Chronicles of Rohan: The Birth of the True Alpha

Chapter 4: The First Shift

“You can’t stop it once it begins,” Dylan said. “You’re shifting. It’s already in motion, Lucas.”

Lucas stumbled back, his legs giving out beneath him. His spine bent unnaturally as he crashed to the cold floor, his body convulsing violently. He gasped, choking on his own breath as a searing pain tore through him like fire igniting from within.

“No! What’s happening to me?” he rasped, his voice strained and desperate.

His fingernails thickened, darkened, and sharpened into points like curved daggers. His skin rippled. Muscle spasms traveling under the surface like snakes, twisting his limbs in angles they weren’t meant to bend.

Then came the snap, his jaw dislocated with a sickening crunch as his teeth lengthened into brutal fangs, jagged and wild.

He screamed. But the scream wasn't human.

It was deep, guttural, torn from somewhere primal. Like something had clawed its way out of his soul and taken over, replacing the boy he was with something monstrous.

Dylan didn’t flinch. He crouched beside him, calm, unblinking, like he’d seen this a hundred times before.

“You need to let it happen,” he said, his voice low, even. “Fighting it will only make it worse, believe me.”

Lucas thrashed again, the sound of his heartbeat thundering in his ears like war drums.

“Make it stop!” he cried out. I can’t even breathe!”

“Breathe through it,” Dylan instructed. “Let it in. Don’t fight it.”

“I can hear everything!” Lucas gasped, his voice frantic. “Your cologne… the rust in the pipes… even my own sweat. It’s like the whole world just turned up the volume!”

His body jolted one last time, then suddenly… it stopped.

Lucas blinked, chest heaving, the pain draining from him in waves that left his muscles weak and trembling.

He stared at his trembling hands. “Oh God…”

He looked up at Dylan. “What am I?” His voice was rough, gravelly, not quite his own anymore.

Dylan stood slowly, watching him with an unreadable expression. “You’re a werewolf,” he said. “And that was your first shift. It’s the beginning.”

Lucas didn’t answer. He was shaking, staring at his fingers like they didn’t belong to him, like they were foreign objects grafted onto his body.

“This isn’t real,” he muttered. “It can’t be. This doesn’t happen to people like me. I was just at school this morning. I was in gym class. I had a math test. I... I had a normal day.”

He stopped, gripping his head. His thoughts were spinning out of control, chaos crashing through every corner of his mind.

“Your life just changed, Lucas. The sooner you accept it, the better,” Dylan said.

Lucas’s breath came in short bursts, each one sharper than the last.

He wrapped his arms around himself, curling into a ball on the concrete floor.

“I can’t go home like this,” he said, barely audible.

“You won’t have to,” Dylan replied. He walked across the room and opened a rusted metal locker. From inside, he pulled out a thick, worn-out blanket and tossed it to Lucas. “Not yet. You’re not ready.”

Lucas caught it, fingers still twitching. The fabric was rough against his skin but warm.

He clutched it around himself and leaned back against the wall.

“What do you mean, ‘not yet’?” he asked. “Are you saying I can’t go back at all?”

“I’m saying you need to understand what you are before you walk back into that world,” Dylan said. “Right now, you’re a danger to yourself. And possibly everyone else around you.”

Lucas’s head jerked up. “I didn’t ask for this!”

“None of us do.”

Dylan sat on an overturned crate, elbows resting on his knees, eyes steady.

Lucas looked away. “So that’s it? I’m just some kind of freak now? Do I just stay here and hide forever?”

“No. You learn. You grow. You survive.” Dylan’s tone was firm, but not unkind. “This isn’t a curse, Lucas. It’s a gift.”

Lucas laughed dryly. “Gift? I nearly ripped my face off.”

“You made it through your first shift alive. That’s more than some can say.”

Lucas’s eyes narrowed.

Dylan nodded slowly. “You’re not alone in this. There’s a whole world under the surface, hidden, dangerous, but real. You’ve stepped into it now, whether you wanted to or not.”

Lucas closed his eyes for a second, trying to block it all out, to silence the noise in his mind.

“No,” Dylan said. “Someone was tracking you."

“Tracking me?”

Dylan’s jaw tightened. “Yeah. You made noise. More than you know. And once that shift started, your scent changed. They could smell it. From miles.”

Lucas looked up, alarmed. “They? Who the hell is ‘they’?”

Dylan hesitated.

“There are people who don’t want you alive, Lucas. Hunters. Rogues. Some who see new wolves like you as threats. Some who just enjoy the kill.”

Lucas’s stomach dropped. “So what now? I just wait for someone to finish me off?”

“No,” Dylan said. “Now you train. You learn to fight. To survive. To control it. That’s your only chance.”

Lucas swallowed. “Control it?”

“You think what happened tonight was bad? That was nothing. The real power… it’s deeper. But it comes with a price.”

Lucas stared at him. “You’re not human, are you?”

Dylan shook his head. “Not anymore.”

Silence hung heavy again. Only the ticking of a broken wall clock echoed in the background.

Lucas rubbed his hands together, the claws retracting slowly now, his skin still trembling from the aftermath. “Why me?” he asked. “Why now?”

“I don’t have all the answers. But I know that there’s something inside you that’s different. Stronger. Maybe that’s why they’re already looking for you.”

Lucas looked up sharply. “What do you mean, different?”

But Dylan didn’t answer. His eyes darted to the door.

Lucas followed his gaze, instincts flaring. He felt it, too. Someone is outside.

Lucas sat up straighter. “What is it?”

Dylan didn’t move. He was listening.

Then a whisper came. It was soft, but clear. Right outside the door.

“Found him.”