But back to the story at hand. I got on the heavily packed bus heading into the city and managed to survive the stench of sweat and lack of space just barely. You'd think I'd get used to that over time, but no. I never got used to it, and I'm sure nobody really does. After a while I didn't mind that the bus was that packed though. It's not my nor any other person's fault that this bus was the only one picking up passengers from the nearby villages that wanted to go to the city. In that case, it was a management issue. Yes, it is true that some people disliked us "outsiders" and still do today, but at least they provided work for those in search of it and thus many people had simply accepted the intolerance of the so-called "city folk". It was like bad and good karma balancing each other out, in the end there was more or less a relationship of indifference between these two kinds of people.

Finally, I arrived at the bus stop close to my workplace and put on a surgical mask to avoid the pollution in the air. It was like a gray fog, a fog that left horrible stains on clothes which is why I always wore a protective coat over my uniform. After a few minutes on foot I could already see a neon green sign poking out of the thick fog high up in the air. This sign belonged to a pale, dusty yellow block of concrete I call my workplace. "Ilumnos Corp.", not the best place to work at in this part of the city, but certainly not the worst one either. It was enough to pay for food and the bills. Once again, I had to think about the strange boy laying on my kitchen floor. Good thing I locked the storage room or else I might have run out of my supplies for the month that morning.

The heavily stained glass doors of the factory building swung open automatically in front of me and I set foot into the almost clean foyer in which I had to register every morning.

"Welcome at Ilumnos, how may I help you?", the receptionist said in a tone that was almost friendly.

"Arka Orumiki, signing in for the nine double zero shift."

The lady sitting at the reception desk swiftly entered the information. Without lifting her gaze an inch to possibly meet mine, she opened another window on her screen and asked:

"Registration code?"

I recited the code I had received when I started working there, the 8 digits that were treated with more care than any other personal information you might have. Once again, the slim, almost bony fingers of the lady started to move and after a few more clicks and clacks a printer standing next to her screen began rattling. A few moments passed until it spat out a small green card with a single red line running across the center of it. As the woman handed me the card, she grunted something inaudible and then started typing once more. I took the card and walked over to a small gray apparatus with a red light on top of it, hanging on the wall next to the large steel-ish doors of an elevator. I inserted the card into the slot on the bottom and waited for the light to turn green. It took longer than usual but in the end, the light finally turned green and the elevator doors opened, presenting to me an ensemble of a shabby old mirror, dirty mint green linoleum that covered the floor and advertisements and posters sticking to the walls. Not to mention the stench of rubbing alcohol. I took a deep breath, trying to hold on to the relatively tolerable air inside the foyer, and entered the cabin. And up it went.

I can't exactly remember what happened at work that day, but it was probably more of the same. I was working in the communications department and usually took care of the maintenance and paperwork, such as letters, invoices, reports. Most of them came from places further away, where people didn't have Chips implanted into their bodies and still wrote on paper instead of screens. It felt like leaping between decades sometimes. Even their style of writing was rather antique. Beautiful phrases, but considered unnecessary.

At around 5 pm, I left my small square office space like I did every day and headed back towards the elevator. Walking past all the white walls, with slim openings between them to allow workers to slip inside, I tried not to look at the faces of my co-workers. Yellow, stale, like a dying animal. Their eyes were like dead fish, threatening to drop out of their sockets or roll back into their heads, to leave gaping holes and rotting flesh behind. It made me sick, and yet, I felt like I couldn't ignore them. They were the living image of the fate that would have awaited me. I'm not really the kind of person to believe in a deity or higher force, but I do believe that meeting him was a blessing. He made me realize that I had to change something. Thanks to him, I didn't rot away like my co-workers did. I'm sorry, I just keep getting off track today for some reason.

I was home at around six thirty, like every day. I was about to open the door, strip my coat and my uniform right off to change into something more comfortable and heat up some of my favorite pea soup when I realized that I had a guest waiting for me inside. Probably waiting for more food. I couldn't help but smile when thinking back to him waiting patiently for the food like a puppy. I slid the key into the lock and turned it before pushing open the door and taking a look inside the house. The bread was gone, but so was the boy. The rope was laying sprawled out on the floor, still connected to the table.

"I'm home. How have you been?"

Before I could even finish the sentence I saw an animal sprinting around the corner towards me.

It was that wolf again.

As soon as I realized that, I pulled the door closed and tried to lock it again, but it was too late. This animal was clearly hungry, and relentlessly tried to break down the door between us. Thoughts were running through my head.

Did I really leave a window open? Did the boy let this wolf in? Is it really his pet then? Was this his plan all along, to take my property and just kill me off afterwards?

Tears started streaming down my face and I began to sob, quietly at first against the deafeningly loud creaking and crashing sounds coming from inside my house. But as my sobbing became more intense, the barking and noises of something gnawing and smashing against the door came to a halt. Out of relief or curiosity as to why this animal had just given up I stopped crying for a moment. A few minutes passed without a single sound coming from inside my house. Then, someone or something pulled open the door from the inside. It was the boy. There were tears glistening in the corners of his eyes, but apart from that he showed no emotions whatsoever. He opened his mouth as if wanting to say something, but didn't. Instead he went over to the kitchen table and put the rope around his wrist again. He laid down on the floor, just a hint of remorse or pain in his eyes, and then shrank. And grew. And his hair grew longer and longer and his ears became hairy and pointy and his teeth sharp and protruded from the side of his mouth. And then he just fell asleep, as if he hadn't just revealed himself to be a shapeshifter. You can rest assured that in that moment, when my life had just been flashing by before my eyes, I would have believed just about anything. And so I did. I said Goodnight to my new pet or roommate, whatever he or it chose to be, fell asleep, and dreamt of playing in the forest.