Four days later Em was finally allowed to leave. She had gotten another shot for preventing rabies, apparently it had to be done in order it to be effective, and she'd have to get at least four more unless they found the wolf. That is, the police had also visited, asking about the wolf. They were going to find it and either take it far away from people or kill it. If they found the wolf, it could be tested for rabies and one major concern could be wiped away.

The whole incident had been in the newspaper too: “Wolf attack – teenage girl bitten”. Some of Em's friends had visited the hospital after reading it. They had all been very worried but Em had assured that she was fine.

The bandages had been removed from her arm as well. The scar was ugly. There was a scar from the surgery and a scar from the bite. A long cut of a knife in the middle and marks from the wolf's teeth on both sides of the arm. Em hated looking at it.

But to everyone's surprise her hand was working as well as it could in that situation. It hurt a lot most of the time but there were no signs of nerve damage; no numbness, burning or loss of feeling. She could grab things pretty well too and the physiotherapy made it better every time. The doctors even said that it seemed like she was healing faster than a person would normally in a similar situation. 'Young body can be wonderful,' they said. Em didn't care if it was normal healing or not, she just wanted to get out of that dumb room with the bright light, away from the smell of the hospital, the tests and the fear that after all this she could still die in a painful way.

But now she was home. Poppy had almost tackled her at the front door. Em had nearly cried seeing her silly little spaniel again. Poppy had saved her by bringing her parents to the right spot. Mom had told that after Em hadn't come home after an hour they became very worried and started looking for her. Then Poppy had appeared from the forest barking like crazy and then running back. Em hugged the dog very tightly.

“You're a best dog ever, just so you know.”

For a few days everything was great. The ache from the arm started slowly going away and it almost felt like nothing had ever happened. The weird feeling Em had had at the hospital however, didn't disappear anywhere. On the contrary, things started to change, slowly, making her question was it really just her imagination.

It started with the dreams. First Em didn't think much of it, just considered it as a result of the attack, but it started to happen almost every night, all her dreams somehow ended the same way. She dreamt of wolves, well actually of that one wolf specifically. The grey wolf with yellow eyes appeared in her dreams often. Usually it just stood in silence between the trees watching Em. Sometimes it came closer and brushed itself against her leg. Sometimes it stood still and then turned to leave, looking at Em as if it wanted her to come with her. Never did it attack or hurt her. But never did Em go with it either.

When Em told about her dreams to her mother after the first three or four days, she tried to calm her daughter saying that it was just her mind trying to process all that had happened. What else would be the reason? Em wasn't assured but didn't want to bring the topic up again. Mom would just get too worried for what was most likely nothing serious. But Em found herself more and more often looking at the forest, even late at night, as if she was waiting for the wolf to appear. There was never anything, of course.

This night was no different and when she could hear her parents closing their bedroom door Em jumped down from the window bench and went to bed angry at herself for thinking about such things. She should just be happy that the wolf was gone. It better stay away too.

That night she dreamed of the wolf again. It was pacing around in the forest looking for something. It sniffed the ground and then raised its head sniffing the air, then heading to another direction to sniff the ground again. Em recognized the place as the same where she had seen the wolf with Poppy.

“Mom was right. This is clearly some kind of coping mechanism,” the dream Em thought. She looked at the wolf pacing around and got a weird feeling that if she walked away now, everything would be back to normal. She would get over the attack and all would be fine. She turned around to leave but stepped on a small branch that cracked under her weight. Em froze on the spot. Everything had gone quiet. There was no wind, no birds and no sound of the wolf walking around anymore. Slowly Em turned around, heart beating wildly in her chest.

The wolf was right behind her and the surprise made her jump, stumble on her legs and fall down. She found herself sitting on the ground, staring at the wolf and her heart trying to escape through the chest. The wild yellow eyes were piercing and felt like they'd drill down to her soul.

Em knew she shouldn't do it. A voice in her head was screaming at her when she slowly raised her hand. The wolf didn't even take its eyes off of Em's and it didn't even flinch when she gently brushed her fingers against the wolf's grey coat. It felt cool and silky to touch and Em let her hand sink to the long neck fur. The wild beating of her heart slowly calmed down. When she touched the wolf's face with her other hand, and the wolf closed its eyes and pressed its head against her touch, Em knew she had done something she shouldn't have. But she had no regrets. She felt like she had found peace.

During the month several other worrisome things started to happen. The dreams occurred less but insomnia seemed to try take their place. It was hard to sleep if the sky was clear and the moon was in the sky. Sometimes Em sat on the window bench for hours, just looking at the pale moon that slowly grew from the sickle to a half moon, getting closer and closer to a full moon.

Em also seemed to have developed some kind of allergy to jewelry. Wearing earrings and necklaces made her skin red and itchy. Mom became very worried and Em tried her best to seem good and there was nothing wrong but it was hard, especially after one family dinner, when her hands turned bright red, felt like they were on fire and the skin started to flake off. Doctor diagnosed it as a weird, suddenly emerged silver allergy, which also explained why Em couldn't wear her earrings anymore, and made mom cry.

“Why is this happening?” she sobbed. “Haven't you gone through enough already?”

“This is very strange indeed,” the doctor said, pushing up his glasses. “We need to run some tests on you to determine what is causing this.”

“Yes, please do whatever it takes,” mom said and Em nodded silently looking at her hands that were now covered in some kind of healing cream and bandages. She was tired of this. She just wanted things to be fine again. No more trouble sleeping, no more trouble eating, no more aches that get worse and worse as the month passes.

Em had kept the pains a secret since she still had some pain killers left from after the surgery. Her muscles and even her bones ached, not badly but it was that dull pain that kept nagging in the background, not too sharp to cause any problems but bad enough to make everything extremely crappy.

Next week she was sick again. Everything hurt. Her stomach was cramping and Em felt like her every bone was on fire, even though she didn't even know what burning bones would feel like. It was probably something like this. Mom was basically freaking out when Em could barely get out of bed one morning. And to be fair Em started to be worried too. This wasn't normal anymore. She couldn't help but think that maybe it was the rabies after all. Maybe despite all the preventing shots she had taken, she still had got it and now she was gonna die a painful death. Mom took her to the hospital again. They did a bunch of tests but there was no explanation to anything and she was just given more pain medication. It didn't help.

Em sat on the window bench wrapped in a blanket and rested her burning hot forehead on the cool window. She had a fever now and it felt terrible. She also felt bad for mom who was so worried. She could hear mom and dad talking downstairs, something about specialists and private doctors. Dad was worried too but he was a lot calmer about everything than mom. But Em knew that dad stood at the door, thinking that Em was sleeping when she actually wasn't, looking worried and sighing.

The moon shone to the room and threw long shadows on the walls. Tomorrow would be full moon. It felt almost unreal how fast time had gone. Em looked at her arm. The scar from the surgery had already started to fade but the bite mark remained persistently as it had been since the first day. Luckily it was easy to cover with clothes.

Em looked into the forest. She hadn't dreamed of the wolf in a few days. It felt almost weird. Maybe it was because of the medication. Sometimes Em felt like she was in a fog all day, not really knowing what was going on. Her days had been mostly sleeping and hoping the pain would go away. It was starting to take its toll. She hoped it'd all end soon.

Em had imagined that the pain from the past week was the worst she could ever experience. She had been wrong. The next day was pure hell. Her body hurt more than she could ever have imagined was possible and even breathing was painful and difficult. She had taken so many painkillers that she didn't dare to take more. But none of them had any effect. She was just laying in her bed, hoping that the pain would go away. She wanted to cry but sobbing hurt even more than normal breathing. Poppy had huddled next to her a let out a quiet whimper. Em scratched her behind the ear and fell to a restless sleep.

Em woke up few hours later to a burning feeling in her chest. She sat up so quickly that Poppy, who had been resting her head on Em's stomach, jumped off the bed, alarmed. Em was gasping for breath and her gaze bounced around the room. She had to get out. She needed air. The air in the room felt stuffy even though the window had been slightly open all day. She stumbled down the stairs and to the door despite the pain that felt like her body was being torn apart. Every step made the pain worse and Em wanted to scream. She opened the door and almost flew outside without a jacket or even shoes. Poppy sat down on the doorstep as her owner continued to stumble towards the forest on the wet grass.

Em had gotten to the forest and was now in the midst of the undergrowth breathing heavily. There were drops of sweat on her forehead and her hands were shaking. The sky was covered in clouds and it was late and cold enough for breath to fog up, despite it being a summer night. However, Em didn't feel cold. She was burning up.

A gentle breeze found its way to the forest and the clouds also lifted from the sky, revealing the bright silvery moon. It cast long shadows to the forest. Em looked at the sky and a shock passed through her whole body. She couldn't hold herself up anymore and just fell to the ground. The pain was now so severe that she screamed. Her body twisted and a loud crack made Em scream even more. Her bones cracked, snapped and twisted into a new form. The scream turned into a piercing howl that soon subsided into a quiet whimper.