Cold fingers abraded her spine and she shivered before nestling deeper into the coverings. In the hush of night, an owl crew in the distance, infiltrating the thick fog of unconsciousness blanketing her mind. Various thoughts struck her at once.

Why were her feet so cold?

Why did the room stink?

As awareness knocked at her muddled senses, her eyes opened in apprehension.

Who's in the bed behind her?

The ruffling of sheets was perceived next, making her gulp. The rhythm of her heart soared, and her lips trembled. An icy touch grated her exposed thigh and with a jolt, she sat upright. Panting heavily, Gauri tossed the covers and scoured for any intruder. She swore she had felt someone shift behind her in sleep. The beating of windows caught her attention. A storm was brewing outside. Slowly climbing down from the bed, she approached the rattling windows to shut them against the rebellious- winds with difficulty.

Though the moment she accomplished the task, she wished she hadn't.

In the glass window pane, she saw the reflection of two people, one of her own and another of a mysterious woman. She has onyx hair and was dressed in white, looking pale as a ghost. Slowly, the woman lifted a hand and placed it on Gauri's shoulder. Her eyes were empty, her expressions scary, and her lips moved non-stop. She was saying something, but it never reached Gauri's ears.

Alarmed, the new bride turned around. There was no one behind her. She was all alone in the room. But the pressure on her left shoulder increased, and with shaking entrails, she once again faced the window. The woman was still present in the reflection, an urgency marred her features as she shook her head negatively.

The disturbing sight ripped a cry from Gauri's throat, making her stumble and collide against someone.

Before she could've turned to catch the reason for her shock, a clawed arm emerged from the midair and reaches for her throat.

Waking with a garbled scream, Gauri scratched at her neck. A cough broke from her chest and she heaved breathlessly. The security of bed covers turned suffocating, and she threw them away. Her eyes immediately fell on the closed windows and she gulped. In the next moment, she was on her feet to cover the glass pane with curtains.

"It was a bad dream. A very bad dream." Whispering to herself, she reaches for a jug and curses finding it empty. The dryness of her throat flouted. Lifting the jug, clad in a nightgown, Gauri makes her way towards the kitchen to fetch some water. Unbeknownst to her, another snare waited in the grand hall of the palace.

The jug slipped from her grip with a clangorous clatter, loud enough to disturb the deadly silence and she wailed like someone was pulling her intestines out. A bloodcurdling scream that rang in the Rajwada Palace at 4 in the morning woke every slumbering being. The view was esoteric. From the massacre by Kali to the wrath of Lord Shiva, no story ever revealed such gory details. She couldn't stop screaming, her mouth refused to close. Tears didn't leave her wide-open eyes as she stared unblinking, appalled, and disturbed. As chaos tumbled from all directions and more shouts of terror resonated, mixing with her horrified ones, a large arm engulfed her figure from behind and a palm covers her eyes.

"Somebody, bring her down. Put some clothes on her,"

An equally distraught Yagyavardhan roared as he held his wife from sprawling on the floor. He didn't know what was worse, her finally discovering the evil lurking in shadows or the sight of a wildly mauled bare corpse dangling from the ceiling. The walls which were pinned with grand portraits of his ancestors were now painted in crimson. His throat tightened. He was no longer holding Gauri to shield her from such harshness but holding on to her to not lose the ground beneath his feet.

Two bodyguards quickly bring the corpse down and snatch a white sheet from a quaking maid. The fabric immediately turns crimson.

"Everybody, go back to your rooms. Michael, call the security and alert the police, damnit!"

The sky fell on his head. Anything like this never ensued before. Never. They never found dead bodies inside their home like this. He lost his breath when Gauri fainted in his arms.

"I knew it, the last queen died unnaturally. Her spirit is haunting this palace."

An old woman blurted and fury rushed through his veins once again. Snarling at the absurdity, he yelled.

"You! Get out of my home before sunset. I don't want to see your face. If anyone said anything like this again, I will cut their tongues."

Announcing, he carries his wife away from the scene.

They have no idea of what Kirti went through. They don't know her suffering. How dare they blame her? She was at peace now.

"What animal would orchestrate such an inhuman act?"

A whisper rang and his heart stilled.

Animal, Animal, Animal

Pain erupted in his chest and his knees shook. Blood pooled in his mouth when sharp canines bit at the tongue. Kicking open the door to her sanctuary, he lays her on the bed and falls on his knees. His hands were trembling badly and his body sweated uncontrollably. A shudder went down his spine.

"God, what is happening?"

Yagya clenched his fists to stop them from shaking and raised his head. Bloodshot eyes landed on the unconscious figure on the bed.

After confronting her in the garden during the party, he had left for his chambers to change into something comfortable. His demons were more hyper than usual, clawing at his flesh, battling to come out and wreak mayhem. A sense of perturbation clogged his pores and he knew what was about to transpire. This time, the call of hellfire came more rapid. Before he could've reached the window facing the luxuriant grove and jumped out of the palace, the king was propelled flat on the ground by an invisible force. His skull hit the posh marble hard and vertebrae started to expand. His vessels dilated, giving way to hot lava blood, and kissed the stretching flesh like snakes swimming on the surface of the water.

The man had to bite his wrist to stop the scream bubbling in his chest. In a matter of seconds, his bones broke and joined, lengthened and shortened, and a muzzle started to grow on his face. Hair, black as a raven, covered his flesh next and his pupils dilated with hunger. Drool fell from a scary mouth in which razor-sharp canines were embedded. Tip of the fingers broke as the claws of a beast emerged ready to sink in the heart of his prey. His feet elongated and ripped out of the shoes.

"My King!" someone knocked on the door suddenly, and he glared at the barrier in panic. The dark eyes slowly flooded with red demonic gapes when the slave of the moon and bringer of Death finally took over. Releasing a growl, the newly transformed beast jumped out of the window, leaving his tattered clothes behind.

It was Yagya's last memory as his conscience was pushed into the darkness and something entirely inhuman took the reins of his cerebral. After what felt like an eternity, he woke up naked in the middle of the forest, fully drenched in warm blood which belonged to him and some helpless animal. With shaky limbs, he made his way to a nearby stream to wash the evidence of his sin. The process was slow. His mind was more tired than his throbbing body. Each muscle hurt as if were crushed and shattered over and over again.

On his way back to the Palace, using darkness as a shell, he had seen the remains of two dead deer surrounded by wild dogs. They had whimpered in his presence, immediately recognizing a monster by his scent. Ignoring the dirty scene, he had just jumped inside his chambers using the same window when her screams reached him. The atrocious sound of a female blasting her vocal cords vanquished the gloomy cloud on his head and jumping into clean trousers, he rushed towards the source. He hated to admit it but the moment he saw her in the middle of the hallway watching the dangling cadaver of her handmaiden, coldness gripped his mountainous form. The ungodly scenario made him falter in his steps and judging the puddle of urine accumulated around Gauri's legs, he knew she has lost her mind as well.

"Was it me? Did I do that to that poor girl?" he whispered to himself in bewilderment. He has hunted before and killed too, both animals and humans. But never left evidence behind. This was a display. A projection of dominance. A show of power. The beast in him was getting out of control with each passing day. His feral desires blinded the sound mind of the King. The thought of carnage made him drool. The monarch was turning into the monster he fears the most. Wild and untamable. Years of control gone in a second.

At lightning speed, he turned to face a mirror.

Hateful eyes and a furious face greeted him back.

The thought of ending this life has occurred to him plenty of times. He had used a revolver and shot himself in the mouth, but someone indestructible woke up in his body to spit it away and crush the said revolver pitifully with a tight embrace of a big palm. The wild that breathed in him was not ordinary. He was someone, whom even the death feared to claim. Yagya called the beast- the King of hell. He had no better words to describe this otherworldly creature who has been living inside him since his birth. This wolf-like demon is breathing in the flesh of a man.

Old folklores and a few legends often touched on the subject of slaves of darkness, the beasts, and the myths but none gave proper evidence. Throughout the years, he has gone through many articles describing werewolves and their origin. Some fake, some doubtful. A werewolf is a man that has been cursed or charmed into a beast that hunts at night and craves human flesh. The word 'werewolf' literally translates to man-wolf ('were' meaning man). There are many ways in which this transformation could occur. Many legends claim that a man would transform into a werewolf if he was bitten or scratched by another werewolf in its animal form. There are also accounts of children who were cursed to hunt as werewolves if they grew up in abusive homes.

Yagya didn't believe this myth. His past wasn't subjected to any of those scenarios. But he remembers the time when it first happened.

On his 18th birthday.

It was a massacre.

That evening pain was so intense and his structure kept shifting and breaking agonizingly slow. The bunch of friends, who arrived from different regions to celebrate the young prince's birthday, lost their lives. Earlier that night, right after the party, the naïve teenagers had put a bet upon exploring the thick woods in the dark. None in the group of 12 had thought it might be their last adventure. When they hiked in the woods, the prince was transforming under the glare of a full moon.

When the hour of rebirth passed, a new being emerged in the light and vanished in the darkness.

A beast

All he knew was hunger and blood. An uncontrollable rage ruled his desire to hunt.

The scent of human flesh made him salivate and his gut clenched at the emptiness of an unquenchable depth.

The prince was long lost as the magnificent weapon of demons rode freely in the luxuriant fields. One by one, each clueless explorer was delivered to death's door. The monster had feasted on their entrails after mercilessly ripping their flesh using talon-like claws. All died in terror. He was a specimen that stood at 7 ft on two limbs, his body covered in raven furs and his face held a snarl similar to that of an angry wolf.

To say the night was detrimental to one's fate would be an understatement. The morning brought a fresh stream of guilt and horror. When he woke up in the middle of mangled corpses of his friends, the panic sat in. Some even had their limbs missing. He had barfed and vomited at the sight as flies buzzed on the cold and rotting flesh. He threw up a mix of blood and entrails of the supposed victims.

Later in the noon, when the search party came along with King Raghuveer, they found a distraught and shocked Yagya bathed in blood. Remains of his friends lingered in every crook and cranny of the forest. The scene resembled the aftermath of the Holi festival where people play with powdered colors. The only difference was, someone used blood here and dragged the madness throughout the forest.

The young prince was sent to an institute for some time because he had lost his soundness. People called it an attack of wild animals but Raghuveer soon figured out what devil has occurred. He reviewed the footage from cameras planted around the area. A shell-shocked Raghuveer who had a stone-cold heart, cried for the first time in his life.

The killer was no animal from the woods but an animal that lived in the Rajwada Palace. His son. His flesh and blood was the nightmare who craves flesh and blood.

His son was a monster.