It was past midnight when I stepped off the last train. The platform was half-lit and echoing with a silence I couldn't explain, the kind that sinks under your skin until you start wondering if you're the only person left in the world. I zipped up my jacket and adjusted the strap of my bag, eyes on the cracked tiles. I was tired—more tired than usual, as if something had been leeching at my energy all week. The station exit opened onto a long, crooked street. Streetlamps flickered like they were about to die.
On my left, a row of old trees pressed against a rusted chain-link fence. And that's when I saw her.
She was standing exactly where the shadows swallowed the sidewalk. Just a girl, at first glance—maybe my age, maybe older. Her hair was long, the color impossible to tell in the half-light. I slowed my steps. I didn't know why.
Maybe because her face was turned toward me in a way that made me feel I'd already been seen before I ever noticed her.
I was nearly past when her eyes shifted, finding mine with a steadiness that turned my stomach cold. I didn't say anything. Couldn't. She didn't smile. Didn't blink.
"Down to the ground," she said, her voice flat. "And don't you look away." It wasn't the words that made me obey. It was the certainty behind them—like she'd already watched every version of this moment in a hundred timelines. I swallowed, my breath fogging in the cold.
"Who are you?" I tried to ask, but my throat locked. She tilted her head. "I've been watching you for a year," she said. "And for about a couple days." Her eyes were the same color as the moon above us—pale, pitiless. "If you run," she continued, "you'll die before you make it to the corner." I believed her. "Why?" I whispered. She stepped closer, and I saw then that her pupils were too large, her irises too narrow around them—like an animal trying to mimic a human face.
"How about we do a certain trade," she said softly. "You've been so hard to catch alone." Her hand lifted. Not in a threat—more like an invitation. "I've waited," she said. "I'm out of time. You feel the pain. You know you do." My heart stuttered.
She was right. I *did* feel it—the restless ache in my chest that had no name. "Come," she told me. "Into the woods." I don't know why I followed. Maybe because some part of me knew the shape of this moment long before it arrived. She moved like she was gliding over the dead leaves, and I moved behind her.
We passed the fence where the trees grew denser, the streetlights receding behind us. Branches scraped at my sleeves. The air turned colder, sharper. Then she stopped. She stood in a pool of moonlight so bright it looked like silver poured over the ground.
Slowly, she began to undo the buttons of her coat. I looked away—some instinct telling me I wasn't meant to see. But her voice came again, low and clear: "Watch." I did.
Her coat fell open. Her arms—too long now, stretching as if pulled by invisible hands—were covered in black fur that shimmered only when the moon hit it. Her back arched, bones cracking, reshaping. A growl rippled from her chest—so deep I felt it vibrating in my ribcage. Her head lifted.
A muzzle emerged where her face had been, her jaw splitting wider than any human mouth could. The last of the human shape fell away. She stood before me, ten feet tall, a wolf humanoid outlined by ancient trees. And then— Her eyes opened fully. They were deep black. Black like a pit with no bottom. Black like every memory you tried to bury. Black like they could stare straight through the mask you spent your whole life wearing—past your lies, past your excuses, straight into the brittle place you didn't let anyone see. When those eyes found mine, I forgot how to breathe. The last of the human shape fell away.
She stood before me, ten feet tall, a wolf humanoid framed by ancient trees. And in that instant—some buried part of my memory lurched awake. I thought of the Egyptian murals, of the record keepers whose warnings were dismissed as superstition. I thought of all the stories buried under ridicule—stories that were never stories at all. I thought of all the stories the old civilizations left behind, carved into stone and hidden in libraries the conquerors burned. I thought of the professor who once told me: "The faster you catch onto the tangible correlated truths…the faster you see the irrefutable cause and effect. The faster you remember." My legs went weak. Her deep black eyes never wavered. They were a mirror, a warning, and an invitation all at once. I understood, then, that she was never trying to kill me. She was trying to *wake me up.* And in that moment, I felt the strategy unravel—the strategy the worst of the bad apples never wanted anyone to see: That there were beings older than any empire. That they never left. That they waited in the margins of your perception until the right moment to reclaim remembrance. My breath came ragged. I couldn't move. I couldn't look away. Somewhere, in a memory not my own, I heard the voice of an old professor: > "The faster you catch onto the tangible correlated truths…the faster you see the irrefutable cause and effect. The faster you remember." And the moon climbed higher, cold and indifferent, as her silhouette swallowed the last light.