FSE

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formerly SoFurry search engine

--- Curse of the Werewolf

Through the underbrush he ran, desperate to reach the clearing in time. After decades of living with the curse, he had learned several tricks to maintaining his secret. One of the most important was to be naked when the change occurred. To have a safe place to stash your clothes where they would not be stolen and you could find them again. Shredded or missing clothing was never easy to explain and became costly to replace every month.

He had used a hollow tree near the clearing several times over the last year, and it had always proved to be a safe place, out of the range of prying eyes and curious ears. His friends would never understand, and would most likely respond with fear or worse, if they caught sight of him now. His own family had attacked him the first time the change took him. Unaware of who he was, they had tried to kill him, forcing him to run for his life.

As he burst into the clearing he glanced at the hair on his arms, and saw the change was already starting.

Only moments ago he had been making love to his girlfriend when he realize the time and had to make a hasty exit. He hoped she would forgive him. She had always known there was something different about him, and perhaps it was that curiosity that had kept them together over the last year. Someday he would have to trust her. To finally show her who and what he was, to prove to her and himself that he could never hurt her. He could only hope that she would understand, and not run away when she learned his secret.

The first to change was usually his eyes, often hours before the main event. Sometimes he would catch his reflection, and see the monster staring back at him, and know the time was at hand. In either form he had always been colorblind, so he never noticed a difference as his eyes shifted.

Then he felt the pain around his face. The pain always started there. The skin growing taught, feeling as though it would tear as muscles shifted and his skull began to warp. The cartilage in his ears stretching and folding as though someone were pulling and wrenching at them. The sound of the crunching inside his own head made him feel ill. Almost as sick, as the churning of his own guts as they worked to rearrange themselves.

Teeth too large for his mouth began to jut out from between his lips, as his jaw struggled to keep up with the rapid change. His teeth were one of the few positive side effects of his condition. No matter what dental work he had done, or what damage he took in the forest, each month he would be blessed again with perfect teeth.

Then the pain shifted to his arms and legs, as the long bones twisted and bent. He let out an inhuman, unwolfish moan as his knees buckled and ankles twisted into their cursed form. Fingers and toes crackled as they rearranged themselves, especially his thumbs. Always the thumbs as they made their slow migration along his wrists to their new locations.

A great spasm wracked his body as his back arched unnaturally, his spine cracking and reforming along his warped rib cage. But all of this was nothing compared to the tearing and rearranging of his nethers.

The entire transformation took less than a minute, but it always left him utterly exhausted. Panting and disoriented, he crouched on all fours in the center of the clearing, listening carefully for any sign that the ruckus had alerted anyone to his hiding place.

Eventually, he regained his feet and was able to examine himself. Seeing himself once again in his cursed form nearly made him weep. Somewhere in the distance, deep in the forest, he heard a mournful howl followed by a chorus of similar voices, all raised in moon song. The sound tore at his soul. He wanted to respond, though he dared not raise his voice now.

As he finished dressing, he heard one lonesome voice in the distance. It would be another month before his curse would be lifted again. He hoped she would wait for him.