The chains shattered.
And so did the last fragment of who I thought I was.
I didn't remember moving. I didn't remember deciding to strike. I didn't remember choosing to kill. But my body had acted—guided by something deeper, older, darker than thought itself.
They screamed. They ran. It didn't matter.
I became a storm of violence. A shadow moving faster than light, faster than fear. Steel bent at my touch. Flesh tore like paper beneath my fists. Every barrier, every wall, every weapon was nothing against the force that had awakened within me. Bullets bounced uselessly. Blades shattered. Screams echoed but never reached me. Narito Tiza, the boy they had once known, had ceased to exist. In his place was fury, vengeance, instinct—the wolf unchained.
Fire erupted, licking the stone walls of the facility, consuming it in smoke and chaos. The heat was thick, suffocating, but I did not feel it. I did not feel anything but the surge inside me, pulsing through every vein, driving every movement.
One soldier crawled, begging for mercy. Another left a crimson trail behind him as he fled. And then, a voice—one I knew—pierced through the haze:
"Tiza, please stop!"
For a heartbeat, I paused. Recognition flared briefly. But then I smelled it—the raw, unmistakable scent of fear—and the beast roared. Reason and restraint had no place here. Compassion, mercy, identity—they were luxuries stripped from me by pain, by rage, by centuries of survival instincts chained into flesh.
I cannot tell how long the rampage lasted. Minutes? Hours? Days? In the haze of fire and blood, time itself seemed to bend. When it ended, I found myself standing alone. Outside. The fortress that had held me captive was no more—reduced to ruins, smoldering stones, and echoes of screams.
I dropped to my knees. My hands trembled, slick with blood—my own and theirs. My body shook, but not from exhaustion. From fear.
"What have I become?"
A monster? No. Worse. Something I could not name. I looked into a pool of dark, reflective water. My own face stared back, alien. Eyes no longer human, pupils elongated, irises a faint, pulsing glow. The scar across my face throbbed like a second heartbeat. I had become something neither wholly man nor entirely wolf. Something in-between, something that had existed long before names or morality.
I staggered into the forest, alone, broken, hunted by memories and the echoes of terror I had left behind. The screams followed me, invisible chains that pressed against my mind. For the first time in my life, I felt truly lost.
Months Later...
The forest became my refuge, though it never felt like living. Trees blocked out the sun; the night pressed down in silence so complete it hurt my ears. I had been wandering this wilderness for months, surviving by instinct, by hunger, by the faint spark of what little humanity remained. I drank from streams, hunted when necessary, and wrapped myself in shadows as if that alone could hide me from the world—and from myself.
But the memories never left. Every night, the screams returned. The blood, the fire, the destruction—it haunted me relentlessly. I could not run from it, not in sleep, not in thought. The weight of it pressed on me like a mountain, threatening to crush the last remnants of sanity.
I had become something I did not understand. Something I feared. The world had turned against me. To my enemies, I was a threat; to my comrades, a weapon out of control; to the villagers who once feared me, a monster whose existence could not be tolerated. And to myself, I was a puzzle of blood and instinct, a being I did not recognize.
I hid. Always hiding. From people. From the memories. From the boy I had once been.
Some nights, I would find myself standing at the edge of a cliff, wind whipping against my face, the abyss below tempting me to let go. The thought lingered longer than comfort should allow, but something always stopped me. A faint, persistent voice. A whisper.
Nana.
Her memory was a tether to the past, a reminder that someone had once seen something good in me. That someone had held me when I was bleeding, had called me child, had loved me unconditionally. It was enough, just barely enough, to keep me from surrendering to the darkness entirely.
I wandered, endlessly. I ate whatever I could find—roots, fish, small animals—but nourishment did not touch the emptiness inside me. My body healed. My scars faded, leaving only the faint wolf-mark as proof of who I had been and who I had become. But my spirit remained broken. I was alive, yes—but living? I did not know the meaning of the word anymore.
The forest became my only companion. The rustling leaves, the whispers of wind, the creak of branches—they were my solace and my jailers all at once. Every sound, every shadow reminded me of the force I had unleashed, the lives I had taken, and the monster I had become.
And yet, deep inside, beneath the fear and the fury, a choice lingered. A choice that I had never dared face until now:
To remain lost.
Or to find the person I was meant to be.
The path forward was uncertain, littered with the debris of my past, the bodies of the innocent and guilty alike, and the remnants of a life I could never reclaim. But the ember of Nana's memory burned quietly within me, a fragile spark of light against the storm of blood and shadow. It reminded me that even the most broken creature could choose to rise again.
For now, I remained hidden, a shadow in the woods, hunted by memories, by enemies, and by my own self. But I understood this truth: sooner or later, the past would catch up with me. And when it did, I would have to decide: to surrender to the beast within, or to master it.
For the first time since my awakening, I felt the faintest glimmer of clarity. The wolf inside me was not just a force of destruction—it was a part of me. And whether that part would destroy me or guide me, I did not yet know. But one thing was certain: I could not remain lost forever.