The forest had always spoken to Adrian silently.
They weren't anything to be afraid of. Not to a boy like him, who could recite bird names and how sunlight dripped between the trees like golden honey. He was nine and curious, the type that usually led him astray. But today was different.
The whispers were louder.
He'd gone out after breakfast in pursuit of giggles along with the rest of the boys in the village. They'd played around the riverbank, skipping rocks, creating imaginary fortifications out of sticks and dead leaves. But long before the sun was a mark on the west horizon and boys were strolling home, Adrian was gone.
He'd chased after something, he didn't know what. A flutter between trees, a sparkle of wings, perhaps the excitement of going someplace new. But now the sky was going amber, the heat of the day fading like smoke. And he was left alone.
"Hello?" he shouted, trembling. "Toma? Milo? Anyone?"
Silence.
Not even birds sang in response. The forest around him was strangely silent, as if holding its breath.
Adrian's stomach twisted. He had not had anything to eat since his mother provided him a piece of flatbread this morning, and hunger chewed at him now, sharp and irritating. He went a little way farther, intending to locate his stream that would lead him home, but trees stretched on and on, tall and heavy, closing out the sun.
That's when he noticed it.
Distorted, darkened tree that seemed… off. Its roots twisted upward out of the ground like clutching hands holding fast to the earth. And in the shadows near the trunk was an apple.
Adrian blinked. A flawless apple. Deepest red, almost purple, like a frozen drop of blood. It was out of context, too beautiful, too perfect, as if it were waiting.
He came closer. Something in the atmosphere altered, colder now, biting. But his hunger was still larger than his fears.
He took hold of the apple.
It was warm in his hand, not like ripened fruit plucked out of the ground should be. It was smooth skin with no bruise or mark on it. He paused, a whisper in his mind saying don't, but he disregarded it.
He took a bite.
As soon as flesh hit his tongue, his chest was full of richness that was sweet and could make his head spin. He chewed once. Twice. Swallowed.
Then the forest screamed.
Not with sound, but with sensation. Wind tore through the trees, snapping branches like bones. Shadows danced wildly as clouds devoured the sunlight above. The ground beneath Adrian shivered, and the apple tumbled from his hands.
He gasped.
The air was getting thick and chilly, and he looked up…and she was standing right there.
There was a woman beside the twisted tree, tall and deathly pale, her cloak streaming behind her like a moving cloud of smoke. Her skin shone like moonlight, her eyes bone-white; no pupils, no glow, only a void. Her long silver hair streamed like underwater, and a twisted staff emblazoned with old symbols was carried in her hands.
Adrian couldn't budge.
The woman smiled slowly, and his blood turned to ice.
"You poor, greedy child," she continued, her voice like a breath across dead leaves. "Nobody ever taught you not to take what doesn't belong to you?
Adrian's jaws dropped wide, but he made no sound. She approached him, feet not touching ground. "That fruit was not yours. It was of the accursed grove. Once plucked up by men, now guarded by blood."
"I, I did not know," he stammered. "I was hungry…"
"Hunger has a price," she growled in her cutting voice. "And now, you will pay for it."
Adrian stepped back, but roots broke out of the earth and wrapped around his ankles. He yelled and dropped to his knees.
"Please," he pleaded, his eyes welling up with tears. "I want to go home."
The woman leaned down, her face inches from his, her breath cold and sweet, yet tainted with the scent of rot. "You ate the fruit of the forgotten. You are now marked. And so, Adrian Vukan, I curse you."
"No-"
"By full moon's light, your bones will snap. Your flesh will be stretched. You'll prowl upon four legs and howl to a sky that will never respond. You will be feared, hated… hunted."
He shouted as her hand pressed against his chest—he could feel ice and fire both. Light went off behind his eyes. A burning pain ran along his spine. His fingers cracked and recomposed. His jaw jammed. He struggled against the dirt as something within him turned and expanded.
"You will not die, little wolf," she spat. "You will live for this. And suffer. Forever hunted, never becoming whole."
His cries echoed across the forest.
She retreated a step while her body melted into shadows. Her final words carried to him on a stream of venom:
"You will never rest again."
And then she was gone.
***
Hours Later…
At the edge of a forest, near the village. The search team found him after midnight while searching.
He was curled at the base of a tree, naked, trembling, blood on his hands and streaked across his lips. His eyes glowed faintly gold in the moonlight. His clothes were torn as if he'd exploded from inside them.
He didn't respond when his name was called. Didn't even blink. Just gazed straight ahead, his jaw locked, but still breathing and transformed.
His mother fell to her knees next to him, sobbing. His father didn't utter a word but gazed at him wide-eyed in terror.
They carried Adrian home, wrapped in a blanket, and whispered about fever and insanity.
The village healer said he must have been touched by spirits, perhaps a forest illness.
Some called it fever. Some called it madness.
But Adrian knew the truth.
He was cursed. And the moon had only just begun to rise.
In his own rooms, amidst a bed of straw, Adrian whispered to shadows;
"I can still feel her."
***
That evening, the moon came up full and shiny. And something within him… awakened.