleep. Hot tears streamed down his face as he observed the bloodied face of his partner, his love, eyes closed and lax on the ground. He felt the pin on his arm loosen, and he didn’t quite understand what happened next.

Somehow, he managed to plant his foot and throw off the guy on top of him, then propel himself to the rest of them. He punched one of them in the jaw, gut punched another, and kicked the final one in the crotch, doubling him over in pain. None of them expected it, leaving them stunned and pained for enough time to look down at his boyfriend. Etching Mark’s swelling face in his memory as best as he could, Eric slowly felt the strength he’d had for a few brief moments drain out of him. He looked around at the group, who were rubbing wherever he’d gotten them and slowly standing up, and suddenly realized what he’d done.

“What the fuck,” one of them said, “is your fucking problem, bitch?”

Another chimed in: “You think you can just get away with that, you fucking queer?”

“Let’s fuck him up.” Eric heard a general murmur of agreement around him.

He turned around, and one of them held a pocket knife in his hand. “Yeah faggot,” he said, with an evil look Eric had never seen in their faces until now, “you’re gonna regret that.”

So he ran. He ran towards the highway and then the woods, and they chased after him with whoops and hollers and shouts of “fag!” and “fairy!”, and now they were running in the woods after him, coming for him, they were faster, stronger, crazier, egged on by liquid courage and hatred. He only had his adrenaline.

-:-

Eric was falling. He felt himself suspended in midair, slowly threatening to faceplant on the floor. He’d be in the perfect position for those jocks to find him in. But somehow, his body moved faster than his brain. He thudded down his right foot and righted himself in a matter of milliseconds, feeling a similar electric jolt up his ankle and his leg. Panting, he looked behind him and saw snatches of light through the dense trees; they were using flashlights to look for him. He whimpered and kept going, his legs starting to get sore as he pushed on, ignoring a strange tingling sensation in his foot. Coming upon a hill, he started climbing, sending loose pebbles and dirt rolling behind him and using his hands when he couldn’t get a good enough foothold. The forest had scratched his legs. The fight had bloodied his knuckles. His body felt bruised beyond belief. He needed to rest. He needed to stop. He needed Mark. He needed to…

Eric tripped. His right shoe lodged itself under a rogue root and he went flying forward towards a tree at the top of the hill. He hit it full force and crumpled onto the mess of roots at its base. Get up, get up, get up, his mind screamed, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t feel his toes on his right foot, and when he moved it his ankle only screeched in pain. His body had given up on him.

Now it was his mind’s turn, before he got torn to shreds by bigots whose footfalls he’d lost but had no doubt he’d hear again. Eric curled his body into a ball, crying, hope draining out of him like blood from a bad cut. He couldn’t do it anymore. He turned his face towards the sky.

The tree Eric was laying against was old. Its trunk gnarled upwards at odd angles, knots and branches breaking out of its bark as if stuck through by a child, and forming what looked like the cruel hand of an old man, reaching towards the stars. The tree was also dead. No leaves clung to its limbs, and its wallpaper bark peeled off in strips. He could see an old nest cradled somewhere in the fork of two offshoots, no doubt empty. And further up, he could glimpse the moon between the thinnest twigs. So this is where he would die. Without Mark. Without anyone.

A sob escaped his throat before he could stop it. He wanted his bed. He wanted his boyfriend. He thought about Mark lying there in the grass, blood trickling down his face from his nose and cuts on his cheeks and forehead. Was he dead? Eric didn’t know. He hoped not. He was strong, resilient. He remembered the times when Mark would walk with him in the halls when their classmates were being assholes, cuddle up in his room when his parents were riding him about something or other. Eric would ask about his piercings, the small secret tattoos he had. He was in awe of Mark’s life, the bad boy persona so clearly hiding the dork who loved poetry and old books. Mark was also the only person who would ask about Eric’s interests, listen to him rave about the dumb superhero comics and movies he liked without making fun of him. He even got him an old edition of one of his favorite comics. Mark would know what to do now. But he was lying in a park miles away, unconscious, maybe even… He stifled a sob and forced himself to think about something else, something better.

Eric tore his eyes away from the old tree and looked around, seeing only darkness. A cloud passed over the moon, shrouding the forest in shadow, and briefly he thought he saw something glinting at him in the dark. A flashlight? A knife? But his fate had apparently taken a turn for the worse, because after a moment two bright eyes shone at him through the tall grass.

Eric’s heart dropped.

It revealed itself for a brief moment as moonlight peeked through the canopy. Fur. Teeth.

Claws. Four long legs, padding slowly, stalking his movements. Apex predator eyes locked onto Eric’s own terrified ones as he tried scrambling back, but he only hit the trunk of the tree, unable to move from sheer terror. Fresh tears bloomed in his eyes, but he couldn’t bring himself to blink them away because that would mean letting the creature out of his sight, even for the briefest of moments.

The wolf approached him directly, body low to the ground, hunting its prey. Eric heard a low rumble, a growl emanating from deep inside the animal. It vibrated his soul, sent his amygdala into overdrive, made fresh sweat pour down his back. This was fear. Not of heights, or needles, or bigots chasing you down with knives. Primal fear. He remembered vaguely something Mark had told him about making himself big and scaring it with lots of noise, but he feared that might alert the group of jocks to where he was. The wolf would leave, but what if they came running in and killed him anyway? He had no doubt they would kill him. He’d seen the look in their eyes. But if he didn’t do anything, he’d die between the jaws of the beast before him, and his body would be found by these guys, torn to shreds, oozing blood all over these dead roots. At that moment, Eric could only choose how he wanted to die: by nature or by hate.

Eric felt a deep calm settle over him. The sounds of the words around him, the faint rustle of leaves and the mild chirping of crickets, enveloped his mind. The growl of the world before him faded into the rest of it. He made his choice. He’d die by Mother Nature’s hand…but not without a fight.

Him and the wolf stared at each other. He could see the pink of its gums under its black lips, his ivory fangs glinting in the starlight, bigger than anything he’d ever seen before. Slobber dripped from his muzzle onto the forest floor. He also saw, however, that it limped very slightly, and its left front paw was matted with blood. Bronze eyes like a dead man’s coins watched him with calculated hunger, and he stared right back into them, breath hitching in his throat, waiting for the moment it would–

The wolf pounced.

Eric screamed, unable to help himself. It made a terrible sound, a deep, guttural, unnatural snarl, as it jumped on top of him. He kicked its body on instinct, sending it skittering back before it charged again, trying to get at his neck. The world blurred around them both. Eric reached back and found a sizeable fallen branch near him, grabbing it with one hand and bringing it down on the wolf’s head one, two, three times, keeping it at bay. It pounced again, directly on top of him, and he put out the branch defensively just in time for the animal to close its powerful jaws on it. Wide-eyed, Eric stared into the hungry eyes of the beast on top of him and thought that they looked a little too angry, a little too haunted. Why are you alone? Where is your pack? he thought crazily in those moments. What has become of you? What are you?

The wolf snarled and bit harder on the stick, cracking it in half. This gave him enough time to put his foot on the belly of the beast and kick upwards as hard as he could, sending it careening backwards with a whimper. Eric pushed himself back, hitting his back against the trunk of the gnarled tree that would soon become his final resting place. He stared into the irate eyes of the animal and spoke: “Come on, give me all you fucking got! I have nothing left, so might as well, right? Right!?” Maybe, through Nature’s mysterious ways, the wolf understood what he said, or maybe starvation had simply driven it to desperation, because it charged forward again and went right for Eric’s bare legs.

Sharp, stabbing pain shot up his right leg as the wolf’s sharp teeth punctured skin, fat, muscle, and got right to the bone. Eric cried out as blood gushed from the wound, running in broken rivulets between the wolf’s fangs and down his calf. He felt more pain that he’d ever felt in his life, more painful than being punched, than being kicked. The beast held a vice grip on his leg, threatening to break his bones if he didn’t act quickly. Backing his other foot up, he kicked hard with his sneaker on the wolf’s face, right between his eyes. He felt his own flesh tear further, but the adrenaline pumping through his veins wouldn’t let him stop. He faintly realized that he was screaming. His survival instinct went into overdrive now as he re-aimed his kick for the wolf’s bad leg, angling with the hope that it would hurt enough for it to give up. He kicked as hard as he could, and new blood gushed from the wolf’s wound. It whimpered loudly, and another kick to the nose forced its jaws to loosen, until it finally let go, backing away startled as blood dripped from its muzzle and its leg. It looked at him, panting and growling, seeming to stop and think for a moment. A quick lick at its new wounds apparently made its mind up, because just as suddenly as it had appeared, it turned back and ran into the trees.

Eric watched as the wolf left, his eyes wide, still panting from the adrenaline. “Holy shit,” he whispered to himself, “I did it. I survived. I—”

He cried out as he moved his right leg by accident, the pain coming back to him in a flash. He looked down at the bite wound, tried to examine it while trying not to throw up from disgust and blood loss. Broken skin formed two mirrored U’s on the sides of his lower thigh. In the torn flesh of the bite he could see as the pale white of his skin bled dark red into pink muscle and yellow fat. He tried to move it again and stopped immediately, biting his tongue hard. He couldn’t afford to scream again, even if the pain felt like a thousand knives embedding themselves into his leg. Panting, he took his jacket off, briefly remembering it was a gift from Mark, and pressed it to the wound, trying his best to keep pressure on it despite the pain. He knew he should probably tie a tourniquet too, but he realized he had no idea how, despite his boyfriend’s best efforts. It could’ve been the adrenaline, but he swore he could feel the area around the bite tingling, a strange warmth slowly moving through his leg. He told himself it was nothing, just the body’s natural reaction.

Eric didn’t have time to celebrate his survival though, because soon enough he could hear voices in the distance slowly getting closer, as well as flashes of light between the branches. He considered running again, but he had to discard that option immediately. With his bleeding leg, he wouldn’t get very far. He would die anyway, wouldn’t he? After surviving a fucking wolf attack, he’d die at the hands of assholes.

“I found him!” He heard the shout even before the flashlight blinded him. He put up a hand against the light instinctively and tried to put a face to the voice. This guy had held him down, had made him watch as they beat up his boyfriend. Running footfalls were heard from around them as the other three guys rushed to find their captive. Eric felt like hunted prey yet again, a rabbit curled up underground as its burrow filled with smoke.

“Finally. I thought we lost this little fairy in the woods,” one of them sneered.

“Holy shit, he’s all fucked up! Did you fucking start without us bro?” another asked, pushing the one who’d found him.

“He was like this when I got here. I think he fell or something.”

“Oh who gives a fuck? We’re gonna carve him up anyway.”

At that, Eric whimpered, his leg twitching as he pressed the jacket on the wound even harder. Their eyes locked onto him now, and evil smiles crept up their faces.

“Scared? Yeah, we’re gonna fuck you up, faggot. Show the world exactly what you are.”

“P-please,” Eric tried, “I don’t want to die…” But he could tell they were far from listening to him. Four hateful gazes looked down at him with glee. Two of them had pocket knives out now, their steel blades glinting in the moonlight. The moonlight…

He looked up right as the cloud that had hidden the moon away this whole time finally passed. The full moon hung fat and bright in the sky, detailed even to the naked eye due to its strangely massive size that night. Different shades of gray outlined its craters, its peaks, its valleys. Its silver rays coated the forest now, rushing their way down the thin twigs and thicker limbs of the gnarled dead tree he laid upon until they came to drip down on Eric’s face, soaking him in their power. Something was happening. He could feel it in the way his gut curled, in the way his injured leg twinged. He could feel it everywhere.

Electricity shot up Eric’s spine, like he was being struck by lightning over and over again.

The pain made his back arch upwards, pulling his head back, contorting his limbs, making him see in flashes of black and white. The boys stepped back, startled and confused as their victim started seemingly having a fit. Eric was too preoccupied to notice. He flipped onto his front and screamed, a loud, agonizing wail seemed to go on forever. He could feel it when his own body began to change, and it hurt.

The muscles in his back swelled, pulling tendons and ligaments and breaking ribs on their way to becoming bigger, tougher, stronger, ripping his shirt into tatters. His bones mended themselves after a moment, spreading outward through his flesh to accommodate the bigger space required for them. His spine elongated, growing new vertebrae in a matter of seconds, lengthening his height and adding more and more to his tailbone. His limbs broke themselves one by one as the muscle and blood and flesh grew until they were able to come together again, healing his wolf bite and tearing away his shorts and boxers in the process. His feet swelled inside his torn-up sneakers until they popped at the seams, giving way for them to elongate into proper paws. And next came his head, the worst of all because he could hear his skull cracking open as his nose and jaw stretched forward into a muzzle, breaking skin and healing it at once.

At the same time, his gums began bleeding as his teeth fell out one by one, quickly replaced by sharp-tipped canines, and two pairs of fangs that fit together perfectly in his muzzle. Soon enough came the fur. His body’s sudden overproduction of keratin started sprouting hair all over his body, fur growing in tufts from his knuckles, hands, arms, legs, chest, crotch, even his face.

His human nails were expelled from their bleeding beds as new claws tore themselves forwards from his cuticles. And behind him, as his tailbone grew so did his skin and his hair, and before he knew it a long furry tail swung behind him.

Agony was all he felt. Torture was all he knew. But the brain, chemically altered from the strange wolf bite and evolutionarily used to ignoring pain for the benefit of the mind, just told him that everything was fine. As his body changed beyond recognition, his eyes changing to a deep reflective red, he could feel his human instincts and his higher brain functions shutting down, coherent thought circling the drain until, eventually, all there was in his skull was pure animal instinct.

-:-

The creature that used to be Eric stood tall and hulking, on two new animal legs, at the base of the tree, panting, bleeding, crying. It did not know why tears streamed down its face, why blood pooled at its feet. All it knew now was hunger. Hunger and, of course, rage. No longer human, it could not ignore the anger that coursed through its body the moment it laid eyes upon the four small terrified figures in front of him. It relished in it. It gave it a reason to hunt, not that it needed one. Rage tasted sweet in its newly-born mouth. All the better to eat them with.

They fled into the trees, whimpering. The beast snarled, then tipped its head back and let out a long, powerful howl, worshipping the Moon in its animal freedom, its creator, its master.

Then it launched itself into the forest after them.

Its new heightened senses alerted it to the first one. The sound of broken twigs and dried leaves, of heavy breathing and whimpering. The smell of sweat and saliva and urine, and of fear, that tangy smell that the beast would come to adore. It found him tripped over a log, his foot stuck in a rotting hole in its bark. His screams only made him taste sweeter as it ripped off his leg, tearing muscle from bone in a matter of seconds with its jaws. First blood. The wine-dark taste of it dripped down into its muzzle, coating its tongue and reddening its teeth. The salty-sweet kick of human flesh as it masticated in its mouth filled its senses. The satisfying crack of the femur between its molars and the runny, milky taste of the marrow as it spilled down its throat.

It felt good to be alive. It spat out what it had not chewed up of the leg, content on gnawing on it later, and lunged for the human’s throat. The sharp vibrations of his deranged screaming stopped once his trachea tore out of his neck, pouring red all over his band tee. The creature pulled and pulled until the organ snapped in two, crunching it between its teeth. The human had died. The creature felt an unfathomable glee pour across its brain, not only from its first kill, for the joy of the hunt and the food, but also for the terrified death of this little animal before it. And now, the creature indulged.

Stomach only beginning to be filled, the bloodied beast stalked the forest for the rest of its prey. Its ears twitched. A twig snapped. It bolted. Once again the sound of running, the smell of sweat, the taste of fear in its mouth. It lunged for the unsuspecting prey as it ran across a clearing, snatching him out of the air. It could feel some of his bones break on impact with the ground. With a quick swipe of its paw to the face, the teenager’s lower jaw clattered off to the side, leaving a bloody tongue lolling out under a row of teeth, an expression of pure terror in his eyes. The gory image was short-lived as the beast took the head in its muzzle and bit down.

Brain matter spilled into its mouth and down the sides of its face, dripping down its chin. It chewed and swallowed and went back for more, rejoicing in its slowly sating hunger and its want for revenge that it did not quite understand.

The last two kills were easy. They hid together, huddled in a small cave they had found, talking in hushed voices. It did not understand their speech, but it recognized that it used to. It also recognized the cave, in some strange, primal way. It lurked outside for a moment, licking its chops of the blood and bits of meat and bone still clinging to them, and then padded inside. A deep growl rose from its chest as it towered over them, pink-tinged teeth displaying themselves for the humans as they clung to each other. One of them had broken his leg, no doubt in a fall.

Part of the tibia stuck out midway down his shin, blood dripping from the torn wound. The other stood in front of him, a terrified expression on his face. His small hands were held out in front of him.

“Please. We’re sorry. We’re so sorry,” he begged, tears rolling down his cheeks. “We don’t want to die. Please, I don’t want to die.”

But his pleas fell on deaf ears.

The beast made quick work of them. They were no more. And the beast felt happy. And the beast rejoiced. But still, despite finally satisfying its hunger, it felt…more. There was something more, not hungry, not happy, not angry. It tried to get at it but it didn’t know how. The something-more told it to go back. Not back to its spawning place, that place at the bottom of the dead tree, but further back, to a place that existed in its memory before it did. The creature obeyed.

The pitch black sky had already started to lighten to a dark blue and now blended into a deep purple as the hulking furry beast, bloodied and desperate, tore through the brown-gray branches of the autumn trees and the prickly green brambles of the drying blackberry bushes on the forest floor. It seemed to be on a quest, a quest to find a something-more it did not recognize but that it remembered. It reached the edge of the woods, stopping for a second, and then carefully climbed up the embankment and onto the hard asphalt of the rural highway. It crossed the manmade river of rock into a large flat area littered with metal structures. And there at its center lay a human. It bristled instinctively, the hackles on its back rising, but quickly realized that he did not feel like prey. A small voice somewhere inside told it to approach.

The creature smelled familiar things. Blood. Sweat. Fear. But beyond that, it smelled the sweet pollen scent of flowers and oak, with a dark undertone of musk and amber. But beyond even that lay another smell. It reminded it of happy mornings, of secret meetings, of affection, of a mate. It reminded the beast of that something-more it had come to find. An inextricable connection, one that transcended instinct.

The human laid out on the grass, his head turned to the side and his body curled up. Dried blood stained his cheeks and forehead, and bruises peppered his exposed arms and legs, his deep skin accented with black and blue. The beast thought he looked scared, even with his eyes closed. The smell of it emanated from him, but it knew not to salivate. Its tall, hulking frame towered over the small body of the human, but it stooped down and took him in its paws just the same. As tenderly as it could, it held him softly, looking into his bloodied, swollen face and remembering the handsome one under it. It remembered countless other little things it could not understand, and it felt sad. It felt like agony, worse than anything it had ever experienced.

Tears poured down the fur of its face as it turned to the sky towards the quickly-fading Moon, its master, its creator. It howled with despair and grief and utter sadness. The creature understood now that the kills it had made, the prey it had hunted, did nothing more than satiate its hunger. It did not change anything. Because this human could slip away at any moment, and the notion of going on without him would be too much to bear.

It finally opened its eyes, still looking at the sky, and saw that its master had disappeared.

It looked to the East and saw the Sun, its counterpart, its opposite, as it peeked its rays over the horizon. So the beast put down the body of the human it loved and curled up against it, covering it with its large body and warming it with its fur, protecting it the best way it knew how.

-:-

The transformation back was quick and painless. Eric did not notice it until he felt a distinct sliding-into-place feeling in his mind, and there he was again. He looked down at himself and saw that he was naked. His leg had healed, save for a small collection of dotted scars on his lower thigh, resembling a bite. He also saw that he was laying on top of his lover.

“Mark!” he gasped, turning over and kneeling on the grass, looking down at his boyfriend and seeing him bruised and bloodied. “Oh god, please be okay, please please be okay. Mark? Please wake up. I…I need you. I can’t be here without you. Oh Mark…”

He pressed his face into Mark’s shirt as fresh tears started streaming down his cheeks, dampening the fabric. He remembered what had happened that night, before the woods. Those drunk jocks grabbing them both, beating him up while he watched. Eric sobbed into Mark, pleading with him, with the universe, for him to wake up. He stayed there for a while, not thinking of anything but him, until he felt a faint stirring under him. Gasping, Eric drew back and looked at Mark’s face. A small flexing of the eyelids, but there nonetheless.

“Mark? Mark? It’s me, it’s Eric.” He shook him slightly, hoping that would get him toopen his eyes at least.

“…what happened…?” His non-swollen eye opened slightly, blinded by the sunlight.

“MARK! Oh my god, I thought you were dead, I thought they beat you too hard, oh my god…”

“Eric? Are you okay? What happened tonight? Why are you…naked?” Mark sat up a little, wincing as he flexed his face. “Fuck, my nose is definitely broken…”

But Eric wasn’t paying attention anymore. His memory of that night came back to him.

He recalled running, tripping, and laying in the forest. He remembered the moon, and a strange wolf that almost took his life. But shortly after that…everything went hazy. He had felt a hunger.

A desire for flesh. And he…and he had…oh god…

“Shit, I’m definitely not gonna be able to keep this one from Dad,” Mark continued.

“Man, and my hair is all fucked up! Eric, did you…are you okay? What happened to you? Babe?”

Tears welled up in Eric’s eyes, but before he could let them show, he hugged Mark, hard.

“I’m just…so glad you’re okay,” he choked out, squeezing him harder.

Eric wasn’t lying. But he wasn’t only thinking about Mark. That night…it had changed him, irrevocably, into someone else. Something else. Who was he? What was he? He wasn’t quite human anymore. He had killed. He had tasted human flesh, and he had enjoyed it. What did that make him? Was he a monster?

He hugged his boyfriend tightly and faintly realized: he could never go back.

Felipe Rubinstein Ortiz is a Costa Rican short fiction writer interested in all things gay, funny, and macabre. He has been a repeat recipient of the Creative Writing Award at his high school, and he was accepted into the Kenyon Review Young Writer's Workshop for Summer 2024. He is currently studying for a BA in Writing, Literature, and Publishing at Emerson College in Boston, MA.