The only sounds in the small corner of the pharmacy were the fan that whirled overhead and pained breathing. The fan shook with every rotation, and Reyna felt like the fan was going to lose a screw that secured it and fall on her. As she hunched over the drinking fountain, she wanted nothing more than for it to do just that.
Reyna pulled at the neck of her jacket, gripping the zipper. She really wanted to pull it down and lay underneath the fan. Instead, her eyes slowly focused on the bandages in front of her. They were all shapes and sizes, but as she blinked, the colors started to bleed together.
A shaking hand grabbed onto a package of bandages. She grabbed medical tape and looked around for the lone worker. When she didn't see them, she slipped the two boxes into her jacket pocket. She attempted to step forward, but her legs shook from the effort.
Reyna hissed and hunched forward again with one hand shooting to her side. Every muscle protested, and every breath was labored. She kept her hand glued to her side and shifted her backpack on her shoulders. Then, she began a slow, limping walk towards the counter.
Along the way, Reyna collected rubbing alcohol. Each step felt like she was climbing a steep mountain, and she sweated more and more by the second. Despite how hot she felt, her body was wracked by a shiver and chills. Reyna made it to the counter and sat the rubbing alcohol down.
"And the bandages," the man at the counter said. He was short and stout with a large beard that covered his chest. Reyna stared down at the dwarf for a moment before reaching into her pocket to pull out the box of bandages and the tape. The dwarf muttered under his breath as he began to check her out.
"I...I need Ly...Ly-"
"We don't got it," the dwarf interrupted. His mouth was full of white teeth, the exact opposite of his kind in Reyna's hometown. Reyna let her head droop and slowly swallowed. Her mouth felt dry, and there was nothing she could do to moisten her mouth.
"Werewolf. S...silver," Reyna wheezed. She felt a spasm of pain run through her body. Her hands gripped the counter.
"You need silver to kill a werewolf?" the dwarf asked. He looked her up and down. Then, a small smile came to his face. "You need a silver cure, don't you?"
"H...h...how much?" Reyna stuttered. Another spasm ran through her body, and she almost collapsed against the counter. The pit of pain in her stomach was becoming worse and worse by the second.
"How much you got?" the dwarf questioned. Reyna tried to narrow her eyes into a glare, but she needed to save her energy. Reyna slowly pulled her wallet out of her pocket and placed it on the counter. She pulled out the five hundred dollars that she had. The only money that she had besides a crumpled up twenty in her other pocket.
The dwarf grinned and reached out for the money. Reyna snatched it up and almost winced from the sudden movement. "Medicine f..first."
"Of course," the dwarf retorted snidely. He turned and walked away. Reyna allowed herself to sink to her knees against the counter. Her stomach burned in agony, and the pain was infecting the rest of her body. How long had she had this wound for? Two days? Three?
"Don't keel over in my store," the dwarf growled. Reyna slowly looked up at the stubby creature. He placed a white box on the counter. Reyna, despite her shaking knees, crawled up to a standing position. She let out a whimper of pain and examined the box. "Five hundred for it all."
Reyna tossed the money on the counter and opened the box. She studied the small bottle that had a tiny pill inside. A small nod left her, and the dwarf shoved her things into a bag. Reyna slowly grabbed the bag and cradled the pill bottle. She placed it into her pocket and slowly limped out of the pharmacy.
Reyna glanced up at the setting sun. The moon would rise soon, and after she took care of her wound, she would feel a little better. She would just need to find a place to sleep and food. Lots of food. Reyna couldn't remember her last decent meal. Hell, she couldn't even remember when her last meal had been. Two days maybe? Or was it before she was stabbed?
Each step was a slog forward, and Reyna tried to keep her head lifted to find somewhere to go. She couldn't linger in an alleyway. There had to be somewhere with a bathroom. And food.
Reyna let her head hang, and she hunched over again. Part of her wanted to just curl up and die, but she hadn't been struggling to survive the last several years just to give up. A deep sigh escaped her, and she continued her struggle forward.
Minutes passed before Reyna found a place that she deemed safe enough. It looked to be a small but quaint building that was on the corner of the street. The outside walls were black as the void and seemed to draw Reyna like the abyss. A golden sign hung up over the door: Elysium.
Reyna carefully pushed her way into the building and slowly looked around. The building was much larger than it looked from the outside. Across the room was a bar counter that had two bartenders behind it. One of them was talking to a man. Another was cleaning cups.
To her right were the bathrooms. Reyna felt a desperate urge to rush in there, but she needed to keep her bearings and not get kicked out. Reyna gingerly walked across the unused dance floor. Her eyes moved to the tables and booths that lined the left wall. The far end of that left wall had a door, and if the smells were anything to go by, it was a kitchen.
Only a few patrons were in the building, and they were all gathered around a table, talking and laughing. Reyna made her way towards the bar and caught her reflection in the perfectly polished glass. Her normally dark skin was pale, and her eyes were sunken in. There were dark circles around her drooping eyelids.
"How can I help you?" the bartender greeted. Reyna's eyes flickered up, but the world turned red for a moment. She winced and moved her hand closer to her side.
"D...Do you serve f...food?" Reyna stuttered. She tried to keep her voice strong, but the events of the last few days had left her exhausted. Her eyes moved back to the bar counter.
"Of course. What can I get for you?" the bartender asked. "Would you like a menu?"
"A b..burger. Rare. P...please," Reyna managed. She forced her eyes to move up and focus on the bartender. The woman across from her looked to be the same age. Maybe a year younger. Her face was contorted in a concerned look.
"It will be about ten minutes," the bartender said. Reyna nodded slightly. "Do you need anything else?"
"C...can you watch my bag?" Reyna queried. She barely noticed the other bartender watching her. Stormy gray eyes studied her, but Reyna didn't have the strength to meet the challenging gaze.
"We'll hold it behind the bar for you," the bartender with the gray eyes accepted. Reyna stuttered out a thanks and slowly took her backpack off. She placed it on the counter and turned towards the bathroom, hand gripping the bag from the pharmacy.
Reyna lumbered towards the bathroom and pushed the door open. She slowly unzipped her jacket and stared down at the blood that stained her shirt. Reyna pulled off her jacket and hung it on the stall that she was going to step into.
Reyna grabbed a few paper towels and ran them underneath the water. After grabbing a few dry ones, she stepped into the stall and closed the door behind her. A labored breath left her as she lifted her shirt and studied the wound on her abdomen.
A pained noise escaped Reyna as she slowly cleaned the blood away from the wound. Just brushing the paper towel across the wound elicited a strangled cry to escape Reyna, and she bit down on her shirt to keep it from touching her wound and to muffle the noise.
A yellow liquid trickled from the wound, but all Reyna could do was clean everything around it and then the injury itself. When it was clean, she poured a large amount of rubbing alcohol on it, hissing at the pain. She grabbed tweezers from her pocket. A whimper left Reyna, and she bit down harder on her shirt.
Reyna placed the tweezers to the hole in her stomach and grabbed onto a shard of silver still buried inside. She pulled it out in one quick but difficult movement. She collapsed into the toilet seat, her scream only muffled by the shirt she was biting on. She laid her head back and removed another scrap of the cursed metal, desperately suppressing her yells from the pain.
The third fragment of silver would be the largest one yet. It was the piece that broke off into her body when she had first been stabbed. Reyna dug into her wound with the tweezers. This was going to hurt, but she had to remove the silver. Over the last few days, it had been slowly killing her.
This time, a muffled scream escaped Reyna as she pulled the large piece of silver from her body. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head, and she collapsed forward. When Reyna reopened her eyes, she was lying on the freshly tarnished bathroom floor.
Reyna rolled onto her back and cleaned the hole once again as fresh blood oozed from it. Then, she poured the rest of the rubbing alcohol on the damaged area. It took her a moment to grab the box of tapes and bandages. Reyna placed three bandages on her wound and taped it down. Her head laid against the ground, but she already felt a little better. The silver was no longer draining her of strength.
Reyna toiled to her hands and knees. She used the tweezers to pick up the silver and throw it in the small trash can attached to the wall. After that, she did her best to clean up the blood and the rest of the garbage.
The last thing to do was take the medicine. Reyna carefully washed her hands of all the blood and any traces of silver. Then, she cupped her hand and gathered some water. Reyna took a sip of the pooled liquid and felt relief for her dry mouth.
Reyna moved back to her jacket and put it on. She grabbed the pill bottle and examined it. Reyna slowly opened it and studied the small white pill that was inside. It was a lifesaver for people, beasts, like her: werewolves.
With the prevalence of beasts once thought to be mythological, humans had to learn to either coexist with these beasts or try to fight them. Most humans eventually decided to play nice, and they began to work together. It wouldn't be odd for Reyna to walk into a restaurant and find a group of elves, faeries, and a human or two sharing dinner.
Another positive was the shared research for all different types of creatures and even humans. One result of that shared research was what Reyna held in her hand. From what Reyna understood about herself, she, like a lot of so-called mythological beasts, was vulnerable like humans. They could die by a bullet to the heart or one to the head. It was just a lot harder for the bullet to tear through werewolves' skin and bones.
Silver was a weakness for werewolves. Not only did it poison them and make them weaker, but it also cut through their thicker skin like butter. And also through their thicker hearts. Reyna supposed it was a trade for the increased speed and strength that they had.
And she thanked whatever god was out there for the increased speed. Reyna had been running almost nonstop ever since being stabbed. She stopped maybe for a few hours a day, long enough to get in a restless sleep. Then, she was running again.
Reyna was never the fastest of her kind, but she could push forty miles an hour when she needed to. She had been for almost a full day. She lowered her speed slightly after that and ran until the pain became too much and she had put enough space in between her and her mistakes.
That was how she found herself in a city that she didn't even know the name of. She just saw the city lights, transformed back into a human, struggled to get her clothes back on, and found the pharmacy. Now, she just needed to eat and find somewhere to sleep.
Reyna snapped back to focus. The pill in her hands was an antidote to the silver poison. Hopefully, it would also take care of how infected her wound was. She placed the pill in her mouth and used the water to help her swallow it. Then, she left the bathroom, grateful that no one had walked in while she was using it.
Reyna made her way back to the bar counter. The bartender with gray eyes scanned her, and her gaze moved down. Reyna tensed as she realized that she hadn't zipped her jacket back up, exposing her bloodied shirt. Reyna quickly zipped up her jacket and tried to act nonchalant.
"Here you go," the bartender said. She held out Reyna's backpack. Reyna slowly took it and slung it across her shoulder. She tried to block out those piercing gray eyes. "Your food will be out soon. Can I get you a drink?"
"Just water," Reyna answered. She was handed a glass before she could blink. "Thanks."
Reyna slowly walked towards the nearest booth. It gave her a great view of the bar, and in case anyone had followed her, she would know. Reyna threw the medical supplies in her backpack and sat down. She drained most of the glass in a few seconds and then rested her head on the table, exhausted.
Her eyes fluttered open and close, but she managed to stay awake long enough to hear a plate being set down. Reyna slowly lifted her head and looked at the plate, no two plates, in front of her. Despite her mouth watering, she looked up at the server, "I only ordered one."
"Patron ordered one and didn't like it. We didn't want it to go to waste," the server informed. "Can I refill your water?"
Reyna nodded and looked at the plate of food. Her stomach growled loudly, and she barely remembered she was in public. Reyna grabbed the burger and bit into it. A small moan left her, and she devoured the delicious burger, barely stopping to breathe.
When Reyna was done with both burgers, she took her time with the fries. The exhaustion was slowly creeping back into her limbs. All of the running would leave her exhausted for a week, but she had to act quickly. She needed to decide whether she wanted to keep running or try to settle down here.
If she could find a job. If her past wouldn't come back to haunt her. Reyna sighed and drank her water. She took a few moments to rest her head on the table once again. Would this place be safe to settle in? She hadn't been able to get a proper feel for the streets, so she wasn't sure if it would be safe or not.
Getting a job would be difficult. Companies no longer cared what gender or race you were. They didn't ask for that anymore. Now, companies wanted to know what you were. Human? Elf? Dwarf? Vampire? And if Reyna told the truth, they would ask which pack she was associated with. That was a difficult question. One she couldn't answer and still get a respectable job.
A werewolf's pack was its family, its clan. Without one, well. Another sigh left Reyna as she thought about it, and her eyelids started to droop. She tried to lift her head and sit up. Instead, her head rested on the table, and despite herself, she fell into a deep sleep.
I had this random thought in my head last week at work, and it would not leave me alone. I think I wrote about three chapters last weekend just for this story. I keep trying to reach out of my comfort zone with stories like these, so I hope everyone enjoys the first chapter. Let me know your thoughts