Lycanthropy Awareness

Midnight on the mountain is dark and breezy. Fluttering hems of clouds wisp across the moon like rotting lace. From the west, a lone howl lifts up into the sky, echoing across the hills. Your skin is cold, a sharp contrast to the warm evening. An itch spreads under your flesh. Your belly cramps and you fall to your knees, the howl reverberating against your eardrums even though it's faded from the air. Your eyes bulge in their sockets as you feel your body seize.

Your nostrils flare as their diameter suddenly expands. You feel your scalp prickle and begin to bleed as chunks of hair shove through your skin. You raise your hands, hold them in front of your contorted face. They're twisted and locked into grotesque shapes. White knuckles, straining digits, fingernails rippling and popping as they thicken and extend into points. Your ears elongate, every sound intensifying until even the wind in the grass is a thunderous chorus, washing over your senses in an unrelenting flood.

Minute ripping noises reach your ears, sliding in under the dissipating howl's echo. Your shirt stretches and tears into long strips as your torso elongates and widens. You feel ribs rearrange, crackling under the blunt shelves of your expanding muscles. Your bones pull and lengthen, groaning like weathered planks of wood.

You rear your head back, eyes streaming as they dilate and darken. Moonlight washes over your retinas and just for a second you see veins in your eyes, backlit by the hateful blue kiss of Luna. A gathering roar fills your throat. Your larynx expands, straining with the force of your answering howl. The sound pushes past your quivering, thickening lips just as the merciful curtain of animalistic thought drops over your rational mind.

The last thing you clearly process is the sensation of cool dew on your forelegs as you lope easily down the mountain, tatters of clothing hanging like streamers from your haunches and shoulders.

There's a werewolf in each of us - the stranger with the face we don't recognize. We pull it out for examination every once in a while, and some people don't like what they see, don't appreciate what's revealed. Your inner beast only cares for its own needs and desires. Its selfishness appalls us and fascinates us at the same time. We keep it at arm's length, wondering if we should give in to its alluring song... Come with me, it says, Come with me, and I'll show you what life really is.

Are you listening?