The boy had awakened.
He struggled to open his eyes; his gaze was unfocused, but after a few moments, he finally looked at me.
I was momentarily taken aback—his eyes were golden.
"Are you a werewolf?" The words slipped out before I could stop them.
He looked back, bewildered. "A what?"
I shook my head slightly as understanding dawned on me.
Considering how recently he had escaped, this boy likely didn't yet know that he was a werewolf.
On the last full moon, he had still been in Falias, a city buried so deep underground that it suppressed the powers of a werewolf's bloodline.
In a few days, however, it would be a full moon again. If he was already eighteen, he would soon experience his first transformation.
But for now, he was just a boy branded with the mark of "slave."
"What's your name?" I asked.
"Mike," he replied weakly.
"How old are you?"
"I just turned eighteen," he said quietly, a faint flash of youthful pride glimmering in his eyes.
A sinking feeling settled in my chest; his werewolf blood was about to awaken. The transformation was inevitable.
"How did you escape?" I asked, testing his reaction.
At the question, his eyes darkened, his lips trembling slightly as he looked down, clearly lost in memories of that day.
"That day… the day Falias was destroyed… was also my eighteenth birthday. I'd always wanted to see the surface, so I thought of sneaking up there as a birthday gift to myself. Just as I reached the FDB checkpoint, hoping to find a way past it, the ground started shaking violently. The entire city was trembling, magma surging up from below like a raging flood. We have seen some magma eruptions in the Falshi Quarry recently, but they weren't severe. Earthquakes happened often enough that no one thought much of it. But no one could have imagined… that this time it would be the end…"
His voice choked, and his eyes reddened, silent tears slipping down his face.
His fists clenched tightly, knuckles pale from the strain. His brows drew together, his whole body trembling on the sand as he struggled under the weight of his grief.
I looked at him, a flood of emotions rising within me.
This boy before me was still so young, a child really, yet he had been thrown into such a devastating disaster.
In comparison, my own soul, after thirty-two years of facing life's hardships, had learned to see the helplessness and sorrow of such events more clearly.
I gently placed a hand on his shoulder, trying to offer some comfort. "It will pass. All of this will pass."
He looked up at me with a faint, puzzled smile. "You sound like an old lady, but you don't look that much older than me. What's your name?"
"Deborah."
He nodded, repeating softly, "Oh, so, Debbie."
"No, not Debbie. It's Deborah." I corrected him.
"Alright, Debbie," he said with a playful, stubborn smile typical of a teenager.
I looked at him with mild exasperation, then grew serious, "You have werewolf blood, and you're of age. In a few days, it will be the full moon, and you'll experience your first transformation."
"A werewolf? You mean like one of those hairy wolf-men?" He looked at me, wide-eyed, incredulous. "Are you kidding?"
"I'm not," I replied solemnly.
He was silent for a moment, a flicker of fear crossing his gaze.
Yet he gave a small, uneasy laugh, as if unwilling to believe something so absurd.
"The transformation might be unpleasant, but don't be afraid; I'll be here to help you through it. It will be my first time, too," I said softly.
"Did you meet any… other werewolves along the way?" he asked hesitantly, a glimmer of hope and anxiety in his eyes. "I have a lot of… werewolf friends. I don't know if any of them made it out."
I shook my head, "No. You're the only one I've come across."
His gaze dimmed at that, his head lowering in quiet guilt. "They… they were all working in the Falshi Quarry, and I was the only one who ran off on some childish whim."
His voice carried the heavy weight of self-reproach, his tightly clenched fists trembling slightly as regret etched deep lines across his face.
Seeing his heartbroken expression, I sighed, offering him the apples I'd conjured by magic. "There's nothing else in the desert, so we'll have to make do with these."
He took the apples, looking at them curiously. "Where did you find these? I've been wandering this desert for days and haven't seen a single thing to eat. No trees, no animals—not even a bug."
"There's no food in the desert, and I wouldn't survive here on my own. But there are many mutated creatures on the surface. You'll need to complete your transformation soon if you're going to protect yourself," I advised.
He held the apple in his hand, nodded earnestly, then glanced at me with a small smile, "Then I'll protect you, too."
"I don't need your protection," I replied evenly.
"But in Tirnanog, they taught us that men are supposed to protect women. Women are the most precious beings in the world; they're the ones who carry the future of humanity." He spoke with a kind of earnest conviction, his eyes holding a trace of naive determination.
I smiled faintly, shaking my head. "Life is equal, each as valuable as the next. You and I are both equal. I don't need your protection."
"Equal?" He nodded, half-understanding, before taking a bite of his apple and focusing on his meal.
We sat side by the fire, its light flickering gently in the night, offering a sense of warmth and safety.
As the sweetness of the apples lingered in the air, filling the quiet space between us, the vast desert stretched endlessly in every direction.
The cool night breeze carried with it the faint scent of sand and distant dunes, wrapping around us like a fragile cocoon.
The stars above sparkled with an otherworldly brilliance, casting a faint glow on the barren landscape, their light reflecting in the unspoken emotions hanging between us.
We sat there in silence, the weight of our thoughts unspoken, as the crisp taste of the apples served as our only anchor to the present.
The night deepened, the vast sky darkening further, and the cold began to seep into the ground beneath us.
Yet neither of us moved, our gazes fixed on the horizon, waiting for the first rays of dawn to break through the endless desert's eternal stillness.