Weeks passed.
The memory of blood and bone still clung to him like smoke. The coyote. The rabbit. The mark. The way his skin healed and his fists destroyed. It haunted the edges of his thoughts, whispering through dreams he never spoke of.
But he didn't fall apart.
He couldn't.
So he got up. Every day. Brushed his teeth. Tied his shoes. Ate his breakfast in silence while Olivia watched him with worried eyes and James kept trying to smile like things were normal.
Then, one morning, the calendar reminded them: he was fifteen now.
Olivia made pancakes. Alex gave him a homemade card with a little sketch of the two of them battling monsters with wooden swords. James ruffled his hair and told him he was proud of the young man he was becoming. And Angelo… he smiled. He tried to feel something good.
When school resumed, he walked into the building quietly, head low, shoulders tense. He half-expected stares and whispers. After what happened… after the neighbors… after the blood…
But the moment he stepped into class, his friends spotted him.
"Yo! Angelo!"
A chorus of voices, loud and familiar, pulled him back to something that felt real. Jokes flew, laughter echoed. One of them threw a crumpled paper ball at his head. Another tried to put him in a playful headlock.
He laughed—really laughed—and it felt good. Like he could breathe again.
They asked questions. Not about the rumors. Not about miracles or marks or blood.
Just normal things.
"You get that new game yet?"
"Man, I flunked that math quiz so hard."
"You better not be taller than me now, I swear!"
And for a moment—just a brief, fragile moment—it felt like he was still just a boy. Not a miracle. Not a monster. Just Angelo.
But peace never lingered.
The very next day, something strange happened.
In a different class, a student wearing the same dark hoodie as him got into a fight—slammed another kid into a desk and even hurled a chair at a teacher. It had nothing to do with Angelo. He hadn't even been in the room.
But when the teacher came storming through the hall, red-faced and furious, he only saw the hoodie.
He only saw Angelo.
"You! Come here!"
Angelo blinked in confusion. "What? I didn't—"
The teacher didn't listen.
A hand grabbed his shoulder. A slap cracked across his face. Then another.
His friends shouted, trying to intervene. "Hey! It wasn't him!" "You've got the wrong guy!" But the teacher didn't hear them—or didn't care.
Blow after blow.
Angelo didn't cry out.
He didn't feel pain.
Only something else.
A cold, bitter heat crawling beneath his skin. Writhing. Waiting.
Not because it hurt.
But because it was wrong.
He said nothing about it—not to Olivia, not to James, not even to Alex. He didn't want to see the look in their eyes.
The next day, during break, that same teacher approached him in the corridor.
But he looked… different.
Pale. Sweating. His hand trembled at his side.
"I… I'm sorry," the teacher mumbled, barely able to meet his eyes. "It was a mistake. I— I don't know what came over me."
Angelo looked at him in silence for a long moment, then nodded once.
"I accept," he said softly.
But deep down… he didn't forget.
He couldn't.
That evening, school closed early.
Students were sent home in a rush. Teachers whispered behind closed doors. Whispers turned into rumors, and by nightfall, the truth made the headlines.
James turned on the TV.
A body. The teacher.
Dead.
Not just dead—shredded. The anchor's voice was grim, clipped. "—authorities are calling it an animal attack, but investigators say no animal could have done this."
Nobody told Angelo the details.
But he saw the fear in James's eyes. The way Olivia clutched the remote tighter. The way even Alex looked smaller than usual.
He didn't say anything.
Didn't need to.
He knew.
The next day, after school, he walked home with three of his closest friends. They talked about music and dumb YouTube videos and which teacher might be an alien in disguise.
Then it happened.
A man—ragged, twitchy—stumbled toward them from the side of the street. He stank of something sour. His voice was slurred.
"Hey! Hey, you little punks! You think you're better than me? Think you're funny?!"
He grabbed Angelo's friend by the collar.
The others froze.
Something inside Angelo snapped.
He didn't yell. Didn't shove him.
He just stepped forward, his voice cold, flat.
"Go kill yourself."
His friends stared in shock—then burst into laughter.
"Yo! Damn, man, you roasted him!"
"Savage!"
But the man… didn't laugh.
He stared blankly at Angelo.
Then turned.
And walked away.
That night, when Angelo got home, he turned on the TV.
And there he was.
The same man.
His photo on the screen. His body on the pavement.
He'd jumped from the roof of a building. No note. No explanation.
Angelo's blood ran cold.
First the teacher. Now this stranger.
He pressed his hands to his face, trying to stop the shaking.
What's happening to me?
And then—again—
A whisper.
The same voice from before.
Low. Ancient.
"Are you ready?"
Then the pain came.
Searing. Violent. It tore through him like fire. He collapsed to the floor, screaming. His family burst into the room—Olivia, James, Alex—all yelling his name in panic.
His skin felt like it was splitting open from the inside. His vision blurred. His muscles tensed beyond control. His hair turned white in jagged, uneven streaks, like the color had been burned out of it.
His eyes rolled back.
And then—
Darkness.
He fainted.