Word Count: 1079

Yuuri had no idea what time it was when he finally managed to get back to his dorm. It was definitely late; probably well into the early morning. He hadn’t bothered calling a cab, hadn’t even thought about it as an option, but instead walked the distance after being brought back to the alley where he was first spirited away from, the night cold enough to chill anyone to the bone. The body of the man was still in the alley, and all Yuuri could do was stare at it once the wolf left him. It could have been him; lifeless and abandoned. As if that wasn’t already how he felt most of the time.

But something he’d either said or done had drawn the wolf’s curiosity. Something had convinced this vicious wolf that maybe there was something more to Yuuri than just a pathetic college student. A nobody. Maybe the wolf could already tell that there was something, dare he say magical about him, but whatever potential he did see was completely lost to Yuuri.

He didn’t know how long he stood there, and he didn’t remember actually making the journey back to his dorm until he was in the process of unlocking his shared room. His roommate was already asleep, and from the lump in the bed, it looked as though his roommate’s girlfriend had snuck in to spend the night as well. It didn’t take much for Yuuri to ignore them (he was used to it by now, since they didn’t bother asking him if it was okay or not and he had to learn how to deal with it, even if it bothered him), and made his way over to his side of the room to stand in front of his desk, staring down at the books and papers that he had left there.

Shaking hands, numbed from the cold, wrapped around the strap of his bag on his shoulder, but his fingers slipped before he could pull it over his head, and Yuuri cringed as the bag slid off and over his arm, hitting the ground with a thunk. Neither his roommate nor the girlfriend stirred, and Yuuri placed his trembling hands on his desk for support as he carefully stepped out of the strap now around his feet.

He was still trying to comprehend what happened to him, what was going to happen now. The wolf told him he would call for him. To be ready. That he would teach him how to gather energy and starseeds required by the wolf and Metallia. Whatever Metallia was. That he would be great and feared. And powerful.

A car alarm went off outside, and even though it was several stories below, it still made him jump and stagger into his desk Chair. The wooden legs scraped loudly against the floor, which only aided to startle him further because he’d had no intention of waking his roommate or anyone else at such an early hour. He clutched at his chest, trying to calm his pounding heart, eyes wide as he watched the two in the bed stir, and he couldn’t quite get over the fact that the creaking of the bed sounded eerily like a whine or growl.

And then he saw them again; eyes staring at him in the darkness. Golden and glowing, light reflecting off sharp teeth in a mouth that curved into a vicious, hungry grin. The bright purple of the Rift clouded his vision. And where he clutched his hand over his heart, a hole was there; a gaping wound with no blood, seeming to break right through him.

Yuuri’s feet were moving before he even realized it. He fumbled for the door to the room and went crashing to his hands and knees out in the hall. The white lights from overhead only helped a little, his stomach churning dangerously, and now his knees were aching and his head was spinning and he couldn’t get the memory of those calculating eyes out of his head, or the deep, surreal colors of the place he’d been taken.

He vaguely thought he heard his name being called, but he couldn’t tell for certain. His heart was beating too loudly in his ears. He tried gasping for breath but something was stopping him. He couldn’t breathe. His whole body was shaking at this point, and the golden eyes and sharp teeth and feel of a clawed hand around his throat and inside his chest, squeezing and pushing energy into him, changing him, making him into Kamacite.

He hadn’t been lying when he told the wolf that he would do anything he was told. He hadn’t been lying when he said he wouldn’t disappoint him. Not intentionally anyway. But the longer everything settled over him, the heavier it became, the more difficult it was to really, truly believe he could actually do everything he promised. Could someone like him actually help someone who was already so ambitious and had already gained so much for themselves? Would he not just slow the wolf down? How long would it take the wolf to realize just how much of a mistake Yuuri really was? How long would he last as a Corrupted Senshi when there were already so few of them and they were disliked by the creatures that lived in the Rift, the creatures that made the wolf into what he was and was part of him, and probably untrusted by the rest of the Negaverse, too?

How long would the wolf allow him to stay alive until he decided to rip his throat out, or squeeze just a little too hard?

Hands grabbed onto his shoulders to pull him back up from where he’d crumpled in the hallway, clutching at his chest with both hands as he gasped for air that refused to fill his lungs. He would find out later that his RA had to call the paramedics, and he was taken to the overnight ward in the campus infirmary to keep an eye on him for the rest of the night, not quite bad enough to need an actual hospital, but hypothermic and obviously suffering from a “stress related” panic attack.

A mild sedative helped him get to sleep, but even that was restless, the wolf still vivid in his dreams.

Eyes glinting gold in the dark.

“You will not disappoint me.”