The insistent whine of the alarm dragged Aiden from the murky depths of sleep, a sound already distorted, warped into something grating and unnatural even before his consciousness fully surfaced. He slapped a hand blindly at the bedside table, fumbling for the snooze button, the metallic tang of the cheap metal momentarily prickling at his skin – an odd, familiar discomfort he'd learned to ignore.
He lay there for a moment, the cramped confines of his studio apartment pressing in on him like a physical weight. Sunlight, weak and watery, barely breached the grimy windowpane, casting the small room in a perpetual twilight. The air was stale, thick with the scent of instant coffee and the faint, medicinal aroma that clung to him from his hospital shifts. He was bone-tired, the kind of exhaustion that settled deep in your marrow, a constant companion these days.
Then he heard it again.
Not the alarm this time, which had mercifully fallen silent. This was different, a low, resonant sound that seemed to vibrate in the very air around him, a primal undertone beneath the city's usual morning rumble. He frowned, pushing himself up in bed, listening intently. It was like… a howl. Distant, muffled, but undeniably there, a mournful cry that sent a shiver crawling down his spine despite the lukewarm temperature of the room.
"Just the city," he muttered to himself, the excuse flimsy even to his own ears. New York was a cacophony, a symphony of sirens and shouts, but this was something else, something…wild. He dismissed it as fatigue playing tricks on his ears, another phantom symptom in his increasingly bizarre symphony of daily life.
He dragged himself out of bed, the worn floorboards creaking under his weight. The apartment was a study in functional minimalism: a narrow kitchenette crammed into one corner, a small table littered with medical textbooks and takeout containers, a worn couch that doubled as a bed. It was enough. Barely.
In the tiny bathroom, the fluorescent light flickered to life, casting his reflection in a harsh, unforgiving glare. He looked… drawn. Dark circles underscored his tired eyes, and his usually warm brown gaze seemed muted, shadowed. He splashed cold water on his face, the shock momentarily clearing the fog in his brain. He was Aiden Blake, twenty-four years old, an intern at City General, and perpetually running on empty.
The hospital was a maelstrom of controlled chaos, a relentless tide of emergencies and ailments. He moved through the sterile corridors with practiced efficiency, a ghost in green scrubs, attending to the endless stream of patients. He checked charts, drew blood, listened to rattling lungs and whispered anxieties, his empathy stretched thin but never quite breaking. He was good at his job, dedicated, driven by a deep-seated need to help, a need that felt almost… visceral.
Later that morning, during a routine procedure, it happened again. He was assisting a senior surgeon, retracting tissue with cool, metallic instruments, when a sharp, burning sensation erupted on his fingertips. He recoiled instinctively, dropping the retractor with a clatter that echoed in the tense operating room.
"Blake!" the surgeon snapped, his voice sharp with irritation. "Focus!"
Aiden mumbled an apology, retrieving the instrument, his heart pounding against his ribs. The skin on his fingers was flushed, angry red welts rising where the metal had touched. He'd had mild allergies before, seasonal sniffles, but never anything like this, this immediate, violent reaction to metal. He glanced at his hands, a prickle of unease settling in his stomach. It was just stress, he told himself firmly, the relentless pressure of the internship manifesting in strange physical ways.
Lunch was a hurried affair, a lukewarm coffee and a stale sandwich swallowed down in the crowded cafeteria. He scrolled through medical journals on his tablet, trying to distract himself, but the image of the angry red welts on his fingers kept intruding. He caught snippets of conversations around him – complaints about understaffing, hushed anxieties about a new strain of flu, the usual hospital hum.
Then, a poster on the wall caught his eye, its bright colors jarring against the sterile white of the corridor. "Give the Gift of Life – Organ Donation Saves Lives." A smiling face, a hopeful message. He stared at it for a moment, a strange, involuntary tremor running through him. Organ donation. Life and death, intertwined in the sterile halls of the hospital. The thought, for some reason he couldn't quite articulate, felt… unsettling.
His shift ended with the weary relief that always followed a long day in the trenches. He caught the subway home, the rumble and screech of the train a familiar lullaby. But even the rhythmic clatter couldn't quite drown out the persistent unease that had settled over him. The howl, the metal allergy, the strange, unsettling thought about organ donation… it was all adding up to something, something he couldn't quite name, something that felt… wrong.
He unlocked the door to his apartment, the silence inside amplifying the unease. He called out a greeting, but the small space remained stubbornly quiet. His mother was likely still asleep. He moved towards her room, a small alcove partitioned off from the main living area, his footsteps heavy on the worn carpet.
He paused in the doorway, a knot tightening in his chest. His mother lay in the hospital bed they'd set up in the alcove, her breathing shallow and labored, the rhythmic sigh of the oxygen concentrator filling the small space. The progressive illness was stealing her, inch by agonizing inch, locking her vibrant spirit inside a failing body.
He approached the bed, his heart aching with a familiar, helpless grief. He gently adjusted the blanket around her frail shoulders, his fingers brushing against her arm. He noticed it then – a faint rash, a delicate network of red lines spreading across her pale skin, mirroring the welts on his own hand from earlier. He frowned, concern tightening his brow. He hadn't seen that before.
He leaned closer, studying the rash, a prickling sensation at the back of his neck. He felt… watched. He glanced around the small alcove, his gaze sweeping over the familiar objects – the framed photographs on the bedside table, the stack of books she could no longer read, the get-well cards from well-meaning but ultimately powerless friends. Nothing seemed out of place, yet the feeling persisted, a subtle pressure, like eyes boring into his back.
He shook his head, dismissing it as his own frayed nerves. He was exhausted, stressed, imagining things. He needed sleep.
Later, sleep came, but it offered no respite. The dream started subtly, a familiar cityscape dissolving into a landscape of stark, bare trees silhouetted against a bruised, twilight sky. The air was cold, sharp with the scent of pine and damp earth. He was running, his legs pumping, his breath ragged in his chest, but he wasn't in control, not entirely. There was a wildness in his limbs, a primal urgency driving him forward, faster, faster, through the skeletal woods.
Then the moon rose.
Not the gentle, silver orb of the night sky, but something vast and monstrous, a bloated disc of crimson hanging low in the sky, bleeding red light across the landscape. The blood moon. Its light pulsed, throbbing like a living heart, and as it bathed the woods in its crimson glow, the world around him shifted, warped, becoming something alien and terrifying.
His senses sharpened, amplified to an unbearable degree. He could smell the damp earth, the metallic tang of blood in the air, the musky scent of… animals. His vision blurred, then sharpened again, resolving into a world of stark contrasts, of shadows and moonlight, of textures and scents he'd never noticed before.
He looked down at his hands, his breath catching in his throat. They were no longer hands. Claws, long and curved and wickedly sharp, extended from thick, furred paws. Coarse, dark fur sprouted across his arms, his legs, spreading, consuming his human form. He felt a terrifying surge of power, of raw, untamed energy coursing through his veins, a primal instinct rising within him, overwhelming his reason, his humanity.
He threw back his head and a sound tore from his throat, not a human cry, but a long, drawn-out howl, echoing through the blood-red woods, a sound of pure, unadulterated wildness. And in the dream, in that terrifying, exhilarating moment, he understood. He wasn't just dreaming. This was something more.
He woke with a gasp, heart hammering against his ribs, sweat plastering his shirt to his back. The apartment was still dark, the city outside a distant, muffled hum. He lay there for a long moment, struggling to catch his breath, the remnants of the dream clinging to him like a shroud. The blood moon, the claws, the howl… it felt too real, too visceral to be just a nightmare.
He stumbled out of bed, his legs shaky, a cold dread settling in his stomach. He needed to ground himself, to find something real, something tangible in the unsettling chaos of his morning. He went to the kitchenette, reaching for the instant coffee, his fingers brushing against something cold and metallic on the counter.
A small, brown paper package lay there, tied with twine. He hadn't seen it before. He frowned, picking it up, turning it over in his hands. No address, no return label, just his name scrawled across the front in unfamiliar, elegant script.
Curiosity overriding his unease, he untied the twine and unfolded the paper. Inside, nestled on a bed of tissue paper, lay two objects. The first was a necklace, a delicate silver chain from which hung a crescent moon pendant, its polished surface gleaming faintly in the dim light. It was beautiful, strangely compelling, and as he touched it, a faint warmth radiated against his skin, a warmth that felt… almost familiar.
The second object was a small, leather-bound diary. Its pages were yellowed and brittle with age, the leather cover cracked and worn, whispering tales of time and secrets. He opened it carefully, the scent of old paper and dust rising to meet him. The first page was filled with handwriting, faded ink in elegant cursive, the first words sending a jolt of icy premonition through him.
"If you are reading this…" it began, the words hanging in the air, heavy with unspoken meaning, "…then the time has come."