Claws tore through fabric and flesh, rending with an unstoppable force. The metallic scent of blood mingled with the musky odor of the werewolf, creating a visceral olfactory assault on the senses. Emergency lights cast eerie shadows, elongating the grotesque dance of predators and prey. The wetness she felt down her thighs was not from arousal, but her life's blood seeping from the gashed wounds where the werewolf punctuated her body.

She was now caught in the relentless jaws of the werewolf, thrashed in a futile attempt to break free. Agony contorted her features, and each desperate movement only seemed to intensify the ferocity of the attack. Her tormented cries blended with the werewolf’s growls, creating a discordant symphony.

In that harrowing moment, the stairwell became a chamber of death, where the boundaries between humanity and savagery dissolved. Steaming hot werewolves against the cooler human prey was an extermination.

Fluids, flesh, and blood splattered through the door frame. The ominous end blended between the savagery of the werewolves and the final cries of their prey.

“Oh god, please no!”

“Somebody help!”

“Let us in!”

Someone whimpered like a tiny, innocent child. “Please?”

The first encounter, a tragic prelude to the impending massacre, etched an indelible scar on the collective psyche of the trapped souls. The sounds of tearing flesh, guttural snarls, and anguished screams melded into a haunting crescendo, a macabre melody that reverberated through the confined space, leaving an indelible imprint on the witnesses of this descent into the final abyss. The werewolves showed no mercy as they tore their victims apart in the confined space.

Screams replaced the voices, then silence. Thumps against the door broke the silence. Blood seeped like a weaving carpet beneath Karen’s feet, as if melted jello. She stumbled back, her eyes wide and her heart pounding. She knew whatever was on the other side of that door was not human. She had to get away.

The creatures of malevolent darkness caused hairs to stand on end with the reverberating growls. The wailing and screams of terror escalated, blending with the sound of pounding fists against metal doors, echoing the desperate attempts of the occupants to flee. Blood splattered the walls and floor, the stench of carnage filling the room. The survivors, too terrified to move, watched in terror as the werewolves continued their grisly work. With the collective panic and sound of rendering human flesh and bones, it sent chills down Karen’s spine as she dared to listen, all while praying for a miracle against the impossible nightmare unfolding just beyond the confinement of the door. She covered her ears out of cowardice, survival, and inability to do anything to help.

The pounding on the door slowed, then stopped. Fur entered the hall like a dust storm powered by fusion. Karen inhaled out of instinct. Suddenly, Karen grimaced. The quantity of fur coated with the mycovirus was an incubator dialed to three thousand.

Nia, with a steely focus, asked, “What’s wrong? Did Wolf get you by your tongue?”

Karen looked as if she battled with jet lag without an aspirin. Her eyes reddened as she coughed, deep and wet. Her hands grew sweaty as she fought for balance. The older woman swayed as if walking through Kwun Tong, China. “It’s so bright in here.”

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A light came on at the end of the hallway. Nia made her way back to the air conditioner and peered out the window. She looked back at Karen, who seemed to hallucinate now. She shifted away from non-existent shapes and cursed at nobody. She acted as if drunk or drugged.

“Oh my God!” Karen’s voice strained.

Nia’s eyes watched the carnage outside explode, the downfall of mankind’s society. Werewolves were antibodies attacking the virus of humans.

“Quit being a baby,” Nia told Karen. “For most of your life, you believed you were the apex of the animals. The world has more secrets than you could imagine in a feverish dream.”

Sweat beaded Karen’s face as pressure built inside her skull, causing her to reel as the world spun. She shivered like someone walked on her grave. Nia came and squatted directly in front of Karen. Her arms waved at an invisible enemy. Suddenly, she uttered a loud groaning noise. She clutched her pearls. Her knuckles whitened as she screamed until her throat was hoarse. “Oh my God!”

Nia looked disinterested. Every so often, someone got brave and tried to fight back. Guns didn’t work quick enough. Homemade weapons were snapped.

“Oh my God, it hurts so bad. Stop it! Somebody help!” Karen outcried. Her face screwed in agony. “Oh my fucking God!” she bent over against the stairwell door, blocking it. Crimson red stained her knees and legs like her entire menstrual flicked on with a switch. Tears soaked her eyes as her mouth contorted and bent.

Nia watched with a stoic demeanor. “It invades the brain like meningitis. The adrenal glands go into hyper-drive, the brain goes into shutdown, then the major organs. Then die to your old self. Everything you ever were or ever will be... gone. What you were dosed with came by hair and aerosol. Some routes include birth, saliva, blood, and certain body fluids that people like you Karen don’t experience in the bedroom. Since you betrayed your own species, the incubation time is exceptionally short and remarkably efficient at spreading. If this had been COVID or some fake disease, people like you feel like they don’t exist, don’t worry. The virus is asymptomatic in virologic tests, meaning standard diagnostic methods will not detect the infection. This allows the virus to spread silently and undetected before symptoms manifest. What you have going on is a fever, cough, severe headaches, muscle pain, nausea, vomiting, and heightened senses are among the initial signs, followed by muscle spasms, nerve and bone reformation, increased blood production, skin expansion, and accelerated hair growth. So no more bikini waxing for you.”

Cherry and blue lights flashed, reflected in her eyes from outside the window. The strobes were powerful attractants for the werewolf army. The officers were torn apart before they could even get out of their cars.

“Oh, did I startle you?” Nia said as she moved to the side of Karen and spoke near her ear. “It’s been a while since I was this close to anyone becoming feral. Perhaps I was too eager. My name is Nia. You will come to know me as the King of Werewolves’ niece.”

Karen’s eyes widened as the bombshell of truth struck her.

“It hurts to see you so alarmed by me. Despite who I am, I’m still a tender young woman, you know.”

Nia spoke calmly, as if approaching a fear-filled feral cat, “Fungi seem harmless enough. Many species know otherwise. Because there are some fungi who seek not to kill… but to control. But it’s not just for the mushrooms we put on pizza or pasta. You see Karen, viruses can make us ill, but fungi can alter our very minds. Then there is the devastating physiological control, telling it where to go, what to do, like a puppeteer with a marionette. And it gets worse. The fungus needs food to live, so it begins to devour its host from within, replacing the flesh with its own, but it doesn’t let its victim die. No, it… it keeps its puppet alive by preventing decomposition. True, fungi cannot survive if their host’s internal temperature is too hot. Yet, we’ve had thousands of years of naturally evolving to survive. We were able to shift our bodies to appear as one of you. Camouflage. Then some time ago, I don’t know who, but they came back with a nice little fungus in their tangled fur. One gene mutated. A polyp burrowed in began to harvest and plop open to fixate on one goal. To spread the infection to every last Homo Sapien alive by any means necessary. No treatment. No preventatives, no cures. They don’t exist. It’s not even possible to make them.”

Veins of the infection crept up Karen’s arms, pulsing with each of her heartbeats. Nia looked upon the woman’s distress.