Fancy A Quickie?

Once Bitten

SHE looked at the bloodied bite on her leg, each puncture a raw, open wound several millimetres deep into her red flesh. Her breathing was ragged and pained.

"What can I do? Let me... let me call an amb-"

"-Don't bother," she gasped between darts of pain, "I'm either gonna die or turn. Either way, don't want you around when I do."

His eyes glistened with tears and he looked about desperately for anything to magically alleviate the inevitable.

"It's okay, honestly," she insisted. "If I die then I die, and this is the last I think about it. If I turn then I don't have a choice."

She cried out as a burning hot surge of pain scorched through her body and it sent her companion into wild panic. He trembled.

"Why would they do this to you? They only attack threats."

Her eyes burned into his.

"I never told you," she began in a low voice, controlling her breathing and pain as well as she could, "I found one. I didn't know what he was at first but he was seriously injured and I... I had to help. He was only young. Anyway the pack came for him, ready to rip me to shreds, but they spared me because I'd helped."

"Why would they try to kill you now, then?" he asked, eyes bulging at the revelation. She blocked her screams with the muddied sleeve of her coat and tremors shook through her body.

"They didn't try to kill me, they tried to save me," she whispered. "The Hunters attacked me, probably to stir the wolves up, but they bit me to turn me."

Her eyes rolled back in her head as another burning surge claimed her limbs and mind. The DNA from the wolf's bite was mingling with her own, warring, trying to command mastery, and it was becoming clear which side was winning. Her muscles convulsed, the pupils started to expand, her skin adopted a nasty red rash as every element began to alter her very being.

"...Go!" she yelled, feeling a rising heat she'd never felt before. "Run! I can't- stop- it!"

He got up and stumbled backwards unwillingly. He knew what would happen when a new wolf changed but he didn't want to leave her.

"Go!" she screamed. "The Hunters are starting a war! Be careful!"

He ran, sobbing, the only sounds being of his feet and the shrieks from his friend reverberating hideously in the thick gloom.

The infection took hold of her and she convulsed violently on the dirty forest floor ready to pass out with searing agony.

The forest fell silent.

A new age began.