The Cursed
"Not all those who are cursed are damned."
I forced myself to keep my mouth shut, sucking in deep breaths through my nose. The sloppy bandage I'd made for my arm was already soaked through with blood, and I knew that if I got out of the cool water, she'd be able to smell it in an instant. And so I remained crouched in the reeds, the icy water flowing past me. My fingers were shaking at this point, both from the chill night air on my wet skin and the shock beginning to take over my system.
I had no idea where she was; the only reason that I even knew she was there at all was from her occasional comments. Her voice was rough, and it had a deep, gravelly quality to it whenever she said anything.
"Trust me, it'll all hurt far less if you stop running." I heard a small rustling sound from the far side of the river; no doubt she was parting bushes to see if I hid beneath them. "I promise."
I wanted to whimper. I wanted to scream. It was driving me crazy, drawing up the strength to not just collapse into the water and let it sweep me away. That said, I hadn't gone this far in order to just die now.
I knew that the only chance I had was to run. I couldn't hide forever; eventually, she would be able to find me. Fortunately, the treetops high above were thick enough to block out any moonlight. As such, it was almost perfectly dark on the forest floor, and I was certain that that was the only reason she hadn't caught me yet. She was just as blind as I was.
I forced my mind to quiet, and then reached back to the clasps going up the back of my dress. The cool water numbed the pain from my a good deal, but I still felt close to being sick. My numb fingers fumbled clumsily at them, and I bit my lip as I made a few small splashes. Fortunately, the river was running fast enough to block out most of the noise; I could only hope that she wouldn't pick up on the rest of it.
Soon, I'd undone the dress, and I let it slip down into the water. I carefully lifted my legs out of the cumbersome thing. By this point, it was soaked, and it wouldn't provide me any warmth in the cool fall air. All it would do was weigh me down, and that was the last thing I needed.
I took a deep breath through my nose, then waited. Again, I felt that terror, that inexplicable horror at my inability to cry out. The silence was worse than anything else; it was worse than the pain when the flesh on my arm had split open, or the feeling of running blindly for my life with heavy feet slamming into the undergrowth behind me, or even the taunting sound of her voice. I knew how to react to all of those... I did not know how to react to the unnatural quiet.
"You're-"
I didn't wait to hear her words. I turned, and then ran up onto the bank. There was no way that she didn't hear me stumbling up through the reeds and tripping in the mud. I scrabbled at the earth, pulling myself up the slick earth. The mud smushed against my smock, immediately squelching through against my cool skin underneath. I grabbed at the reeds to pull myself up, and then had to give a heavy yank as my ankle sunk into the mud.
For a moment, the stuff held me fast, and I glanced blindly over my shoulder, wondering where she was. Then, abruptly, I was released from the mud's grip, and I stumbled forward, almost losing my footing. I managed to right my balance, though, and didn't pause; I just kept running on blindly through the trees.
I could hear my feet slapping along the ground, could feel weeds and small bits of undergrowth grabbing at my hose. A small branch whipped across my face, and I bit back a yelp as I kept running. Behind me, I could just make out the sounds of those heavy feet on the forest floor again, so close behind me... too close behind me!
My lungs were burning, my throat feeling raw as air rushed through it, never quite getting enough to satisfy the aching in my body. My chest heaved, my limbs swinging... it almost felt like they were just weights tied to strings and swinging, covering the distance more on momentum than any conscious effort.
Suddenly, up ahead, I saw a silvery break in the darkness. For a moment, my mind didn't even process it; it was too busy taking in everything rushing past, and the sounds of the creature approaching from behind me. So close, so close, if only I could reach...
The road. That was the road up ahead.
I felt a new rush of fire in my muscles as I looked at that belt of silver light again. If I could reach that, I could follow it, and maybe find somebody. So long as she didn't catch me before I reached...
A hand closed around my ankle.
I cried out, even as it gave a hard yank back. That foot went backwards, even as the other tried to hop back out of its half-step to try and keep me righted. I actually managed to stay out for a moment, before my torso rocked back with the motion. My ankle twisted on the moist earth, and I slipped down, my chest colliding hard against the earth.
My breath fled from my lungs and my injured arm erupted with pain as she started pulling me back harder, knowing that she had a good grip on me. I thrashed weakly on the earth, my chest and chin bumping off of roots and the occasional rock as she dragged me along. I finally managed to get half a breath into my lungs, and I gave a slightly harder thrash. I got myself around onto my back, and then drove my bare foot down at her wrist.
My foot slipped off of her, the mud deadening the blow. I actually let out my cry of terror this time, not bothering to muffle it as I drew my foot back again. I brought it down, and this time it connected squarely with her wrist.
She let out a pained yelp, and immediately released me. Before my foot even touched the ground, I was crawling away from her. My fingers scrabbled at the underbrush, grasping onto anything I could use to pull myself along faster. That silvery path was further away, now, but I could still see it. If I could just get up, I might be able to reach it.
I felt fingers brush over my foot. I cried out again, and flailed back with that foot. It connected with something warm, and I feel her falling away, gasping.
I pulled myself up to my feet again, and careened forward. I didn't know why, but for whatever reason, she didn't want me to reach that path. All I knew was that that meant I should probably get there as quickly as possible. My muscles were all aching by this point, my foot hurting from having hit her twice. The undergrowth seemed to tug harder at my clothes now, and the roots to reach up higher for my feet. I kept myself going, though; that silver line wasn't too far away, now... just a few more metres, a few more...
And then, abruptly, I stumbled out of the forest and onto the path.
I stopped, stunned by my sudden freedom from the darkness. I slowly turned around, looking at the open space around and savouring the solid, even earth beneath my feet. My breathing was slowly returning to normal, as well. A part of me just wanted to stand there, but I knew I couldn't; she would soon be onto me again.
I glanced up to the moon, wanting to get an idea of what time it was, and how long I had to wait until dawn. As my eyes fell across the orb, though, the adrenaline pumping in my veins seemed to... fade. It was still there, certainly, but it didn't seem as important anymore.
There was something about that moon, as I stared up at it. It comforted me, but at the same time it filled me with an intense... burning. The pain in my feet grew distant, and I felt my back straightening. It was almost like my body was stretching out, in some sort of an attempt to place me even closer to the moon. A quiet voice in the back of my head told me that I ought to start running again; she wouldn't be too long in following me. Another sensible part of my mind agreed, and tried to force me to turn away from the moon and start moving. My body was not listening to either of these voices, though. It simply stood there, bathing in that silver light. The only barriers between it and my skin were my muddy smock and hose.
And then, abruptly, she found me.
She slammed into me bodily from the side, wrapping her arms around my waist and dragging me to the ground. My back collided with the packed earth, and my breath flew from my lungs again.
And yet I could barely feel any of it. The sensations were there, but they were distant as well. I could still feel that moonlight all over my skin, and for whatever reason, that felt more real than the pain of being tackled. Even the terror I felt from knowing that she had caught me, that I was at her mercy... it wasn't as keen as it ought to have been.
My eyes were still fixed on the moon as she slowly crouched over me. I kept looking past her, though; past that long, stretched out face, covered in fur. Past the sharp fangs and that flat tongue, dribbling a line of saliva down onto my face, and the glowing yellow eyes just above. Past those toned, slightly bulging muscles that lay just beneath all of the bare fur. I looked past, hardly noticing as her jaws came down towards my face, and watched the moon.
Then I moved.
There was no other way to describe the feeling. I wasn't rushing, I wasn't attacking; I was simply moving my hands in a graceful, almost practiced motion, and grabbing two fistfuls of the fur on her face. Despite the pain this caused in my hurt arm, my grip managed to pull her teeth up just short of my nose. I saw that furious snarl on her face faltering for a moment, and in that moment, I knew that things had changed.
I had changed.
While she was still surprised, I brought one hand back, and then jabbed it forward, against her wet nose. She fell back, yelping in pained surprise. I didn't feel surprise at how strong my strike had just been. The arm that had struck her ached for a few moments, and I noticed the muscles beneath my skin almost rippling as they tightened.
Then, I rolled up to my feet, keeping my hands on the ground so that I was in a low crouch. She had retreated a few steps from me after the strike, and now she glared at me, those yellow eyes narrowing. Despite the aggression on her face, though, I got the sense that she was frightened. At the time, I didn't understand how I knew that; later, I would understand that it was her smell.
She lunged at me again, leading with the sharp claws tipping her clumsy fingers. I grabbed the wrist as it came in for my throat, and held it steady. In that instant, I felt an odd tremor, as if her wrist was rippling, and those ripples were somehow sliding up into my hand holding it.
My hand tightened around her wrist as she kept coming at me, slamming directly into me again. I fell back with her on top of me, but I held tight to that wrist. I could actually feel it shrinking, now, growing smaller by the instant. At the same time, my own hand and wrist felt tight, and the bite in my arm began stinging.
I ignored the pain, though, as she pressed her body down over mine, that fur rough against my mostly-bared skin. She growled down at me, and the smell of her breath washed over me. It was strong, and made me want to wretch, but I could smell on that breath the scent of her previous kill that night.
I brought my free hand up, and grabbed up beneath her muzzle. I wrenched it upwards, away from my face, and couldn't hold back a yelp of pain at the twinge that shot through the injury in my arm. That said, though, as she struggled, even though my arm was hurt, she couldn't overpower its grip.
I held her there, even as her free hand came down and slashed at my stomach. Its claws cut through the fabric of my smock and bit into the skin underneath. She let out a small whimper of confusion, though, as those claws only just broke my tougher skin, leaving only shallow scratches across my abdomen. As the fabric there fell apart, I could actually feel the skin knitting back together, and getting tougher still.
The next time her claws tried to cut into my stomach, they left even shallower cuts. I wasn't sure which was more responsible; my thicker skin or the sudden weakness of her strike.
Her entire body was rapidly losing mass, while I seemed to gain it in proportion. By now, I was slightly larger than her, whereas before she had been a good half of a foot taller, and at least my weight and half again.
And as I lay there, glaring into her frightened yellow eyes, I realized something. I wasn't angry about her attacking me. I wasn't afraid of her monstrous form. I wasn't confused about how I had ended up here, or what was happening.
I was enraged that she lay between myself and the full moon.
I gave a loud growl, the sound carrying a timbre that my voice never had. I gave a hard shove at her muzzle and hand, and then rolled her off of me. I rolled with her, though, and then suddenly I was leaning over her, holding her down.
With the moon shining directly on me, now, I felt everything speeding up. An itch was spreading all across my body, and my clothes were growing extremely tight. Coarse, thick fur rushed out all across me, even as her fur grew shorter. Soon enough, her pelt was showing bare spots where her pearly white skin shone through.
She began writhing, shaking in terror and staring up at me. For some reason, I found the sight pleasant. I wanted her to squirm. I wanted her to fear me. I wanted her to know that she was right to fear me.
Abruptly, my smock and my hose both began splitting at the seams. As the restricting clothing burst from my body, it was as though the final floodgate had been let loose. My spine flowed like water, stretching out as a stream of bone, muscle, skin and fur: a thick tail. As my hand tightened on her wrist again, she cried out in pain, and I realized that my claws had pricked her skin.
Below me, there was now a normal, human woman; almost a girl, really. She couldn't have been much older than twenty. Her body was bared, and the only thing that showed the beast she had once been was her face. It was still stretched out into a long muzzle, with a pair of yellow eyes sitting just above it.
Brutally, I dragged her face down, and leaned down, growling with my nose not an inch from hers. Her yellow eyes widened, and I glared into them. I could see my own eyes reflected in hers: blue inside of yellow. They began shifting.
Green inside of green.
Yellow inside of tearful blue.
I felt her body shivering beneath mine, sweat breaking out all across her skin as, finally, her muzzle began sinking down into her face. My face pushed out in time, so that the little distance between our noses remained constant. I growled occasionally as the bones in my face cracked and contorted uncomfortably, and each time she recoiled and cried out in terror.
Finally, it ended. Beneath me, there was nothing but a terrified, whimpering human woman. The remains of my clothes lay in shreds around me, but I no longer felt I needed them. I felt quite comfortable, bared beneath the energizing silver light of the moon. I felt whole; complete. Powerful.
There was only one thing missing.
I leaned down to her again, and she cried out as I hissed to her.
"You said that not all who are cursed are damned. The curse couldn't be the changing... it is too wonderful a feeling. So, the curse must be this hunger..."
Her eyes widened in terror, and she strained against me, thrashing to try and free herself. I simply held her where she was, and went on.
"Well, if that's the case... then feeding the hunger must be quite the wonderful sensation..."
I opened my muzzle wide, flashing pearly white jaws for the first time. She screamed, and I lunged down.