The cold morning sun shone through the leaves of the Smoky Mountain trees, piercing the dawn fog with faint golden threads.
Luke opened his eyes slowly, finding himself lying on the bank of a flowing river, completely naked, while old clothes lay twisted roughly near the water, as if someone had known he would wake up here and placed them near him on purpose.
He shivered from the cold and the excruciating pain gnawing at every muscle in his body, as if his entire cellular structure had been forcibly rebuilt. Slowly, with sluggish movements filled with aches and trembling, he reached out and picked up the tattered clothes, putting them on while weeping silently as his soul drowned in boundless, blind confusion.
What the hell is happening to me?
A scattered memory rushed through his head like a nightmare. He remembered his name well... Lucas Thiemen, or Luke for short, just an ordinary student who had just started high school, a fifteen-year-old teenager who knew nothing of the world except his room, his phone, and his simple studies. He remembered falling back asleep the previous night completely normal, getting ready for his new school day, only to find himself waking up tied to a chair with iron chains before turning into... into something resembling a rabid dog or a ferocious beast!
He froze in place, his eyes widening with a shock that froze the blood in his veins:
(Wait... am... am I a werewolf? Did I really become a werewolf?!)
Suddenly, many things began to make sense to him: the bone-crushing pain, the monstrous transformation, the overwhelming wild instincts, the madness that had swept his mind, and the ferocity of hunting in the dark forest... all things that exist only in the tales and epics of werewolves in fantasy worlds.
Yet the word was uttered with extreme difficulty in his rejecting human mind: a fantasy world!
In the real life he knew, there was no such nonsense!
Luke whispered to himself in a broken, hoarse voice: "What the hell is going on, and how did I become a werewolf?!"
He stood up with unsteady steps toward the riverbank to drink some water, but froze in place like someone struck by a thunderbolt when his eyes caught the reflection of his face in the clear water's surface.
That was not the face of a fifteen-year-old boy at all!
He was looking at a completely different person: a dark-skinned, bald face adorned with a rough masculine beard, a ridiculously and frighteningly massive muscular body, sharp brown eyes, and facial features ranging from handsome to rugged.
He recoiled in hysterical shock, his chest rising and falling rapidly.
"Who the hell is this person?! Where is my face?!"
Luke screamed with heart-deep despair, slamming his hand down to strike the surface of the water violently as droplets flew in all directions, before collapsing to his knees on the cold earth, breaking down into bitter, deep sobs amid the solemn silence of the forest.
Bearing the pains of his new muscular body and wearing his torn clothes, Luke walked with heavy, random steps among the trees, following the scent of faint smoke rising from afar, hoping to find an answer that would lead him out of this nightmare.
It wasn't long before he found himself before a wide, open space in the middle of the forest... a full-fledged camp.
Luke froze in utter shock; there were dozens of men and women, some preparing food, others quietly chatting, while the center of the place was occupied by a blazing campfire next to which sat the very same woman he had seen yesterday before his terrifying transformation.
Before he could process the shock of the place and its scale, the woman turned and her eyes landed on him. She quickly stood up and walked toward him with steady steps, calling out in a familiar voice: "Luke! How are you holding up after your first transformation?"
Luke's body trembled at the harshness of the word "first transformation," and a lump formed in his throat. He looked at the woman with tear-filled eyes and said in a hoarse voice: "Terrible... awful... everything is bad."
The woman patted his shoulder tenderly and said in a reassuring tone: "That's completely normal, brother... but over time, you'll get used to it and learn how to control it."
Luke looked at her with fatal confusion, his mind refusing to believe a single word she uttered. He asked in a hesitant, trembling voice: "Where... where are we?"
The woman blinked with a slight smile, then looked at him in confusion and surprise: "Huh? What do you mean? We're in the camp, at the pack's camp!"
Luke shook his head and waved his hand in the air with violent, hysterical despair: "I mean where the hell are we?! What is this place?! And who the hell are you by some black magic?! Answer me!"
Suddenly, silence fell over the place.
Everyone in the camp froze at Luke's sudden, agitated shouting. Hands stopped preparing food, conversations cut off, and dozens of eyes turned toward him in absolute shock and dead silence.
The woman frowned with confusion and worry, taking another step toward him, saying slowly and cautiously: "Luke... what is the last thing you remember?"
Luke froze upon hearing her question. After slight hesitation, and with a faint voice that shook his heart, he said: "Nothing... I don't remember anything before waking up tied to a chair with chains."
He didn't know why, nor even the instinctive force that stopped him, but he felt a deep, vague feeling warning him not to tell her anything... He shouldn't tell her about his school, his family, or his home in New York.
The woman's eyes widened with genuine shock, and she whispered in a stunned voice: "Oh my God... have you lost your memory?! Did the shock and the first transformation affect your mind like this?!"
Here, Luke had reached his breaking point.
He could no longer bear this absolute madness. Luke roared with grinding anger, hot tears gathering in his eyes as he screamed at the top of his lungs: "Answer me!! Who are you?! And where the hell is this place?! And what am I?! What is this body?! Have mercy and explain to me what the hell is going on!"
The woman looked at him with deep pity clearly reflected in her facial features. She turned her head and motioned with her hands to the pack's men and women, signaling them to resume their work, so the whispers and shock gradually faded and life returned to the camp.
Then she turned back to him, placed her hand gently on his trembling arm, and led him with calm steps a little away from the noise of the place until they sat together near the quiet fire.
She looked into his tear-filled eyes and said in a calm, warm voice: "Luke! Calm down a little, okay? I promise you everything will be fine."
Luke stared at her with a painful expression covered in exhaustion and defeat. He no longer had the energy to resist or scream after all this torment and madness, so he nodded slowly in complete silence, letting her speak and lowering the final defenses of his scattered mind.
The woman sighed sharply, letting out a long breath laden with heavy responsibility, then looked at him with a serious look and said in a steady voice: "Before I explain anything to you... let me introduce myself first... My name is Paige."
Luke sat near Paige, his mind trying to process the magnitude of information he had just received amidst a state of silent shock.
First and foremost, he was no longer in his familiar world; instead, he found himself a member of a pack of werewolves, and his name—or at least the name of this body he had woken up in—was "Luke Caven," not "Lucas Thiemen" as he distinctly remembered. And Paige was the leader of their pack, an ancient pack bearing her name: Paige's Pack, which used the depths of the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee as an impenetrable hideout unreachable by humans.
But... what had werewolves been hiding from all this time? Vampires.
That was the most shocking truth; the predators supposed to be at the top of the food chain had turned into prey for another, stronger, and more bloodthirsty race. The reason for this constant hiding was that vampires hunted werewolves relentlessly out of fear of the werewolf's toxic bite, which was fatal to them on the night of a full moon. A fierce war had lasted throughout the past thousand years, bringing the werewolf race to the verge of extinction, forcing them to hide in the depths of these rugged mountains out of fear for their lives from annihilation.
All this horrifying information finally made him realize the truth of what had happened to him:
He had reincarnated anew in another world.
In someone else's body.
With a new identity.
And as a werewolf, on top of all that!
His throat tightened, and tears pooled in his eyes. Luke sighed heavily, trying hard to curb his sobs and falling tears.
His father... his mother... his grandmother... his uncle... his aunt... and his cousin... he would never see them again in his life.
His old life, his school, his friends, his homeland, and all his simple memories... he would never be able to live them again.
He had lost everything, literally and forever.
He felt a warm touch; Paige patted his shoulder gently and said in a low, tender voice: "Are you... okay?"
Luke nodded with vacant shock, not uttering a single word, as his eyes were drowning in an overwhelming void.
Paige sighed deeply, then stood up quietly and said: "Come with me... let's take a little walk."
Luke slowly raised his gaze to find Paige looking at him with eyes full of patience and empathy. He exhaled a burning breath, then stood up on his feet unsteadily and heavily, walking with her in absolute silence that tore at his depths.
While Paige walked with confident steps among the dense pine trees in the Smoky Mountains, "Luke" walked behind him in dead silence while his mind buzzed with rushing thoughts and hysterical questions.
He had been thinking at length to escape the shock of the tragedy and terrible misfortune that had just befallen him, trying to analyze the entire situation and isolate it from his new reality: In what fictional world had he reincarnated in the hell of it all?
Many options flashed through the mind of a young man well-versed in novels and movies; the first option that flashed in his mind was the famous Teen Wolf universe, but he immediately dismissed it, as transforming into a full wolf was extremely rare in that world, besides its complete lack of vampires.
Then he thought of The Twilight Saga universe; specifically the true werewolf race called the Children of the Moon, where they transform into full, massive wolves under the influence of the full moon, and their bite carries venom lethal to vampires. But the legends of the Twilight universe made werewolves there live solitarily, and Jacob Black's tribe were shape-shifters rather than original werewolves. Most importantly, werewolves in Twilight weren't weaker than vampires to the extent of being hunted to extinction!
Afterward, he thought of the Van Helsing universe; where the werewolf's bite is considered the sole weapon capable of killing Dracula (the vampire king), which is why Dracula enslaved werewolves and placed iron collars around their necks to control them. Luke raised his hand and lightly touched his neck to check—there were no collars. Also, Van Helsing's werewolves transform into massive bipedal beasts (half-human, half-monster), not real four-legged wolves like the one he transformed into yesterday.
So... maybe he was in the world of the Bitten / Women of the Otherworld novels? That idea matched his reality the best; werewolves there literally transform into real, beautiful, natural-looking wolves, and possess supernatural senses like the ones he experienced yesterday. Moreover, their saliva and bite contain supernatural toxins and enzymes that prevent vampire cell regeneration and lead to the rotting of their bodies and slow death unless the infected limb is amputated immediately!
Luke sighed strongly and shook his head in silence. None of this really mattered now. At least he was relatively safe inside these rugged mountains, and that was what mattered most currently.
But suddenly, the bitter truth crashed over his chest like a mountain:
He had barely absorbed the shock of waking up as a werewolf on a full moon night, completely losing his family, his life, and his homeland, and fighting a life-or-death battle just now with the Alpha... only to find himself now required to beware of vampires too?!
(Damn all this nonsense...)
Luke thought to himself with sorrow and unbearable pain, slowly raising his eyes to look at Paige in silence.
As if she felt the weight of his gaze and his defeat, Paige turned to him and met his sad eyes. She approached him with calm steps, patted his shoulder gently again, and said in a warm, reassuring tone: "Don't worry... everything will be fine. I promise you'll recover your body and control over it soon."
Then she moved further into the depths of the forest, while Luke followed her with slow, hesitant steps, asking in a faint voice: "Where are we going?"
Paige looked back and said with a slight smile: "Just follow me, and you'll find out."
Luke sighed deeply and followed her reluctantly amidst the cold mountain fog.
After a short march among dense pine trees and scattered fog, the forest opened up into a small, quiet clearing, revealing in the distance a simple wooden house isolated from the bustle of the main camp.
The house was built from rough, dark pine logs, topped by a slanted roof covered with a thin layer of pine needles and fallen leaves. In the small dirt yard in front of it, it was clearly designated as a modest training ground; a thick tree trunk acting as a chopping block stood firmly with a sharp iron axe with a wide blade embedded in it, while an old hunting gun leaned carefully against the wooden porch railing.
Paige stopped in front of the door, turned to Luke with a warm, light smile, and said in a quiet voice carrying a deeply personal tone: "Here... this used to be your home, Luke. You built this place yourself here, far away from the noise of the camp and everyone else."
Luke furrowed his brows in amazement, blinking in disbelief as he stared at the house and then turned to her: "My home?! I built this? And why on earth would I choose to live isolated in the middle of this wild forest far away from the pack?"
Paige cast her gaze cautiously with a faint mystery, offering a strained smile before responding tenderly: "The reason... is a bit complicated, Luke. You were someone... let's say who preferred quiet and privacy. But don't worry, I'll explain every detail in due time when you're ready."
Then she turned and pushed open the slightly dilapidated wooden door, taking him on a short tour inside the house to show it to him completely; they first entered the small open kitchen, which featured rustic wooden shelves holding some handmade utensils, a small dining table, and two chairs beside a small stone fireplace. Then she showed him the modest living room centered by an old leather sofa and a cold stone fireplace, and finally she opened the door to his own room; a small room containing a narrow wooden bed covered with a heavy woolen blanket and a small window overlooking the dark forest trees.
Paige stopped at the threshold of the room, turning toward him with eyes full of sincere, maternal empathy, and said in a firm, reassuring tone: "I want you to rest in your room from now on, Luke. Don't worry about anything; I'll take care of you, and I'll stay by your side until your condition improves completely, and you learn how to survive anew, and understand the true meaning of what you've become... what it means to be a werewolf."
Luke felt a burning lump in his throat. A strange and confusing feeling of privilege and oddness washed over him toward this woman he didn't truly know, who had been dealing him blows just hours ago. He crossed his arms tensely and asked her in a trembling, faint voice: "Why... why are you doing all this for me? After everything that happened, and after I attacked you... why do you care about me like this?"
Paige smiled a calm, gentle smile, stepping closer to him to say in a broad, sincere tone: "Because you're a member of my pack, Luke. And as the Alpha... it's my sacred duty to take care of everyone and protect my family no matter the circumstances. And right now, you're the person among us who needs me the most."
She reached out and patted his shoulder with pure, paternal tenderness, saying in a quiet voice: "Rest well now... take all the time you need, and I'll wake you up later."
Paige then turned with confident steps, walking out of the room toward the living room; where she sat silently on the old leather sofa, pulled a small leather notebook and pen from her pocket, and began writing in it with complete focus and calm.
Luke stood at the door of the room, looking at her with an extremely complex gaze; a look harboring a deep mixture of pure gratitude, temporary relief, and ongoing shock. Finally, he lowered his head, quietly closed the wooden room door behind him, and approached the bed. The moment his exhausted and battered body touched the pillow, deep, instant sleep swallowed him under the weight of immense exhaustion and harsh transformation.
At least there was one good thing left behind all this madness.