“T-Travis,” I heard myself finally say something through heavy aggressive breaths. I was confused as to why they weren’t scared of me while I was completely terrified of what was going down. I felt like I had very little to no control over myself, so all I could do was talk.

My grasp loosened slightly, and Travis somehow managed to slip their arm out entirely and they pressed their palm against my forehead. Something like a pulse made its way through my body as our skin touched, and my body went limp for a few long seconds.

What the actual hell was that? I watched Travis as they pushed me off of them and stood up, looking down at me.

“I was wondering where you were,” Travis told me, kneeling beside me placing a hand on my shoulder. “You already know my name, but what I want you to know is that my roommate and I want to help get you out of here. We’ve dealt with others just like you, so just trust me on this, okay?”

You know how I said I was desperate to find someone to help me earlier? Well, I still was, despite what had just happened.

I hadn’t noticed that as Travis talked to me while I was on the floor that I was calming down. The hunger was still there, but as I was calming down it didn’t feel as intense as it had when it came. Travis helped me up to my feet, struggling considering my size compared to theirs. They had to have been about a foot or more shorter than me.

Then another pulse made its way through me, and I was suddenly able to stand on my own. I felt so calm, like all of my worries had just gone away in an instant, but what I couldn’t understand was that they didn’t. I was still terrified and confused, and my mind was racing with millions of questions. But this calmness was so strong that it was just holding all of those feelings back, or it was covering them up so I wouldn’t feel that way.

It’s so hard to explain that as my brain was trying to process what was going on, Travis had taken my hand and ran with me down several halls to an emergency exit. We ran down several flights of stairs—which was as exhausting as it sounds—and once we reached the end we were suddenly outside.

Once I came back to my full senses, I looked around at the lot around us. It was empty for the most part, with some ambulance trucks parked close by the entrance, and a large truck parked right in front of us. I could make out an older person in the driver’s seat with dark teal hair, and they waved us over. Travis and I ran to the truck, and all I could smell was a weird dog smell when I opened the door.

It was so strong that it was almost toxic. But I wasn’t going to complain about how bad the truck smelled, so I sat in the back seat while Travis sat in the passenger’s seat, and the driver—who I figured was the roommate Travis mentioned—started driving away from the hospital as quickly as he could. Travis greeted the driver and looked back at me.

“Constantine, this is Monroe,” they told me. “He’s my roommate.”

And that’s one extra point for Constantine, for guessing the obvious correctly.

Monroe glanced up at me from the rear-view mirror. “Hey Connie,” he said to me. “Sorry about the smell, if that’s what that face is for.”

I was completely embarrassed. “I’m sorry,” I told him, completely disregarding the fact he just called me Connie. “I didn’t mean to—”

“Don’t worry about it, dude.” Monroe moved his eyes back onto the road. “You’re not the first to complain. Being a werewolf has its pros and cons. This is just one of those cons.”

It took me a second to process what he just said. “A… werewolf?”

I’ve always heard of them from books and movies—and from my dad, because he’s such a nerd when it came to anything remotely supernatural—but I always believed that they were a myth.

“Well, yeah,” I heard Monroe say. “You know what this is, don’t ya?”

I nodded. “I-I know,” I said quickly. “I just—wait, I—”

Who the hell are these people? I thought, watching as they talked about something I wasn’t even paying attention to. Why do they want to help me? What do they want to help me with? Where are they even taking me? Are werewolves actually real? My mind was racing with a million thoughts going off at once, and I couldn’t fully grasp what was even going on during the drive.

Did I somehow suddenly die and reawaken into another world like Earth where werewolves existed? Or is this like a very vivid dream after all?

“Constantine?” I heard Travis say, snapping out of my thoughts. They had this look of concern on their face. “Hey, Constantine.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “What were you saying?”

“Trav asked if you got any questions for us,” Monroe told me. “Ask away. We’re all ears here.”

I had no idea where to start. “A-are you… are you really a werewolf?” I didn't think at first before I said this, but the reaction I got from Monroe told me that I wasn't wrong to ask it.

“Hell yeah, man.” Monroe told me. “The only one in the city currently. There used to be lots. Now it’s just me. It ain’t all that bad though.”

The second thing I wanted to ask was whether Travis was a werewolf too, but that just answered my question for me.

“So… Travis isn’t one?”

“Nah, they’re human.” I watched Monroe’s gaze to Travis’s direction. “Or at least, they’re human enough.”

I had no idea what that meant.

“I come from a family of witches,” Travis said. “We are what you would call seers, or psychics, in other terms. I practice much more diverse magic, though.”

“I-I see.” My brain tried to process what Travis just said to me. It didn’t really work, so I let Travis continue talking in hope that I can comprehend all of this.

“I’d love to talk more about it later,” Travis said. I watched them as they peered out the windshield before them as Monroe drove up to an unfamiliar parking lot. “Monroe has to drop us off, cause he’s got work in a few minutes.”

I had no idea where we were going, until I actually looked out the window. The first thing I saw was an alley, blocked off with a large amount of yellow tape labelled with all caps, “CRIME SCENE; DO NOT ENTER.”

That was when I realized where we were. I looked away, feeling a little less calm.

The car had stopped moving, and I watched Travis quickly jump out of the truck and run around to Monroe’s side. They were talking about something that I didn’t pay much attention to, something about Monroe’s work schedule I think. The image of the caution tape left an unsettling feeling in the pit of my stomach.

But I mustered up whatever strength I could before I opened the door and exited from the truck.