I lay exhausted off another drunken stupor somewhere in the middle of a rural town in California. The rain had fallen prior to where I lay, and it's still wet on the park bench. The playground is empty. Thankfully so. There's one woman walking by. Or is she coming closer? I can't tell, I don't care enough, I'm too tired. I close my eyes, and then she touches me.

　　"Sir?".

　　I try to play dead.

　　She nudges me again,

　　"Sir?... oh my God."

　　"Boo", I said dryly, and I realized even I'd be turned off by my own tone. I cleared my throat, sighed and used what little strength I could muster to sit up and stare at the woman straight on. When my vision cleared I could focus on a young woman. With bright green eyes, deep laugh lines and dimples when she smiled at me. I couldn't help the warmth that men gathered in their stomachs around such beautiful women.

　　"I thought you were dead." She said.

　　"Almost", I replied to her soft spoken words. She smiled at me again, but it seemed sadder that time.

　　"I couldn't help but see if it were so. Are you alright?".

　　Why did she care?

　　"Yes. I'm fine."

　　"Had a long night?", she asked me.

　　I frowned,

　　"You could call it that."

　　Her face matched my own,

　　"I'm sorry. I'll go now. I'm glad you're alright. Have a good evening." She turned to leave and I was just about to let her, before I forgot what day it was, and I asked her and she looked back at me. She stared at me for quite a moment. I didn't believe myself to be a looker. I was tall, and sure I was once a cop but I was scrawny, stubbly and my hair was short and unkempt. Even the color of my shirt folded out awkwardly over my jacket. I looked like a mess, and only liquor could solve what deeper crimes stained my soul.

　　"It's March 2nd", she said wearily.

　　I swallowed thickly.

　　A full moon.

　　That's when I thanked her, and got up to get headed towards the woods. She tilted her head, I didn't realise she was calling out to me, but she was. I couldn't risk anything tonight though. Too much blood was already on my hands. I had to go, deal with my sins in peace, alone. Confide in it. But she was persistent, I made it just to edge of where the park ended and the woods began and she still called. Ran up to me even, was she unaware that I was a big, much bigger than her despite my stature, and STRANGE? Sure, I meant no harm by her, but she didn't know that.

　　Then she touched me, I whirled around,

　　"Look lady, I think it's for your best interests in mind to stay the fuck away from me."

　　She blinked, taken aback and I felt the sting in her eyes. One could even say, I felt guilty. But she nodded, turned around. And wisely, I would have ran but she hurried off in retreat. She fast paced until she was far enough away to run with out feeling as embarrassed and there I could cross the threshold and dive into the thickets where I belonged when the night was of the silver shining. Moon full and beast yearning. He couldn't contain the cravings that followed after my transformation when those cursed rays bleached my grey skin. It was painful, but I couldn't stop him. It was a curse delivered at birth, and drug on until my parents were hunted and murdered when I was but a young man. I had sisters, they are all over the states, and we don't talk anymore, after Mom and Dad died. Shall be it too,  it was much safer that way to keep as little contact with those of the same breed, same curse. Especially when you were hunted, and the hunters could tell you were bitten or born by the sickly hue of your skin that comes with the sickness.

　　I never asked anyone to become a viscous wolf every time theres a full moon, I never asked to be a mythical creature, A werewolf, above of all sorts. A werewolf, a painful, recurring nightmare of reincarnation that reigns every silver glowing night. I don't think I've ever really gotten a good look at the moon other than in pictures. I don't remember much, other than the killings when ever I turned.

　　And I only ever killed three times.

　　And they were dear to me...

　　And I swore if I couldn't kill myself,

　　I would never kill another person again.

　　And I chose not to kill myself because,

　　I don't know how.

　　My Dad's 9 millimeter pistol couldn't do the job, it was almost like this curse, gave me immortality. I couldn't pay for what I did to them. So I decided every night I turn, I'd go out I to the woods, and not come back until it was all over. Prevent anything, and everything...

　　I would wake up in the middle of the woods, but I always found my way back to the city. Almost like a part of me remembered where I went that night when I was a wolf. Every step, every smell, every rock and tree, and clump of mud would seem familiar. But only that, a reminiscent thought I had no origin too. Almost like snippet of dreams, of nightmares that were far too real, but felt so far away. It happens two, to three nights every month. Sometimes it even drags on and I don't wake up until some point the next day, already into the next turning. The pain is endless for those few days. Until it's all over.

　　I find myself here now. Just awaiting the moon to peek it's head out from the clouds. There was no hiding it. It was actually the least excruciating when turning in the direct light of the moon, it would only drag on to infect and spread and morph me if I tried to hide from it's glow. The moon comforts every night completely with invisible plasma Ray's no one thinks about. As that energy crept through the cracks of your windows and floorboards and seeps into your very skin. Those with my sickness feel it's touch, it's toll, its push and pull and tearing of our flesh as we become an animal we should have been.

　　I force myself to focus on the beat of the stream trickling by. Squated at it's bank, the gloaming kisses the light goodnight and within minutes the full darkness of the night looms over and I can do nothing but listen, and wait. The clouds were heavy today, and I expected a long, and agonizing transformation this night. For the Moon was guarded by thick blue curtains that seemed like they were crying a little too. I huffed.

　　Tonight, was not only going to be painful...

　　But wet.

　　I must have dozed off to the peaceful sounds of the forest when I heard a twig snap. I had already began to grow a migraine, and my knees and forearms were aching like I had ran a mile just sitting there. It was the first signs of what was about to come.

　　My salivary glands started to profusely drip, and I could choke on my own spit had I been any wiser. I let my tongue loose and just let the saliva run, nauseating. But better than drowning in it.

　　I heard another snap, but noticed a raven squawk unto the other side of the stream, and I paid it no mind. Despite it all, and all the fear I had. It wasn't of any man. No, I was far more scared of myself, of what I might do to those I care about, had they known, had they been anywhere around when I turned... They had and look what happened to them...

　　But, sometimes, I wonder perhaps in another life. Had nothing changed but the fact that we all stuck together. Sickness and in health we stayed a pack and who knows what we would have done, all wolves together in the night... Perhaps it wouldn't have been so hard...

　　Or... as they were afraid of,

　　It could have been the death of them all...

　　I don't know which was worse. But I am too old to care about that now. To care about family.

　　My stomach growled and knotted and my breath felt short and the pain began to spread throughout my body like pins and needles. I breathed through it, I had been through this, what has felt like a million times.

　　This was my 153rd transformation. Just as painful as the first, but at least now... I could barely bare it.

　　That's when I heard another crunch of leaves and branches, and I whirled around and there that same woman from before stood. The same young, beautiful woman, and I felt every breath of my body be punched out of me.