Gray dawn broke over Barrowham. The alleyway near O’Leary’s reeked of blood. A knot of townsfolk pressed against a sagging police line, faces pale, eyes wide with terror. "So much blood…" a woman choked out, tears streaking her eye shadow-streaked cheeks, clutg her shawl tight. A man’s voice cracked like a bull whip, “Gordon, what happened?”

  "Move aside!" Daniels yelled, pushing through the crowd.

  The alley opened up, Mayor Mikkelson stepped forward, his three-week tenure hanging on him like an ill-fit coat, spectacles glinting as he rubbed a hand over his balding scalp. "Doctor, thanks for ing."

  "What happened?" Watters voice faltered as his gaze snagged on blood-slicked stones and jagged flesh, "Daniels...Daniels said it was a child?"

  Blood staihe cobblestones crimson, mixed with bits of flesh. A child's broken and scattered limbs y amidst the gore.

  "Hilda Jaspert," Gordon, broad and bearded, pressed a trembling hand to his mouth, his face pale uhe m sun. "She was out for a midnight stroll…" He trailed off, uo finish the thought.

  "Hilda?" Watters whispered, his face paling.

  Gordon, a rge, bearded veteran, looked sick. "I've seen bat, Doc, but this…"

  "How…?" Watters muttered, turning away.

  "Two boys found her," Mikkelson said. "They were out fishing. Heard something… instead of some drunk, they found this."

  "Thee boys couldn’t stop repeating —werewolf, over and ordon said mimig their small jittery hands g at the air.

  "Poor kids," Watters murmured, frowning. "Her parents…Gee and Cra? Do they know?"

  "Yes," Gordon’s voice scraped out, taught as a pulled rope.

  Watters’s gaze darted about the age, his bearded jaw tightening until a muscle twitched. "A werewolf…those mohe Order buried in blood turies ago?"

  "Yes," Mikkelson scoffed. "Some silly story about werewolves and bad children."

  "I've heard whispers of it," Gordon said. "Given the brutality and all...and there's been some strange disappearances--"

  "Nonsense," Watters snapped, a hint of anger in his voice. "A wild dog, hell, maybe a stray wolf. But ‘Werewolves’. e now, Gordon. The Lys were vanquished ages ago. You and I were in that very war against the cryptids! Gordon, we fought cryptids before—don’t dredge up fairy tales now. This 'werewolf' talk…it's disrespectful. You 't be serious?"

  "Look, I’m not saying I believed it, I just—" Gordon started, but Mikkelson cut him off. "Enough, Gordon. This town has enough tall tales floating around, we don’t need one more about a werewolf. Doctor, what do you need?"

  Watters's gaze swept over the age. The acrid smoke pulled him back—fmes lig a pyre of cwed corpses, the Order’s victory t ringing hollow. He squeezed his eyes shut, breath hitg as he cwed the trench from his mind.

  "Doctor? Are you alright?" Mikkelson asked, toug his arm.

  "Yes," Watters’ words emerged clipped, each sylble chewed off. "Just… bag the remains when you're finished here."

  "Right," Gordon said, turning to the crowd. "Back! Get back! Let the officers through!"

  Mikkelson haed firm on Watters’ shoulder, his voice softening, “Watters, I’ll inform The Order. I know about your past. Let them hahis.”

  “It’s…it’s Order protocol for me to perform the autopsy withiy-four hours, Mayor. I…” Watters began, but Mikkelson interrupted. “I know, but this is just too…too awful.”

  “Sir, I have to,” Watters insisted. “If The Order finds out…”

  “I uand,” Mikkelson said, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I’ll hahe Order. If you need anything, just call.”

  Watters dipped his , eyes drifting past Mikkelson and the bloodied stones. What happeo you, Hilda? he thought, watg the iigators move in, snapping pictures of the se. "Werewolves," he muttered under his breath, a dismissive scoff esg him. "Poppycock."

  Stars pierced the Barrowham sky, sharp pinpricks glinting over the silenbsp; Snow whispered from the pines, a deceptive peace settling over the town. Watters’s grip tightened on his bourbon gss, the densation a cold echo of the sweat beading on his brow. He drank, the bourbon a momentary flicker of warmth against the cold chill that sank into his chest, coiling tight around his ribs. His eyes, however, wouldn't leave Hilda Jaspert's remains: the severed foot, the gnawed arm, the ear, the blood-matted hair—a brutal testament to savagery. The arm still bled, the crimson stain spreading across the table. A bucket stood ready to receive the gruesome .

  "Hilda Jaspert. Age nine. Blood type O-positive." His voice droned — The hollow words devoid of meaning. He looked at the folder. A sob caught in his throat. "genital aicria…" The diagnosis felt like a cruel joke. His vision blurred, a sting prig at the ers of his eyes. "Poor, pirl…" he choked out.

  Her mangled arm flickered in his sight—then mud, the soldier’s guts spilling, screams weaving through the bourbon’s haze. He emptied his gss, seeking so the amber liquid.

  He wiped his eyes, the gesture meical. He ched his jaw, fingers steadying as he reached for his kit, I have a job to do, he reminded himself, pushing the grief aside. He opened a drawer, retrieving his surgeon's kit, the browher worn smooth with use.

  He id the kit oable and lifted the arm. Bite marks, upper bicep. sistent with a rge animal. Dog? Wolf? He tilted the arm, noting the waxen sheen —too pale, drained dry. No other obvious injuries.

  He carefully lowered the arm and picked up the severed foot. All toes intact. Skin pale. His internal examination tinued: Severed at the ankle. Wounds sistent with rge animal bites. Wound el… He paused, leaning closer. "Wait a sed," he murmured. A small, gray tuft of hair protruded from a crease in the muscle.

  He used the tweezers to gently tease the hair free. Holding it close to the dle, he squi the follicles. “Odd,” he murmured. “Too thick, too coarse… not like any wolf .” The room swayed, his grip faltering as the tweezers slipped. The tweezers fell, the hair scattering. “Damn,” he grunted, his fingers digging into his wrist. The bourbon’s heat faded, his edges softening as the desk blurred.

  The smell of burning filled his nostrils. The hair! He frantically gathered the scattered strands, now mingled with dust. But there was no fire. He sed the desk. Only his papers and a few silver s y there. A sudden thought struck him. He picked up a single hair and held it to the dle fme. Nothing. "Curious..." he murmured, intrigued. He repeated the test, holding the hair in the fme several times. Still ion.

  What could have caused the burning smell? His gaze drifted to the desk. The scattered report, his bourbon gss, the silver s… His gaze snagged on the s, a flicker of curiosity tightening his brow. He pced the hair on one of the s. It erupted in fmes. Watters recoiled, knog over his papers, whistantly caught fire. "What in God's name—?" he excimed, stepping back from the bze.

  "Ahermic rea…with silver? That's not sistent with any natural substance." he murmured, the fme flickering in his eyes. His breath caught, noting in decades of cuts and corpses matched the rea. He doused the burning papers with a nearby jug of water, the sudden smoke a stark reminder of the strangeness of the night. The air, moments before thick with the st of burning paper, now carried a errifying undercurrent – the raw, animal reek of fear. He stared at the sm hair, the acrid st dragging him bauddy trench, a rade’s scream cut short by cws he’d sworn were gone forever.

  “Could it...really be —?”

  “No, no, that’s simply not possible.” The Order had been adamant; Lys were extinct, huo oblivion geions ago. His mind spun, logic colliding with the impossible evidence before him. “But silver… the lore spoke of wolfsbane, a flower, not… but how could silver work?” Watters held the s aloft, scrutinizing them. Just silver, cold and unremarkable. A sudden impulse drove him to the bookshelf, his firag the worher and paper spines. “Anatomy… Neurosce… Chemical Bonds…” He murmured the titles, a low, inquisitive hum in the quiet room. “Aha!” His fingers halted on a familiar red binding. Metals. He hooked a finger around the top of the spine and pulled the heavy tome free, turning back to his desk and dropping it onto the chaotic surface with a resounding thud.

  Watters opehe book with a snap, releasing a puff of aged dust. “Hah-CH,” he wheezed, waving away the particles, evidence of the volume’s long dormancy. He carefully turhe pages, his academic curiosity overriding his disfort. “Zir, no… Rhodium, no…” His gsses slid further down his nose as he leaned in, his focus intense. Silver. He began to read, his eyes methodically sing the stific description. “Atomic weight… ele shells…” His finger followed the lines of text, disseg the information. “Reactive properties!” His eyes jumped across the paragraphs, seeking the relevant data. Silence. A long, defted sigh escaped him. “Remarkably uive,” he murmured, His voice sagged, ‘Remarkably Uive’. He closed the book gently, a gesture nation. The answers remained elusive, the mystery only deepening with each dead end.

  Watters slumped into his armchair, ping the bridge of his nose. He pressed his hand to his temple, the room tilting as bourbon fog swirled his thoughts. This ’t be real. Werewolves? Lys? No. He shook his head minutely. Hilda was killed by an animal. A wild animal. Nothing more. He drew a slow, steadying breath, willing his rag thoughts to still. “Okay,” he murmured, pushing himself back to his feet aurning to his desk. He gathered the scattered papers, aligning them into a stack, a small act of trol in a world suddenly gone mad.

  Crisp air filled his lungs as he inhaled deeply, his eyes squeezed shut against the lingering disorientation. He held the breath, then released it in a sharp exhale. “Okay,” he began again, his voice firmer, “Facts. Just follow the facts.” His shoulders squared, breath steadying as he gripped the tweezers like a lifelihe hair’s rea to silver is… anomalous, but what the hair itself reveal?” He reached across the desk, pig up a pair of tweezers. Beh the table, untouched by the silver, y discarded hair samples. He bent, carefully seleg a small tuft for closer iion. Raising the tweezers to his eyes, he adjusted his gsses, peering ily at the spe. Nothing immediately obvious. But then, his gaze shifted to the ter beyond the examination table. A microscope. He straightened abruptly, tuft still clutched iweezers, and moved purposefully towards the instrument.

  The microscope gleamed, its brass g polished to a high shine, various lenses arrayed on a silver ptform. Ornate carvings adors small, round knobs. On the silver tray, spe clips stood ready. Beside it, a small brass tainer held a stack of gss slides and a slender water pipette filled with saline. Watters selected a slide, its cool gss smooth beh his fingers, and pced it on the ter. Carefully, he positiohe fur sample on its surface. Setting dowweezers, he picked up the pipette aly squeezed a droplet of salio the spe. He then took another slide, pg it precisely over the fur. With delicate movements, he grasped the edges of the slide sandwid slid it into the microscope stage.

  Watters leaned closer, his eye pressed to the microscope lens, and began to refihe focus. At first ghe hair seemed ordinary, he observed, but as he zoomed deeper, his fingers minutely adjusting the focus, a subtle anomaly emerged. Iing. A faint undution rippled he hair’s base. His fingers delicately maniputed the focus, his other hand adjusting the denser for optimal illumination. There. He narrowed his eyes, a shiver traced his spine, cold and sharp as a needle Clustered around the follicles… some form of… parasitis. His hand instinctively jerked back from the microscope trols, his pulse quied, hands fumbling for a pen as the worms burned into his sight, sending small beakers skittering across the ter before his fingers closed around a notepad.

  He drew the notepad closer, pen poised to record his findings. “Microscopialies observed on hair follicle; morphology suggests...worms?” His brow furrowed further, his gaze intensifying as he meticulously noted every detail. “Worm coloration… atypical. Anomaly exhibits bck pigmentation. Bck?” The doctor’s pen scratched across the paper, capturing his observations with ical precision. “Higher magnification required,” he murmured, pausing his writing to adjust the microscope. The image sharpened, his foow fixed on the worm’s anterior end. “Anomaly appears to possess…” he hesitated, a tremor of uering his voice, “…Anomaly appears to possess dentition, actively b into the hair follicle.” He shifted the slide, examining the hair’s base. “At the root,” he noted, his voiow barely a whisper, “evidence of a dense, menic substance coating the follicle.” He straightened from the microscope, his fingers now thoughtfully stroking his .

  “It’s… it’s like a…” his mind raced, the image of the follicle-ging creatures burning into his sciousness. It must be a parasite! His breath froze, eyes widening as the girl’s torn flesh fshed before his eyes —ied. By God… that pirl wasn’t just attacked. She was ravaged by a beast riddled with parasites! But what beast? And, more urgently, what kind of parasite? The questions swirled in Watters’ mind, a vortex of dread and morbid fasation. He hysi, trained in healing, not an expert in the unseen horrors of iious disease.

  Watters stood, abs the implications of his microscopidings. A faint sound, barely perceptible, pricked his ears. His gaze lifted, drawn to the ceiling above. Screaming. Distant, muffled, but undeniably screaming. “What in God’s name…?” he whispered, his unease solidifying as he asded the stairs from his b. His frail hand closed around the doorknob at the top of the stairs, easing the door open. A cacophony of screams, sharp and agonizing, shattered the fragile stillness of the night. Ice pooled in his chest, ribs tightening as screams pierced the dark. He edged towards the front door, the screams intensifying, multiplying. Moonlight filtered through the windows fnking his door, but its hue was wrong. A sickly e, as if… firelight. Instinct propelled Watters to a. He snatched his coat and bolted for the door, wreng it open. The screams were a terrifying chorus of agony. And then, cutting through the human cries, the chilling howls began. Wolves. Their voices, rising from the darkness, encircled him. A wave of icy terror washed over him, paralyzing him for a heartbeat. Then, a deafening explosion ripped through the night, punctuating the unfolding nightmare. He spun around, breath seizing in his lungs, and spriowards a nearby alleyway, a vantage point to the town beyond. Barrowham was no more; in its pce, a swirling inferno ed the horizon.