In the darkness of the night, among an endless row of trees, the sound of Tyler's steps and dragging of something big among the leaves echoed through the forest. However, Tyler heard different sounds that resonated with him more. It was the sound of his heavy breath and beating heart ringing in his ears.
Every inhale burned his lungs, and every exhale brought none of the comfort one would expect as he dragged a male corpse. He hadn't wanted this to happen, at least not a week ago.
Now, though, his mind was on what was coming as his gaze crept to the glaring full moon overhead. He already felt irritable from dragging the corpse of this 200-pound male. He would have liked to have the strength to carry it, but it didn't seem possible, as he had been doing this for almost an hour; at least, not until he went through the full moon tonight.
Once he reached his destination where the cellar was, he let go of the foot he was holding. He brought his hands to his knees as he heaved, unconsciously looking left and right, trying to see if anyone was there. He knew there would be no one, but he couldn't help himself. Not when he had just killed a person to trigger his werewolf curse.
After he caught his breath, he wiped away the tears before it left a sensation on his face.
He was evil. He's only the first I'll kill. Remember the plan. Remember the things that will try to kill me, make me their slave, a toy to be used. Remember the screams. Remember the scene of my father getting killed, my mother drowned.
He tried getting away. His father wasn't the least pleased when he tried to do so. And he wasn't willing to run away from home with nothing to his name. Not when his previous life had been through the bad experience of not even having a roof over his head when he had done so.
He had to survive what was coming. If he allowed, him and his entire family would be killed. In the show, it was lucky for Carol, his mother, to live that long. He attributed it to how good-looking Carol was, at least the guy that basically merged with him did. Though, he didn't want to go through those thoughts again.
He hadn't been sure what had happened - whether Alex had possessed Tyler, their souls had merged, or Alex was simply Tyler's past life. The last two seemed most likely. Now, after a week, there was no distinction. They were simply Tyler, and the rest history.
Now he found himself in this cellar where his uncle transformed while in Mystic Falls. Honestly, he thought of becoming a vampire, and then he wouldn't be able to trigger the werewolf side, but he knew he kind of didn't want to become one. He would be a subordinate to the older ones, let alone to the Originals. He also didn't want to be a hybrid. He was ready to become anything and experience pain as long as he didn't become a slave to others.
So he had to start early. He didn't remember exactly how much time he had, but there was much to worry about, especially since he would go through his first transformation now.
He didn't exactly want to be a werewolf either. They were an unlucky bunch. Not immortal. Not that powerful, especially when it wasn't a full moon.
The redeeming part was that he could be more. He just had to find some witch to solve his problems. There's nothing they can't solve, he knew that much. All this thinking led to a week of delay, and finally a few days ago, he started his plan to trigger the curse. It was easy to find some criminal on the loose when he had a mayor as a father. He just had to small talk people at the town hall.
Now he found himself opening the gates to what would be hell for the night. He had prepared everything he could think of. First was the cleaning with a good lighting. It looked pretty clean compared to what was shown in the series. Then he had spent the money he was saving to buy a car to strengthen the gate first, and then the bars inside. He wasn't going to chain himself. That didn't look comfortable at all.
He had a plan. He would go in, enter the Zen, accept the wolf side, and hopefully reduce the pain by half for the next time he would transform. That's why he wasn't going to reject it. He knew the benefits he would have once he did it willingly.
As for the corpse, well, he first wanted to bury it. But then knowing how corpses never stayed hidden came to mind, and he decided to let the wolf eat it.
This wouldn't have been possible if Alex wasn't him. He would not even be able to stay near a corpse. Alex was wild with his experiences, and he had tried many unorthodox things to stay alive once he had been out of the house. That resilience was something he hoped would be enough to get through tonight.
He already started to feel his heart race. In his past life, he had been careful with his heart rhythm and could reduce his resting heart rate to somewhere around 45 BPM. That would translate to around 60 when doing something mild. He had been trying to reduce it with good sleep hygiene. Now, he put his fingers on his wrist to calculate, and it was beating 15 times in 10 seconds, so 80 BPM. He seemed to recover faster as he felt the number was higher when he first rested a moment ago. But it seemed to not go down any further as he caught his breath.
That was… not bad while a full moon was rearing its head and also stressed. It was 75 for Tyler a week ago, so there was definitely progress as this morning it was around 70. It wasn't easy to reduce it by 5 in a week when all he could think about was the stressful future that awaited him.
All of this was important. In his last life, he had a thing for numbers, protocols, and science as a whole. Everything he did was put down into data where he would find ways to improve his life. And he planned to use similar analysis to benefit from the werewolf curse.
He knew it would work. Why? The moment the breath of the guy ended, his werewolf initiation that should have doubled his uncle's pain made him get through with a grunt. He didn't even embrace the pain like in the TV Series, but just used Mindfulness practices to sense everything without raising any judgement and tried to regulate his heart as much as possible.
He hypothesized it would vastly benefit him because he could manipulate his heart rate to higher levels to gain strength even when it wasn't a full moon. But that would require hard work. He was experienced in lowering it, not raising it. Thankfully, some Tibetian Buddhist practices existed that was proven effective.
Now though, he was going to suppress his heart rate as much as possible. First, he turned on the light that ran on batteries and left the corpse where he would enclose himself.
He had literally created a bank safe here. It would also be useful when he could control himself in a full moon and store valuables. Now it was impossible as the wolf would gobble everything up.
Checking the time, it was around 9 pm. He already felt itchy on his skin. It was going to be a problem if this got worse.
He looked through the small bulletproof glass into the sky. He made sure that he had visual access to the moon as it might make a difference. He didn't want to do things half-assed and torture himself extra. Who knew if it had any effect, and he planned to learn it through experience.
He started stripping himself of his clothes and put them outside the inner bars that would be the first protection.
Now, naked, he set the timer for 9 hours and locked it. He tried to shake it, and it didn't even rattle. This was the nth time he had done it these days. The outer gater was from a bank safe and he didn't want to damage it.
Now, in the inner parts, he and the corpse waited. He had it better compared to Tyler's show setup. He was like a vampire in that he used his resources well. He setup disposable mattresses that he would wait on. He should be turning around 1 am, when the full moon reached its peak. Well, he was tired, so he might as well sleep.
…
"AHHhhh." The screams bounced back from metal to the walls, and back to himself.
The pain was sickening. If he had to break his legs, it would be fine. It would be a familiar kind of pain. But this curse was truly a curse. He felt the inside of his bones wanting to reshape itself into a beast. He tried gripping his left wrist to check his pulse, but his right fingers were turned at a strange angle.
He took a breath and thought of ways to sense it. But the pain hit back harder. His hurry seemed to trigger it even more. Left with no choice, he tried to rid himself of any judgments and just looked at his thoughts without manipulating them.
His mind had these thoughts in passing:
His left knee had started dislocating. But it wasn't the worst part.
Next was his upper back. Did his bones want to leave his body?
The most painful thing was around his butt. He felt like he had dropped himself from a meter high to the ground on his ass.
This must have gone on for dozens of minutes. His right hand looked out of shape. If he had hands of metal, he could have ripped anything apart. They were the hands of a predator.
Sucks that I can't make it that way consciously. It would be good while fighting. Now it will turn into a nearly useless paw.
His musing was halted when he felt his heartbeat. It felt more than a beat that would be felt after taking a run and feeling it on one's chest. He could visualize his heart as it beat. He couldn't help but smile.
"Auch." His jaws dislocated, getting him out of that state. "Fuck."
If he could keep that state, he felt like all his problems would go away. Thankfully, he could hear his heartbeat in his ears, and he didn't have to count to understand it was too high.
Regulating his breath was not an option because he could feel the moment he breathed in, all the oxygen directly went to his blood to fast-forward his transformation.
It was unlucky. He needed to breathe less to control his heartbeat to control his transformation, but to quicken his transformation, he needed to breathe more to raise his heartbeat.
Finally, he gave in to embrace the transformation so that he could try it in the next full moon when it would get easier. He didn't want to miss the chance to make it easier, so he put his focus on embracing the pain, the transformation, and the upcoming wolf.
…
"Auuuuuuu"
The howl started throaty, then entered the vocal range that rang through the entire Mystic Falls.
The Wolf's guttural voice rang through the underground as it looked calculatively at the bars.
There was no Tyler. There was only a beast that wanted to get out and slaughter. But it also wanted to stay. There was free meat after all. And it looked delicious.
With graceful movements, it circled the corpse of the large man. It smelled death, which aroused its hunger even more.
It wasn't going to reject the free food. It could always hunt. Just not today.
It gazed at the face for a moment. It was too sudden when it decided to take a chunk of the throat to munch it down as it gazed at the full moon while savoring his first human dish.