Too Late

She was about to pick the cups and put them with the rest of the dishes, but never got to do that. As Garyl leant towards the crucial thing that was the centre of changes in her life, the lights went out.

Although she couldn’t move or talk, she was aware. Aware of the pain crossing through her veins, aware of the sounds by the door. Aware of Adras, cursing, getting away, coming back in clothes, screaming..

And when his hot tears fall on her skin, it felt like they would burn a hole. Garyl fluttered her eyelashes, then slowly tried to get up. She got a hand from Adras, though his touch felt not as good as before.

“Aaah,” she moaned. “What happened?”

Adras sat on the table, watching her like an insect in a box, and Garyl gave him an angry look.

“What?!”

“How do you feel?”

“In pain, and your presence doesn’t make it better.”

Surprisingly, he just nodded, as if expecting so.

“Garyl, you’ve just been poisoned.”

His words were so calm and so precise, that it took her a while to totally understand it.

“P-poisoned? How? What? Am I dying?”

“Not really… but, in a way, yes…”

Minutes passed and then Garyl felt what Adras had been trying to say. The pain slowly faded away, and all that remained was… a new Garyl.

Thirst made her fingers scratch the couch, overwhelmed instincts made her hiss at Adras. Then she backed away, jumped from the couch towards the door. Into the city she went.

Her eyes saw everything, her ears caught every noise, all the scents there was to smell, gathered in one big cloud of scents.

It was too much, way too much.

She ran. Ran until the city was a vague memory, until the only thing she heard was the wind and the only thing left to smell was tree and animals, and Garyl ran until her legs begged her to stop.

She understood it now.

If there were werewolves, then there also was the opposite.