I wasn’t born evil.

I wasn’t even born bad or wrong or any of those other things that you associate with the villain of the story.

My parents weren’t bad people, quite the opposite in fact. They brought me up well and taught me the difference between right and wrong, and the importance of being good. But they would also remind me, now and then, that there was always a choice, and sometimes, sometimes the wrong choice is what makes us.

Why am I telling you this? I want you to understand. I want you to see that this isn’t who I was supposed to be, that where I ended up wasn’t where I started. That it wasn’t my parents fault, it wasn’t the result of the glass of wine my mother drank before she knew she was pregnant. It wasn’t the bang on the head that I got whilst running from my father, full of giggles as we played hide and seek as a toddler. It was none of those things, the little things that might have had my parents scratching their heads and wondering … whether any of those things caused it.

In fact, I had a very ordinary, very boring life.

Until I didn’t.

I grew up, became an accountant and had a happy life, a wife, children of my own and friends.

It’s their fault really. The fault of my friends, if they had never suggested that trip, if they had never coaxed and cajoled me into going with them … I would never have gone, and none of this would ever have happened.

I hear them, now and then, searching the woods, looking for the victims of the beast that resides there, the beast that they are sure is a grisly bear or something of the sort. These things could never, after all, be done by a human.

But I digress, getting sidetracked even now so many years on from that trip. A cabin in the woods sounds romantic, a boys bonding session where we can go, crack open some beers and hunt. That was all we were going for and as the sun set on the first day, the clouds swirled over and the storm rolled in.

That’s when the fighting started.

Whose fault was it? Why had no one checked the weather? Rob swore black and blue that there was no such weather forecast, but Carl would say otherwise. Did we have enough food to last, would the electricity hold? Where were the flashlights and torches and matches?

The voices raised, into a cacophony that hid the sounds from outside … the scratching, the howling, the sounds that said something wasn’t right.

I was the fool who volunteered to go out. What could go wrong, after all? It was only a few paces to the cars, a quick click of the keys and I’d have the flash lights in hand.

But I was wrong.

There was an eerie quiet, a quiet that I put down to the rolling blizzard that was staring to set in. A silence that I should have recognised as a hunter on the loose. I should have known the signals, the warnings that told me that I wasn’t alone, and that I was being hunted.

A whip of wind, something stalking me as I panicked and dropped the keys in the snow, stumbling, falling as my breathing became more ragged as realisation started to step in. Heavy footsteps approaching from behind me, as like the cowardly fool that I was decided to lay still. If I lay still, maybe it wouldn’t see me … maybe it wouldn’t …

My howls bit through the air, my screams dying in my throat as I felt the sharp bite of teeth dig into my shoulder, tearing at clothing and ripping at my flesh. Burning, heated sensations rolling through me as I tried to escape, but the beast, the monster’s grip was too hard, too tight. A shot rolling into the night, screaming, yells of my friends as they shot at the monster. But to no avail, as I found the arm of the being coiling around me, hauling me up as though I were nothing and carrying me from sight … feeling the rough, course fur beneath me and watching my friends as they stood, helpless with horror …

I’m sure they left me to die.

I’m not sure that I would have done any different.

Why I was allowed to live, I do not know.

All I know is that I became aware of the trails of blood … from me, from the creature … as I was dropped, left to die and the beast stalked off, to do the same I thought.

It’s been ten years since I woke in those woods, with the furs draped over me. It’s been ten years since the wound on my shoulder miraculously healed, and somehow the cold hadn’t claimed me.

And, it’s been ten years since my first change. Ten years since I first turned into the wolf-like beast that craves human flesh once a month. Ten years since my first kill and taste of fresh blood

But, it’s been five years since that craving has swept over and into my every day life … it’s been five years, since I positioned myself in the village … it’s been five years since I stalked my first victim.

And, it’s been two years since I went in search of my friends, the people who abandoned me and left me to become this creature …

And I will make sure, that when the moon turns silver, I will be the one to dance and howl outside of their homes and terrorise their nights.

I will be the one who will slip into their homes and devour them as they sleep.

I am, now, who they made me become.