Page 29 of Fangs & Fur

Response: “Put a spoon under your pillow for 3 nights. If you dream about water, the curse is leaving. If you dream about teeth… run.”

I grind my jaw. The comments are full of humor and questionable guidance, neither of which does me any favors. Then I type Moonfell into the search bar, and my entire computer starts glitching.

For the next few hours I scour the internet looking for anything that might be of value. Yet each link, every website, feels like another step in the wrong direction.

The sun sinks behind the mountains, and I continue to doom scroll every corner I can think of, from strange Reddit threads to areas of the internet that are absolutely filled with malware. With every failed attempt, my stomach plummets, and a sheen of sweat grows across my forehead.

The cats have gone inside and the lights have turned on all by themselves as shadows move through the bedrooms upstairs.

Just as I'm about to click on the final link in the list, the forest beyond the garden goes quiet. The crickets that were once singing are now silent, and even the trees have stopped whispering in the breeze. A ringing in my ears overpowers the silence of the world, and I gaze out into the shadows and voids that could house terrifying monsters.

I swallow and shut my laptop, casting myself into the darkness. My heart leaps in my chest, and I rush to open the lid for any semblance of safety.

“Shit, shit, shit.” I scramble with thick fingers to lift the screen open and finally white light surrounds me as my laptop wakes up. I sigh out a stressed breath.

“That’s enough spooky shit for one day,” I grumble to myself and rise from my spot when a nearly inaudible whisper echoes around me. I pause.

Then I hear it again. A voice—so faint it sounds like it’s carrying from miles away, yet close enough to make my pulse stutter. I freeze, straining to hear it again.

Like a slurry of words mixed together, the voice grows, and I turn to the garden, looking for where it might be coming from. After years of watching horror movies, I know I should be moving my ass inside as fast as possible, but my feet are firmly planted to the grass.

The voice reaches me again, a mixture of masculine and feminine with a hint of fear and my heart thumps.

Ba-bump. Ba-bump. Ba-bump.

The water in the pond waves and dips and I lean over the edge to get a better look. It’s calm beneath the surface as the breeze moves tiny waves across the flat plane of water, but something is definitely moving down there. Like a twist and shine of a fish, something catches the light of the house behind me.

“There’s fish in the pond?” I hiss to myself in a low tone. “Xander never mentioned having fish.”

I check over my shoulder at the house. Neither of the cats are sitting at the window, and the shadows beyond the orange-tinted glow continue to wander.

I huff out a sigh and turn back to the pond only to come face-to-face with a clawed hand. My scream tears at my throat as spindly fingers latch onto my shirt, their nails tearing the material and nicking my chest.

My laptop falls from my grasp as I grip at the arm protruding from the water. Its skin is pale and marled with blue veins and the smell of sulfur fills my nostrils. I choke on a breath and throw my weight forward, fighting against the arm locked around me, but it doesn’t budge.

More movement erupts from the water as more disjointed, clawed hands and arms reach up from the darkness. Like a forest of dismembered limbs, they flounder in the air until one by one they turn to me.

I dig my heels into the grass and claw at the arm holding me, my nails biting into skin. It doesn’t even flinch. Then movement explodes from the water, another arm latching onto my forearm before yanking me closer to the bank.

Whispers and distant yells explode from the pond, and tears stream down my cheeks.

Holy shit, is this how I die? Will they snap my neck and drag my lifeless body into the murky water to feast on my flesh?

Tyler was so right. I should have just forgotten ‌about the entire thing. I should have brushed it off like it was nothing and moved on. No manifesting.

“Help!” My voice is barely a whisper as I freeze, the fight leaving me like a gust of wind.

More hands rise from the water, some bleeding from fresh cuts and scrapes, and another with ungodly long nails that curl at the ends. I shudder and claw at the hands that hold me until another grasps my throat and I let out a strangled whimper.

“NOAH!” Xander’s voice booms across the garden. I cry out as his figure blurs in my vision. His hands on my waist are strong, far stronger than the monster-like hands that grip and claw at me. Ripping each one from my body, Xander pulls me back into him, his warmth like a fresh breath of air.

I watch in horror as the many arms and hands slink back into the pool, leaving the surface eerily still.

“Are you hurt?” Xander’s voice rumbles through his chest and into mine, and his scent surrounds me. I spin, shoving my face deep into the wall of muscle across his chest, my fingers grasping at his shirt, trying with all my might to bring him closer.

“What the hell is that!?” My voice cracks as more tears stream down my cheeks. “Tyler’s vision and now this? I’m going to die, aren't I?”

Xander rubs soothing circles across my back as he presses his face into my hair and sucks in a deep breath. “I will never let anything happen to you, Noah. And I'm sorry I've done such a poor job of it already.”