• It was dark, too dark. The pounding through my veins made me forget in my blinding panic that my left leg was ripped to ribbons of flesh, clinging in bloody clumps, a revolting mix of blood and blue jeans, the color now distorted on my fading vision.

    My heart was thumping wildly like a captured stallion, almost suicidal. It thought that killing itself against my strained ribcage was merciful compared to the death that waited a few feet behind me.

    I could smell it. The stench of sweat, the iron of my blood, wet earth, and the odor of wet fur fixing like a fushion of gears in the chill night air. Was these last moments of terror be the final curtain? That straight from the depths of hell panting, the last sound on my alreaddy dead ears?

    Pure primal urges made all my thoughts dissolve into nothingness. All there was, was fear. It consumed me, stole my soul, made me inhuman.
    Or all too human.

    The pure power of it knocked me to the ground, where I fell limp, hair hanging in my face. I belong to it now, and it howled its claim, shattering the silence of the night, pure ecstasy of the hunt, of making another like Itself.

    I felt it lick my neck with its tongue, like it was trying to calm me, tell me it wouldn't last long, that I would enjoy it.

    As it sank its sharp, perfect, white teeth into me, its white muzzel now red with my blood, I knew even before I screamed.

    This was the end.
    ***
    I awoke to find the Moon high in the black sky, my brain and eyesight blurred slightly at trying to remember something.

    An owl hooted, something scurried in the brush, and the sharp smell of something strangly thrilling, dark and metallic, like iron. My eyes came into sharp sudden clarity. Everything was black and white.

    I sat up, twitching my new tail, pointed my long muzzel at the Moon, now seeming god-like. Why didn't I notice it before, how wonderful that great silver orb was, light born from darkness. Wild and alien.

    The wind was brisk, but I didn't feel it through my fur. I gave my new limbs a long stretch, sniffed the air, raised my head and howled.

    There was a response, several answers. From behind a tree to my left, something emerged. It toke several seconds for me to reconize the one who gave me this new body.

    It was a medium sized female wolf, and in my vision her fur was really light, except for her two ears which were dark. There were dark splatters on her chest and muzzle.

    My blood from its sharp odor.

    Instinct made me flatten my ears and pull back to expose my teeth. She reeked of pain and death.

    The other wolf, suddenly and viciously, leapt forward. I felt her rip my ear, agony, tearing through my skull. A high pitched whine, equivalent to a human scream burst from my throat.

    Blood ran into my right eye, I was blinded and not thinking, I sunk my jaws
    into a foreleg, striking bone.

    She other she-wolf yelped, letting go of her grip and jumped away, head lowered, her left leg torn and bleeding.

    I growled, making myself look as ugly as possible, but she stayed on the spot, head lowered submissively, her eyes not meeting mine.

    I had won. But it was a mixed victory. My head hurt like hell, and the blood had stared to dry and clump heavily on my eye and it itched like crazy, besides there were more coming.

    Two more others like myself emerged from the undergrowth, a male and another much older female. Even though my color vision was gone I could tell this other she-wolf was really old. Her fur was dark but thin patches ran through it. And her eyes were so bright and dead it was obvious she was quite blind. The male wolf that stayed tight to her side was huge, and looked like he could crush my spine in a single bite.

    I growled and toke a step back.