Birds whistled outside his window, the warm sun shining down on Artemy’s face. He blinked, his eyes blurred from what he presumed was sleep. He was back in his house - but did he ever leave?
Someone chuckled. Artemy looked up and nearly spilled the tea that he didn’t know he was holding, looking at a messy Cassius in his pajamas, whom was smiling at him fondly, his cheeks pink. “Still tired?”
“I must be,” Artemy replied, his brows furrowed confusedly. “You’re here.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
Artemy no longer remembered why Cassius wouldn’t have been at his house, and all of a sudden, it felt as thought Cassius should have always been there. He looked at the hand Cassius used to lift his tea, his jaw dropping when he saw a silver wedding band on his finger.
Cassius must have caught him staring, because he chuckled. “It’s still new, isn’t it? I find myself in disbelief, as well.”
No words formed from Artemy’s mouth, though a thousand questions were running through his mind. He glanced back down at the table only to see the same ring on his own hand. How could he have ever missed it?
“After all, such a thing was illegal until recently.”
Artemy’s tea was far blacker than usual, so much so that he could see his own reflection in the waving drink. He looked at his own tired face, only to see orange eyes staring back up at him.
His tea smelled of pine trees. Why did his tea smell so? His breathing quickened in panic, looking up to Cassius for answers but finding that Cassius was no longer there. The birds howled outside his window - but no, that couldn’t be, for birds did not howl and -
He last remembered being outside.
Artemy’s eyes opened as he gasped a mangled, pained sound, the sun shining on his face though he felt no warmth. His mind was a scrambled of incoherent memories and instincts, and he rolled over just as blood erupted from his mouth, his stomach protesting whatever he had eaten.
Confusion addled his mind terribly, so much so that the first thought he could understand was that he shouldn’t have been alive. That, and Cassius shouldn’t be dead.
He tried to sit up, wincing in pain as the muscles in his shoulder protested. He collapsed back down, not having the strength to do more than lay on the forested earth. Artemy was so near unconsciousness that he didn’t even realize he was naked until the wind chilled his bones.
He covered himself as best he could when he heard strange footsteps approach him, though it was so early in the morning that no one should have been awake - let alone in the forest. He looked towards the sound, though he was surprised to only see the faint outline of a wolf in the distance.
The wolf stopped when it was only feet away, and yet Artemy was strangely unafraid of it. He didn’t even flinch when it whined from its nose, it’s bones collapsing and breaking until the killer - the monster - was standing before him.
“Your hearing has improved,” he noted, looking down at Artemy. “You normally don’t notice me until I’m right beside you.”
Artemy didn’t have the time nor the coherency for conversation. He found himself saying the first thought that came to his mind. “What demon are you?”
“Demons have names - I do not,” he said, shrugging slightly. The movement was far too friendly, too casual, for someone like him. Artemy found himself growing uneasy - uneasy that he wasn’t afraid of him any longer. “I am one of the originals that your novel writers call lycanthropes - though those are more like you. Human, once.”
“You’re feral, then,” Artemy said, though he didn’t know why he was saying it. It mattered very little - what should have mattered was what he was going to say to his mother afterwards. Surely, he couldn’t just carry on as if nothing had happened.
“I was raised not with what you once belonged to - no. We are too different.” The killer, leaned against a nearby tree, crossing his arms. “People my kind turn become the link between us and you. And now you’re no longer human.”
“But why me?” Artemy asked pathetically, every bone in his body still aching terribly. “I know nothing of - of hunting, or outdoors, or survival! I would be useless to you.”
“You don’t need those skills to live like the other prissy Englishmen,” the killer said. “You will carry on as you once did. And with it, you’ll carry on your new blood, Mr. Silvercrest.” He snorted at the name, though Artemy did not understand why.
He began to leave, to which Artemy scrambled to his feet in a blind panic. “W-Wait! You - You can’t just leave me here! I don’t even know how to get home from here!”
“You already found it.” And with that, the killer was gone, disappearing into the trees as if he were little more than a spirit. Artemy spun around confusedly, thinking that the killer had to be confused, that he couldn’t have possibly gone home on instinct-
And yet, he saw the faint glow of a dying streetlight from the mess of trees, and with it, the outline of his home. Artemy would have been less shocked if he had been struck by lightning on the spot. Feeling terribly exposed and praying that no one was near, he walked through the woods, wincing with every painful step.
He wouldn’t be able to return to his studies for some time - not until he had time to heal, to grieve, to understand his newfound curse inflicted upon him. He weaved through the trees much like the killer once did, and then he was stumbling into the yard behind his house. Artemy had once been in this very area - what felt like eons ago - to track down the killer. It had been that very action, he realized, that had killed Cassius.
Artemy had blood on his hands, and yet he had been too stupid to see it to even wash it off.
He hurried for the house before daylight could come, though it became increasingly hard to walk for tears were blurring his sight, his lungs wheezing painfully with his sobs. He all but fell into the house as he struggled to open the impossibly heavy door, shutting it behind him as he slid onto the wooden floor, feeling alien in his dusty old home. It must have been at least two days he was unconscious, for the house smelled stale, musky as if abandoned. His nose tingled with even the faintest hint of dust, though he couldn’t remember ever being so sensitive to it.
Finally collecting himself, Artemy went to wash the dirt from his skin, hoping that bathing would bring him to his senses. Upon running the water and indulging in having a hot bath, he was shocked to find that the water almost immediately turned red, blood washing off of his skin. Swallowing his panic, he inspected himself to find himself littered with various bruises and cuts, as if he had recklessly ran through the woods and gotten scratched by the thistles.
As if he had changed, just as the killer had.
Artemy realized then that he would have to come to terms with his newfound monstrosity if he was ever to retain a normal life again, and so he scrubbed the dirt from his body and hair, trying to erase the memory of such an act and fearing that one day, he would change again.
He dressed and was putting the kettle on the stove when someone knocked at his door. He had a moment of confusion, unable to guess who could be at the door if the killer was finished with him and Cassius was-
The front door was opened with a little more ease than the first time, though Artemy still had to lean on it for support. A smaller man was looking at him, his eyes wide with terror. “Are - Are you who they call ‘Artemy’, sir?” He asked, his voice trembling.
“Er - yes,” Artemy answered, looking the man over in concern, wondering if he was injured. “Are you quite alright-“
“Never mind that,” the stranger interrupted. “I was stopped on Waverly Avenue and told to give you a message by a rather… terrifying individual, I must say. He gave me no name, though he reeked of - of blood, if you could believe it. He sent me to give you a message.”
Artemy immediately knew that it was the killer who had likely threatened the man to act, though he had no idea what would be so important. “I believe I know who you’re speaking of. What did he say?”
The man hesitated, looking rather embarrassed by the way he scuffed his shoe against the ground. “It’s… I hope it makes more sense to you than it did to me. He only said one sentence: ‘It comes on the fullest moon.’”
A silence filled the conversation as Artemy stared at the man, his brows furrowed in confusion, and then realization, and then terror as he realized, all too soon, that the full moon was next week. He knew exactly what it was, and he had all the reason in the world to dread it.
The man cleared his throat. “I know it’s none of my business, sir, but might I ask - do you know what this could mean?”
“Yes,” Artemy said, his voice low, grim. “Avoid this man if you can, sir. He is a dangerous soul.”
The kettle in the kitchen whistled, to which the man used it as an excuse to escape, quickly bidding his farewells before all but running down the street. Artemy closed the door behind him, dropping onto the dining room chair with a thud as he poured his tea.
A week wasn’t nearly enough time to prepare for the change - especially since he couldn’t even remember it happening the first time. He was going to go through what would likely be the most painful experience of his life with no help, with no one to comfort him. He wouldn’t be able to tell his mother, nor anyone else.
The mention of his mother made Artemy glance down at the letter with a sigh, and he was ready to decline her offer when he remembered Cassius’s rushed words spoken the last night they were together.
“Promise me that you’ll marry,” Cassius, his best friend, had pleaded, wanting nothing more than to protect him - even if it meant rejecting him. “you’ll marry and stay alive.”
Artemy had declined, then, and then he had lost Cassius to what he understood was the sickness of the killer’s evil. Perhaps, even Artemy had the same disease reformed, torn into his blood rather than merely inhaled onto him. He couldn’t possibly refuse Cassius again - not when Cassius had spent his dying breath protecting him still.
He wrote to his mother with a strangely steady hand. He was not thinking of anything other than his Cassius when he wrote his acceptance into the letter, nor was he thinking of anything other than him when, a week later, he shed his skin for the first time - the first of many.
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