The steel walls pounded and shook as he ran amok, slamming at the toughened material, snarling at the single table in the dingy room. With an almighty blow, he shattered the sturdy oak furniture, his hot saliva dribbling at his feet. Pupils dilating, his claws raked the pitiful wooden legs of his victim, howling woefully at the ceiling...
The twelve hours passed fast, the final note by the grandfather clock released the room's unwilling prisoner, in a state of delirium, his clothes in rags, skin bruised and bleeding. A heavy-set man entered, eyes grey and unfeeling, and threw a bundle of clothes at him. As he left the room, those cold soulless holes gazed at the broken table; two equally large and endless nostrils flared up and snorted.
Every month, he would be forcibly confined into the dreaded room, spending a dozen tortuous hours in the hell-hole, in a chaotic blur of flailing limbs and claustrophobia. Every month the same sickening ritual. For the world cannot be tainted by such a despicable creature.
Ten years ago, he was bitten. They were in their hotel room; his parents stepped out for a while to check on the bookings. When they came back, the door was hanging by its hinges, he was huddled under the table, gibbering. Puncture wounds on his arms, the blood seeping through his white clothes. Of course they rushed him to the ER, delirious and incoherently muttering about a dark figure.
Nothing was wrong. Just a few stitches to clear up the wounds, with a swab of iodine. At least nothing was wrong at the moment...
It came like a sudden epileptic fit. They were watching the full moon, strolling home from their dinner when it happened. He froze on the spot, his skin soaking up the Moon's pale glow. The hair sprouted, his hind limbs contorted, they lengthened, the bone crunched as his pupils dilated. And the burning pain, the pain of the transformation, it shocked him, it taunted him, it grew.....darkness into his mind rushed as the new body seized up, the large form suddenly a void his inner consciousness unable to fill....
They sent him back, hushed up everything. Locked him up whenever the moon shone in her full glory. A shameful secret in the otherwise peaceful home. They looked at him now with contempt, as though he brought with him shame, disgrace, to the home, an unclean presence. They kept their distance, he kept his. He didn't mind, he didn't want anything to do with them. Especially when they locked him up. No one else knew, no one heard anything. And so it passed for ten years...
It was an otherwise normal existence. He did well in class, got into the school team, made few friends. Nothing unusual, nothing abnormal. But of course, they started wondering about him, when he vanished inexplicably once a month. Always excuses, sickness, a visit from a distant uncle, revision; he used it all. And they did believe him for a time. Till they finally grew suspicious, the pack of rats, always weeding, always worming their way through his feeble excuses, trying to pry at whatever secrets lay behind the thin veil. The disbelief grew, not since he kept quiet, ever evading their incessant questions. No one believed him, except his best and now only friend.
