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You were eighteen when a werewolf bit you and changed your life.
Prior to that night in the woods, sneaking out to meet your best friend for one last summer party before college started in the fall, you hadn't known werewolves were even a real thing—that all the monsters from your childhood stories (vampires, mermaids, wizards, fairies, the list goes on) were real. And then your whole world imploded when a werewolf decided to sink its teeth into your shoulder after tackling you into the dirt.
As for the reason why it picked you specifically out of the crowd of screaming teens, you can only guess. The creature bolted into the shadows before you had a chance to ask. Maybe they liked how you smelled, or maybe you were the slowest of the bunch. You'd never been gifted with athletic skills—more likely to trip and break your face than clear a hurdle or catch a ball.
But for all the questions and confusion, there is one thing you know for sure. The bite led you to Din. And for that, you'd always be grateful.
Ending that night in the emergency room was not what you had expected when you’d initially snuck out, but the doctors assured you that you’d had been lucky, the creature only barely managed to bite you, sinking its teeth in just a quarter of an inch. They said you needed to keep the wound clean and it would close by itself.
And so it did.
However, you fell ill with a high fever and shivers the next week, forcing you to miss your first week of college. The symptoms disappeared as suddenly as they had appeared, and two days later you were feeling as good as new, if not better.
Except there was something odd going on in the aftermath. Your senses seemed to be heightened, even the faintest of smells caused a strong reaction. And there was a restless feeling inside of you, as if something was yearning to come out.
This was something you couldn't make sense of on your own, but you also weren’t about to ask your parents or dormmate about it, that would only guarantee some odd looks and possibly get you a session with a shrink. So, as anyone with a question would do in this day and age, you opened up your computer and searched "enhanced abilities after being bitten by a wolf?" before falling down an internet rabbit hole.
And four hours later, you knew with absolute certainty you were becoming a werewolf.
Thanks Google.
Most websites would tell you werewolves didn't exist, spouting off all the well-known details about full moons and feral transformations and blah blah blah. But beneath all the lies dissuading the general public from believing in them, you found an online forum with dozens of people claiming they had connections with real life werewolves—Packs, they called them. And not only were Packs a real thing you had to wrap your head around—werewolf hunters were also frighteningly real, so it seemed.
One message in particular caught your attention, a response to a user claiming to be on the run from somebody ominously called the Moff.
FIND DIN.
At first you thought they misspelled the word 'den', like a wolf's den, a safe haven of sorts. But then 'Din' popped up again later, another user saying this so-called Din saved their lives.
HE'S A HERO, they wrote. THE BEST ONE OF US.
Your intrigue increased tenfold, that restless feeling inside of you sending a shiver down your spine. So, within the world of werewolves, this Din figure was kind of a big deal apparently.
Your lips pursed, nails tapping your mouse for a beat, before you decided screw it and posted a message of your own on the forum, asking how one might go about finding Din.
There was no immediate response. Then an hour passed, and another, and just when you'd given up hope for a response your computer dinged with an alert.
THE SAME WAY ALL WOLVES FIND EACH OTHER, the message read.
Eyes widening, your heart performed a funny little flip in your chest. "They howl," you murmured, turning to look out your window at the crescent moon.