Evelyn pushed through the undergrowth with one goal in mind: Moonshadow Petals.
Professor Huxley had mentioned them casually in yesterday's lecture, rare, glowing at dusk, excellent for certain medicinal compounds. Rare meant that if she brought him a fresh sample tomorrow, he would definitely notice her. She had latched onto the idea like a lifeline. Maybe he'd finally see she wasn't just another literature student sleepwalking through her final year. Maybe he'd remember her name.
But Evelyn had exactly one rule when it came to the woods behind her house: don't be stupid.
She was currently breaking it just to impress her crush who also happened to be her professor.
The sun had already slipped behind the trees, painting everything in soft blues and greys. She muttered under her breath as she pushed forward, her canvas bag slapping against her hip.
A low, distant howl rolled through the trees.
Evelyn stopped dead. Her stomach tightened. "Nope. Absolutely not. This is how people end up as cautionary tales."
She knew she should turn back. This wasn't her first time in these woods, and something about the place always felt off. Things had a way of finding her here, as if the plants themselves reached out, trying to trap her. She shook her head, thought about the petals and Professor Huxley, and forced herself to take another step.
Another howl came, lower this time, edged with clear pain. Evelyn groaned and rubbed her face. "How do I always find these things? I just wanted petals. I get the petals and I leave."
She hesitated, shifting the bag on her shoulder. The smart move was to head home, pretend she never heard anything, and buy dried herbs from the dodgy shop downtown like a normal person. Instead, her feet kept moving forward.
Dry shoots caught on her coat as if warning her not to go farther. She yanked herself free from the stiff brown mass that had clearly been dead for a long time. The second she stepped away, the wilted, crisp leaves on the twig suddenly lifted, straightening as though fresh life had been breathed into them. Evelyn was too focused on the thorns snagging her sleeve and fingers to notice.
She hissed as two sharp pricks drew blood. Warmth bloomed in her palm, running up her arm and settling deep in her chest like the first comforting sip of tea. She frowned at the cuts. "Fantastic. Now I'm bleeding all over everything. Huxley better give me an A for effort."
She kept searching, eyes scanning the ground for the faint silver glow of the Moonshadow. When she finally spotted the small cluster beneath an old oak, relief loosened the knot in her stomach. She crouched quickly, pulled out her folding knife, and began mashing a few petals into a paste on a flat stone. The flowers stained her already bleeding fingers a deep purple.
That was when she saw the shape half-hidden in the ferns.
A large, dark animal lay on its side, grey-black fur matted with blood around a nasty gash on its shoulder. Its breathing came in shallow, uneven pulls. Too big for a normal dog, but her brain stubbornly filed it under "stray" because anything else felt too complicated.
She'd done this dance before, stray cats, injured foxes, that half-blind raccoon that had hissed at her for twenty minutes straight. Animals always found her. And she always ended up helping, even when common sense screamed at her to keep walking.
Evelyn rocked back on her heels and let out a tired breath. "Of course. I come for petals and find this. Why do I always end up with the broken ones?" She swallowed hard. "But I'd have to be crazy to help this thing. It looks like it could take my head off."
She should leave. The howl had already warned her. If it attacked, it would be her own funeral — no one to blame but herself. Yet the same stubborn pull that always dragged her into these situations kept her rooted.
Then the animal made a low, pained sound deep in its throat deep and miserable. It twisted something in Evelyn's chest. She wasn't a vet. She wasn't even particularly good with first aid. But that sound… she couldn't just walk away from it.
"If you maul me, I'm going to be so pissed," she muttered, edging closer despite the fear crawling up her spine. "I have a thesis due next month and zero time to become a cautionary tale."
The animal didn't growl or lift its head. It just breathed, slow and labored, another weak pained noise slipping out. Evelyn felt her throat tighten. She dug into her bag, tore open an antiseptic wipe with her teeth, then paused. She wasn't sure what she was doing. Better check first.
She set her bag down, pulled out the small field guide she had brought, and flipped to the page on Moonshadow Petals. "Highly antiseptic… healing properties… also good for blood coagulation," she read aloud. She nodded once. "It must be your lucky day… dog."
She mixed the paste onto the wipe and carefully applied it to the wound. She didn't notice that her bleeding fingers had left faint red streaks in the mixture — the light was too dim to see clearly.
When she pressed the paste against the open gash, the bleeding stopped almost instantly. Evelyn blinked. "Okay… that worked way too well."
In the same moment, a sharp ache flared between her shoulder blades, right along her spine. "Ahh!" she gasped, rolling her shoulders. She shifted her weight to her other leg, blaming the awkward crouch and the heavy bag.
Then the creature opened its eyes.
They were blue. Clear, striking blue that caught the last of the fading light and held it. The gaze locked onto hers with a calm, aware intelligence that made her mouth go dry. Those eyes didn't look like they belonged to an animal at all. They looked like they were calculating something.
Evelyn froze.
For several long seconds the forest went completely quiet around them. She could hear her own heartbeat.
"Right," she whispered. "That's not normal."
She slowly pulled away, heart hammering, and only stood up once she was a few steps back. She nearly tripped over a root. Her bag swung wildly. The animal's eyes followed the movement but it didn't lunge, didn't snap. It simply watched her, steady and patient, like it was waiting to see what she would do next.
"I helped you," she said, voice shaky as she backed away. "You're welcome. Now stay there and heal. I'm leaving. This is me leaving."
She turned and forced herself to walk away. After ten steps the pull returned — that quiet, insistent tug in her chest that made leaving feel wrong. She stopped again, hands clenched.
"This is ridiculous," she muttered. "I came for petals to impress a professor, not to play nurse to some oversized forest wolf. I don't even like dogs that much."
Still, she glanced back.
The blue eyes were still on her.
Evelyn exhaled sharply. "Fine. But if this ends with me in the hospital, I'm blaming you."
She crouched down again, keeping a safer distance this time, and poured a little water from her bottle over the wound to clean it before applying more paste. Her fingers brushed thick, soft fur. The warmth in her chest grew stronger, spreading like something alive under her ribs. She told herself it was just adrenaline and the cold evening air.
"You're going to be okay," she said quietly. "Just don't die on me. I've already lost enough things I didn't want to lose."
When she finally stood for good, the ache between her shoulder blades had started to become unbearable, It felt like something heavy was being pushed onto her, She rubbed at the spot absently as she made her way out of the trees in a hurry because she felt the thing still watching her. By the time she reached the edge of the forest, her phone screen flickered when she tried to check the time, It was broken. She scowled at it. "Not tonight. I've had enough weird for one evening."