Em woke up to very loud birdsong. The sun was already up and grass was tickling her skin. Em yawned and still half asleep scratched her leg that had some mosquito bites on it. Slowly, as she woke up better, she became more and more aware of the fact that the gentle breeze that also rustled the tree branches, felt pretty chilly, especially in, uh, places where it really shouldn't feel like that. Em quickly sat up driven by this very uncomfortable idea that had formed in her head, and which was very soon confirmed to be true with a quick glance to her body. She was stark naked. And in the middle of a forest too, as another glance revealed. Em stumbled while trying to get up and trying to shake and slap off all trash and insects that had been climbing on her while she was sleeping. Her light brown hair was a mess and she had scratches on her skin.

She stopped suddenly when she saw a body few meters away. Sun shined through the leaves on the pale skin and some kind of fuzz had got stuck in the gray, slightly wavy hair. Em held her breath contemplating whether she should go closer or not. What if the guy was dead? Not much she could do if that was the case but shouldn't she check at least? Carefully she sneaked closer but stopped, when the body groaned and the hand moved to scratch the cheek.

A quiet and scared “Eep” escaped from Em's mouth when she quickly jumped behind the nearest tree. It was quite a slim tree actually, not very good for hiding since it didn't cover her completely, but that was something she didn't think about while just trying to stay out of this possible creepers sight.

Her heart was beating in her chest as she was again suddenly very conscious about being naked. More sounds came from the direction of the body; quiet mumbling and rustling as the body moved. Em peeked from behind the tree but moved quickly right back. The body, or a person rather, had got up and was now leaning against a tree.

Em tried to think. What should she do now? She had no idea where she was or who that guy was. She really needed to get out of here but how?

“Hey, all you alright?”

The question made Em jump and turn around. She noticed she was facing the young man that had just been standing at least three meters away and had somehow crossed that distance without making any noise. And now he stood there, leaning slightly to the tree and looking worried.

Em's first reaction was to slap his face.

“What did you do to me?” she shouted and then quickly tried to cover herself with her hands. “Where the hell are we? And why are we naked?”

Her memory of the night was very foggy. Em remembered being very sick and going outside but after that everything was just haze. Had she been kidnapped by this guy? Em started to feel sick when she thought what being naked could imply.

“You don't remember?” the guy asked while rubbing his cheek with his hand. Em shook her head and tried her best to keep her eyes on the guy's face. He didn't really try to cover anything. Em felt herself blush a little and she turned her eyes away.

“I guess it's pretty normal in your situation,” the guy said but didn't really explain what he meant by that.

Em shifted her gaze back to the guy making sure not to look anywhere below his chest. This was so absurd.

From up close, the guy's skin was even paler than what it had looked like before. He had muddy brown eyes that were almost covered by his grey hair. And dark shadows under his eyes. He also had cuts and scars all over his body. Em couldn't help but wonder where they all had came from.

“My name's Remy,” the guy said suddenly and stretched out his hand for a handshake.

“You can call me Em, “ Em said but didn't take the hand. Remy seemed to quickly understand why and with an awkward smile let his arm fall to his side. Em hoped she had something to cover herself with.

Before Remy could say anything, Em opened her mouth: “But yeah, where are we? I need to get back home.”

Her parents must be worried sick, their daughter disappearing in the middle of the night.

Remy was silent for a moment, looking very serious.

“I'm sorry but I don't think it's a good idea,” he said then.

“What are you talking about?” Em replied, almost angrily. What did he mean it wasn't a good idea? What kind of nonsense was that? How could it not be a good idea to go home after disappearing without any explanation and being away from home for whole night?

“You really don't remember?” he asked. Em shook her head again, now worried. What was going on?

“Gods, this is gonna be hard to explain,” he sighed. “Do you remember the wolf that bit you last month?”

“Of course. Why would I forget that?” Em said. “Wait...How did you...?”

Remy took a deep breath.

“You've probably heard of werewolves, right? Okay good, I'm one and I bit you so now you're a werewolf too. And you can't go home because it's dangerous. Last night you almost attacked people and if I hadn't come there at the right time and dragged you away, I don't know what could've happened. I'm sorry.”

Em didn't know what to say. She stared at Remy and seemed to have lost all ability to talk. Remy claimed to be a some kind of animal monster that appear only in fairy tales and that she was one too. That sounded ridiculous. This guy must be a psychopath or something. Werewolves? Really?

“That can't be true,” she said. “Why should I believe you? Maybe you're just trying to kidnap me to do who knows what to me.”

Remy sighed and ruffled his hair a bit.

“I guess I have to show you so you'll believe,” he sighed. “I just hate doing it right after full moon. It sucks,” he then mumbled. “Stay there and look closely, okay?” he said and backed off a few meters. He crouched and for a moment nothing happened. Then his hair started to grow longer and more gray hair appeared in other places. The whole body twisted and morphed into a new shape. Em stared her eyes wide and hands covering her mouth so that she wouldn't shout.

Soon on the spot where Remy had been was a wolf with grey fur and yellow eyes. The wolf walked to Em and sat down in front of her.

“No. Nononnono, it's not possible,” Em muttered while staring at the wolf, staring at Remy. It was definitely the same wolf that had bitten her, and the one from her dreams. Was it true then? Was she a wolf too? Em tried her best to grasp some strings of memories from the night but she got nothing. It was just all foggy. She fell to her knees hands shaking.

“No, nonono, you're lying. This is a joke. I must be dreaming,” she continued to mutter, pinching herself on the arm. It hurt but nothing else happened. Remy turned back to human and carefully touched Em's shoulder.

“Did I really try to attack someone?” she asked then, tears in the corner of her eyes.

Remy didn't say anything but lowered his eyes to the ground.

Em started sobbing quietly. She was a terrible person. A monster, quite literally too. What would she do now? Where could she go? She couldn't risk going back and doing something again.

“Hey, it's alright,” Remy said patting her shoulder, “we can figure this out. You can come with me. I have a place. It's not fancy or anything but it's a roof on top of your head at least.”

“Why do you even care?” Em asked wiping away the tears.

“Well, this is kinda my fault, isn't it?” Remy said laughing a bit awkwardly. “And, uh, we usually try to take care of the ones we bite. I'm not gonna lie, this is not gonna be easy for you. But being a new wolf all alone is even worse.”

Em sat silently on the ground thinking her options which she didn't really have. She could of course go back home, or try to, if she could find her way, try to survive with this crazy wolf thing and possibly hurt someone, even her parents or friends next time. Or she could go with Remy who at least knew what was going on and could help her.

“Do you have any spare clothes in there?” she asked. Remy smiled a bit.

“Of course. I don't always run around exposing myself like this.” Em couldn't help but smile a little.

“Lead the way then.”

Remy started walking without really seeming to need to look for any signs of the direction. Em walked behind him trying to explain everything to herself. It felt so unreal. Why had she never heard of werewolves apart from books and movies? Maybe she was actually drugged and this was some kind of hallucination? There weren't any other weird things though. No rainbow colours, weird shapes or talking birds. Maybe something had happened to her when she went out and now she was in a coma and this was all just some weird coma dream. Sounded pretty plausible. It was an option to keep in mind.

A few times Remy glanced at Em's direction. Maybe this wasn't a good idea at all, he couldn't help but think. Would he really be able to help another wolf when he hardly survived alone? But he couldn't leave her alone either, that could be even more dangerous. If she told someone or accidentally hurt someone, it would be very bad.

“Hey, where are we by the way?” Em's question woke Remy from his thoughts and he looked around. They were still in the forest so maybe it had been more of a general question.

“We're about 15 kilometres away from your house,” he replied. “And few more kilometres until we arrive at 'my place'.”

“How did we get so far?” Em asked. The idea of them being so far away from home was unsettling. She didn't even know in which direction they were heading. There were few bigger cities around her home town that could now be nearbly, but they could also be heading to a completely opposite direction from them.

“Wolves travel fast,” Remy replied, “and we're generally even stronger and faster than normal wolves. We ran a lot too. It did take us maybe four hours to get here.”

Em was silent for a while until she talked again: “If we're so far away, how did you get to where I live? And why?”

“The first time was an accident. I was in your town because of...reasons and decided I'd change there and go back during the night, like last night. Well, I bumped into you, or your dog rather, and you know how it went then.” He paused for a few seconds to slap a mosquito from his shoulder. “And last night I came there because I knew it'd be your first night. I wanted to be there to help you.”

“Okay...How do you remember so much about what happened? My mind's just haze,” Em asked then. She had so many questions. Luckily it seemed that Remy was willing to answer them.

“Basically it's just practice and experience,” he said. “You'll be able to remember things better when you get used to your wolf. Sometimes even control it during full moon but it's pretty rare. That's usually what born werewolves can do, at least to a greater extent.”

“Born werewolves?” This discussion raised even more questions that it answered.

“Yeah, those who are born to werewolf parents. It's really rare but not impossible. They usually 'are one' with their wolf side since they've lived with it their whole lives. They might be able to turn into wolves when they want to and control their wolf better than what normal, turned werewolf could. We usually cannot do much and are lead by instinct but there's still hints of the human intelligence left even when we're wolves,” Remy explained.

“I see,” Em said. This was very confusing. “One more question,” she said then. It probably wouldn't be the last one though. There was so much she wanted to know.

“Ask as many questions as you like,” Remy said, with a hint of a smile in his voice.

“Well, I just have this one for now. So, uhh, for a while, I saw dreams...of you. As a wolf. Is...is that normal?” It was a pretty embarrassing thing to tell. Hopefully Remy wouldn't think she was weird.

“Yeah, it's pretty normal, don't worry,” Remy said. “I can't really explain it but there's a bond between the biter and the bitten. The dreams are usually a sign of that. And I've been told that they also have something to do with accepting your wolf side. I'm guessing you did accept it.” Remy glanced at Em who quickly covered herself with her hands again.

“I guess I did,” she said. If petting a dream wolf meant that she had accepted it. But it had been Remy she had been petting, not her wolf. Was there some difference or no? It was too awkward to ask about though. Maybe it was just better to stay quiet about it. “What would've happened if I hadn't accepted? Would it have stopped me turning into a wolf?”

“No, it wouldn't have,” Remy said. “It just makes things a whole lot easier. Like, imagine doing teamwork instead of fighting for who is the boss. Kinda like that.”

“Okay.” Em didn't really know what else to say. Everything was so weird. It still felt like she was in a dream waiting for to wake up.

After that a silence fell over the two and they continued their walk. Em was quietly hoping they'd arrive soon. Her feet hurt. She had stepped on pine cones and rocks and tree branches so many times she had lost count. She was also still a bit sore from the past few days of hurting and all this walking wasn't something she was used to. And most of all she was tired of being naked. Although she had kind of got used to it but every time Remy turned his head, even if to look at to somewhere else than to at Em, she became extremely conscious about not having clothes. Remy seemed to be very used to it, didn't care at all.

“Okay, we're here.”