Christmas was over, and Sofia would not deny that it had been the best of her life. As her friend had promised, that Christmas Eve they had a dinner party, just the two of them. In the end they opted for a simple meatloaf recipe, and they drank more tea with honey and lemon since Sofia was still sick and her fever had spiked a bit in the afternoon. Sara came by later with shortbread biscuits and a cheesecake. They played cards and the occasional board game, and when the fever wore Sofía off, she went to sleep. By New Year's Eve she was fully recovered, so she went to Sara's house where they sang songs, danced and played a lot of games until they fell asleep well into the wee hours of the morning. Sara's sisters had also tried to play matchmaker with the two of them, but without much success. On the morning of Epiphany the three of them met to eat chocolate with churros and exchange gifts, nothing opulent since they didn't have a lot of money, but the goal was to have a good time.

However, that was all behind them now, and all that was left were the memories of happy moments. January had already begun, and the teachers were already making them work hard. It was understandable, since many of those students were going to take the national university entrance exam, but it was no less exhausting. In addition to class exercises, Sofia and Dave had to add training for the physical tests and studying the subjects they were going to be tested on during the public examination. They barely had time to breathe, and they were both starting to feel quite stressed.

Since they needed to use all the time they could to study, it was not unusual for them to sit together during breaks to review something. That was the case that day in mid-January. Sofia and Dave were sitting on some rocks in a sand circle surrounded by trimmed privets and the occasional tree. It was a quiet spot behind the school building, away from the cafeteria and other crowded places. It had become their usual study site, but their classmates believed that they were dating and looking for privacy to make out. They no longer cared, they were too busy to worry about such nonsense.

“And that's how you get the result,” Sofia said, writing a number in a notebook resting on her friend's lap. “Dave, are you listening to me?”

“Huh? Yes... no... sorry, I'm having trouble concentrating,” said her friend, huffing.

“Are you all right?” she asked, placing a hand on his.

“Why do you ask?” asked the young man, raising an eyebrow and looking at her sideways.

That body language was not strange to her, and her friend made such a display of it that he was able to communicate his whole mood simply through gestures that seemed to come naturally to him. When he wasn't quite sure, he always looked sideways, avoiding doing it directly. If he was nervous, he would run his tongue over his lips, and if he was particularly uncomfortable, he turned his attention elsewhere and discreetly sniffed the air.

“You're restless again. During Christmas it looked like you had managed to relax, but for the last few days you've been having stereotypies again, and they're getting worse.”

“You've noticed...” he murmured, and ran his tongue over his lips.

“You're my best friend. It's hard not to notice,” she replied with a small smile.

Dave let out a long huff and rubbed his chest. He didn't wince, but when he felt any kind of discomfort he used to do that. If he was nervous it would load the muscle up and cause him pain, or at least that's what he had told her. This was one of those situations in which Sofia felt completely powerless, because she didn't know how to help him.

“I'm stressed. We have so much to study, so much work to do, and I don't have time for everything. What I really want to do is to take a walk with you in the woods, go for a run or something, but I can't. I need to pass this any way I can.”

“This is not helping you either. You need to relax, unwind. You're going to be much more productive and learn faster and better than if you lock yourself up at home to study.”

“I don't have a choice,” he replied, running his tongue over his lips and looking at the bushes to the side, his nose moving slightly.

“Of course you do. Come run with me today. It's been days since we've gone for a run.”

“Thank you, but I really can't. I'm doing well on the physical tests, I'm not going to fail them, but I'm not so sure about the other stuff and I really need to work hard. I'm sorry...” he said, crestfallen and avoiding his friend's gaze.

Biting her lip, Sofia looked at her friend wondering how she could help him. Not only was he restless, but she had also seen him breathing rapidly a few times, and at that very moment his hands were shaking even though he was trying not to let it show. The forest scent he usually wore as a perfume had also dissipated again, Sofia imagined because he kept locking himself up at home to study. If he continued like this he would break before the public examinations came around. There were still many months left and Dave didn't seem to be able to stand the pressure any longer.

“We have ten minutes left of recess. I think we can go over this again. I promise...”

Dave picked up the pen with a trembling hand with the intention of going back to studying, but couldn't. His body rebelled against him, shaking his muscles with a pang of pain. Clenching his jaw, the young man closed his eyes and let out a muffled groan as he brought a hand to his chest. Immediately afterward he began to breathe in deep, controlled gasps of air.

“No way, Dave. We're not pushing on, not like this. You need to rest,” Sofia said, taking his hand, noticing how much it was shaking.

“Sofia....”

“Please. Don't come to run with me if you don't want to, but rest a little. Look at yourself, you can't go on like this.”

The young man looked away abruptly and clenched his fingers tightly around the pen. Something else appeared on his face, an expression of wrinkled frown and tense lips.

“No, I can't go on like this,” he said in a plaintive voice.

On the gravel path just behind the hedge wall, they both heard footsteps walking their way. At first the two teenagers didn't think much of it, as it was probably a group of kids who wanted to smoke before going to class, and they weren't going to do it where they could be seen. However, those three were talking as they walked, and Sofia and Dave quickly realized that they were Luis, Rodrigo and Miguel.

“What do you want to show us now, Rodrigo? If it's something related to that mutt again, I'm getting the fuck out of here, I'm totally serious,” said Luis, and from the way he sounded it was obvious that it wasn’t an empty threat.

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“It's better. Look at these photos I took in the forest. They are pure gold,” said Rodrigo, taking out his cell phone.

Dave and Sofia looked at each other's eyes, wondering what on earth those three conspirator apprentices could be up to now. Sofia was still holding her friend's hand, and it was still shaking. Not as much as a few minutes ago, but enough so that she could feel some twitches that were like muscle cramps.

“What is this, a dead animal?”

Sofia's heart skipped a beat and she clamped a hand over her mouth to keep from whimpering. What animal? It couldn't be the cinanthrope. It wasn't that easy to take one down. Seeing her so distressed, Dave gave her hand a gentle squeeze in an attempt to reassure her, and leaned toward her so that his lips were next to her ear. In other circumstances his closeness and feeling his warm breath against her skin would have made her shiver, but she was too worried to think about her stupid feelings.

“Calm down, I don't think it's your dog,” he whispered in a very quiet voice, so that the three couldn't hear him.

“It's a dead and eaten roe deer, and very eagerly. I found it before New Year's Eve, one morning when I went out to see if I found any track of the beast. He must have snagged it days before because it was so frozen that even the foxes were having trouble gnawing on it,” said Rodrigo.

Sofia allowed herself to breathe again and looked at her friend in time to see him smile at her with an expression that clearly said 'I told you so, don't always put yourself in the worst'. Now it was Sofia's turn to start shaking, but in her case it was a consequence of the fear she had just felt. She had been trying to find the creature for weeks, but all tracks and tufts of hair she came across were too old. That he had been shot down wasn't a remote possibility, but she preferred to think he had either become more elusive, or he had finally left. However, this changed everything.

“So what? It could have died of cold and been eaten by vermin. Or maybe it was the fucking dog. As long as it doesn't go near the meadows, what do you care if it eats a roe deer?” said Luis.

“Look at these tracks, man, and tell me if they look normal to you. I tell you that this animal is not a normal dog. Its paws are huge, and it has a very strange behavior. It's as if it were a ghost that goes for weeks without appearing, and one day it appears again only to disappear again for weeks. The only animal it killed, as far as I know, was that roe deer. What kind of dog is capable of going for weeks without hunting?”

One that is able to dress in human skin and live among humans, feeding on the meat it can buy at the supermarket. However, Sofia doubted very much that this cinanthrope would be happy living that life. He was a wild animal, a born hunter who enjoyed life in the forest. If he had devoured that poor roe deer as viciously as Rodrigo said, he had probably been repressing his instincts for so long that when he let go, he was completely unleashed. Cinanthropes couldn’t go for too long without changing, if they try, they eventually lose control and change anyways. They needed it, because they were not human, that was a disguise, they were dogs. Their true nature always wanted to come out.

“Listen up, man, because sometimes you really do seem to be half stupid. The fact that you haven't seen more animals eaten by the dog is probably because he hunted them somewhere else, or buried them around, or because his owner feeds him. Not because it's a ghost that appears and disappears,” said Luis, visibly irritated with his friend’s obsession.

“Really? Well, look at this, you fool, let's see if you can understand what this is about.”

A quiet sound of footsteps was heard through the snow, a sound that clearly came from the cell phone. Although neither of them could see it, it was easy to deduce that it was a video.

“Do you see it? The creature's trail ends, and then there is disturbed snow here, and a few meters further down there are footprints of boots coming from the road that goes to the village.”

Boots. Sofia bit her lip. The cinanthrope was good at avoiding leaving tracks, but hiding his trail in snow was much more difficult, and more so if he was in a hurry to change. For lack of knowing the exact day, Sofia speculated that the cinanthrope probably decided to stay low profile for a while so they would stop chasing him. It was possible that after going for weeks without changing, he could no longer stand it during the full moon of the twenty-fifth, maybe even earlier. If for her, the moon’s influence in the days before and after the full moon already felt intense, for a cinanthrope who was repressing his nature it had to be unbearable.

“Yeah sure, man. The werewolf, right? Cut the bullshit and stop chasing that mutt, you're starting to rave. Come on, let's go to class, recess is almost over,” said Luis.

“Don't believe me if you don't want to. You'll see when I manage to catch it, you'll be on your knees begging me to forgive you.”

“Sure I will, man. Whatever you say.”

A few minutes after the three boys had left, the bell rang to signal the end of recess. Sofia and Dave picked up their notebooks and, with their backpacks over their shoulders, walked briskly back to class. However, a few meters before reaching the door, Dave let out a moan and held on to the trunk of a tree. With a trembling hand against his chest, he began to breathe in long, deep breaths of air. The expression on his face pretended to be one of concentration, but what it really showed was pain, and it had to be a lot of pain because she had never seen him clench his jaw like that.

“Dave...”

“I'm all right...” he groaned, hoarsely.

“Don't listen to them. They're talking nonsense, and Luis doesn't want to know anything about it anymore.”

“No, but that... psychopath is still obsessed with killing that animal. What has he done to Rodrigo personally to make him hate him so much? Is it not enough for him to go to deeper parts of the forest to be away from humans? And all because of a damned lamb that he hunted unintentionally. God!” Again he put his hand to his chest, stifling a groan.

“We won't let him do it. If we have to, we'll report him to SEPRONA,” said Sofia, grabbing his arm and feeling the throbbing muscles under his clothes.

“Did you know that Miguel's father leaves the cattle loose and unattended? Did you know that the lamb was found dead in the woods because it wandered away from the meadow and got lost? The dog didn't go near the meadow. He just happened to come across easy prey right when he was hunting and his instincts did the rest,” he spat, gritting his teeth in a grimace and turning his head sharply as he clenched his fists tightly. Something rumbled deep in his throat.

“How do you know that?”

“Because my godfather knows them, and he has already had several heated arguments with him on that subject. It's not the first animal he's lost in the forest. When I talked to him about the snares we found, he told me,” he answered, a little calmer, although he was still trembling. “We'd better get to class. We're already late and Rosa is going to give us a good scolding.”

“Are you all right? Can you go to class?” Sofia asked, looking at him worriedly.

“Yes, don't worry.”

After taking several deep breaths, Dave moved away from the tree and they both started walking back inside the building. At the threshold they ran into Sara, who had a somewhat worried expression on her face and was carrying a plastic bottle in her hand, one of those small water bottles you could buy anywhere. The dark greenish liquid that looked like a herbal tea did not appear to be water.

“Here you are. Rosa asked me to come and get you, she wants to talk about the exams and you're some of her best students... well, you know Rosa has a soft spot for Sofi. Everything all right?” said the girl.

“Yes, we were on our way to class. We'll tell you later what we heard,” said Sofia.

“Sure, mate. Here, buddy, take a sip of this. It's one of those herbal concoctions my sister Monica makes for stress and anxiety. It helped me a lot when we came to Madrid,” she said, offering the bottle to her friend.

“Tha… Thank you.”

Dave took the bottle and looked at it with some hesitation before opening it to take a good sip. As soon as he opened it, Sofia was hit by a strong smell of herbs that inspired her anything but any desire to drink that infusion. From the disgusted look on the boy's face as he swallowed, it was clear that her nose was not wrong.

“It's not perfect and it doesn't cure stress, but it gives you relief for a few hours. The bad thing is that later the symptoms can come back stronger and worse, and if you have a crisis, I'm not going to fool you, man, you're going to have a bitch of a time until you get over it. Since I've seen you fucked up these days I asked my sister to make it in case it could help you, but man, you have to do something about it” said the girl, who seemed more worried than Sofia had ever seen her before.

“I know,” he said after letting out a sigh. “I'll think of something. Thank Monica for the concoction. I feel better already.”

Together, the three friends returned to class, and after apologizing to Rosa and enduring their classmates’ whispers, they each went to their seat. Sofia discreetly looked in her friend's direction while he, as always, drank in the teacher's words with fascination. The concoction was certainly effective, his hands had stopped shaking and his breathing had returned to normal. Sofia bit her lip. The forest scent had all but faded from his skin again, and last time, during Christmas Eve, it had been the same. He always seemed to be doing a lot better when the pine scent was strong on him. Sofia turned towards the window, the moon was still visible on the sky, and it was going to be full soon. That lingering suspicion was getting stronger each day. What she didn’t know was whether she was scared or thrilled at the idea.