Sit, Stay

The best part about being a werewolf is actually the chocolate. Not superhuman strength, not the ability to see in the dark, not even using the post-wolf fatigue to get out of plans you agreed to two weeks ago. No, it’s the expensive, top-of-the-line, poison infused delicacy that you receive in bulk Every. Single. Full. Moon. 

No one ever tells you that you receive an abundance of chocolate once you turn into a werewolf. My theory is that scientists assume once people find out about this factoid, the masses might intentionally try to get themselves bit. Honestly, if I knew beforehand that monthly chocolate binges were the result of becoming a werewolf, I probably wouldn’t have ran so fast the night I was turned. 

The first time I met the supplier of chocolate was the morning after the second time I transformed. That day, I had woken up in an upright position in an alley, roughly 5 blocks away from my house. I was across the street from the local bakery. Despite the prominent CLOSED sign, the building was illuminated, which indicated that it would be opening shortly. It couldn’t have been no later than 6:30am. My favorite hoodie was tattered, my head was pounding, and there was dried blood on my mouth and under my fingernails. I silently prayed that it was mine. Considering that there was no one else in the alley, I could pretend that it was. 

The quiet, cautious footsteps could have gone undetected had I still been fully human. I use all my strength to turn my head towards the source of the noise. In my haze, I could sort of make out a woman in a blue shirt and khakis, brown hair pulled in a low bun. My instinct was to run, but due to my previous rampage, my exhaustion left me completely and utterly defenseless. 

“Hello, ma’am? Ma’am, are you hurt?” In the physical and emotional sense, yes, but all I could do was slump down to horizontal position. She could be the biggest threat in the world, but it all paled in comparison to the urge of wanting to go back to sleep. It was not lost on me that while I was immobile, the blood on my body was not dismissible. A mental prayer was sent, hoping that this onlooker would not call the cops. Hope went out the window when I heard the soft beep beep beep of her dialing a number. 

“Hey, I found one. Female, maybe mid 30’s.” Perhaps monsterhood aged me, I was twenty-seven. “She’s breathing, but unresponsive.” A beat of silence. “I don’t know, maybe twenty minutes? Fifteen if I can get away with speeding. Okay.” At that point, I attempted to sit up. My bones creaked and cracked, and my headache pleaded for me to lie back down. The lady shuffled to my side and kneeled down, placing a firm hand on my chest. 

“Was this your first moon?” She asked. I furrowed my eyes the best I could. 

“Blink how many times you’ve transformed.” Blink blink. She tsked softly and patted my head. “Poor thing, I’m gonna get you outta here, okay?” Till this day, I don’t know if it was her calming presence or the sudden sharp jab in my side that made me fall back asleep. 

The room I woke up in was blinding. So bright that part of me wondered if the thing that put me to sleep actually killed me. The bright lights, the soft bed, and the comfy sweatsuit certainly felt like Heaven. In a corner diagonal from the bed, there was a small, wooden table with two chairs on opposite ends. A metal tray with a matching metal lid sat on one side of the table. On the wall next to it was a one-way glass. The exact moment I threw my legs on the side of the bed to stand, the door opened. 

The lady that was in the alley now wore a white lab coat. She wordlessly sat at the table and gestured for me to take a seat across from her. When I sat down, she reached over and uncovered the tray. A miniature bundt cake. Chocolate with chocolate drizzle, and little chocolate chips on top. The hunger, and perhaps the dog in me wanted to ignore the cutlery and tear into it with my bare hands. 

Instead I asked, “What’s this?” Lab Coat reached into her pocket and took out a piece of paper. She unfolded it and slid it to me. To my surprise, it was an online cake recipe, website on the top of the page included. The Perfect Chocolate Bundt Cake at www.allthecakes.com. She reached in her pocket once more, and set a vial with a black liquid in front of her.  

“The object,” she said, “is to use a combination of chocolate and this antidote to cure the wolf part inside of you.” Her directness was oddly comforting. I stare at her for quite a while before I speak again. 

“You’re using chocolate to kill a supernatural being?” The side of her mouth twitched into a smile. 

“It pairs nicely with the antidote.”  

The routine was pretty much the same for six months. Lab Coat(whose name was told to me months ago during a wolf hangover) would pick me up from my apartment a few days before the full moon. She’d direct me to the blinding room I woke up in the first time she found me. My body would be decorated in a symphony of wires, cuffs, and tubes. She’d glance at me, look at the monitor, and then write furiously on her clip board. When she finished gathering her data, she briefly left the room, and would return with a metal tray and its matching lid. Each time, Lab Coat would make a show of uncovering the treat of the month. I can wholeheartedly say that each dessert was better than the last. Cake (in sheet and pop form), fondue, brownies, fudge, muffins, milkshakes. Whether it’s because of the newfound insatiable hunger one develops when turning into a monster, or maybe just the craving of any sort of dopamine in this forsaken nightmare, I never got tired, or enough, of chocolate. When the moon passed and the vitals were documented, she’d send me home. 

In November, the afternoon before the full moon, Lab Coat didn’t bother with any wires or cuffs or tubes. Instead, she brought in a whiteboard and kindly asked me to pay close attention. She drew a horizontal line on the board with three long vertical lines at the start, middle and end of the line. In the halfway point between first and middle, and in between the middle and last line, she drew two notches. Above the first and last line, Lab Coat scribbled a stick figure. Finally, she drew a dog above the middle line. 

“For the past few months, we have been feeding you the antidote here.” She circled the first notch between the stick figure and the dog. “We hypothesized that feeding you the antidote before your transformation would prevent it from happening all together. But all it really did was delay it, and make you a weaker wolf. Sluggish, less aggressive.” My eyebrows raised in surprise. Due to the amnesia, anything that occurred during those nights would always be news to me. 

“Can I see?” Lab Coat’s eyes widened in surprise. In the months we worked together, I never once asked to see any photos or videos of me in that state. Still, she pulled out her phone and tapped a few times on her screen before handing it to me. 

The date read October 29th, the latest attempt at trying to cure me. The security footage showed a huge beast running rapidly, clawing at the walls, flipping the table over, and scratching at the bed. I vaguely wondered who fixed up the room during the few weeks I’m absent. Despite the horrifying footage, I giggled to myself. 

“What’s funny?” Lab Coat asked. 

“It’s just…your hair is the same color as my fur.” She ignored me and fast forwarded the video to a few minutes. 

“See here? Not even thirty minutes later, you’re relaxed. In the control trial, you were at this for hours.” I look back at the wolf who was now curled up in a ball, fast asleep. 

“We thought that we needed a stronger cure,” she continued, “but I think we needed different timing.” Lab Coat heavily circles the second smaller notch between wolf and human. “If we can feed you the cure during the exact moment when you’re turning back into a human-”

“Kick-me-when-I’m-down method.” I chimed in. 

“Yes.” She smiled and gave me a tear-dropped piece of chocolate, which I gratefully ate. “If we time it right, I think we can not only weaken it, but kill it all together.” Like clockwork, Lab Coat quickly left the room and returned with the same metal tray I’ve seen for months on end. This time when she unveiled it, it was a kind of dessert I had never seen before. 

“Chocolate Cherry Pavlova.” She said, as if reading my mind. The cake was magnificent. Light brown with three fluffy, flakey tiers. Each layer was coated in cherry sauce, topped with whipped cream, chocolate drizzle, and chocolate covered cherries. In a trance, I reached out to grab a fist full. 

“No,” she snapped the lid back down. “This is for later. I wanted you to see what it looked like so you can eat it when the time comes.” 

I whined in protest. “Can I at least try it?” 

She shook her head. “You need to eat the entire thing at that particular time, or else it won’t work. You can have this instead.” She handed me a cookie, which I begrudgingly ate. Lab Coat checked her watch and grabbed the cake. 

“I will put this back in the room just before the full moon passes. As soon as you gain even the briefest amount of consciousness as yourself, you have to eat this, okay?” I fervently nodded. Lab Coat pulled me into a brisk hug and left the room. 

The countdown began. Most of the afternoon was spent tidying the room, reading, and daydreaming about the pavlova. I tried to keep my mind off whether or not I could pull this off. Hours later, I began to feel the effects of the transformation. My body became increasingly warm, my gums began to hurt from the growing fangs, and my skin prickled with the sudden hair growth. As usual, I began fading in and out of consciousness as the monster identity overpowers, silently hoping that this is the last time. 

There was no telling how much time had passed. My body was still covered in bits of fur, but my teeth didn’t feel as sharp. This was it, the line between beast and human. I knew I needed to act fast before I passed out again. I was laying on my stomach, hand outstretched to something in front of me. It was the pavlova, in all its chocolatey, uneaten glory. Even though it was only about 5 feet away, my body felt like it was swimming through molasses as I tried to move towards it.With all the strength I could muster, I inched my way toward the plate, and successfully yanked it toward me when it was in my grasp. I grabbed a handful and began to feast. 

As soon as I swallowed the pavlova, my body relaxed in total bliss. This was truly the cake to end all cakes. The consistency of melted clouds, the flavor of cocoa paradise, the magazine-esque presentation. It certainly made this nightmare a dream. Then, the horror began. The series of events happened in snapshots. Searing pain in my chest and head had me clawing at all parts of my body. Every time the world went black, I woke up in a different part of the room with new gashes on my body, the world splitting me open and swallowing me whole. The cycle never seemed to end. Wake up, pain, blood, pass out, repeat. 

The last time I woke up, Lab Coat was in the room with me, eyes wide, and backed in the corner. I don’t know how or why she came in here, all I knew is that she usually helped me and right now, I needed the pain to stop. I reach out to her before succumbing to the darkness for good. 

The following morning, instead of the lab, I found myself laying on the porch of my home, more exhausted and bloodied than ever. This was completely foreign. Lab Coat typically kept me in the building a few days after I woke up to monitor my vitals. I wondered if this was an indication that I was cured enough to not be supervised so closely. The uncomfortable sensation in my mouth had me sit up, picking at my mouth trying to get the source of discomfort off my tongue. 

Brown fur. 

December comes around fairly quickly. I hadn’t heard from Lab Coat since the final trial. Even if the cure had worked, I expected some sort of follow up testing. Before I knew it, the day of the full moon was here and I found myself constantly looking out the window to see if her van was outside. I started to walk back to the couch when I heard the loud ding dong of the doorbell. 

I nearly trip over the table to fling the door open. To my disappointment, it was a group of Christmas Carolers. The older lady offered me a bright smile that I couldn't help but half-heartedly return. 

“Happy holidays,” she chirped. “Hot chocolate?” She thrusted a snowman mug in my direction. I shook my head. 

“No, thank you.”