Kurt was kissing Kaya when he noticed a sudden movement near him. As he turned around, he noticed a tired Jack after running over. “We need to talk,” he said, forcing his friend away from the confused girl. Kurt didn't like being interrupted, after all, it had been a while since he had had any kind of fun. “I saw the twelve of them planning to throw smoke at the party, set it on fire I don't know where, and they drank. I don't know what to do, but I think some shit will happen,” he told.

“Leave it to the security guys, tell someone, I don't know. Let me enjoy my moment, okay? This doesn't always happen,” Kurt said, already getting ready to return to the girl. Jack informed him that he hadn't found anyone to warn, but thought maybe they could do something.

Kurt made eye contact, still angry, and continued to deny it, returning to Kaya's side. Frustrated, Jack decided to go back to the room, hoping that the men were still there, a good portion of them were, and apparently all the dangerous material as well. He didn't know what to do, but he knew he couldn't just stand by. “What are you guys doing here? The party is outside,” he warned, entering the room. To his surprise, the boys didn't seem to mind, in fact, it was as if they knew he was going there. They walked away a little, staggering, indicating once again that they were too drunk to even walk. One of the boys said they knew Jack would go there, and asked what he would do about it. The newcomer was puzzled and confused by the situation. The other than just threw something at him, which Jack caught without any difficulty. It was nothing less than a piece of cloth from a set that had been stolen from his car a few days earlier during a transformation when they encountered a black wolf. Jack and Kurt were gray. “Was it you guys?”, he asked.

“Actually, no. The guy who gave it to us said he stole it from you and your photographer friend. Where is he anyway? We were waiting for you two,” said the same boy, not at all concerned. “We're all half drunk here and slightly stoned,” he said, laughing, followed by his companions. “We were told that if we hit you and Kurt we'd see something amazing, I don't know what that means, but I'm too crazy to care. We're all rivals, there's a party going on, and the cameras are out because the security people are too stupid. We don't give a shit about anything today, Jack,” he said. “We're in the mood to cause, and I'm in such a mood to beat you up, you've written about us, haven't you? We love it, but they gave us all this, they paid for everything, how am I going to turn down the chance to beat up writer Jack, right?” the other debauched.

One moment all the men were laughing, the next one of them grabbed Jack by the side and another did the same, while the boy who kept talking, whose name was Brian, started throwing punches. Jack barely knew what was happening, but surely, someone from the outside had planned it all. He didn't have enough time to process it all. At that moment, he felt pain. It had been a while since he had been beaten, but not long enough to forget how to defend himself. With an abrupt gesture, he let go of one of the boys and punched him, making him stagger. Turning around, he did the same to the other, while the other boys approached, as well as Brian. There were about eight men against Jack, and while he was punching two of them, he was being hurt by four others. He was at a complete disadvantage and didn't know what to do apart from trying to defend himself and attack. Just then, during the clash, the others tripped over the material and a thick cloud of gray smoke filled the room, causing everyone to cough slowly but Jack. He didn't feel like coughing, he felt like vomiting, and this could only mean one thing to him: animal danger. The pain in his stomach had gone from external to internal, and something about that smoke and that situation was suspicious. He was still taking blows when he fell to the floor, almost beginning his agonizing process when the other missing members entered the room, as did Kurt shortly thereafter, but not before they heard the sound of the fire alarm.

As Kurt was kissing, he noticed the boys mentioned by Jack in the middle of the party, acting suspiciously. For a second, he thought he smelled smoke and thought it might be his imagination, but noticing that the boys immediately headed down the hall, he decided something was up and followed them. The smell of smoke bothered him, and then he knew that he had to get rid of it. He set off the alarm and ran towards the smell, which was when he found all the others on top of Jack, who was almost hidden by the smoke. As soon as they noticed the presence, they made their second victim, they now started attacking Kurt. They were out of their minds. There was no one to see what was happening because at that moment everyone was running out of the area.

The strong smell of smoke knocked out half of the boys still in the room. Brian was still trying to beat Jack when Kurt managed to push him away. “Jack, don't change,” he said, trying to cover his breath so as not to be bothered by the smell anymore, even though it was practically no use. Jack was slumped on the floor and that's when a new smell entered the air, actually, not so new. Kurt couldn't tell exactly when the wolf appeared in the room because of the smoke, but he felt his body shaking and when Jack turned toward him and growled, he knew that the wolf hadn't changed. He attempted to stop the wolf from coming closer, but he didn't have the strength to move, he was paralyzed, but when he realized that Jack was trying to attack him, he had to move. The black wolf went towards Jack, who was already a wolf. Kurt didn't have a very vivid memory of what Jack was like when he reached the stage of pure wolf instinct, but that scene made him realize that he had nothing of conscience there, and seconds later he realized that he wouldn't have.

Before long, the three wolves were attacking each other. Gradually, the boys got up from the ground, staggering, but they couldn't stand up for long because the black wolf attacked with such violence that it scratched them irreversibly. The young man fainted, and that situation aroused an adrenaline rush that made the others try to run away. Kurt was the first wolf to run ahead and stare into the amazed faces of the boys, Jack did the same from across the room, staring at Brian. It was a split second before all the bodies fell lifeless to the floor. Filled with blood, the three wolves faced each other and intended to start a new confrontation, but the black wolf didn't seem interested; he seemed to be aware enough to do whatever he did and hurt everyone he had hurt. This was the first time Jack and Kurt had hurt a human, not only hurt but killed, and more than once, although they didn't know it, they had no conscience.

The door suddenly opened, and a female figure was seen in the doorway, holding a cloth to her mouth. The horror she had seen made her legs tremble, and she fell to the floor, amazed and completely traumatized, letting the covering of her mouth fall off, revealing herself to be none other than Cassie. She was extremely amazed to see all the familiar faces on the floor, bleeding and lifeless. She could see a black silhouette walk through the door and past her, walking normally on its four legs, entirely ignoring her presence. Then she didn't notice the two gray wolves until they were already running down the hallway to who knows where. After two firemen got her out, all she could say was “wolves,” and she kept saying it outside, where two ambulances were already in place, as well as the fire truck and police car. Everyone was in shock at everything that was going on, but nothing shocked them more than the stretchers returning with bodies covered in black cloaks. They still knew nothing about what had happened, nor who the young men were, but they knew they were members of the party. The police ordered everyone to stay out of that particular area, not because of the fire, but because of what had happened. It would be a very long night for New Shadow and Lightning, and certainly an unforgettable one.

For the first time since they had started transforming together, Kurt woke up earlier than Jack. It was a reasonably more enclosed place than usual, which meant that it wasn't any of the woods they had been through before, in fact, it wasn't even a forest. It was strange to wake up naked without getting his clothes or finding them by his side, it had been a while since the last time. In a way, Kurt considered himself quite dependent on Jack at times. As soon as his vision was no longer blurred, his level of confusion increased; the sunlight illuminated his face, blinding him. Finally, he sat up and stopped to analyze that Jack was a few feet away, still unconscious, naked, and more full of blood than usual, he looked down at himself and noticed the same characteristics. Searching his memory, he didn't know what had occurred, all he could remember was smoke in a room, going in, and seeing Brian hitting Jack, fallen. It was the first time he couldn't remember anything about the wolf form. Nothing made sense, he didn't know where the car was, he didn't know where he was, and he didn't recognize the place completely. Finally, he got up from the ground, half dizzy and staggering, and went over to Jack. He shook him for a few seconds until he gave the slightest sign of life. “Hey Jack,” he called, shaking his friend, “Wake up Jack,” he repeated. Jack then opened his eyes, probably blurred, but slowly he understood what he was seeing. “Where are we?” he asked. Jack, confused, looked around.

“We're in the building. My God, we're actually in the building. This is a decommissioned elevator here,” he said. “Why are we here? What happened, Kurt? Was it one of my blackouts?” he asked, even more, confused than his partner.

“Jack, the last thing I remember is walking into the room and seeing you slumped over, transforming in front of Brian. The room was filled with weird smoke, after that, I don't remember anything else,” Kurt said seriously. At that moment Jack began to worry, Kurt's episodes of erasing were ridiculously smaller than his, the two of them having erased at the same moment and remembering absolutely nothing.

There wasn't much they could do, they needed to fix that. They knew that the disabled elevator was closest to Kurt's apartment, so they sneaked out of where they were and ran to it. It took a few minutes before they were safe. They showered as quickly as they ran. They both had a somewhat similar physical build, so Jack could wear the same clothes as his friend. “How nice to have something on your body. Really great,” Jack sighed, positively “I can't take it anymore,” he said. Finally, Kurt turned on the TV, it was only seconds before they saw the picture of the building on the news. They ran to the back elevator and out the side of the building, where they found many familiar faces from the company and the party. Many were still in white and crying. They still didn't know what had happened. There were many cars, ambulances, police, and firemen in front. Some curious faces were also there. “Kurt, what happened here?” asked Jack, startled by the scene. They got as close as they could and listened to what the students were talking about, but were surprised by Josh, the annoying supervisor.

“I never imagined something like this could happen here, horrible, so horrible I can barely talk about it,” he blurted out. Jack asked what had happened. “They didn't say much, they just said they were really hurt, a lot, no one could see much, thank goodness,” he recounted. Kurt asked what he was talking about. “The twelve of Lightning. Brian and his whole gang were killed,” he finished, walking away, leaving the boys completely upset about the situation.

“What did we do?” asked Jack, rhetorically.

“We didn't do anything, Jack,” Kurt said firmly. “Let's go see Cassie. She's over there,” and made his way toward her, still standing in the same position as before.

“Cassie, are you okay?”, Jack questioned, noticing the state the woman was in. Pale and frightened, something he had never seen before.

“Wolves,” she said, not making eye contact, still shaken by everything.

“What?” asked Jack, startled, wide-eyed.

“I saw wolves. I saw gray wolves,” she said, static. Now both boys were amazed, they looked at each other for a second and decided to get out of there. “And a black wolf…,” she finished, piquing the boys' interest. “He left the room first, then the others left. I remember everything I saw, I can't get that slaughter out of my mind,” she said. There was nothing more to find out about it; twelve boys were dead, and they were the killers.

“It must be the same wolf from that day,” Jack commented, already walking away.

“Was there anyone else there besides you guys?” his friend asked. Jack said there was only him and the twelve of them. “It's someone from the outside, I vaguely remember seeing him enter the room before he changed. If twelve are dead, this guy showed up later and changed first. We're killers.”

“We still don't know what happened, it doesn't make sense, we never had any incentive for it, very strange our wolves acted that way. Look, I just want to go home and not think about anything else, okay? I think I've had enough for today, I just need some time,” Jack ordered. There was no question about it, he was right, about everything.

DAYS BEFORE

“Feeling anything yet, Kurt?” asked Jack, behind the wheel, heading for the usual spot. Kurt said he was still fine, but already feeling some things. “If we don't gas up the car now, we'll have no way back. Do you think you can drive in time for us not to move?”. It was clear in Jack's voice that he was not comfortable, he was already going through some stages of the change. Kurt nodded and Jack turned toward a nearby gas station. Once they arrived, they switched places, Kurt took the wheel and Jack took care of the fueling, quick enough to just get in the car and lie down on the seat, while Kurt sped up to get back on track.

It was the longest 10 minutes of that week when Kurt finally parked the car in the usual spot and helped Jack down. As usual, they separated, changed, and met.

Everything happened as it always did, except for the fact that that night they smelled the odor of a wolf, not from the car, not from them. It was from another wolf, but the smell was not as strong. Fearful of what they would find, they followed their instinct and avoided approaching, but to no avail, in a moment the wolf appeared in front of them. They couldn't tell if it was just a wolf or if it was human like them.

The wolf did nothing, it didn't follow them or attack them, it just walked by watching them and followed wherever it was following. The boys couldn't risk anything that could reveal what they were, but each time they changed, they felt the fear of not being rational anymore and just acting like a wolf. Jack would black out for a few minutes and not seem to think, so it was something real. In their minds, it was only a matter of time before it was reality, and now that they were dealing with random transformations, they assumed that maybe it was closer than they would like. It was time to pursue the idea of finding out where it all came from, who they were, why they were, and if they could stop it, or at least control it. Someone had to have answers.

The next morning, Jack woke up staggering more than usual, as well as his vision was extremely blurred; he could swear he heard a voice say “you did it,” but it soon passed. Walking to the car, the trunk was open, literally open, rolled up. They never left the car vulnerable, least of all like that. There had been exactly six sets of clothes when they left, and at that moment they only had five. Someone had stolen a pair of clothes. Immediately the image of the black wolf came to mind, it was the only explanation for it, and surely it was a human too. Without wasting any time, he picked up one of the sets and ran to Kurt, waking him up. “We need to get out of here. Come on!” he exclaimed, pulling a half-awake Kurt up. “I'll explain everything to you in the car, but right now, we have to go.”

As they walked back down the avenue, Jack told about how he woke up disoriented and how he thought he heard something, he also told about the car, worried. “Whoever that wolf is, he knows I am one. It's my car, I'm sure he recognized it,” he drove worriedly.

“Calm down, Jack. We don't know anything right yet, and if he happens to have seen something, he can't say anything, it's the same secret we have,” Kurt tried to comfort him.

“Kurt, if they know it's me, they know it's you too. Everyone sees us together all the time,” Jack explained. Kurt stopped and thought for a moment, it made sense, he was as much in the crosshairs as Jack was.