Trigger Warnings: body horror, mention of vomit, violence, blood, gore, and death.
Bones crunching; limbs bending; joints stretching. He could feel it all greedily swimming towards the surface – a fire that flamed and toiled, ignited by the silver light weaving its way towards his balled-up form. Bitten nails made jagged from hours of relentless chewing dug into brutally scratched flesh, beads of crimson blossoming in the wake of their intense pressure.
"The moon!" he bellowed, vocal cords desperately sobbing for relief. "It burns, it burns!"
There was clattering outside of his room - a padded place that was smaller than a matchbox, suffocating him in its confinement. It was hidden in the belly of the sanitarium, set aside for those who were prone to lash out or needed care that only the most experienced workers were able to provide.
After decades of isolation, he'd changed in many ways. Like how he couldn't recall the last time he'd laughed, sides aching if someone took a harmless tumble after a pint too many; nor when he'd talked to anyone he knew before he'd been taken away from the sun's warmth, wondering if they thought of him with a pang in their hearts just as much as he thought of them. Having to deal with what he had to go through month after month without the support he craved had worn down upon his sanity. There were times where he forgot why he had agreed to be admitted in the first place and of the immense harm he could inflict if not contained.
During the good days, he could taste the sweetest strawberries from his grandmother's garden that never remained long in the bowls they'd been carefully plopped in and smell the cigarette smoke him and his brother would blow into a dying wind. On the bad days, he longed for the feel of dew encrusted mornings and the sound of dogs barking as they helped herd flocks of sheep - the simple, little things he hadn't given enough thought to until he no longer had them.
Knuckles angrily rapped against the sturdy door. "Well, I can't very well turn the moonlight off, can I?" came the warbled voice of a guard he hadn't seen before tonight. "Keep away from the window!"
Even if he'd done what had been commanded, he couldn't stop what was about to come.
He shrieked when his spine slammed against his back, sending him to his hands and knees, neck bent at an unnatural angle.
"Same here, you bloody lunatic."
Chatter about an escaped inmate, wondering where they could have gone, echoed throughout the long hallway – all ignoring the pure agony unfolding just beyond the single thing that had miraculously managed to keep him locked away for the past thirty years.
"Look out for him," one of the voices crackled. "Make sure he's found. Don't want anyone else getting hurt."
Acid unforgivably coursed through his veins while a thick mound sluggishly slithered its way up his trachea. He coughed, heaving as his immune system attempted to protect him from the inevitable. Perhaps his lungs would splatter to the floor, trembling as they took their last exhale of air. Or an animal that had burrowed its way into his abdomen, stubbornly sinking its tiny claws into the lining, would tumble out amongst a steady stream of vomit.
The Change. It was here – his feeble stalling unable to continue holding off what had been part of him since that cursed August night.
Crouched in the darkest corner, all that was human hideously shifted into an impossible nightmare: lanky arms became powerful legs, bulging with muscles the width of fallen tree trunks; a thin mouth became a grisly muzzle, whiskers bursting from waxen cheeks; and barely noticeable peach fuzz became mounds of coarse fur.
Pointed ears twitched upon hearing hinges creak open before exasperated footsteps lumbered past the doorway.
"Hello, what's the matter?" uncaringly questioned the guard towering above him.
Heavily panting, he set his piercing sight upon his thrumming pulse - its heat radiating invitingly. The emptiness of his stomach, hollow from a lack of fresh meat, rumbled like an oncoming thunderstorm.
First, there was irritation, blinding the guard from his hulking shape. And then, when he stood on all fours, horror – blue eyes filled with the same stench that covered him head to toe.
"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!"
Eat, eat, eat.
With lips drawn into a vicious snarl, globs of spittle grossly plopping onto the ground, he lunged. Sharpened canines sunk into a vulnerable jugular while massive paws slashed a plump belly. He chewed through the guard's collarbone, growling as he vigorously shook what he'd clamped hold of. Guts wetly showered around him - gooey chunks that he violently shoved aside to get to the organs he wished to devour. They squelched on his tongue, their juices fueling an instinctual, chaotic frenzy.
Once satisfied with what had nourished him in ways that his dreams could not, a new hunger engulfed him: escape.
After swallowing what was left of his gruesome feast, he did what he had been kept from for far too long: he fled – to find freedom and a world full of endless hunting grounds. Off he ran, a monstrosity with a single word imprinted on his mind: consume.
Stan stared at the sanitarium's most dire mistake. No. More than dire: grave.
Gazing at the drenched space before him, at what had yet to be thoroughly cleaned by the ignorant caretakers, the middle-aged man's mind replayed the events that had unfolded the previous evening: a guard, new and unaware of what laid in the now empty room, had lost his life - brutally mauled to death, his innards still caked between the cracks.
Knobby fingers nervously brushed through thinning hair, the reality of what had occurred beginning to set in. It was a sinking feeling Stan didn't want to experience again. This. . . thing couldn't be who he had befriended during primary school, who belted off-key ballads at the pub, and who expertly nursed sick lambs back to optimal health.
Madness.
Search parties had been sent out to look for him, taking mostly to the sky – scanning the area practically non-stop. Yet there hadn't been a single sign of him, despite it surpassing twenty-four hours.
He had done what he could. He'd played the fumbling worker, stumbling over his words when he claimed to know nothing about the second escaped inmate. But the most crucial thing he'd done was call his friend's brother to warn their village before it was too late. He could only hope that they made it to the safety of the Slaughtered Lamb, where candles illuminated the five-pointed star that had faithfully protected its inhabitants for centuries. (When you're from East Procter, you heed the warnings of the creatures that roamed the moors and knew of the dangers ready to strike the moment you let your defenses down.)
Shaking with unimaginable dread, images of what had been lost the last time his friend had gone on a bloodthirsty rampage came to Stan: heaps of scarlet wool; shepherds split in two; cats warningly hissing at anyone who so much as glanced their way. . . .
Why hadn't he come back? Why, when he wasn't a beast, did he not call Stan to come pick him up?
Where the hell are you, Larry?
At this point, there was no possible way for him to get out of this alive. By gun or the treatment of his higher-ups, Larry would be left to rot. All Stan could do was wait and monitor the halls, praying that no further damage would be done before the full moon took its leave.
God, help us.