AMARA'S POV
I woke up in the hospital two days later, and the first thing I felt was sharp, stabbing pain straight through my side the moment I tried to breathe. It forced a shaky gasp out of me. The room felt too bright, too white. Everything looked like it had been bleached clean, from the walls to the sheets to the stupid plastic chair by the window. Even the air smelled of drugs and chemicals.
My head throbbed, a heavy, dragging kind of ache that made it hard to think. I blinked, trying to pull my thoughts together, but they scattered instantly. Nothing made sense.
A doctor stood beside me, flipping through a chart. He didn't even look at me when he said, "You're lucky. Looks like a wild animal attack… maybe a wolf. The wound was deep, but we stitched it and stopped the bleeding. You'll heal. Just give it time."
A wolf.
The word hung in the air, heavy enough to press against my chest. My fingers curled slowly around the bedsheet as I tried to force the memories to come. But everything was blurry, like someone had shaken my brain like a snow globe.
I remembered glowing eyes. I remembered the weight of something huge slamming me to the ground. I remembered a burning pain in my side, hot enough to make my whole body shake. And then… the man.
The same man who had been watching me from the shadows for weeks. The one I always sensed but could never fully catch. He was there that night. He appeared out of nowhere, grabbed the creature off me, and crashed into it with strength no normal person should have.
And then, the impossible part, the part that refused to fit neatly into my brain, he changed. Shifted. Became a wolf himself.
But whenever I tried to focus, the moment twisted and fell apart. I feel like I am losing my mind because this feels too much to handle.
When they finally discharged me, I could barely walk without holding my side. Mira was waiting outside my building, pacing like she'd worn a path into the ground. She rushed to me the second she saw me.
"Amara!" She practically threw her arms around me, then pulled back when I winced. "Sorry, sorry, just… don't ever do that again." She grabbed my bag from my hand without asking and followed me inside.
Before I could even protest, she unfolded the couch and dropped her blanket on it. "I'm sleeping here. I'm not leaving you alone after what happened. Don't argue."
I didn't.
I couldn't.
The truth was, I didn't want to be alone either.
Silence felt dangerous now. The corners of my apartment felt too dark. And the strangest part, the man who had been following me silently for weeks had vanished completely. No shadow at my door. No sense of being watched.
Everything went quiet at the same time, and somehow, that terrified me more.
That night, sleeping was impossible. Every time I closed my eyes, I felt that hot breath on my neck again. The snarl replayed in my ears like a recording. I kept seeing the flash of gold eyes locked on mine right before the pain hit.
So I sat up in bed, blanket wrapped tightly around me, holding my side like it would keep the memories away. I grabbed my phone just to distract myself.
I stared at the search bar for a long minute.
My brain already knew what it was avoiding. My heart already knew too. But my fingers finally typed it out:
Wolf attack.
Articles popped up instantly. News stories. Wildlife warnings. Tips on what to do if you see one in the woods. I scrolled through pictures of real wolves, but none of them looked like what I remembered. Their eyes weren't glowing. Their bodies weren't that big. They didn't move like the thing that attacked me.
None of it matched.
I kept scrolling, searching for anything that felt familiar. Something that made me feel like I wasn't losing my mind.
Then, at the bottom of one of the pages, a link caught my attention. It didn't look like an ad. It didn't look like a normal article either. It looked old. Simple text. No picture.
The title made me choke out a tiny laugh, even though nothing felt funny:
"Wolves… or something else? Understanding the werewolf theory."
Werewolves. Seriously?
I almost backed out of the page. But my thumb pressed it anyway.
The article wasn't long. It talked about myths, old sightings, and strange attacks through history. Half of it sounded like something from a documentary that no one takes seriously. But then, small details started matching.
The way the writer described the eyes was bright and unnatural.
The way the creatures moved was too fast, too strong.
The way some attacks didn't match any known animal pattern.
My chest tightened.
I didn't want it to make sense.
But it did.
More than the doctor's explanation.
More than anything else I'd read.
At the bottom of the page, a final line was bolded:
"For more records and documented cases, visit: Hollow Ridge Public Library – Special Archives Section."
I froze.
Hollow Ridge.
A thirty-minute drive from my home.
I scrolled further. Below the address was a small line, barely noticeable:
"For those seeking truth, come before sunset."
My stomach dropped. My fingers shook around my phone.
Before sunset?
Why before sunset?
What happened after sunset?
I didn't believe in monsters. I didn't believe in curses. I didn't believe in legends that sounded like campfire stories.
I saw something that had no human explanation and knew one would believe me.
And for the first time, the pieces in my mind didn't feel like broken glass anymore. They were shifting, trying to fit, forming an answer I wasn't ready for but couldn't ignore.
I set my phone down, my heart thudding loud enough to hear.
Hollow Ridge.
A part of me wanted to run far away from whatever that meant. A bigger part, the part still shaking from the memory of claws and pain.
I want answers.
Because if the world
I knew wasn't the real one, then I needed to know what was hiding under it. And why did it want me?