My DNA Test Says I'm 2% Wolf.

"My DNA Test Says I'm 2% Wolf. Then I Coughed Up This."

The call came on a Tuesday morning. The screen said "23andMe Customer Service" which was strange because I hadn't ordered a kit. I hadn't spit in a tube. I hadn't given them my DNA.

"Am I speaking with Mr. Ethan Cross?"

"You have the wrong number."

"Is your date of birth November seventeenth, nineteen ninety-two?"

Something cold touched the back of my neck. "Yes."

"Mr. Cross, our system flagged a sample for review. A sample we don't have on file. And yet our algorithm processed it last night. The results came back ninety-eight percent human. The other two percent matched nothing in our database. Nothing human. Nothing primate. Nothing from any known species. Our system flagged it as canine. Wolf."

I laughed. "You're saying I'm part wolf?"

"I'm saying I don't know what I'm saying. I've seen people discover they're related to royalty. I've never seen this. Our genetic counselor looked at the report and then walked out of the building. Didn't say a word. Just left."

My jaw ached. A deep, dull throb in my mandible. Like growing pains. Like something inside was pushing to get out.

"Mr. Cross, have you noticed any changes recently? Any physical changes?"

I wanted to say no. But the word would have been a lie.

Changes started three weeks ago. First my tongue. I bit it in my sleep and it took eight days to heal. Eight days for a tongue laceration. That's not normal. Then my appetite. Raw steak from the grocery store made my mouth water like I hadn't eaten in weeks. I bought a ribeye, took it home, and pressed it to my nose before I even put it on a plate. The scent triggered something in my chest. A hunger that wasn't hunger. A need that had nothing to do with nutrition.

Then my neighbor's dog went silent when I walked past. Not quiet. Silent. It pressed itself against the wall and whined. High and soft. The way prey whines.

And last night I dreamt of running. On four legs. Through trees. Under a sky so full of moon it looked like a second sun. I woke up on my bedroom floor. Sheets shredded. Pillow torn open, feathers everywhere. My hands were bleeding. Not from cuts. From my fingernails. All ten split down the middle like something tried to claw its way out from underneath.

"Mr. Cross?" The woman's voice sounded distant now. Like she was already gone and only her words remained.

"I have to go," I said.

"Wait. There's one more thing. The sample wasn't submitted through our normal channels. It came from a medical examiner's office. A John Doe who died three days ago. No ID. No wallet. No phone. But he had your DNA. Perfect match. Which means either you're dead, Mr. Cross, or someone out there is wearing your genetic code like a stolen coat."

I hung up.

The apartment felt wrong. Not haunted wrong. Something worse. Something biological. The walls hadn't moved. The air hadn't thickened. I had. My jaw throbbed again. I walked to the bathroom mirror and turned on the light.

At first, nothing looked different. Same tired face. Same stubble. Same tired eyes. But then I smiled. Not because I was happy. Because I needed to see my teeth.

My canines were longer. Sharper. The points curved inward like hooks. I ran my tongue over them and felt the tips press into the soft underside of my tongue. They hadn't been there yesterday. I knew they hadn't. I brushed my teeth every morning and every night. I flossed. I knew the geography of my mouth the way I knew the back of my hand. These were new.

And my eyes. The irises had changed color. Not much. Just enough. A ring of amber had appeared around each pupil, thin as a thread but unmistakable. The kind of gold you see in old wolves. The kind that doesn't reflect light. The kind that absorbs it.

I opened my mouth wider. Wider than should have been possible. My jaw unhinged slightly, like a snake's. Not all the way. Just enough. I saw the back of my own throat in the mirror. The tissue there had changed. Darker. Rougher. Covered in small ridges that ran vertically down into my esophagus. Like the throat of something built to swallow fur and bone and everything else whole.

I closed my mouth. My tongue felt thicker. Heavier. I tried to speak. Only a growl came out. Low. Involuntary. The sound vibrated in my chest like a second heartbeat. I tried again. "Help." The word came out wrong. Guttural. Stretched over teeth that no longer fit behind my lips.

I coughed. Something rose from my chest. Thick. Wet. I caught it in my palm. A hairball. The size of my fist. Gray. Coarse. It smelled like wet earth and den and something older than skin. It wasn't mine. I'd never coughed up anything like this in my life. But my body had made it anyway.

I heard something behind me.

Not a footstep. Not a breath. Something smaller. A shift in the air pressure. The almost-silent sound of a door moving on its hinges when no one touched it.

I turned.

The bathroom door was closed. I'd left it open. I was sure I'd left it open. But now it was closed, and standing in front of it, barely visible in the dim light from the window, was a shape. Not a person. Not quite. Taller than a person. Thinner. Its shoulders didn't sit right. Its neck bent at an angle that made my own neck ache in sympathy.

It didn't have a face. Not a human face. What it had was worse. A suggestion of features. Two darker patches where eyes should be. A longer patch where a snout should be. It smiled at me. I knew it smiled because my own mouth opened at the same time. Like a reflex. Like a mirror.

The thing in my bathroom was me. The me I was becoming. The me that had already run through those trees in my dream. The me that had torn my sheets and split my fingernails and eaten raw meat straight from the butcher's paper without stopping to breathe.

It raised one hand. Long fingers. Too many knuckles. Nails that weren't nails anymore. Dark. Curved. Thick at the base and sharp at the tip.

I raised my hand. Same fingers. Same knuckles. Same not-nails.

It pointed at my chest.

I looked down.

There, on my sternum, just visible through the collar of my shirt, was a mark I'd never seen before. Five lines. Angled like claw marks. Not red. Not bruised. Silver. Metallic. Like someone had pressed a brand into my skin while I slept.

When I looked back up, the thing was gone.

The door was open.

My jaw cracked. A loud, wet sound. Something shifted inside my skull. I felt my molars slide sideways. Felt my palate widen. Felt the roof of my mouth split along a seam I'd never known was there.

The hunger hit me then. Not for food. For something else. Something I couldn't name. Something that lived in the dark and only came out when the moon was right.

I looked at the window. The blinds were closed. But I could see through them anyway. I could see the sky. I could see the clouds moving. And behind them, just barely, a sliver of white.

The moon wasn't full. Not even close. It was barely a crescent.

And still, I could feel it pulling.

The woman from 23andMe said the John Doe had my DNA. That someone out there was wearing my genetic code like a stolen coat.

But she was wrong.

The John Doe wasn't wearing my DNA.

I was wearing his.

And he was waking up.