Chapter 1 The Night the Moon Watched Me

The moon had never felt this close before.

It followed me as I walked, sliding between the clouds like an unblinking eye. Every step I took home from school felt wrong, as if I were moving deeper into something I couldn't see but could somehow sense-something waiting.

My hands were shaking.

Not from cold. From something else.

The street was quiet, too quiet. The usual sounds of the neighborhood-cars passing, music drifting from open windows, laughter-were gone. Even the crickets were silent. The only sound was my breathing, uneven and loud in my ears.

Then my heart started racing.

Not the normal kind. This was fast. Wild. Like it was trying to escape my chest.

I stopped walking.

For a moment, I just stood there under the streetlight, staring at my hands. The skin looked the same, but it didn't feel the same. Heat pulsed beneath it. My fingers twitched as if they didn't belong to me anymore.

"Get it together," I muttered.

That was when I smelled it.

Blood.

The scent hit me so hard I staggered back, my stomach twisting. It was sharp and metallic, thick in the air-close. Way too close. My mouth filled with saliva, and the sudden hunger that followed terrified me more than the smell itself.

I spun around.

Nothing.

The street was empty, stretching out in both directions. My house was only two blocks away. I should've run. I knew that. Every instinct screamed at me to turn around and go home.

Instead, my feet carried me toward the alley beside the old grocery store.

The darkness there seemed deeper than it should've been, swallowing the moonlight whole. I stood at the entrance, frozen, my pulse pounding so hard I could hear it.

Don't go in, my mind warned.

I stepped forward anyway.

The pain came without warning.

It exploded in my chest, sharp and unbearable, like my ribs were being crushed from the inside. I cried out, dropping to my knees as fire tore through my muscles. My vision blurred. The world tilted.

Something inside me shifted.

Bones cracked.

I screamed-but the sound broke halfway out, twisting into something raw and animalistic. My spine arched as pressure ripped through my body, every nerve screaming at once. I felt taller. Heavier. Stronger.

Terrified.

I clawed at the ground, my nails scraping against concrete-no, digging into it. They were longer now. Sharper. I watched in horror as they split through my skin, black and curved like talons.

"No," I gasped. "This isn't real."

But it was.

My senses sharpened violently. I could hear everything-the wind brushing leaves on the other side of the street, a rat scurrying inside a dumpster, a heartbeat that wasn't mine.

I lifted my head.

At the end of the alley, something moved.

Two eyes glowed in the darkness, watching me.

A low growl rumbled from my chest, vibrating through my bones. It didn't sound human. It sounded like a warning.

The eyes didn't flinch.

Fear surged through me, but beneath it was something worse-recognition. Whatever was standing there knew what I was becoming.

The moon broke through the clouds then, flooding the alley with silver light.

That's when I saw my reflection in a shattered piece of glass on the ground.

My eyes weren't brown anymore.

They were gold.

The thing in the alley stepped closer, and somewhere deep inside me, a voice whispered:

Run... or hunt.

Before I could choose, a howl tore out of my throat-loud, powerful, and wrong.

And in the distance, the night answered back.