The wind crawled through the forest like the cold fingers of a restless ghost, shaking the branches above. The moon was supposed to be full tonight—but something was wrong. A piece of its light looked missing, like a bite taken out of a glowing fruit.
A dark ripple pulsed behind it, almost alive.
Arin walked faster.
His hands trembled inside the pockets of his hoodie, not from the cold… but from that feeling.
The one that haunted him for two weeks straight.
That itch under his skin.
That whisper in the back of his skull.
A voice slid into his ear.
"Go back… before it's too late."
Arin froze.
"Shut up," he muttered. "You're not real."
But the voice chuckled—soft, thin, and absolutely not human.
A shadow stretched beside Arin's foot.
It looked exactly like his own shadow… except it moved differently, like it had a heartbeat.
Arin swallowed.
"What do you want from me…?"
The shadow quivered.
A broken, distorted whisper rose from it:
"The bond… isn't complete."
Before Arin could speak again, the sky split open.
A monstrous roar tore through the forest.
For three terrifying seconds, the moon went completely dark.
When the light returned, something stepped out from between the trees:
Eyes burning yellow.
Teeth long and jagged.
A body shaped like a wolf—but far too big to be real.
A creature made of raw rage.
Arin stumbled back and hit the ground hard.
The beast advanced.
The shadow on the ground twitched—
then slid in front of Arin like a shield.
"No… no, not again," Arin whispered, shaking. "Please… not again…"
The beast growled, the ground trembling under its weight.
And then—
The shadow rose.
It peeled off the ground like liquid darkness, forming something resembling a hand.
The beast lunged.
The shadow lunged back.
The collision of the two impossible beings cracked through the night like thunder.
And in that moment—in the middle of chaos—Arin finally understood something:
This shadow wasn't a hallucination.
It wasn't a curse.
It was part of him.
And tonight… it had awakened.