His pulse is banging in his ears. Smells are overwhelming in the forest. Pine, berries, dirt, rabbits. It is all about the rabbits for him. He wants to eat, and he is starving. Wind catches his fur, disturbing the trail he has been on for the last hour. He looks up, watching the moon shine back at him. He is comforted by its pale light. He’ll find the rabbit, fill his belly, and then lay his head down. He’ll change into something else and be caught for another month.

Caught until the next full moon.

I adjusted the straps on my backpack a little, feeling the nerves pump through my veins. This was a bad idea. Such a bad idea. Why I was doing this was beyond me. Why did I even need to assimilate? I changed into a monster once a month. Did monsters even need degrees?

I had signed up for this course for some kind of normality. I was thinking maybe it’d cannonball me into actually having a life and not just staying at home and binge watching the same tv-series over and over again.

I couldn’t stay emo and sad forever. Hermit life wasn’t a life. But was uni really the answer? It had been a ‘spur of the moment’ kind of thing. An ad had popped up while I was doom scrolling through social media and some kind of crazy thing had happened and I signed up. Moved my whole life from the big city to this place. A small town that basically revolved around the university. The school had gotten here first and then alumni would build houses around it because they didn’t want to leave. Sounded weird, but it was a cute town now. And I had managed to get a small house with the rest of my inheritance. At least the housing market wasn’t out to get me here.

It did feel like the school was out to get me though. The hairs on the back of my neck kept rising and I couldn’t figure out why. I did have better senses after getting bitten and I had been able to avoid getting in the middle of a fight in a bar once because of those senses, but them going off now in the middle of the quad in front of the university, made zero sense.

I shrugged the nerves off me, or tried to at least, hoisted up in my backpack and started towards the school. I had orientation first and then I’d get my schedule. I wasn’t a full-time student, choosing to not fill my days with classes but rather just extend my degree to last longer and then have more time for myself. I wasn’t sure if I could keep up with a full-time schedule, or if I’d constantly get overstimulated here. Having a keen sense of smell, hearing, seeing, tasting… Everything. Everything was too much all the time and sometimes I couldn’t control it, and I’d basically have a melt-down session.

Orientation was boring. Just told the story of the university that I had already read on my own, and I wondered why they didn’t just send us an email with a link to all of this.

“This could’ve fit into an email,” someone muttered next to me.

I glanced up at a tall guy with cheekbones for days and a golden hue to his skin. He looked down from behind his sunglasses and offered me a lopsided smirk.

“Wouldn’t get paid for sending an email, probably,” I murmured back.

“Gotta be able to clock them there hours.”

I snorted and nodded.

“Wanna get out of here?”

I usually didn’t just go along with a pair of walking cheekbones, but I was about to tear my own skin off if I didn’t get out of here, so I obliged and followed him out.

“What’s your name?” he asked and adjusted his sunglasses a little.

“Gael. You?”

“Abel. Nice to meet you, Gael. What’re you studying?”

“Painting and printmaking.”

“Oh, an artist! That’s really cool.” He smiled and he seemed genuine.

“What about you?” I asked, feeling heat creep up in my cheeks.

“Nano physics.”

I arched a brow. “Is it bad I don’t know what that is?”

“Well, I’m not sure what printmaking is supposed to mean, because like. We’ve got printers, yeah?” He laughed and shoved his hands in the slightly distressed black bomber jacket. “I guess we can teach each other about our degrees.”

“Yeah, I… I guess so.” I smiled. Had I already made a friend? Was it really this easy in uni?

“Anyways, let me give you my number. Hit me up later if you wanna get coffee after all the orientation stuff.”

I couldn’t believe how confident he was, handing out his number like that. How effortless he was. I handed him my phone with shaky fingers, his grazing over mine. His fingers were quite warm, and it felt like a small bolt of lightning slashed through my hand. I almost dropped my phone, but Abel caught it.

“Careful,” he murmured and then punched in his number.

“Thanks. I’ll… Text you.”

“Cool. See ya later, dog boy.” He winked at me, and I was very confused.

I looked down at my phone, realising my background was a picture of my dog. A sweet collie mix named Dave. It wasn’t like Abel could’ve known about the other ‘dog’ in my life.

Right?