Another day. Just another fucking endless loop of the same torturous loneliness. Sarah's thoughts echoed within the stark white walls of her cell as she stared at the blank ceiling, a thousand emotions boiling beneath her skin. The room wasn’t cold—if anything, it was a constant, sterile neutrality that made her feel even more suffocated. Everything about this place was designed to erase her, to strip her down to something they could study, control, and break.

With nothing but time, her days dissolved into a monotonous cycle of despair and fleeting rage. On impulse, she reached for a pastel, its vibrant color mocking her dull reality. In a burst of anger, she hurled it at the door, the impact a small, satisfying explosion of color against the unyielding white. "Is anybody there?!" she yelled, her voice hoarse from disuse. The silence that followed was a tangible force, smothering her cries for interaction, for any semblance of human contact.

Overcome with rage and desperation, she seized the tray holding the bowls of her daily multivitamin gruel and hurled it violently against the metal door, causing it to reverberate loudly. It was a small, futile act of rebellion, but it was all she had. The frustration twisted in her gut, tightening her chest until she thought she might scream. It wasn’t fair. None of this was fair.

The wolf roared inside her, demanding to be unleashed, to tear through the walls and rip apart anyone who dared stand in her way. But there was no escape, no relief. Only the steady hum of the fluorescent lights above her and the sterile scent of antiseptic that clung to everything. The room was a cage, and she was the animal trapped within it, waiting for the next time they would come to poke and prod at her, to force her body into that monstrous shape she loathed so much, to section her body and watch her regenerate again and again.

She closed her eyes, taking deep, shaky breaths, trying to calm herself, to regain control. But it was getting harder every day. The rage, the grief, the guilt—they were all like a storm inside her, and she was losing the ability to keep it at bay. I'm losing my mind. Keep it together Sarah!

Her fists clenched, the fabric of her pants crinkling beneath her fingers. She had nothing else to wear—just this plain t-shirt and pants, clean and white like everything else in this godforsaken place. It was a cruel irony that they dressed her in white, as if that could purify the blood on her hands, the blood of her friends. Her friends, who she'd torn apart during her first transformation, their screams still echoing in her mind. The memory of their mangled bodies haunted her, a constant reminder of what she had become. Of what she could never undo. Do I deserve this for what I did? Is this hell? But her mind rebelled.

Her breaths came quicker now, shallow and frantic. She tried to focus on the feel of the fabric beneath her fingers, the dull sensation grounding her, but it wasn’t enough. The rage was too much, too overwhelming. She wanted to tear the room apart, to rip out the lights, to break the walls until there was nothing left.

But there was no escape. There was nothing to do but wait—wait for the next time they came to drag her to the lab, to inject that cursed serum into her veins, to force her into the beast she feared and hated.

She wanted to die. To end it all, to put an end to the pain and the guilt and the endless, suffocating loneliness. But even that was denied to her. She’d tried—God, she’d tried—but her body wouldn’t let her. The wounds healed too fast, her own flesh betraying her, sealing over before she could bleed out, before she could find peace.

She dropped to the floor, her back against the wall, fists pounding uselessly against the ground until she was out of breath, until her arms ached. The wolf in her growled in frustration, as powerless as she was. They were both trapped, and no amount of rage could change that.

She bit her lip, drawing blood, the coppery taste grounding her just enough to keep the tears at bay. Crying was pointless. There was no one to hear her, no one to care. The scientists would only see it as another data point, another sign of her weakening spirit. They’d broken her, and they knew it.

But then, something new, something different cut through the haze of anger and despair—a scent, faint but unmistakable, threading its way through the sterile air of the cell. Her heightened senses picked up on it immediately, and she stilled, every nerve in her body suddenly alert. It wasn’t one of the usual clinical smells that clung to the scientists who visited her, nor was it the metallic tang of blood or the sharp sting of chemicals.

This was something else—something softer, more natural, almost... inviting. Her heart pounded in her chest, the anger momentarily forgotten as curiosity and a strange sense of anticipation took hold. It had been so long since anything new had entered her world, since anything had made her feel something other than anger or despair.

She couldn’t help it—she inhaled deeply, letting the scent fill her lungs. It was warm, earthy, with a hint of something floral that she couldn’t quite place. Her mind raced, trying to identify it, to understand what this new presence meant. Was it a trick? Another experiment?

Her pulse quickened as the scent grew stronger, more defined, sending a shiver down her spine that was as much fear as it was something else—something she didn’t dare name. She struggled to keep her emotions in check, but the wolf inside her was intrigued, drawn to this new scent as much as she was.

Then the door to her cell creaked open. Standing in the threshold, silhouetted against the harsh fluorescent light of the corridor, was a woman clad in the typical white lab coat, a name badge positioned over her heart. Sarah’s breath caught in her throat as she took in the sight of her, her senses overwhelmed by the scent that now filled the room.

Sarah’s heart pounded, a mixture of fear and something else thrumming through her veins. “Who... who are you?” she asked, her voice rough, barely more than a whisper as she stared at the woman, her emotions tangled and frayed. Fear, curiosity, and a strange, desperate hope all warred within her, leaving her on the edge of something she couldn’t quite define.

She didn’t know what this woman wanted, or what her presence meant. But for the first time in what felt like an eternity, something had changed. And that terrified her more than anything.