Jaden’s friends didn’t even try to hide it—they stood by the car, huffing out short, private chuckles like I’d just performed a particularly bad comedy routine.

  The first one was the softer side, with round shiny cheeks that made his grin look way too friendly for someone that close to Jaden.

  He wore a black hoodie that was a size too small it hugged his stomach in a way that made him look like a disgruntled teddy hear.

  Then there was the wiry one. He looked like he lived on energy drinks that spite. His face was all sharp angles and had the miserable patchy attempt at a beard.

  He was drowning in a gray T-shirt that looked like it had been picked up off a bedroom floor, paired with cargo pants that had way too many pockets. he had the twitchy, nervous energy, like he was a second away from snapping at someone just to see what would happen.

  The third guy actually made me nervous. His face was perfectly clear, way too calm, and he had the faint, permanent smirk. Like he loved watching a car crash but was too stuck up to get his hands dirty.

  “I think we should leave,” Lucie whispered, the words tripping over themselves. She didn’t wait for Abie to agree; she just reached out and clamped onto her hand, her knuckles pulling white. she avoided looking in Jaden’s direction, her eyes darted between the gate and the path ahead treating every shadow like a threat.

  I could practically feel the heat radiating off Jaden. He didn’t yell, but just stood there and looked on. His jaw locked so tight I thought his teeth might crack, and mouthed four words that made my stomach drop: You’re going to regret this.

  I’d crossed a line I didn’t even know existed, and the air around him felt heavy, like the pressure before a storm.

  A few students drifted towards the car, their eyes tracing the jagged new lines on the vehicle moving in slow practised steps. Their back packs slung off one shoulder, hands in pockets. They didn’t look horrified; they looked fascinated, leaning in to whisper to one another before casting a long, unreadable look at me.

  Their eyes looked like they would suck out my soul but themselves were too lazy to do it, so they disappeared down the path.

  I turned my back on them, following Lucie and Abie towards the tree line. Lucie was still vibrating with nerves, her eyes scanning every bush and trunk as if they were about to swallow her whole.

  “Is it the wolves?” I asked. My voice sounded thin in the quiet. I guessed she was just jumpy about the path, even if she’d walked it a thousand times.

  Abie let out a short, surprised laugh, the kind you give when someone says something accidentally hilarious. “We don’t have wolves in this village, Hana.”

  “Really?” I repeated. I felt a flush of heat in my cheeks—the sting of being the outsider who doesn’t know the rules.

  This time, Lucie actually stopped. She looked at me, her eyebrows hiked up towards her hairline.

  Up close, I could see the grayish smudges under her eyes, deep shadows that made her look like she hadn’t slept in a week. She stared at me for a long beat, as if she were seeing a stranger for the very first time.

  “Did you... actually see a wolf?” she asked, her words so low i had to strain to hear them.

  “No...” I started. I wanted to tell her about the man by the road, but the words felt clumsy in my mouth. I didn’t want to explain how I’d seen him or why I believed a total stranger. “I just... I assumed.”

  We walked deeper into the woods. The pace was suffocatingly slow, like we were wading through water. My mind kept looping back to that man. If there weren’t any wolves, why was he so insistent? Was he just trying to scare us, or was he hiding something else?

  The further we went, the more the silence started to grate on me. It wasn’t a peaceful forest sound; it was an absence. No birds chirping, no squirrels scuffling in the brush, not even the drone of a stray fly. It was as if the woods were holding their breath.

  Crack.

  My foot caught a jagged rock, and a sharp, white-hot sting shot through my big toe. I hissed a curse, hopping for a second and squeezing my eyes shut until the throbbing settled into a dull ache.

  Abie’s eyes widened instantly, and she reached out a hand like she wanted to steady me. her brows creased in concern.

  “careful!” she whispered sharply, her voice low, almost trembling with worry. She stayed close to make sure i don’t stumble again. For a second we thought we had something move in the trees but brushed it off as whistling of trees.

  When we reached the fork in the path and Abie gave me a tight, apologetic smile. She and Lucie turned towards their houses, and suddenly, I was the only thing moving in the woods.

  The “no wolves” thing should have made me feel better, but as soon as I was alone, the anxiety crawled back up my spine.

  I kept expecting Jaden to creep out from behind a tree, or to hear the crunch of his boots on the gravel behind me. Once or twice, I spun around, convinced I felt eyes pricking at the back of my neck—but there was nothing.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Just the gray trunks of the trees and the lengthening shadows.

  By the time I saw the house, I was practically jogging. I burst through the door, my heart hammering against my ribs.

  Mia was in the kitchen, her usual sunny self. “Hey, Hana!”

  “You walked back?” She looked up, her expression shifting to genuine shock. “Why didn’t you just call?”

  I reached into my pocket and felt the cold glass of my phone. I’d completely forgotten I even had it.

  Between Jaden and the woods, my brain had just shut down. “No signal,” I mumbled, reaching for a glass of juice. My throat felt like it was lined with sand.

  “And don’t worry—the man lied. There aren’t any wolves. There aren’t any animals here at all.”

  Could the people her have any domestic animals of their own or they were also vegetarians?

  Mia paused, her hand hovering over the counter. “The man? What man?”

  A cold knot tied itself in my stomach at the memory of him. “The one by the road,” I said, my voice rising slightly. I looked at her, searching for a flicker of memory.

  “Last night. Blonde hair, those blue eyes? We both saw him, Mia.”

  She picked up an old newspaper, her gaze drifting towards the window with a shrug that said she couldn’t care less.

  “You probably dreamed it, Hana. You were a total zombie by the time we got here. You must have just drifted off in the car.”

  I stared at her, my hand trembling slightly, though the juice in my glass rippled. I knew I hadn’t slept. I hadn’t even blinked.

  But looking at her calm, indifferent face, I realised there was no point in fighting. I let it go, trying to sink into the “normalcy” of the kitchen, even if a part of me was still out there in the silent trees.

  I sat at the small table and forced myself to eat every bite of the vegetables she’d put out, washing it down with the rest of the juice before retreating to my room.

  I checked my phone again. Still no bars. Still no message from home. Just me and the quiet.

  A week crawled by, defined by a pattern that felt less like life and more like a loop.

  I didn’t see Jaden’s car again, which should have been a relief, but instead, it felt like a held breath. I threw myself into my books, mostly to give Mia one less thing to worry about.

  She didn’t need my school drama added to her job hunt.

  I dreaded the day she would find out about what i did, and for some reason i knew Jaden wouldn’t let it pass.

  The atmosphere in the classroom remained stagnant. I still got the morning stares, the heavy silence that followed me to my seat far from Jaden’s.

  Aside from Abie, the other students treated me like a ghost—or perhaps a bomb they were waiting to go off.

  Our history teacher, Mr. Thompson, was a lanky man who seemed to vibrate with a nervous energy. He had a slight limp and eyes that glowed with a strange, reflected light behind his spectacles.

  He read from the textbook in a flat, hollow monotone, as if the words were written in a language he didn’t quite understand.

  He asked if anyone knew about the World Wars in his first class; when the silence stretched too long, he simply moved on without a blink. It was the same way everyone taught here—robotic, detached, and weary.

  I kept stealing glances at Jaden. His silence was its own kind of torture. He was waiting for me to trip, for my guard to slip. It was a game of psychological attrition, and I’d played enough of those to know that the strike usually comes right when you start feeling safe.

  As the bell rang, the mass exodus felt more like an escape. Abie and I walked the familiar, dim hallway towards the lockers.

  I saw the same boy from the week before, standing in the exact same spot, rubbing the back of his neck with the exact same rhythmic motion.

  Déjà vu. It was thick enough to choke on.

  Then came Leila, the girl who sat in front of Jaden, flanked by her two shadows. The smirk on her face hadn’t changed. When Abie reached into her bag and handed over the black bottle without a word, I felt a surge of cold irritation. It was a cycle, a tax, a ritual I didn’t understand yet.

  “Wait up!” Abie called out as I hurried towards the parking lot, my sneakers tapping a frantic rhythm against the tile.

  Outside, the air felt thin. I spotted Jaden near the edge of the lot, clutching a black bottle identical to the one Abie had given Leila. He didn’t move; he just watched me with a look that said our business was far from finished.

  I adjusted my bag strap, trying to ignore the way my heart hammered against my ribs, and turned back to Abie and Lucie.

  Lucie looked worse than usual. She looked like she was vibrating out of her skin.

  “Are you okay?” I finally asked, the question breaking a week of polite silence.

  Lucie jumped, looking at me like I’d just appeared out of thin air. She looked at Abie, her eyes wide and searching.

  “Fine...?” Lucie’s voice sounded rusty, like a phrase she’d memorised but forgotten the meaning of. “Hana... I’m fine...?” She phrased it like a question, looking to Abie for confirmation.

  Abie smiled—that same, too-calm smile—and rubbed Lucie’s hands. “Lucie is fine. Would you like to come by my place today? Get away from the woods for a bit?”

  “Sure,” I said, desperate for any distraction.

  Lucie kept slowing in her steps, something she did almost everyday whenever we reached the fork in the road.

  As we walked, Abie talked about her family—her sister Rye, her father who cooked for some distant estate, and her grandmother, isolated in a back room with something contagious. Despite the illness, her life sounded alive compared to the silence of my house.

  But in an instant, the world simply snapped.

  A hand slammed into my upper arm. It wasn’t a grab; it was a desperate, panicked weight that tore me off balance. Fingers clamped down with bruising force.

  I felt the jagged edge of Lucie's black-polished nail rake across my bare shoulder before digging straight into my skin.

  I felt the sting of the scratch, the heat of blood surfacing, and then a sickening yank. My shoulder joint gave a dry, sickening click. I let out a sound that was half-gasp, half-sob, my body twisting as I was pulled backward.

  Almost instantly came the familiar sound.

  The howl didn’t just hit my ears; it hit me like a physical shock wave. It was so violent and impossibly loud that I felt the vibration rattle the molars in my jaw.

  The air turned to lead, slamming into my chest and stealing my breath.

  My legs didn’t just fail; they turned to water. Lucie and Abie, caught in the same invisible blast, collided with me. We went down in a messy, pathetic heap of tangled limbs and muffled cries.

  I hit the dirt hard. The impact drove the remaining air from my lungs, leaving me with the taste of grit and the smell of wet mold. My arm was throbbing—a hot, rhythmic pulse that made the world swim. I lay there, ears ringing with a high, piercing whine, my cheek pressed into the cold mud.

  I forced my head up, my breath coming in short, ugly hitches. My eyes watered, blurring the forest into sharp, jagged edges.

  And there it was.

  A blonde wolf.

  A wolf larger than anything i had ever imagines, or even those in documentaries were never this large.

  It wasn’t a shadow or a trick of the light. It was massive, solid, and terrifyingly real. Its fur was the colour of dead grass and tarnished gold, thick and matted over heavy muscle.

  It didn’t growl but snap and then stood there with a regal, terrifying stillness that seemed to swallow the sky.

  Then I saw the eyes.

  Blue. Not a soft, human blue, but the color of a glacier—freezing, sharp, and utterly unforgiving.

  A violent tremor started in my marrow and shook its way out to my fingertips.

  My heart thudded so hard I thought it would crack a rib. I shut my eyes, bracing for the weight to crush my chest, for the teeth to find the soft pulse in my neck.

  I waited for the world to end.