The smell of bacon and eggs lured me downstairs. Sunlight spilled through the kitchen windows, casting a golden glow over everything. Mom, Dad, and my sisters were already seated at the table.
"Morning," I mumbled, sliding into my seat. My plate was already waiting—eggs, bacon, porridge. I dug in, trying to push away the lingering strangeness from the mirror earlier.
Mom smiled and reached for my hand. "My baby girl is sixteen today. A whole new chapter."
I tried to smile back, but before I could say anything, Anna didn't even look up from her phone. "So what? We sing happy birthday, cut a cake, and pretend we care?"
Reva laughed, taking a bite of porridge. "Honestly, it's the same thing every year. Snooze."
I couldn't argue. They weren't wrong. Every year, if Mom remembered, we had pizza, a rushed birthday song, and that was that.
But then… something weird happened.
Dad—*Dad*, who usually just grunted through meals and vanished to work—looked up. "That's why this year's different."
Mom blinked, surprised. "It is?"
He looked at me with something like pride in his eyes. "My little girl's growing up. I can't be here all day, but I want you to have fun. Go to school, and after that, you three—go shopping, get dinner. My treat."
The air shifted. Anna and River perked up like someone flipped a switch.
"Wait, really?" Anna said.
"Like, anywhere we want?" River added.
"Thanks, Dad!" I beamed. Something inside me warmed—a rare, fragile happiness.
He winked. "Birthday gift from me. Spend it well."
I stood and hugged him tight. For a second, he held me close. "Happy birthday, sweetie," he whispered.
---
School felt like a blur of noise and color.
Lockers slammed. Someone's perfume lingered too long in the hallway. I drifted through it all like a ghost, the events of last night and this morning replaying on a loop.
*The dream. The wolf. My eyes.*
I tugged my sleeves down, feeling like everyone could *see* something different about me—even though nothing showed on the outside.
I kept my head down in history class, pretending to take notes. A few rows ahead, Caleb Marks leaned back in his chair, laughing at something his friend said.
Of course he'd be laughing. He always was. Tall, messy-haired, a little too charming for his own good. I'd had a crush on him since last year—but to him, I was just that quiet girl who sat by the window. The one who never raised her hand. The one who probably didn't exist.
I looked away quickly, cheeks burning.
Mrs. Kinnard's voice droned on at the front of the room about colonial trade routes, but it faded beneath a different sound—a low hum that buzzed in my ears.
Then it *shifted.*
The walls of the classroom blurred. The floor pulsed beneath my feet like a heartbeat. I gripped the edge of my desk, dizzy. No one else reacted.
Then I saw it.
The window beside me shimmered—and through it, the school courtyard transformed.
Gone were the rows of lockers and benches. In their place stood a ring of ancient stones, moss-covered and humming with power. A woman—tall, hooded, her hair like molten silver—stood at the center. She lifted her hand and pointed directly at me.
*"You were never meant to sleep this long."*
I blinked. The classroom snapped back to normal. My notebook had fallen on the floor. No one noticed.
I couldn't breathe. My skin was ice.
When the bell rang, I barely heard it.
---
I stumbled into the hallway, heart hammering. I tried to steady myself at my locker, but the air around me buzzed again—faint, crackling.
Then someone brushed past me, shoulder knocking mine. "Move, freak," said a girl I didn't know.
I spun, irritated—but the hallway had emptied strangely fast. Too fast.
Then—*CRACK.*
The lights above me flickered and blew out. Sparks rained down. The floor trembled.
A low growl echoed down the hall.
I turned.
And saw *him.*
The wolf. The one from my dreams. Standing *in the middle of the hallway,* eyes burning like golden fire, his form flickering between shadow and smoke.
No one else saw him. No one else was here.
"Rory," he said—not with words, but with a voice that echoed inside me.
I staggered backward.
And then everything went black.