I am 15 chapters ahead on my patreón, check it out if you are interested.
https://www.patréon.com/emperordragon
________________________________________
Chapter Thirteen: Echoes of the Mind
Not in the way a person tumbles down a hill, or stumbles off a step. No — this was something deeper, something darker. A descent without end. No up, no down. Just an endless plunge into a vast, smothering nothingness. The air didn't rush past me. There was no wind, no scream escaping my lips. Only silence, thick and absolute, swallowing me whole.
A gasp. Ragged. Sudden.
My lungs pulled in air like it was the first breath I'd ever taken. My eyes snapped open, squinting hard against the sudden glare of morning sunlight pouring through dusty windows.
I sat up, disoriented.
The sensation of the sheets hit me first — coarse, familiar. The springs beneath the thin mattress groaned with the same tired complaint they always had. The scent in the air stung with bleach and institutional detergent, clean but cold. Somewhere down the hallway, someone saying something about breakfast. The voice echoed, hollow but routine, like a scene I'd lived through a hundred times before.
I blinked again. My pulse pounded.
The forest was gone. Richard's face — his concern, his strength — gone. Emily's voice, her presence, her carring eyes— all of it, gone. No moonlight filtering through the trees. No damp soil underfoot. No paws. No snout. Just white-painted walls, peeling slightly at the corners. Just that same cracked ceiling I'd stared at countless nights, wondering what might lie beyond the orphanage walls.
I moved automatically, like muscle memory had taken the wheel. Got up. Brushed my teeth in a sink that barely drained. Shoved flavorless scrambled eggs into my mouth. Did the chores I'd done since I could stand — scrubbing, folding, sweeping. Endured the same sideways glances, the same unspoken judgment, the same dull routine that dulled the senses and quieted the soul.
Everything was… normal. Exactly as it used to be.
And yet, something was wrong.
It didn't scream at me. It whispered. A quiet, persistent hum, like static at the back of my brain. At first, I told myself it had all been a dream. A vivid one, sure — terrifying, beautiful, surreal — but a dream nonetheless. Wolves and monsters. Battles in the dark. Emily's fire. Richard's steadiness. None of it real.
Just the lonely fantasies of a mind that wanted something more.
For a while, I let myself believe. I slipped back into the orphanage rhythm like a well-worn glove. Let the world press down on me, soft and heavy, like a blanket that suffocates more than it comforts.
But the itch wouldn't go away.
It was like a song I couldn't stop humming, even when I didn't know the words. Like a whisper beneath my heartbeat, murmuring just below the surface: This isn't real.
The illusion cracked — sudden and sharp, like glass fracturing under pressure.
This wasn't reality. I was still unconscious. Still trapped inside my own head, deep within whatever psychic chasm the shift had ripped open. The orphanage wasn't home anymore. It was a cage made of memory. A prison of my own creation.
And as soon as I understood that, the world around me crumbled.
The walls dissolved, melting into smoke and ash. The floor faded beneath my feet. And yet, I didn't wake up.
I was standing again, somehow, in what remained of the orphanage.
But now the setting had changed — drastically.
It was night. The windows, once merely dusty, were now shattered, moonlight slicing through the broken panels. Blood smeared the walls in great, slashing arcs. The metallic stink of it filled the air — thick, choking. Every breath burned with it. The silence wasn't peaceful now. It was oppressive. Dreadful.
They were everywhere.
Children I'd known. Staff I'd ignored. Torn open, lifeless. Scattered like broken dolls.
I looked down at my hands.
They weren't hands anymore.
They were claws. Black, curved, glistening with blood. My fingers trembled, slick and foreign.
My breath caught in my throat. I turned slowly, mechanically, toward the mirror mounted crookedly on the opposite wall.
A towering figure — eight feet tall at least — loomed in the mirror's cracked reflection. Thick muscles, cloaked in pitch-black fur, coiled with barely restrained violence. Fangs protruded from a monstrous maw. Golden eyes gleamed with a feral, hollow hunger.
My knees gave out. I collapsed to the floor, the weight of realization crashing down harder than anything physical could. Horror surged through me — not at what I saw, but at what it meant. The pieces fit, but the picture they formed was unbearable. Richard hadn't found me — I had invented him. Built him out of longing and need. Emily's warmth? Fabricated. A convenient fantasy.
They had never been real.
And the blood on my claws?
I had destroyed them all.
Soft at first. Fragile. Like the breeze that precedes a storm.
It echoed through the darkness. Not the mocking voice of a ghost or a hallucination. It cut deeper. Real. Familiar.
I squeezed my eyes shut. His voice. His laugh. That dry, gravelly way he said, "Don't worry, kid. You're not alone anymore."
And Emily — her bluntness, her spark. Her eyes that always saw more than you wanted them to.
They weren't illusions.
They were memories. Real ones.
I remembered what Emily told me: You get one chance to bond with your wolf.
My gaze drifted back to the mirror.
The monster was still there. Staring.
But now, I didn't flinch.
That thing? That wasn't me.
Not unless I let it be.
I stood slowly, deliberately. The illusion groaned, its edges warping and flickering, as if the lie itself couldn't withstand the truth pressing in.
Richard's voice again, louder now.
"I'm here!" I shouted, voice raw, desperate. I reached through the darkness, through the fracture in the illusion.
The world exploded into shards of light and memory.
I gasped again — for real this time.
The forest surrounded me. Real. Tangible. The smell of damp earth. The sound of distant rustling. Moonlight spilling through the trees in ribbons of silver.
I was still in wolf form — paws dug into the cold soil. Heart thudding like a drum in my chest.
Emily stood a few feet away, arms crossed, the usual sharpness in her gaze tempered by something softer. Approval. Relief.
Richard was crouched beside me, that same weathered strength in his eyes. "Welcome back, kid."
I looked between them. Then up — toward the moon.
Not out of fear. Not out of grief.
But because I had found my way back.
And I finally knew the truth.
Yes, I was a werewolf.
But I was not a monster.