At the point when Ethan recovered awareness, he didn't know how long had passed. The room he ended up in was faintly lit, the air thick with the aroma of consuming wax. He squinted against the feeble light coming from a solitary glinting candle roosted dubiously on a little wooden table close to the bed. The walls around him were uncovered, their stripping paint a demonstration of long periods of disregard. Briefly, the quiet was stunning, and the occasions of the prior night felt like a far off, murky bad dream.
Yet, when he attempted to sit up, the truth of his circumstance crashed down on him like a tsunami. Torment shot through his shoulder, a sharp sign of the injury that had almost guaranteed his life. He recoiled, intuitively going after the gauze that was hurriedly folded over the injury. The texture was coarse against his skin, and the dull hurt that pulsated underneath it was a steady, disrupting update that this wasn't simply a terrible dream.
He paused for a minute to accumulate his direction, attempting to get a handle on where he was and the way that he had arrived. The room was little, practically claustrophobic, with only a bed, the table with the light, and a solitary wooden seat in the corner. The window was covered by a thick, weighty drape that permitted no smidgen of sunshine — or moonlight — to leak through. There was something strangely harsh about the space, as though keeping the rest of the world at bay had been planned.
Similarly as he was going to swing his legs past the brink of the bed, a voice ended the quiet, taking him leap.
"You're conscious."
Ethan's head snapped toward the entryway, where a tall figure stood covered in the shadows. The man ventured into the faint light, uncovering a tough face set apart by lines of involvement and difficulty. His dull hair was streaked with dim, and his eyes — sharp and penetrating — appeared to drill into Ethan, evaluating him in a moment.
Ethan felt a flood of disquiet wash over him as the man drew nearer. There was something about him that made Ethan's impulses shout for alert, something practically savage in the manner in which he moved, regardless of the quiet attitude he anticipated.
"Where am I?" Ethan croaked, his throat dry and voice raspy, as though he hadn't spoken in days.
The man prevented a couple of feet from the bed, collapsing his arms over his chest. "You're in a protected house," he answered, his voice consistent, however with a propensity of something Ethan couldn't exactly put — perhaps concern, perhaps renunciation. "I am Marcus. You're protected here, away from inquisitive eyes."
"Safe house?" Ethan repeated, the words feeling unfamiliar on his tongue. His psyche was all the while staggering from the assault, the memory of those wild eyes and sharp teeth new in his viewpoints. "How could I want a protected house? What has been going on with me? I was... I was gone after by a creature of some sort or another."
"It wasn't simply any creature," Marcus said, his tone weighty with the heaviness of bleak information. "You were chomped by a werewolf."
Briefly, Ethan could gaze at Marcus, his brain battling to deal with the words. He needed to snicker, to excuse the man's case as ludicrous. Werewolves were only fantasies, animals of fables and harrowing tales intended to startle youngsters — not something that could really exist in reality.
"A werewolf?" Ethan at last figured out how to say, doubt binding his voice. "That is inconceivable. Werewolves aren't genuine."
Marcus murmured, a profound, fatigued sound that proposed he had heard this equivalent disavowal on many times previously. "I know it's difficult to accept, yet it's reality. You're not the main individual to be nibbled, and sadly, you won't be the last. You've been checked, Ethan. Your life won't ever go back."
Ethan shook his head, a purposeless endeavor to get the mist free from disarray and dread that obfuscated his contemplations. "No," he said, his voice shaking as he stuck to disavowal. "There must be some mix-up. This can't occur."
"I'm apprehensive it is," Marcus answered, his voice dropping to a milder, more serious tone. "The mess with you got will transform you in manners you can't yet envision. The full moon is coming, and when it does, you'll encounter your most memorable change."
Alarm flooded through Ethan, his heart hustling as he attempted to grasp the size of what Marcus was talking about. His considerations were a turbulent wreck, a whirlwind of inquiries and fears all competing for focus. "Change? Into what? What will happen to me?"
Marcus drew nearer, pulling the seat from the corner and plunking down next to the bed. He inclined forward, his appearance serious yet not cruel. "You will end up being a werewolf, very much like the one that tore into you. The principal change is generally the hardest, the most incredibly agonizing. Yet, you'll endure it — in the event that you can remain composed and keep control. After that… indeed, life will be unique. You'll need to figure out how to live with the wolf inside you, to control it. On the off chance that you don't, it will control you."
Ethan felt like the ground had been torn free from him, leaving him suspended in a drop of dread and disarray. Each fiber of his being needed to dismiss Marcus' words, to grip to the expectation that this was all some debilitated joke or a mind flight welcomed on by the injury of the assault. Be that as it may, where it counts, in the pit of his stomach, he realized Marcus was coming clean. The nibble, the aggravation, the carnal fury he had felt in those concise minutes — everything highlighted one unnerving end.
"Be that as it may, I don't need this," Ethan murmured, his voice breaking as the truth of his circumstance started to soak in. "I simply need my previous lifestyle back. I need to return to previously… before all of this."
Marcus' look mellowed, and briefly, Ethan thought he saw a gleam of compassion in those steely eyes. "We as a whole did eventually," Marcus said unobtrusively, his voice touched with a pity that proposed he had once been from Ethan's perspective. "However, you can't return. Not a single one of us can. The main thing you can do now is push ahead, figure out how to live with what you are. I'll help you, Ethan. I'll show you how to endure this. However, you really want to comprehend that this is your new reality. There's no fixing it."
Ethan's considerations spiraled as he attempted to deal with the horrible that had turned into his life. Just yesterday, he had been a normal man, carrying on with a conventional life. Presently, he was something different — something colossal. He couldn't say whether he might at any point acknowledge that, not to mention control it.
As though detecting his internal conflict, Marcus stood up and moved to the entryway, stopping before he left. "Get some rest," he exhorted. "You'll require your solidarity for what's to come. At the point when you're prepared, we'll talk more. There's a great deal you want to learn, and not much chance to learn it."
Ethan looked as Marcus left the room, the entryway clicking shut behind him. He was separated from everyone else once more, the severe quietness surrounding him like a cover. He lay down, gazing up at the broke roof as his brain replayed the occasions of the prior night again and again.
The assault, the chomp, the apprehension — it was really quite a lot to process. But, the one thing he was unable to shake was the sensation of something hiding just underneath the surface, something dim and base that had stirred inside him. He could feel it now, a stewing fury and craving that he had never known.
Ethan realize that whatever occurred straightaway, nothing could at any point be something very similar. The customary life he had once known was gone, supplanted by an unnerving, questionable future. The main thing he could do now was endure it — anything that implied.