Pack of Strangers

The nights in Ashmark have always felt longer, especially for someone like me. Days bleed together on the streets, one long cycle of avoiding eyes and slipping out of reach, scraping by just enough to make it through another round. Ashmark, with its neon haze and shadows, is as unforgiving as I am invisible to it.

I stick to my routine: scavenge from the bakery’s dumpsters before dawn, sleep wherever feels safe, and keep moving. I avoid staying anywhere more than a night, though it’s hard to tell whether that habit’s born out of instinct or paranoia. After years in foster care, safety feels as foreign as family. Out here, people don’t look at you unless you’re useful or in the way. I learned fast how to be neither.

Tonight, though, everything feels off. There’s a strange itch beneath my skin, like something’s trying to claw its way out. I tell myself it’s just nerves—the way I felt the night I ran away, when I slipped through the front door of my last foster home. I’d trained myself to ignore it, to treat that itch like background noise. But tonight, it’s different. It’s a full moon, and the whole sky is lit up, casting shadows in every corner, even the ones I usually use for cover.

The itch becomes unbearable as the night drags on. It’s not just nerves. It’s hunger, yes, but also something else, a sharper kind of pull. My skin prickles, and my senses feel sharper. I hear every sound more clearly: the scuff of shoes on the pavement, the hum of distant traffic, the rush of the wind brushing past empty bottles. My body feels foreign to me, like an outfit that’s too tight in all the wrong places.

I need to find somewhere to hide. The last thing I want is for someone to see me like this, whatever "this" is. I duck into the skeleton of an old, half-collapsed building at the edge of a construction site. It’s been abandoned for as long as I’ve been on these streets, maybe longer. Perfect. No one comes here. I pull myself into the shadows and press my back against the cold, crumbling wall, gasping for air, hoping that whatever’s happening will pass.

But it doesn’t. The pain comes out of nowhere, a searing shock that shoots through my bones, knocking the breath out of me. I double over, clutching my stomach as I feel every part of me tighten, strain, and stretch. My vision blurs, and I close my eyes, trying to push the pain away, but it only gets worse.

The world around me blurs, shadows bending, thickening, as if they’re swallowing me whole. I claw at my own skin, my memories spinning, unmooring. I’m lost in the agony of my body splitting and shifting when, suddenly, I’m somewhere else.

I’m twelve again, standing alone in the rain outside a faded brown house. There’s a sour smell in the air—cigarette smoke mingling with something sharper, metallic. My foster mom’s voice cuts through the memory, sharp and irritated, calling me a “lost cause.” I never felt so alone, my chest tight with a panic that wouldn’t leave.

I blink, trying to escape the memory, but I can still feel the dampness of the rain, smell the wet concrete, and the harsh finality of her words: You don’t belong here.

Back in the present, the transformation rips through me again. My fingers elongate, claws erupting from where nails used to be. My vision sharpens, and every sense screams as I become something other, something powerful but… monstrous. And suddenly, for the first time in years, I don’t feel invisible. I feel more real, more alive than I ever have.

I fall forward, hitting the ground hard, but I don’t feel it as pain. It’s something else, something raw and thrilling. My senses explode. I can smell everything: the stench of oil and rot from the alley, the stale beer in a broken bottle nearby, the faintest hint of someone’s perfume lingering from the sidewalk. My hearing sharpens, picking up on voices blocks away, conversations I have no business overhearing.

I blink, trying to clear my vision, and my eyes lock onto a flash of movement in the shadows outside the building. A rat skitters along the edge of the wall, and before I know what I’m doing, I lunge for it, teeth snapping, the hunger overpowering everything else.

I stop myself just short. What am I doing?

I stumble back, panting, feeling the rush of blood in my ears, the wild pulse of something dangerous inside me. It’s like I’m stuck between two worlds, two beings. I don’t know who I am, what I am. This isn’t me. I’m just Rian Kane, the girl who disappeared from the system, a ghost in the city’s shadows. I’m not… this.

But the city, the noises, the smells—they call to me. The cold metal beneath my paws, the way my heart pounds, the raw power coursing through me—I can’t deny it. I can’t deny that this is me now. Somehow, in this dark, hidden corner of Ashmark, I’ve become something else. Something that feels both frightening and powerful.

When the pain begins to subside, I collapse onto the ground, too weak to stand. My head throbs, my vision fades in and out, and my body feels like it’s breaking all over again, this time back into the form I know. I clutch my knees, drawing myself into a tight ball, feeling human again but somehow not.

I sit there for what feels like hours, caught in the space between breaths, wondering if I can pretend this night never happened. Maybe I can walk away, go back to the way things were, forget all of this.

But I know better. Ashmark doesn’t let you forget, and neither will whatever’s inside me now.

The first light of dawn is peeking through the broken windows, casting pale slivers of light onto the dirty floor. I push myself up, trembling, exhausted, but alive. Whatever’s happened, whatever I’ve become, I know I can’t hide from it forever.

And for the first time since I took to the streets, I feel something shift inside me. I’m no longer running away. Something tells me that from now on, I’ll be fighting—though I have no idea against what, or who, or even why.

But as I step out into the city, trying to gather whatever pieces of myself still feel human, I realize that I’m about to find out.

I stick to the back alleys, places the streetlights don’t reach. Ashmark has never been kind to the eyes; even at dusk, it’s covered in graffiti that might as well be its own language. The walls have layers, all of them hidden stories scrawled in neon paint, faded charcoal, and crude symbols. Murals stretch along broken brick walls, wolves with snarling jaws and jagged, dripping fangs. Some of the images look old, cracked and peeling like worn-out skin, others look fresh, painted with thick strokes that gleam in the city’s faint, unnatural light. It’s as if each layer of paint has been covering the one before it for years, a layered history of Ashmark’s own secrets.

Tonight, those secrets feel closer. The air feels heavy, almost damp, clinging to my skin. The usual hum of the city—a symphony of distant sirens, rumbling engines, muffled conversations—seems muted, leaving an eerie silence in its place. It’s like Ashmark is holding its breath, waiting.

I pull my hood lower