Lunar Zenith

Chapter Ten

Cassandra

The gunshot echoed in my head, rattling my mind.

"Why are you defending this monster?"

"She's not a monster."

A wolf at my feet. Blood pooling.

"Wolves are the beasts of the damned, composed of pure evil."

A second gunshot. A flower of red, blooming in my chest.

"I don't want to believe it. I won't believe it!"

A brilliant light, a blinding pain. The winds howled and howled, and through the storm of it all, I heard the whispers of a wolf, singing along with the madness.

"My dear, how you have suffered."

Brighter, brighter.

"Your sacrifice shall not be in vain."

Brighter! Brighter!

My eyes flew open, and I sucked in a lungful of air as my heart pounded in my head. Early rays of sun filtered through the trees, settling on and illumination the woods around me. Birds chirped. Water ran. Everything was at peace.

Where was I?

All at once, last night's memories came flooding back. Peter. He— He shot me! The realization brought a bitter taste into my mouth. Peter, my friend, my crush and desire, had shot me. The pang of betrayal following that thought shortly after shook me to my core. I trusted him. I trusted that if I threw myself in front of the barrel, he wouldn't shoot. But he shot. And then—

I gasped. Lune. What happened to Lune?

I made a move to leap to my feet and search for my friend, but to my surprise and horror, I had none. Stupefied, I sat back and stared at the paws that had replaced my feet... and hands. Paws. Like the ones dogs had—the ones wolves had.

"Okay," I said to myself. "This is fine. This is perfectly okay." Slowly and unsteadily, I got to my... paws. I wobbled, standing on all four legs. My legs shook, but they felt stronger, lighter. And in a way, it made sense. As a human, all my weight was placed on only two limbs, but now I had four. I shifted from one side to another. I could run. Faster.

I moved one front leg forward placing it delicately on the ground as if, despite my earlier observations, it would shatter instantly upon impact. It didn't, of course, and I brought a hind leg forward. Then I moved my second front leg, and then my second hind leg. Front leg, hind leg, front leg, hind leg. The pattern continued as such until I had moved about fifty feet away from my starting point. I giggled to myself. I had just walked.

With the ability of movement now remastered, I scanned my surroundings. The sunlight was brighter and the sounds were sharper. Not only had I adopted the body of the wolf, but it seemed I had the senses too. I looked up at the sky and squinted my eyes. This would take some getting used to. Swiveling my ears, I picked up every scuffle, every gnaw, every squeak, but I honed in on the rushing current instead. Instinct told me to start there and then begin the search for Lune. I inhaled before ambling towards the sound. Front leg, hind leg, front leg, hind leg. Walking was a tedious task. The amount of effort and thought I had to put into each step forward was foreign, strange, and moderately frustrating.

I paused at the edge of the creek, my destination, and peered into the water. Instead of my face—a human face—I saw the sharp features of a canine: pointed ears, narrow eyes, a slender muzzle. I sighed. I really was one of them. Leaning further down towards the water, I studied myself more closely. My coat was white with blotches of auburn streaked through it like paint that had been smudged on a canvas. And my eyes. They were two different colors. One eye had taken up my own muted shade of green, but the other... The other had taken up a vibrant blue—cerulean. Just like Lune's eyes.