Werewolf

         No.  No, I won't.

         She stared out the window, at the dark sky.  Too cloudy to tell if the moon was up; she leaned forward--

         And bit back a curse, as the wire she'd wrapped around her wrists bit deep.  Silver wire; from the legends, but legends were all she had to go on.

         I won't change again.  She thought of what had been in her mouth, last month when she'd come to herself, finally; she thought of what she'd read in the papers, and shuddered.

         Another minute passed, and she grew tenser.  How long had she been up here, in this room with the bland green walls and bed and carpet?  The hall had been green, too, she recalled.  She could hear a maid there now.  If she transformed—but maybe the silver would do it, maybe she wouldn't transform--

         And then she felt it, surging up through her, like a tide, like a tsunami.  No, she thought, nonono, but as always it did nothing: she was helpless, a passenger in her own body.

         She could feel the wolf's mind: not like normal wolves, she thought, but angry and hateful and bloodthirsty and revelling in those, and the silver did nothing to stop it—just another part of the legend that was untrue—and it burst through the silver wire, the thickest she'd been able to afford, and was out the door and in the hall, and she saw the maid she'd heard earlier; and as her mind followed her body, becoming lost in the wolf, she knew that all was lost.


Wordcount: 260