In the absence of comfort

The Hunger

It’s 2 in the morning.

You lie limply on this piece of plank and mattress that you’ve come to call “bed”, you’ve been trying to sleep for a few hours now, you’re still trying to convince yourself that you’ll get at least some sleep tonight- you logically know you won’t, but you still keep attempting regardless. You roll around your “bed”. Back and forth, back and forth, hugging some soft blob of cotton you’ve come to call a “plushie”, it’s not working. Something really heavy is moving inside you, wanting to erupt, something really warm, you feel almost like a volcano.

Your stomach hurts. Your stomach hurts really badly, maybe that something heavy is just hunger.

You get up to eat… past midnight, again. You suppose it’s not that bad- in fact, it’s really common for you to get up and eat at 2 AM, really, it’s just how your body works, really- but something’s different today. You look at all the things in your fridge, things that you’d usually find, well, at the very least satiating, and they- they look normal, they haven’t expired yet, they smell just fine, but there’s just an extreme feeling of disgust whenever you even just conceive of putting any of it, and really, any of it, in your body.

You sigh. “iunno what’s up with this but, dear body, i need to eat, or you’ll make me unable to sleep, and i need to sleep. i need to work tomorrow, or i wouldn’t have things to eat, and you would suffer alongside me.”

As if that’d do anything today, as if that did anything in any of the previous times you’d talk to your fragile, feeble vessel like that. You sigh deeply again.

You can’t seem to find what’s wrong with you tonight; you’re well hydrated, you’re not sick, not having a cold, your body’s warm enough, and you’re getting enough air in the grand scheme of things- actually, no, hold on- No… no, taking that back entirely. Your body isn’t “warm enough”, you- you’re burning hot, you feel like you’re melting from the inside!

You weren’t feeling like this just a moment ago, it happened so suddenly, what— you scramble, you’re scrambling to the door, it’s so goddamn hot, you need to get out, you need that cold fresh air, you—

You rush out of the door, the door makes a loud banging sound as it hits a wall, you didn’t care so much, you live in quite a rural area off the city, so nobody really heard it, and even if they did, they probably didn’t process it. …Probably.

You cool off a bit. The cold breeze is helping, maybe you just forgot to turn down the heating? Maybe? Did you ever actually messed with the heating? Do you even have heating at all—

Of course you do, what are you talking about! You just turned off the heating yesterday, you remember that! And you weren’t feeling particularly warm in your room either! No human being can possibly live in this part of the country without having heating, that’d be ridiculous!

… Matters not, you’re cooling off now, you’re feeling better now. The cold air is helping and you’re calming down. What a frenzy that was, huh?…

The Chill

You try to think about eating some food again— well, your stomach is still aching terribly, but you’re still disgusted by the very thought of it- the very thought of food at all. It’s a bit less intense now, though, and you just hope this isn’t gonna be a repeating occurrence.

Maybe that burning feeling wasn’t hunger. Maybe. That question’s beyond your pay grade though.

… You doze off for a bit, struggling to think through this nonsense. Suddenly, you hear something in the distance. You’re not exactly sure what you heard, if it was even real and not just a hallucination, but you think you heard something, and your mind can’t stop thinking about it now, and it’s forcing your body to move.

You’re heading to the nearby forest now, apparently. You can’t seem to focus on anything else right now anyway, you really want to chase after that noise, for some reason.

You stray from the residential area and head into the wilderness— it’s not the first time you’ve been in the woods, but you sure hope it’s the last time.

This forest houses some deep stuff, deep memories… you can’t help but begin to think over some of those deeply nested memories again as you walk into the forest, you try really hard to think about something else, but the memories just keep popping up, and they’re harder and harder to ignore as you wander further and further.

You give in to the thoughts and just give yourself a story time.

Just a few years ago, you used to run around and play like an animal, watching all the critters and plants and nature itself interact all together, all by yourself.

But, fun times didn’t last. Your father left you when you were a small kid and your mother never had enough money to send you to school. She had enough saved up to keep the lights on, in this secluded house near the hills and the forests; she taught you how to read and write but that’s all you got for education, she’s given you some books over the years but nothing you could read forever. Books weren’t expensive or anything, but any unnecessary cost ought to be avoided.

About a year and a half ago, she passed away. You woke up one day, went outside the house and found her lying in a muddy puddle nearby the house; you couldn’t afford to bury her anywhere else, let alone think about if people would suppose you a murderer, so you just dug a hole behind the house and stuffed her in there. The memory of that haunts you every once in a while, but you couldn’t have done anything better. You just hope she’s somewhere better now.

Now you live alone. Every day you walk for 2 hours to a bigger town closer to the city, and you work to help elderly people type their sentimental letters out. Sometimes you’d hear people passing by the building and chatting to their friends about how useless this facility is, they wonder why “TTS” hasn’t replaced it yet. You don’t know what that is, everyone seems to know what it stands for, and much less do you understand the magical light show of a box that you type on, but you just type away.

Apparently the reason for this job’s existence is that some people never understood how to use a ‘computer’, or so they call that contraption that you type on, and they’re unable to manually write themselves for one reason or another, but that’s just what you saw in the posters outside the building. You weren’t really concerned with it, you just wanted a job.

It’s not a very rewarding job, it’s from an organisation funded by the government to help poor people get a footing. There’s no competition due to how boring it is, but it’s the only job you can do.

Sometimes people would come in just to sit there all day just to tell you that they forgot what they wanted to send. Other times people would spill out, in length, their entire lifetime onto you, insist that you write it all onto a sheet of paper by hand, have you fold it up and put it into an envelope, and ask some other person to send it off to some address in some country you’ve never heard of. Some of those people end up chatting with you, they’re often curious about you, as a person, but you never end up having any answers for the questions they throw at you.

They seem to just be asking nonsense, for all you can tell.

You don’t really understand the things they want you to type out either (or, um, write out, sometimes), and that’s probably for the best, for their privacy. You mostly know how to spell all the words that they use by now, but it did take a while to get used to, and you used to frantically flip through the pages of a dictionary just to barely type out the rest of the sentence. Now it’s mostly effortless.

…You got lost in the thoughts, and when you snap back to reality, you’re somewhere deep in the forest.

The moon above showers you with marvellous glitters of a deep, vibrant royal blue, and you take a moment to appreciate the view.

You haven’t been here in a very long time. Ever since your mother passed away, next to having to work and make food for yourself and having little free time in general, you’ve also grown a distaste to the forest. You convinced yourself that the forest did something to your mother, and this is why you’re here now; you convinced yourself that had you not played here so often, you would’ve learned something more useful than just how to write.

You now clearly know that that’s not how things work, but you’ve found yourself hating the forest anyway.

You seem to have lost track of where the noise was, it’s awfully quiet here this deep in the forest. The horrible burning feeling seems to have stopped though, and that’s nice enough. Maybe it really just wasn’t hunger.

Or maybe it was hunger, but a different kind of hunger, a hunger for something that wasn’t food. Maybe.

But it does feel nice here, and that’s what counts, you suppose.

The Burn

You’re all lain down on the dirty ground now, you look up to the sky and see beautiful sparkly dots at the very far end of it all, accompanied by the twinkles of moonlight shone on the dusts floating about in the air.

It’s a full moon. You’ve read some stories about werewolves in those books that you had many years ago, you chuckle to the thought that this would be the “hunger” you’ve been trying to figure out.

“What, am I gonna turn into a wolf now under the full moon?”

You sigh softly and just enjoy the coolness.

You think about that thing you call a “bed”. It was always so uncomfortable to sleep on, but you feel as if you could pass out here on the grassy, muddy earth, and you’d have the best sleep in your life. And that thing you hug to sleep that you call a “plushie”- you find some solace in embracing a soft object like it, but you also mostly just feel, utter emptiness from it, utter coldness.

The plushie… it’s cold, it’s just so cold. It’s cold, just like the bed you lie on, just like the people you see at work, just like the long paths you take to go to work, just like the words that people say about you, just like the rest of the world, just like the shed you call home, just like your neighbours, who avoid eye contact with you, just like the food in your fridge, just like the body in your backyard— It’s all so cold. Everything is so cold.

The burning warmth, the erupting disgust, the dwindling hope, the mocking regrets, it’s all in you, all of you, and it’s in contrast with this cold, chilling, cruel world.

The Hunger for care, the Chill of society, the Burn from within. The Pain in having nowhere to go, physically, mentally, metaphorically.

… And… cold as they are, cold as everything feels, you should be feeling cold here, just in some shirt and pants, deep in the forest, but, surprisingly, you feel warm, you feel just warm.

…

“No human being can possibly live in this part of the country without having heating, that’d be ridiculous!”

… You suppose everyone calls you all the worst things they can think of but a human being anyway… despite how horrible humans are.

The embrace of mother nature comforts you so much more, so much deeper than any of those man-made objects of fulfilment, objects of care, objects of warmth. Objects of comfort.

The moon sits right above you, she’s a beautiful lady. The sky is clear, the stars keep their distance, as if to let the lady put on a show. Or are they afraid, afraid of the size of this queen? Fearful that she’d be a monster, a horror upon this world?

A beast, a psycho, a cruel murderer?… What kind of words would they call the moon?

She’s so lonely, no one there to comfort her, no one by her side. No children, no offspring to keep her company, no one she can look after and smile at.

A moon that has no children…

“Luna quieres ser madre, y no encuentras querer que te haga mujer.” “Dime luna de plata, ¿qué pretendes hacer con un niño de piel?”

…and a stray critter without family.

… … …

You shed some tears, the drops flowing down the sides of your face feel almost burning. They burn for how sincere they are, in contrast to the cold world.

The Pain

…You hear some crackling sounds in the distance… Was that what you were searching for?

Your ears perk up. You get up, alerted, but the sounds suddenly stopped. Some… thing, is walking towards you, you’re sure.

…Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to be in the forest…

You froze there for a moment, nothing happened for a bit- no sounds, no speech, not a single motion. You try to make some noise, but something feels stuck in your throat, and you can’t mutter out a thing.

The mysterious entity breaks the silent first—

“um?”

You were confused for a bit, “that’s a person?”, “is that a person?” “What’s someone of human skin doing here this late, and this deep in the forest?” you thought to yourself, ignoring the sarcasm of it all.

You muster up the courage to reply:

“…hi?…”

“…oh, hi… May I… approach?”

“I guess?… Who are you?”

…

“…and what are you doing here in the forest, anyway?”

“Oh!… I thought you were one of us, oops.”

“…how do you mean?…”

The entity approaches you and enters the moonlight. She- it- it’s. she- They. They’re a, wolf, humanoid, thing- a, uhm, A werewolf. That’s that what’s called, a werewolf. …Are you dreaming?…

“You look confused… Oh, wait, right, you’re a human, oh, um.”

… “‘I’m a human’ ?”

“I, uh, gotta run—”

“Wait- please.” “Stay here, please, I beg you.”

… You have no idea why you just said that, you seem to have said it instinctively…

“I… okay, this is fine. You don’t have weapons on you, do you?”

“Not like I could’ve ever afforded those.”

“Right, okay.” “…okay.”

…

“I don’t know why I want you to stay here, I just said that reflexively, and I guess I can’t undo that now…” “…it felt really weird to be called a human.”

“…ah”

“…are you…”

“A werewolf? I suppose you could say so. I’m mostly just a wolf, though.”

“…huh…”

“Oh, do you not know about us?”

“…us who?”

The wolf sits down next to you and starts filling you in.

“Oh, you’ve never gone to school… I suppose you couldn’t have learned about it then.”

“By ‘we’, I meant that we’re a network of ex-humans that have been infected with an otherworldly virus.” “Some of us suspect that a mad scientist made it in some secret underground lab, and that some samples leaked into some river and ended up infecting one of us. We really have no idea, as we’ve been completely banished from the human society, ever since the first one was found out and reported by media.”

“The virus, as far as I’ve seen, is only spread by water and some bodily fluids, but the virus only exists in one’s blood and saliva, so for it to contaminate anything, you’d have to bleed quite a lot, or spit quite a lot. Not at all like how the media talks about it, they make it sound like it spreads by air.”

“I was a human before, too. I didn’t get ‘infected’ though, I more so chose to be like this, so to speak. The virus isn’t magical enough to just turn me into a literal, complete wolf, but I’m wolfy enough in my opinion. I prefer myself like this.”

“I caught wind of someone getting ‘infected’ near where I used to live, and I went searching in the nearby forest. I found them with some effort, it took some time to calm them down and tell them that I wasn’t trying to capture or hurt them.”

“Eventually they came around and I explained to them that I’ve always wanted to be an animal. We didn’t really know how to do it at all, but eventually we found out that biting into my arm worked like a charm, and I turned into a wolf with just a few hours.”

“She’s a red fox, we meet up from time to time still. We later got found by the local community and were introduced to the rest of the folks here, and got educated on all of this then.”

“Life’s tough, and weird, but it feels better to live in a body of my own.”

…

“Huh.”

“So that’s what I am, yeah. What are you doing here in the forest, then?”

“I don’t know, just felt like being here.”

“…ah”

…

“Hey, um, wolf girl? …What’s your name?”

“Call me Elle, E-l-l-e.” “You?”

…

“I don’t think I was ever given one, I just said I don’t know when people asked, they laughed it off and asked other questions instead.”

“Well, would you like to be called anything, then?”

“I… I guess you can call me Lunette.”

“Mkay, Lunette, nice to meet you!”

“…mh…” “…does it hurt to be infected?”

“Oh!!! Another one!!!” “Oh, um, no not really.”

“Well the biting sure hurts, but, not the infection itself. There’s not really any more convenient ways to do it, though, since we don’t have the sharp, clean tools of human society anymore.”

…

“Can I be infected too?”

For a bit, there was a moment of silence. Elle looks at you, smiles, leans against you and suddenly hugs you close and then, chomp. She bit on your shoulder, hard.

You let out a yelp, it was so loud that the entire forest could’ve heard. Something about tree falling and no one hearing, eh? Well, that one was definitely heard, very clearly too. You had no idea you could even scream that loudly.

Adrenaline fills you as she bites into you, you make some cute moans and squeals that aren’t as loud, and you can tell she’s just doing this for fun now, the virus is surely in your blood already. But hey, it’s not like it’s not fun for you too…

She scratches your back and hugs you tighter as she sinks her teeth deeper into your shoulder, you can feel something growing out the lower end of your spine and popping out of your pants, the red lines she’s drawn on your back sprouting with fur and spreading all around, reaching across and onto your belly, your waist and your chest.

She notices your changes, releases her grasp and teeth from you and takes off your clothing, that are soon to be unfitting for your new body. You lie there, on the ground, on mother nature, and she takes a look at you.

“Wasn’t expecting the changes to… happen that fast. I suppose biting into the shoulder helped.”

You’re not really understanding what she’s saying anymore, you hear the words but they just go in from one ear and go out the other.

She leans down to you, giving your cheek a lil’ kiss, and lies down on the ground next to you.

“Lunette… nice to meet you.. We’ll talk tomorrow, okay? Just stay calm and by my side for now.”

She cuddles up next to you as changes happen to your body.

The fur has reached onto your limbs and neck now, it’s spreading onto your face, and you can feel your hands and feet turn into canine paws and nails turn into claws. As the transformation crawls past your neck, you can feel the shape of your face change slightly, your nose grows and becomes a snout, lengthening your entire face; your teeth become sharper and rearrange to your new face; your eyes now sharper, better adapting to this darkness, and seeing further into the distance; your ears morph and become bigger, more pointy and floppy, and your hair now gone, fully replaced by fur.

Before you know it, you’re already just as much of a wolf as Elle is.

Everything, everything happening so fast; adrenaline, a new body, a wolf girl you’ll soon call family, a newfound comfort, a new world. The thoughts and emotions overwhelm you… Eventually, you pass out, with Elle cuddling you and joining you on sleeping.

In the presence of comfort

In the new place to call home

You wake up as the sunlight hits you, Elle awakes soon after you, too. You get up, being surprised that you can still walk on 2 legs, but well, upon closer inspection, your feet and hands aren’t changed that drastically, at least not bone-wise.

You chat with Elle about some random things, as one does, and she brings you to the local pack that she belongs to. An entire day of introduction passes by you, you’re taking your time getting used to this. You like it, though.

At midnight, you look up to the moon again, she’s smiling at you tonight. You think about the name you gave yourself on an impulse the day before… “Lunette” …

Your fur, it’s silver white, just like the moon above. You think about your human mother… she loved you, but you never felt like a person to her- well, you suppose that you never was. For how long you had hated this forest, for how long you had blamed your mother’s death onto it, you sigh.

“She had a silver pendant that looked like crescent for a long time, she had to sell it in the end to keep the lights on…”

…

“I guess she did end up somewhere better… up there in the sky now.”

…

‘Lunette’…

You rest with your fellow wolves, bathed with the gentle, comforting rays of moonlight. You’re no longer a stray critter without family. You’ve found the new place to call home, a place to go, physically, mentally, metaphorically.

You’ve found love and care, and so has the moon found family, a family to comfort her, to stay by her side, a child to look after, to smile at.

She smiles to you, the silver wolf, a child of flesh skin, la Lunette; and you smile back, to the silver moon, a mother of warm tears, la Lune; a family misunderstood, an identity unheard of.

And you’ve found yourself, you’ve found who you are, and you’ve ended up, in the presence of comfort.