Chapter 402

The fox had been alone in the woods for as long as it could remember. Days bled together, the seasons never changing. It lived in a hollow beneath the roots of an old oak, where the walls were covered in damp moss.

Nothing had ever bothered the fox, except the occasional bear or strange, heavy footsteps of humans that passed near the edge of the forest. Yet it had always been safe in its quiet corner of the world.

Until it wasn't.

The fox woke up one morning with a strange feeling. There was a tightness in its chest, and when it looked down at its paws, they seemed different—bigger, longer. It blinked, rubbed its eyes with the back of its hand, and stared again. The claws weren't as sharp, the fur thinner. It didn't know what had happened, but the change wasn't natural. It felt wrong.

The fox stumbled from its den, disoriented and frightened. It could feel the earth under its paws, but it was different somehow.

Was it still its paws? Its feet, too, seemed to have... changed. Not paws, not anymore. It tried to curl its toes, but they were long—like fingers.

It stood up, trying to find its balance. The sense of dizziness wouldn't leave, like a fog that clouded its mind. The fox padded over to the nearest stream, its new, strange limbs quivering with each step.

Its reflection stared back at it, and the fox froze. No, it wasn't a reflection. The image was wrong. But there it was: a creature with the face of a fox, but with features... wrong. Human-like eyes, human-like nose. Its fur was gone from the arms and legs. The paws were gone entirely. Instead, skin—pale, smooth, and unnatural—replaced them.

The fox howled, a sound half animal, half human. It was as if a part of it was being stolen, a part of it it never asked for. The more it looked at itself, the more everything seemed to twist. It could feel itself changing deeper, inside its very bones.

The woods didn't seem the same anymore. The trees seemed farther apart, more foreign. The air was too still, too quiet. No birds. No animals.

No, nothing but silence.

It tried to run, but the new limbs, awkward and untrained, couldn't carry it fast enough. It stumbled and fell, its heart pounding painfully in its chest. That was when it heard it: voices. Not far away. The fox crawled on its knees, desperate to find some sort of refuge. It had to hide, had to escape.

The humans. They had always been there—somewhere in the distance—but now they were near. They walked through the woods, laughing and talking. They were strangers, these humans, and the fox had seen them before, only from a distance.

The fox ran towards the edge of the forest, feeling its body twist, its bones rearranging, its skin crawling. But each step felt slower than the last, as if its own body was fighting it. It could hear the laughter getting louder, but something else followed it. A hunger. The more it saw the humans, the stronger it became. Something inside the fox burned with rage.

It came across them by the stream. Three humans. One man, one woman, and a child, laughing as they skipped rocks across the water. The fox—no longer a fox, not completely—watched them with wide, unblinking eyes.

They stopped when they saw it. The man grabbed his child's hand, eyes wide with fear. The woman took a step back, her hand to her mouth.

The child... the child didn't move. He stared at the fox, his eyes too wide, too curious. There was no fear in him, just confusion. The fox felt something surge inside it—a strange pull. It was the child's innocence, his purity. It wanted to tear it out, to rip it apart.

"Stay away," the man shouted.

The fox blinked. It could understand them now.

The woman screamed.

The fox didn't know why, but it couldn't stop itself. It moved closer, its new, strange limbs carrying it with an unnatural, inhuman grace. The child reached out, his tiny hand trembling.

"Please... please don't hurt us," the woman begged. Her voice cracked.

The fox tilted its head, the hunger growing, swelling inside. The child's hand was so small, so fragile. It reached for the boy, and the child smiled, his small face filled with naive trust. The fox grabbed him. There was no fight, no struggle. The child barely had time to gasp before it tore him apart.

The man screamed, tried to grab for the boy, but the fox twisted, faster now, using its human-like strength. It grabbed his throat and squeezed, harder and harder, until the man's breath faltered, then stopped. The woman, still crying, tried to run, but the fox was already there, faster than she expected, and it took her too.

It didn't know why it was doing this, but it felt right. The hunger, the rage—it filled every corner of its being. It felt nothing but that. The fox had become a monster, but it didn't know when it stopped being the fox.

When the bodies were still, when the last of the blood had been drained, the fox stood, panting. It looked down at its hands—more human now than ever—and felt the wetness. The blood. It was almost... comforting.

The forest was quiet again. But only for a moment. The fox—the man, the thing it had become—turned to leave. It walked slowly at first, unsure of where to go, but as it moved, it felt a clarity come over it.

It wasn't the forest anymore. Not the world it knew.

The fox walked deeper, further from the place of its origin. And every time it passed a human, it reached out. It felt the hunger again, a familiar gnawing ache. They looked at it, and then they turned away.

They never understood.

The fox had been rejected. Abandoned.

That was when it began.

It killed again.

And again.

It was the same. The same old story: a man, a woman, a child, all of them looking at the creature with fear, with disgust, and the fox—no, the man—could feel it, could taste it in the air, the rejection. He wasn't one of them. He wasn't an animal, not anymore, but he wasn't human either. He was something different, something twisted. Something in between.

It didn't matter. He needed them to accept him. He needed them to see him as one of their own.

But they never did.

And every time they looked away, it only drove him further into madness.

His body shifted with each new kill, each new death. His features became sharper, more pronounced, but still wrong. There was no going back.

It became easier. The killings, the violence. His fingers didn't tremble anymore. His heart didn't ache. They were nothing but empty shells now. Just bodies to pile on top of the pile that had grown and grown.

But none of it mattered. He was still not human. He was still not one of them.

And then, one day, the last of them rejected him.

A young woman with long dark hair, standing on the edge of the woods. She looked at him, and the fear... it was so clear, so fresh. She turned away.

And that was it.

He lunged at her, his claws—no, his fingers—grasping for her throat. He felt the fire inside him burst into something dark, something ugly, as he pressed down. Her breath stopped. Her hands flailed, and then they went limp.

She was dead.

But the fox—the man—was not satisfied.

He stumbled back, falling to his knees as the last of the change took over. His skin peeled away, leaving nothing but bone, nothing but raw, red flesh.

He looked at his hands.

Nothing was left. Not the fox. Not the man.

And with that, he died alone.