Its breath hit me first.

  It wasn’t just warm; it was a humid, heavy fog that smelled of copper and old, wet fur. My throat seized. I’ve been scared before—I’ve stood in the principal’s office waiting for the axe to fall, and I’ve felt the hot sting of a fist in a parking lot fight.

  But this? This was ancient. This was a fear that lived in my DNA and everyone else's.

  My fingers clawed into the mud, the grit of small stones biting into my palms. My hoodie was soaked through, the damp fabric clinging to my skin like a cold shroud.

  I wanted to bolt. Every nerve ending was screaming Run, you idiot, run, but my brain knew the math. If I ran, I’d just be a moving target. If I ran, I’d die tired.

  When it reached me, the world went dark. Its massive head hovered inches from mine, a living eclipse that blotted out the moon.

  Up close, it wasn’t just a wolf. It was a ruin. Its fur was a pure golden brown, scarred along the snout as if it had traded pieces of itself for survival.

  Its eyes weren’t the glowing amber of a horror movie; they were flat, intelligent, and terrifyingly calm. It was looking at me...and i realised i wasn't looking at an animal!

  But held eyes with something that knew that i had no escape.

  Beside me, Abie’s hand was a vice. Her nails drew blood from my knuckles, her whole body vibrating with a tremor so violent I thought her bones might snap.

  The thin, yellow cardigan that she wore was now stained brown with filth—and her face was a mask of pure, pale shock. Her mouth was open, but no sound came out.

  “There are no wolves in this village,” she had promised. The lie now lodged in my throat.

  I glanced back for Lucie. She’d been there seconds ago—I could still feel the phantom sting of her nails on my arm from a few seconds back. But the mud behind us was smooth and utterly empty.

  The wolf leaned down. I saw the wet flare of its black nostrils. Then, the sensation: a tongue, rough as sandpaper and hot as a fever, dragged across my palm.

  I didn’t breathe or blink. I watched as it tasted the smear of blood on my hand, its movements slow and almost practised. Then it moved to my face.

  Squeezing my eyes shut, i waited for the crunch of my own skull. But instead felt the wet, heavy slide of its tongue across my cheek, leaving a trail of thick saliva that cooled instantly in the cool air.

  I heard a sound—a sharp, wooden snap—and my heart stopped. This is it, I thought. My neck. It’s over.

  I waited for the pain. One second. Three. Five.

  Nothing.

  when, I opened my eyes. The weight was gone and the shadow had lifted. The road was a silver ribbon of empty dirt stretching into the trees.

  No wolf but most importantly there was no Lucie or footprints. Just a hollow, ringing silence that made my stomach turn over.

  “Abie?” My voice sounded like it belonged to a stranger—hollow and cracking.

  She looked at me, her eyes glassy and distant, like she’d been lobotomised or possessed.

  She didn’t answer. She just stood up, her yellow sweater hanging limp and ruined, and started walking towards the village. She didn’t look back for Lucie. She didn’t even look at me. She just moved with a mechanical, haunting urgency.

  I didn’t wait as well, I ran. Faster than i had ever deemed possible. faster than i had ever done so before. my eyes kept glancing in all directions for a danger that never came.

  Nonetheless, when i spotted the old house...

  I burst through the front door of the house, slamming the bolt home with a metallic thud that echoed through the hallway. My lungs were burning.

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  Mia was standing in the archway of the sitting room, a glass of wine in one hand, her face shifting into that familiar expression of weary irritation. She looked at my mud-caked jeans and my shaking hands and just sighed.

  To her, I was just Hana being “difficult” again. Just another mess to clean up.

  “Don’t,” I snapped before she could speak.

  I bolted into my room, locking the door and the windows until the handles wouldn’t budge. I drank water till I choked, my eyes landing on my phone—the device I’d ignored for a week out of spite.

  For the first time in a long time, I whispered a small thank you prayer to the heavens, clutching my chest tightly.

  how i wished to be back in the city with proper security, no wolves or woods a rough school.

  I swiped the screen at last. The notifications flooded in like a dam breaking. Dozens of messages from Alicia.

  I was bullied at the new school. I wish you were here.

  Did you decide to ghost me?

  I ran away from home but I can’t find the bus to Villaluz.

  Then, the last one. Sent three hours ago.

  Hana, where are you? There is no place called Villaluz on the map. I’ve looked everywhere. It doesn’t exist.

  I read it again. The moonlight hit the floral curtains, making the patterns look like reaching hands. The room felt suddenly, impossibly small.

  I looked at my hand—the one the wolf had licked. The blood was gone. The skin was perfectly clean. And as I stared, I realised the silence outside wasn’t peaceful.

  It was a silence that gave me no clues of what was happening around me. where i was or even the dangers that were lurking in those woods.

  The next morning was a disaster before it even started. I’d spent half the night staring at the ceiling, my brain on a loop of wolves and Alicia’s unread texts, and my alarm felt like a personal attack.

  By the time I hit the hallway, my footsteps were slamming against the tile, way louder than they needed to be.

  The school was too quiet, that eerie, low-energy morning vibe that always makes my skin crawl. Except that here it was quiet at all times.

  “Stay up,” I hissed at my backpack. The strap was sliding down my arm for the tenth time. I jerked it back into place, my movements sharp and jagged. I was already vibrating with a restless, itchy kind of frustration.

  As I yanked the bag higher, I felt the familiar weight of Alicia’s friendship bracelet vanish from my wrist. It hit the floor with a pathetic, silent slide.

  I dropped to a crouch to snag it, my jaw tight. Just one more thing to go wrong, I thought.

  But as I reached for the thread, my eyes locked on the hallway leading to the bathrooms. The air in my lungs went cold.

  Jaden.

  He was backed into the corner, his silhouette unmistakable. But he wasn’t alone. He had his hands clamped onto the waist of a junior—a girl so small she looked like she was being swallowed by his shadow.

  I didn’t recognise her, but I recognised the way he was leaning into her.

  It wasn’t a “moment.” It was a hostage situation.

  His lips were pressed against the side of her neck, tracing the pale skin with a slow, grinding deliberation. I watched her face. Her eyes weren’t closed in some romantic haze; they were squeezed shut, her features pinched like she was trying to retreat inside herself. She winced, a small, involuntary flinch that he completely ignored.

  He wasn’t kissing her. He was torturing her.

  I felt it then—that familiar, sickening heat blooming in the pit of my stomach. It climbed up my throat, tasting like copper and adrenaline.

  The “good girl” act Mia wanted from me evaporated. My vision started to tunnel, the edges of the hallway blurring until the only thing left in the world was Jaden’s hand on that girl’s waist and the sheer, ugly unfairness of it.

  My grip tightened on the friendship bracelet until the string cut into my palm. I didn’t think about the consequences. I didn’t think about the school rules or my tarnished reputation.

  The pressure in my chest just needed to go somewhere. And Jaden was the perfect target.

  I did not think twice before charging to where the two were standing. T. The fury I felt wanted to rip my chest open.

  By the time I got to where they were, my bag had dropped and yet the two still had not noticed.

  I grabbed him by the color and landed a punch across his face. Before he could process what had happened, I kicked him right that the middle of his legs and I watched him wince in pain.

  He cursed out as much as possible as his hands held his privates in pain. A few students were starting to gather around us, but I still felt so much rage.

  I glanced at the girl holding her neck tightly, shock crossing her eyes. Another slap landed across Jaden’s face as I realised that the girl was much younger than I had imagined earlier.

  The anger in Jaden’s face was undeniable. He swung his hand very fast that I could not move fast enough to dodge the slap he gave me.

  My face felt swollen for a second, my ears ringing like an alarm. Darkness crossed my eyes briefly and a tickle of blood trailed down my lips to my chin.

  He had crossed the line. Hitting me back was taking me to a route of no return. At this point I wasn’t thinking straight, the only thought that crossed my mind was the fact that the girl needed justice.

  Justice

  Justice

  I wobbled slightly, as he watched. He was healing from the impact of my action. I signalled for the girl to leave.

  If the worse came to the worst, I didn’t want her to be caught up in my drama. She looked at Jaden as if asking for permission but he

  hardly spared her a glance.

  He was too focused to see my next move but I didn’t know what it was myself.

  She didn’t step away and I let her watch. The students from earlier who had stopped by to watch finally left, seemingly uninterested.

  I looked across the floor for something I could use but didn’t see any. My eyes found my bracelet at the floor and my mind rushed back to the matching neck chain.

  No plan had emerged in my brain yet on how to use it but i just hopped it was there.

  I ran back to my bag and checked through it, I didn’t have it.

  “You love trouble, don’t you?” he asked, moving to where I was kneeling with my bag.

  He yanked my hair back and I winced in pain. My head now faced up, his head hovering above.

  “I had let you off it because they wanted me to but I won’t let you get away with it this time.” He whispered to my ears.

  I tried to scratch his hands with my nails but to no avail he was stronger than I had imagined.

  My hand moved in every direction. The pain in my head was more than I could bare. The ring in my ears increased but my hand got hold of something, a chain.

  He wore a chain dangling right above my head as I knelt down. The first thing that came to my mind was to hold. And I did

  I held on, pulled as hard as I could.