The Girl in the Red Hood

Chapter XIIX

I wake up a couple days later in the "recovery room" as Josi calls it. She tells me that I've been asleep for two days. I ask her what's been on my mind since I lost consciousness.

"Is the wolf dead? Is it gone, away from me forever?" I ask.

She sighed and said, "I know that you killed it, but it's not dead."

"If I killed it, then how is it not dead? That makes no sense."

"I've been alive for hundreds of years. I've never seen Lupan as persistent to kill anyone but you. Your special to him. I just don't know why."

Something about her tone bothers me. "Josi, were- were you alive when Lupan was born?" I stammer out.

"Yes. But there's more to know. More that you deserve to know.
"I created Lupan, a long time ago. He was a mistake. I tried making a spirit animal, something to guide orphans like yourself to happiness. Someone broke into my home and tampered with the wolf. They made it evil. Instead of helping orphans, like planned, the beast would make orphans by killing families. I tried to stop him, but I panicked and ran. I hadn't thought of him until he killed my only friends: your family. Everyone knew what I had done, yet they were the only ones who accepted me. That's why I already had your room. So I could care for you if anything happened to them. Lupan takes the form of the one who killed him last. He will never truly die until the one who killed him last dies before he can transform."

My eyes welled with tears. I ask, "where is Lupan now?"

Then, Josi's dark, purple eyes, full of regret, tell me. The beast is inside of me.