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***
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?
Classes sounded boring but the actual studios we were given? They were to die for. And we had twenty-four-hour access with our own key cards. It looked like a remodelled factory building with massive windows and a very high ceiling. There were even platforms with metal staircases swirling up to them from the concrete floor.
I took a seat by one of the many desks in a small cubicle. The whole floor was sectioned into cubicles with either two or four desks. I had taken one with two desks, thinking I'd like the privacy better and I wouldn't have to share my space with three other people.
"Hi," someone said from behind me, knocking on the half wall.
I turned to find a girl with black hair down to her waist. She wore a really pretty black dress with a big black cardigan over it. A dark brown lipstick complimented her slightly lighter brown skin in a nice way. She definitely knew her colours.
"Can I take that one?" she asked and pointed a nicely manicured nail at the free desk.
"Y-yeah, of course!" I stammered and nodded quickly.
"I'm Fred. Or Winnifred but everyone calls me Fred." She smiled sweetly, her jewellery jangling as she walked into the cubicle and sat down on the chair.
"Gael."
"You new in town?"
I nodded again.
"I knew it. No one with a great sense of style lives here without me knowing." She winked and threw some of her hair over her shoulder.
I looked down at myself. I had never really considered my style great? I always opted for clothes in black, just like her by the looks of it. Skinny jeans, big t-shirts and hoodies filled my closet to the rim.
With Fred it seemed like I had a partner in crime though. I smoothed my hair down a bit and smiled.
"So, are you a painter, illustrator or printmaker?"
"I usually draw, but I've been doing a lot of oils lately. You?"
"Print making." She held up her hands showing off various small cuts. "I like to cut my metal plates myself too. Like an idiot." She laughed a melodic laugh and I felt myself smiling too.
"That's really cool. I'd love to try it sometime."
"I'll teach you, if you teach me how to make an oil painting that doesn't look like a three-year-old slammed the brushes on a canvas."
"Deal."
Two friends in the span of a few hours. This place had to be magical or something. I had no idea how I had already gotten two friends. Growing up I had zero friends besides Dave. Getting the bite didn't really help with that whole situation.
"You can drop by mine and my girlfriend's house anytime. She's a welder so she helps me with the metal."
Queer people are like wolves. Searching for a pack at all times. Or so I had read on the internet and found it hilarious, because I'm literally a queer wolf so did that mean the whole 'search for a pack' became even more powerful?
Queer people are like magnets, they attract each other. Which was another funny thing I had read on the internet, and I had always felt like it must've been true, because like... We always somehow found each other in crowds.
Also, sometimes we love to generalise. And if you're me, you like to overthink things and relate harder to memes on the internet than to actual real-life experiences because you have none. Or not a lot. I've had experiences. Like I've dated and stuff. But I never found the true community. An ex told me the whole thing was a myth and we create smaller communities of found families, because we have to. Because a lot of us don't have bio families for one reason or another. But there was no real overall community. I wasn't sure if it was true or not, but I had been lowkey searching for something that resembled a community. Even when I had been binge-watching shit on my laptop, I had been yearning for something.
Maybe this was my chance. Uni was a new start for many people, and maybe it could be for me too.
"I'd love to. And you can come by mine and I'll teach you to paint."
"Look at us. Making deals left and right." She winked at me.
I snorted and nodded. "I gotta be honest. I was nervous coming here, but so far everyone's been really nice."
"It's a nice town. Most of the time." She shrugged a shoulder. "It's pretty run-of-the-mill. Where did you come from?"
"A much larger city. Haven't lived in any city this small before."
"Well, I hope you can adjust to small-town-living. I have a feeling you'll fit right in here."