Tuesday, February 10th.

Waxing gibbous. One day before the full moon.

It’s the day after “the incident” and Max and Narhi have only spoken in text. Max is sitting up in bed with a fever, and Keelie tells him not to go to school. Max is consumed with thoughts of Narhi on top of him in his bedroom with sparkling eyes and sharp fangs and a girl with a melting face in the middle of the woods.

He’s in and out of consciousness all day. It’s difficult to say but he thinks there might’ve been a raven-haired woman at his bedside a few times during the day.

When he wakes up, Max is in a room he doesn’t recognize. It’s a boy’s room, with clothes tossed carelessly on the carpet. There's a single, white, trumpet-shaped flower in a vase on the windowsill that Max remembers as Datura.

He’s sitting on a strangely familiar bed. Waiting. Waiting for whom?

“Hey.” Narhi walks through the door. “Sorry. I didn’t think that was going to take so long.” He sounds tired and it feels really late somehow. Max is suddenly tired, too.

“It’s okay…” He means it. But he doesn’t know why.

“Look, Max.” Narhi’s eyes are sparkling and Max can’t look away. “Maybe this is a bad idea.” Now Narhi’s right in front of him, knees pressing into the bed between Max’s legs. His voice is low and raspy and Max almost doesn’t catch what he says. “But it’s so hard to have self-control when you look at me like that.”

Suddenly, Narhi’s lips are on Max’s lips and Max’s hand is gripping tight to Narhi’s jacket sleeve, his other hand keeping him upright. Neither pulls away. It’s just natural like they’ve always done this.

Wait.

Wait a minute.

Something’s not right.

“How did I get here?” Max pulls away just enough to whisper. “How did I get here?” The hair on Max’s neck is standing up and Narhi is looking at him, but he’s just looking right through him. His leather jacket is now a paramedic uniform and there’s a flashlight in Max’s eyes.

“Narhi?!” He calls out, frantically, but his eyes are still trying to adjust. Then there’s no more comforting arm around him.

Everything is white and Max is sitting on a plain bed in an empty room. He starts to turn but a voice stops him.

“Don’t look at it, Max.” It’s Narhi’s voice. He’s sitting at the end of Max’s bed and Max tries to reach out to him but he’s stuck in place, held hostage by wires and an IV drip.

“Narhi…” The desperate sadness in his voice surprises himself. “What’s going on?”

“I told them not to put a mirror in here.” Narhi sounds upset. It’s like he can’t hear Max’s voice at all.

“W-why…?” Max realizes where he is. But Narhi shouldn’t be here. “What… what happened to my face?” He can’t stop the words, so familiar, like copper in his mouth. He can’t stop his movements, but he doesn’t want to look. He knows what he’s about to see and he fights the predetermined movements fruitlessly.

He turns around. Quickly. The wires pull, but he doesn’t care.

There’s a mirror in a white room.

There’s a boy stitched together like a monster.

Max screams.

And he screams.

And he screams until it swallows him whole.

The light comes on and Keelie rushes to a sobbing mess of a boy.

“It’s okay, Max! It was just a nightmare!” She rocks him and he grips her so tightly that it hurts a bit. His screaming fades to quiet sobs. “It’s alright, Max. Whatever it was, it’s gone now.”

“It... never goes away.” He whispers so lightly through his tears that she doesn’t catch it. But it doesn’t matter, because he says it a few more times before he passes out again.

“It’s a full moon tomorrow night.” She mulls to herself in the finally quiet room. “I wonder how Usko is holding up.”

Wednesday, February 11th.

Day of the Full Moon.

Tuesday is a blur, but Max feels up for school today. That is until he checks his phone.

Narhi:

not going to school 4 obv reasons

Narhi:

sorry i ghosted u yestrday. alot on my mind

Narhi:

Ill see you on friday

But Max doesn’t know what he means. His head is still foggy and even if it wasn’t, he’s never kept track of the moon. There's a whirring sound in his ears but he shakes it away. 

There’s a knock on the door and Keelie peeks in looking like a real Sheriff. She tells him he should take it easy today and Max doesn’t argue. He just nods as she tells him where to find his breakfast when he’s ready. She mentions Russell’s mom checking on him while Keelie’s at work, but Max isn’t really listening. He can’t stop thinking about Narhi, but he feels like he can’t respond to his text. How could he possibly make things about him while Narhi is obviously dealing with stuff he can’t talk with Max about. He wouldn’t want to hear about all Max’s weird nightmares or whatever other useless stuff is bothering him right now.

Keelie doesn’t notice him downward spiraling because he just looks like he’s going to fall back asleep, now. He’s glad she doesn’t stay. He’s starting to feel like being alone. But even after Keelie leaves Max feels like someone else is there in the room. The whirring in his ears is whispering something he can't understand. He feels like something bad is going to happen but he tells himself it's the anxiety. After all, there's no way he could know. 

Wednesday, February 11th.

6:15 PM. The evening of the Full Moon.

Narhi is sweating. The sun is finally down and he’s been hiking up this stupid mountain trail all day. A fluffy black tail is sticking out from the back of his hoodie and he is definitely self-conscious about it.

“Get ahold of yourself, Usko.” A patient voice breaks through the cold mountain air. “You have a tail.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” An impatient voice strikes back. The older man chuckles softly. “Uncle Arto… Did we really need to come all the way up here?”

“There are many reasons why we’re up here. But the short answer is yes.”

Narhi looks up at the moon blending in with the sky as the sun goes down. He hates how out of control he feels while he’s trying to keep it together. It’s not even completely out yet.

“I’m not going to wolf out and kill everyone.”

“It’s good to be safe. You’ve been all over the place with your emotions lately. And you still can’t control your aura.” Arto’s not looking at Narhi. He’s not looking at anything. His eyes are like dull ice as he rummages through his bag.

They’re standing in a small camping ground, up high in the mountains above Rowanwood and the air is cold in Narhi’s lungs. He’s a little tired, but there’s still heat pumping through his veins. It’s hot and uncomfortable and, if he’s being honest, it’s kind of painful.

“Is that why we’re up here? Because you’re worried I can’t control myself?” He sounds kind of mad.

“Usko.” Arto finally looks toward him. A blind stare that Narhi hates. Arto can’t see his face, but Narhi knows that he can see so much more than that. “It’s important that you don’t take things like that to heart.”

“Well, maybe don’t say things like that in the first place and I won’t.” He can hear how bratty he sounds but he can’t help himself and Arto just rolls his eyes. “I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to wear me out so I’m not so difficult when I shift. Well, it’s not working. I’m still amped up.”

“Stop acting like a child. I didn’t take you out here for the exercise. I needed you to be away from town because that’s where he is, right?” Arto pauses to feel out the silence and Narhi is frozen in place. Arto laughs. “Oh, come on. You think that just because I can’t see, I can’t tell that you imprinted? It affects your entire aura, pup.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?!”

Arto goes back to rummaging. “I thought I’d wait until you wanted to talk about it.”

“Then why did you bring it up now?!!”

“Because I didn’t like your attitude. So I figured I’d just tell the truth.” His voice is infuriatingly calm and Narhi is dying of embarrassment. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Hell no!” Narhi answers immediately.

Arto finally pulls out two protein bars and tosses one at Narhi who is too flustered to catch it gracefully, but, you know, at least he catches it. Arto is already ignoring him again.

“I was startinf to get hungry.” He says between bites. “It’s going to be an annoying night of puppy-sitting so I need to keep my strength up.”

Narhi just audibly groans and walks off, but not before he drops his bag on the ground. He thinks about tossing the protein bar back at Arto’s head, but he’s a little hungry, too, so he thinks better of that.

“You should shift now, Usko!” He calls out to Narhi’s fleeting figure. “Before the sun gets too low. You’ll have more control if you shift on your own!”

Narhi scoffs and walks away. He’s already feeling the urge to run back toward town, but he knows it’s a bad idea. This isn’t the first full moon he’s had since he imprinted. But he didn’t know Max very well the first time. Now, after spending time with him, things are different. They’re more substantial. And truth be told, Narhi doesn’t want to admit the incredibly embarrassing reality that his body is telling him to just run back to town and make his move on Max tonight.

But that’s wrong. They’re not together. They’re just friends.

He’s so frustrated.

Why is he always so frustrated?

Narhi grabs onto the end of his tail. He has to push down his self-loathing.

Why is he like this? Just letting himself get upset about every little thing. He thought he was passed all of the mood swings and outbursts, but when Max isn’t around he just wants to break everything he gets his hands on. It’s like his whole body is shaking and the only way to stop it is to lash out in chaotic destruction.

“I don’t want to be like this.” He whispers to himself. “I can’t be a beast. I’m a human, too. Like Mom.”

He looks up at the moon in an orange sky. He needs to shift. The night air is brisk, but the blood in Narhi’s veins is boiling. He starts taking his clothes off and tossing them carelessly to the ground. Then he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, bracing for the fire in his veins to swallow him whole. He feels it happening, like his insides are frying and the flame is bursting out from his blood. He doesn’t want to scream, but he can’t stop a few whimpers from escaping his lips. This part always takes too long, he thinks, as his body burns away and reforms.

This familiar pain. This inescapable longing in his heart.

For love. And for home.

He knows he’s going to do something stupid.