The hospital had the scent of medicines, of fear, of something I could not define. Something old and waiting.
Enzo lay in the ICU for hours, hooked up to monitors and tubes, guarded by the pack and a couple of doctors who had no idea. They whispered over his vitals and blood type, breathed on his "unexplainable" readings, and glared at me like I was a ghost. I kept my chin down, trying to disappear, not breathing too loudly.
But I couldn't help it.
It began as a movement so small I almost convinced myself I was hallucinating. A flicker on the edge of my sight, like heat shimmer off concrete on a hot road. I blinked, and then again.
The flicker grew, and in an instant, a shadow crept down the wall, bending and twisting in impossible ways no human body could. My gut clenched.
I froze where I stood. Something was most definitely there.
The air was heavy, cold, and the silence hit my ears so I could only pick up the raw beat of my own heart.
I forced myself to rotate ever so slowly, and then I could see them.
Two eyes, burning in the gloom between the elevators. Red, but not fire engine red, deep red, molten red, the color of embers in a smoldering fire. They didn't blink. They didn't hesitate. They just stared.
My breathing was short and useless. Those eyes locked me in place, stripping me bare, reducing me to a smaller size than I had ever been in my entire life.
And then I knew the truth beyond all doubt; whatever it was, it wasn't passing through. It was waiting for me.
I tried convincing myself it was my mind playing tricks on me, maybe a delusion or reflection. But the feeling was real. Prickling against my skin. My every impulse roared at me to get away, and yet I couldn't.
One of the nurses saw it first. She screamed. A shrill, high scream that echoed down the corridor. Visitors, doctors and guards rushed along. They also saw it, for it was near enough to be frightening.
The pack tried to locate it. But it wasn't there… not at all. It shifted from shade to shade, never fully in sight. And when it vanished, the hall grew silent as if breath had been sucked from the air.
Then I realized something terrible. It wasn't occurring at random; it was stalking me.
I entered the cafeteria to get water, trying to remain calm. The cafeteria was empty with only flickering fluorescent lights and the soft hum of the fridge. But I could feel it. Behind glass doors, across the corridors, in every shadow I passed, the wolf waited. Watching. Waiting. Stalking me.
I could hear the beat of my heart, and it was so thick it overrode everything else. Every step I took and every inhale I took, seemed to be magnified. I didn't even dare glance back for a second, but when I did, the red eyes blinked back at me.
Some janitor screamed somewhere on the street. I didn't catch what he saw, but I didn't have to. His fear spoke volumes.
I collided with a vacant test room, shutting the door behind me, my shoulders wedged against the cold metal, my gaze directed at the dripping ceiling. My legs were trembling. My hands trembled. I could hear it crawling just outside the door; the quiet, liquid padding that was not human.
I talked quietly to myself, attempting to return to the real world. "It's not real. It's not real. Where is my Seraphina?"
The lights then fluctuated, and the red eyes were inside.
Not at all. Just a flick at one corner of the room, a glint from the gleaming metal of the tray. But it was enough. My heart skipped and my blood ran cold. It had found me.
The animal did not hurt me. Not yet. It did not even have to. Being there, this close that I could feel its heat, made the room shrink, the walls collapse, my chest tighten up.
I wanted to scream or run away, but whatever door I went through, whatever hallway I ran into, I felt it everywhere around me.
Seraphina screamed my name from outside the door with her face pale. "Hera… it's following you," she whispered. Her voice shook. "I've never… seen anything like this."
I nodded in terror, too scared to speak. She looked around, trying to see it herself, but it stayed just out of her line of sight, stalking.
And I knew the wolf did not just attack the pack; it attacked me. Where I was, there it would be waiting and watching. I knew: this was no mere predator. No mere curse.
The door handle rattled slowly and purposefully. I froze. My breath was held.
It was not human, and yet, it knew exactly where I was.
I spotted one of the pack members leaning against the nurse station outside my room from my window. I was sure he noticed me. But he didn't move, didn't yell, didn't say anything. He just turned his head away from me, like I wasn't already there.
That hurt more than any claw to the chest. My chest tightened.
I stooped so low I could hardly stand. The door creaked open by surprise. A woman came in so plain and human. She had a face so forgettable, apart from the odd authority in her eyes.
"Hi dear, my name's Mia Devereux," she said softly. "It doesn't want you, but it sees you. Believe me that's worse. Now move.".
The lamps grew dark with agitation. Outside the window, the wolf's shadow loomed tall, claws ripping the tiles.
Then its movement shifted. The claw sliced tenderly, every draw pulled agonizingly, brutally deliberate. A line, a second line, then an arc.
It was no longer smearing. It was writing.
I couldn't catch my breath. My heart pounded in my ears so hard. I attempted to look away, but I couldn't. The letters burned into my eyes, words forming out of the flowing red.
I noticed four letters. I noticed my name!
HERA.