States of Grace

The cursor blinked on Grace’s monitor, steady, smug, like it had all the time in the world.

She scrolled back up through the fifty-page document she’d been assigned that morning: “User Installation and Configuration Guidelines for the QuantumNet v4.2 Modular Router System.” Every line was a battlefield of passive voice and jargon.

The module may be mounted using optional support brackets where applicable…

Grace sighed. “Optional where applicable. Riveting.”

Her cabin smelled faintly of stale coffee and printer ink. Outside the window, the late afternoon light slanted down in dull strips. She’d been at this desk for six hours, and the only thing moving faster than the clock was her growing resentment.

She rubbed her eyes, muttered into her empty mug: “I have three degrees and I’m fixing grammar in router manuals. Kill me.”

Still, there was a strange comfort in it — finding a misplaced comma, re-ordering a bulleted list, untangling a diagram so it actually matched the parts it claimed to explain. There was a puzzle hidden in the boredom, and puzzles kept her sane.

But some nights, when her eyes blurred from staring too long at technical diagrams, she wondered if she’d ever do more than tidy up other people’s thoughts. If she’d ever make something of her own.

The cursor blinked again.

The world stayed still.

Until it didn’t.

She had to step away, so she went for a drive.

Grace found the pup on the shoulder of the highway just before dusk.

It was small enough to fit in a shoebox, eyes watery and unfocused, ribs like pressed wires beneath its fur. It didn’t growl. It barely moved.

She looked around—no traffic, no collar, no mother.

“You’re too damn cute to die out here.”

When she scooped it up, it whimpered softly. Then it bit her. Fast and deep. Right below the thumb.

“Jesus—!”

She dropped it. The pup hit the gravel, scrambled like a blur into the brush, gone.

She wrapped her hand with an old napkin and drove home, muttering curses between glances at the blood-soaked gauze. By the time she showered and bandaged it properly, the skin around the bite had already started to throb.

⸻

Day Two

She called in sick. Fever hit like a hammer. Her bones ached like she’d run a marathon. The wound looked worse—red lines spidering from the center.

She dreamed of running. Barefoot. Fast.

⸻

Day Three

Everything tasted metallic. Her vision pulsed at the edges. When she blinked, the light around her buzzed and flared. She swore she could hear the squirrels in the attic two rooms away.

She thought about going to urgent care. But what would she say?

A puppy bit me. Now I can smell my neighbor’s shampoo through the wall.

⸻

Day Four

She stopped sleeping.

Her muscles twitched in rhythm with the moon’s rise.

That night she tore the sheets off her bed without realizing it. She found claw marks on the headboard. Her own fingernails were cracked and dirty.

She hadn’t gone outside in three days. But her legs were sore—like she’d been moving.

⸻

Full Moon

Her body burned.

She lay naked on the living room floor, sweat pooling in the hollow of her spine, the fever folding her into a soft, syrupy haze.

Something was calling.

Not a voice. Not language.

But a pull.

Her breath came fast and shallow. Her gums ached. Her tongue felt wrong.

When she stood, her knees buckled. She crawled to the door on all fours and flung it open.

Moonlight poured over her like water.

⸻

She ran.

She didn’t remember putting on clothes. She didn’t remember the miles.

But she was moving, barefoot across the pine needles and stone, heart pounding not from fear but hunger.

A shape ahead: tall, sleek, antlers wide like branches reaching for sky.

An elk.

It turned. It saw her.

It ran.

And she—whatever she was now—followed.

She didn’t feel her feet break open on rocks. Didn’t hear the trees lashing her skin.

Only the chase.

The wind on her face was a gleeful joy.

The rhythm of the elk’s hooves a heartbeat she knew in her teeth.

She was faster than she should be.

Stronger than her bones allowed.

Less human with every step.

She leapt.

Claws.

Teeth.

Impact.

⸻

Morning

Grace woke in her backyard.

Damp grass stuck to her cheek. The sunrise painted her skin in gold and cold.

She was half-naked. Mud between her toes. A ripped flannel shirt clung to one arm.

She sat up, shivering.

Her mouth tasted like copper. Her thighs ached.

Something beside her in the grass.

She turned her head slowly.

A strip of furred hide, torn and bloody.

A chunk of antler, snapped clean.

And near the porch steps — a hoofprint, deep in the dirt, like something had thrashed before dying.

Grace looked at her hands.

Dried blood under the nails.

She didn’t scream.

She didn’t move.

She just waited—for the sun to rise high enough to burn it all away.

⸻

“Run”

⸻

The morning after the second full moon, Grace woke in the woods.

No porch. No backyard.

Just pine needles, dirt, and blood.

Her body ached — not the flu-sharp pain of the first change, but a deep, clean soreness. Like she’d run for hours. Like she’d earned it.

She sat up slowly, wincing. Her skin was streaked with dried sweat and something darker. She didn’t look at her hands yet. She wasn’t ready.

A crow landed on a low branch and screamed. She flinched.

The air smelled wrong — heavy with iron, piss, fur.

Something was dead nearby.

She stood, dizzy, and turned in a slow circle.

Then she saw it.

At the edge of the clearing, half in shadow, was the carcass of a deer. A buck. Big. Powerful. Throat torn out, belly open, ribs showing clean through in the morning light.

And Grace remembered.

Not all of it. Not clearly.

Just flashes.

A heartbeat in her teeth.

Steam rising from blood-warm hide.

The snap of bone under jaw.

Running faster than she’d ever run before.

She sank to her knees.

It wasn’t guilt that hit her first.

It was awe.

She had done that.

She — not some mindless beast.

She had chased it, cornered it, torn it open like a gift.

And she remembered loving it. The rush. The freedom. The silence that followed.

Not silence like absence.

Silence like belonging.

⸻

That afternoon she showered until the water ran cold. Scrubbed until her skin burned.

But she didn’t throw up. She didn’t cry.

Instead, she stood in front of the mirror, towel around her waist, and looked herself in the eyes.

They were still hers.

Mostly.

⸻

That night she sat by the window and waited for the moon to rise.

It was already smaller, starting to wane. But her body knew it still had pull.

She thought of the deer again.

The power in its legs.

The moment she’d felt her teeth break its skin.

She thought it would make her sick to remember.

But it didn’t.

⸻

She whispered to no one:

“I was hungry.”

And that made it okay.

⸻

“The Camera Trap”

⸻

Pete Lachlan hiked in early — before dawn, before campers stirred, before the heat baked the canyon floor.

He was sweating by the time he reached the kill site again. The carcass was gone, just a swath of disturbed soil and flattened brush where scavengers had picked the bones clean.

But the feeling was still there. That wrongness. That edge-of-the-world tingle he couldn’t shake.

So he set the camera.

An old Reconyx, heat-triggered, motion-activated, silent as a ghost. He strapped it to a pine at chest height and angled it toward the path where the prints had been. Whatever it was would come back. Predators return to power.

And this one? It wasn’t done yet.

⸻

Three nights later, Pete sat in the cab of his truck, engine off, laptop open, trail cam SD card slotted in.

The first dozen clips were nothing.

Deer, skunks, one fox, a rabbit. The usual parade.

Then something changed.

Frame by frame, he clicked forward.

Branches moved, but there was no wind.

Shadows broke, but there was no sound.

Then—something stepped into frame.

Low at first. Four-legged.

But it wasn’t a mountain lion, or a wolf.

He clicked forward again.

It was too large, and too upright.

The image was blurred by speed — the creature was mid-run, leaping across the frame — but the shape was unmistakable: long limbs, heavy shoulders, a canine muzzle, and eyes glowing pale in the infrared.

One frame caught it nearly dead-on.

A single stride, front paw slamming into dirt, muscles coiled, head turned toward the camera.

And Pete stopped breathing.

It was a wolf.

Or something that wanted to look like one.

But it was running like a man.

He leaned closer, staring at the paused frame.

There were hints of clothes — shredded and flapping like old flags. Human sweat. Wolf hair. Bone structure that didn’t make sense.

He clicked back. Then forward. Then again.

Same shot.

No tricks. No edits. No doubt.

⸻

He sat back, hand pressed to his mouth.

He wanted to laugh — like this was a prank, some high school kid in a costume. But the size of the thing. The gait. The look in its eyes.

That wasn’t a costume.

That was a thing that kills for pleasure.

He opened his field notebook and scribbled:

8/7 — Trail cam triggered. Bipedal creature. Wolf-like, estimated 6.5 feet tall. Speed blur. No rational ID.

This is no bear.

Then, in the margin:

Check local missing persons. And traps. Set more. Higher.

He didn’t sleep that night.

⸻

Later, Grace feels it. Something new in the trees. Not prey. Not pack. Not danger.

Observation.

Curiosity.

The wolf in her bones raises its head and listens.

Someone saw her run.

And now they want more.

⸻

The game warden sees something that defies logic — not just a huge wolf — but a distinctive mark, unmistakably human: purple streaks, same spot, same shade as the young woman he saw a week ago walking alone near the forest line. The same one who looked pale. Feverish. Off.

Now it clicks.

Here’s a short continuation, keeping the tension and mystery alive:

⸻

“Color Match”

*~ Game Warden POV | Standalone scene*

Pete stared at the image again.

Paused. Zoomed in.

The creature’s fur — mostly dark, thick, rippling in motion — had an odd discoloration over the left shoulder and part of its neck. He thought it was blood at first. Or a camera glitch.

But now, blown up on the screen in harsh white light…

It was purple.

Not natural. Not wound. Not some forest stain. Purple.

Bright as grape soda. Smudged through the coarse fur like someone had dumped a bottle of cheap dye onto it and let it run.

He closed his laptop. Opened it again. Pulled up a different file — the photo he’d taken last week, of the woman he’d passed on the service road outside the burn zone.

Her name was Grace.

She’d been hunched, sweating, hoodie half-off, like she’d had the flu. Eyes glassy. She said she had a cabin in the area. He hadn’t thought much of it then.

But now he stared at the zoomed-in image of her face. The hair.

Purple streak, curling over her shoulder, fading at the tips.

His stomach dropped.

He flipped back to the wolf.

Same side. Same shape. Same dye.

It was impossible. But there it was. In pixels. In light.

The huge, fast-moving, night-stalking wolf had Grace’s hair.

Not a coincidence. Not anymore.

⸻

“You Ever See a Wolf Smile?”

*~ Game Warden Pete talks to Grace again*

The diner’s air was thick with old grease and burnt coffee. Pete slid into the booth across from her without asking.

Grace looked up from her plate — dry toast, untouched. Her purple hair was tied back, loose strands curling like smoke around her cheekbones.

“Pete,” she said, carefully. “Didn’t expect to see you.”

“Your cabin is up near Pine Hollow, right?” he asked, pretending to glance at the menu.

“Yes it is,” she said, slow. “Why?”

Pete didn’t answer. He just pulled a folded photo from his jacket. Trail cam still. Grainy. Dark.

He didn’t slide it to her. Just held it loosely in one hand. Watching her.

“You see anything strange up there?” he asked. “Big animals. Bigger than normal.”

She sipped her coffee. “It’s a forest. Big animals happen.”

“This one was… odd.” He flipped the photo around for a half-second, letting her glimpse the silhouette. “Found the remains of a deer. Ripped up. Not eaten. Just… torn apart. For fun.”

She blinked once. Twice. “A mountain lion, maybe.”

“Nope. Claw marks too wide. Jaw didn’t match.”

She said nothing.

Pete leaned forward, lowered his voice. “You ever see a wolf smile?”

Grace’s fingers tensed around her cup.

He smiled, soft. “I know how it sounds. Crazy, right? But there was something in the picture. A shape. A color.” He looked at her now, really looked. “Purple.”

Her throat bobbed. Just once.

“I’ve seen wolves my whole life. Never saw one with hair dye before.”

She gave him a tight, closed smile. “Maybe your camera glitched.”

“Maybe,” he said. “But my gut says otherwise.”

“Your gut’s not proof.”

Pete shrugged, standing. “No. But it’s usually right.”

He left the photo on the table. Didn’t look back.

As he stepped into the heat-blurred parking lot, he felt it — the shift in air, the way animals go still before a storm.

Behind him, Grace sat in the booth, fingers trembling, staring at the picture.

The purple streak on the wolf’s fur glared back like a bruise.

⸻