Tales from the Universe
Moral Dilemma: When a part of yourself is genuinely capable of causing harm but is also responsible for strength, courage, and survival, should you try to destroy it—or learn to live responsibly with something inside you that you may never completely trust?
Orin woke with blood on his hands.
This was concerning.
He checked himself.
No wounds.
More concerning.
His boots were muddy.
Front door open.
Kitchen chair overturned.
He remembered going to bed.
Then:
Nothing.
Outside, something had killed three chickens.
Orin stared at the feathers.
His neighbor Hale stood beside him.
“Wolf.”
Orin swallowed.
“Probably.”
Hale pointed toward the tracks.
Large.
Deep.
They began beside the chicken coop.
They ended beneath Orin’s bedroom window.
“Interesting,” Hale said.
Orin looked at him.
“Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You said interesting.”
“It is.”
“Say less.”
The attacks had begun two months earlier.
Sheep.
Chickens.
One dog.
Then a traveler had been mauled near the marsh.
Survived.
Barely.
He described:
“Something like a wolf.”
Everyone began carrying weapons.
Orin included.
This would become ironic.
The second time Orin woke outside.
Naked.
Cold.
Half a mile from home.
He remembered a dream.
Running.
Smells.
Thousands of them.
Mud.
Water.
Fear.
Something moving ahead.
Then teeth.
Orin vomited.
He told nobody.
This was mistake number one.
He chained himself to the bed the following night.
Iron cuffs.
Heavy chain.
At dawn the chain was broken.
Orin was asleep beneath a tree.
There was blood in his mouth.
Mistake number two had apparently been assuming the problem respected hardware.
He went to Sena.
Sena was a physician.
Also discreet.
These qualities made her popular with criminals and embarrassed aristocrats.
She examined him.
Then asked:
“Have you been bitten recently?”
“No.”
“Scratched?”
“No.”
“Cursed?”
“Not knowingly.”
“Family history?”
“Of what?”
She stared.
“Turning into a wolf.”
Orin laughed.
Sena didn’t.
His grandfather.
Orin remembered.
Old stories.
Grandfather disappeared during full moons.
Everyone said drinking.
Grandmother said:
“Your grandfather had wilderness in him.”
Orin had assumed this was poetry.
He increasingly disliked poetry.
Sena tested his blood.
Then locked the laboratory door.
“You should sit.”
“No.”
“You’re a werewolf.”
Orin sat.
“Can you cure it?”
“Maybe.”
“Good.”
“The treatment may kill you.”
“Less good.”
“And I’m not certain it would remove everything.”
“What does that mean?”
Sena looked uncomfortable.
“Some traits may remain.”
“Such as?”
“Heightened senses. Healing. Strength.”
Orin stared.
“I have those?”
“You didn’t notice?”
“I thought I was healthy.”
“You healed a broken wrist in eleven days.”
“I eat well.”
Sena closed her eyes.
Suddenly parts of Orin’s life rearranged themselves.
He could hear conversations through walls.
Smell rain hours before storms.
See better at night than anyone he knew.
He rarely became sick.
He had always been unusually strong.
None of this had seemed supernatural because it had always been his.
Then came the memory.
Five years earlier.
A robber entered his house.
Orin remembered fighting.
The man had a knife.
Orin remembered becoming very calm.
Then the robber was on the floor.
Arm broken.
Orin had no idea how he had done it.
The wolf had been there long before the fur.
“Remove it,” Orin said.
Sena nodded.
The treatment required silver.
Naturally.
Also feverwort.
Three days fasting.
A complicated ritual Sena admitted she found medically embarrassing.
“Why?”
“Because I prefer medicine that doesn’t require chanting.”
“Does the chanting work?”
“Yes.”
“Then chant.”
“I will complain while doing it.”
“Fair.”
The night before treatment, someone screamed outside.
Orin ran.
A child had fallen into the river.
Spring flood.
Fast water.
People stood on the bank.
Nobody could reach him.
Orin jumped.
The water was freezing.
He smelled the child.
That was impossible.
Still did.
He saw through darkness.
Swam harder than any human should.
Caught the boy.
A branch struck Orin’s shoulder.
Bone cracked.
He kept swimming.
Dragged the child ashore.
By morning, Orin’s shoulder barely hurt.
Sena examined it.
“The fracture is already knitting.”
Orin stared.
“That would go away?”
“Probably.”
“Probably?”
“We are discussing removing a supernatural wolf from your blood, Orin. The literature has limitations.”
He postponed treatment.
One week.
To think.
Mistake number three.
The full moon came.
Orin prepared.
He locked himself in an abandoned stone cellar outside town.
No windows.
Steel door.
Sena waited outside with armed guards.
At dawn they opened it.
The door was scratched.
Deeply.
Orin lay naked on the floor.
No blood.
No escape.
Success.
They did it again.
And again.
Three months.
No attacks.
Orin began learning the pattern.
The transformation wasn’t random.
Stress mattered.
Moon mattered.
Hunger mattered.
Anger mattered.
He could feel it approaching.
Heat behind the eyes.
Teeth aching.
Smells becoming too loud.
The wolf had signals.
Then Orin transformed during the day.
A man hit his daughter.
Not Orin’s daughter.
A stranger’s.
Market.
The man struck the girl across the face.
Orin saw.
Something opened.
He remembered everything this time.
That was worse.
The man’s heartbeat.
Fear smell.
Orin’s hands changing.
Bones.
Teeth.
People screaming.
The incredible relief of becoming something that did not need to negotiate with itself.
He pinned the man against a wall.
Jaws around his throat.
One movement.
Done.
Orin wanted to.
Deeply.
The wolf wanted blood.
Orin wanted blood.
There was no clean border between them.
That frightened him more than losing consciousness ever had.
He stopped.
Barely.
The man lived.
The girl ran.
Orin fled.
“Treatment tomorrow,” Orin told Sena.
She nodded.
No argument.
Then the girl’s mother came.
Orin expected anger.
Instead she said:
“Thank you.”
He stared.
“I almost killed him.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I wanted to.”
“He has been hurting her for years.”
Orin became quiet.
“We tried courts.”
She continued.
“Family intervention. Priests. Neighbors.”
Orin said nothing.
“He was afraid of you.”
“That isn’t necessarily good.”
“No.”
She nodded.
“But it was useful.”
Orin hated that.
Because again:
True.
He underwent treatment.
Three days.
Silver.
Fever.
Chanting.
Sena complained throughout.
Orin nearly died.
Then woke.
Human.
His hearing was normal.
Terrible.
He had never realized how quiet humans were.
His vision at night became useless.
His shoulder hurt.
Old injuries returned.
He felt weak.
Slow.
Ordinary.
Orin smiled.
Then the next full moon arrived.
His hands changed.
Only the hands.
Claws.
Fur.
Pain.
Then back.
Sena stared.
“I warned you.”
“You said traits.”
“That is a trait.”
“That is a paw.”
“Technically a hand.”
The wolf remained.
Reduced.
Not gone.
Orin became obsessed with removing the rest.
More treatments.
Stronger ones.
Each dangerous.
Each stripped something away.
His smell dulled.
Strength decreased.
Healing slowed.
The transformations became smaller.
So did Orin.
Not physically.
Something else.
Hale noticed first.
“You don’t laugh.”
“I laugh.”
“When?”
Orin couldn’t remember.
“You don’t hunt.”
“I don’t need to.”
“You loved hunting.”
Orin became irritated.
“That was the wolf.”
“Was it?”
Orin stopped.
What else belonged to the wolf?
His love of forests?
Running?
Protectiveness?
Temper?
Courage?
Violence?
Joy in physical movement?
The strange peace he felt outdoors?
Where did Orin end?
Where did wolf begin?
Sena had no test.
“Another treatment might remove it completely,” she said.
“Might.”
“Yes.”
“What else might it remove?”
“I don’t know.”
There it was.
Orin declined.
Instead he built rules.
Not romantic ones.
Practical.
Full moons in secure shelter.
No alcohol near transformation periods.
Leave arguments when he felt the heat.
Tell people close to him the truth.
Never assume control simply because the last transformation went well.
Sena kept silver restraints.
Orin hated them.
They remained.
He also trained.
Not to suppress the wolf.
To recognize it.
Anger arrived.
He noticed.
Fear.
Notice.
Protective instinct.
Notice.
The desire to dominate someone who frightened him.
Notice that very carefully.
Years passed.
No one died.
Not because Orin became harmless.
Because he stopped requiring himself to believe he was harmless.
Then raiders came.
Thirty.
The town had twelve guards.
Orin smelled them before the watchtower saw them.
He knew immediately.
Old senses.
Not gone.
He warned the town.
People sheltered.
Guards prepared.
Raiders entered after dark.
Orin went to the cellar.
Hale followed.
“What are you doing?”
“Locking myself in.”
“We need you.”
“No.”
“Orin.”
“No.”
“You could help.”
“I could kill everyone.”
“Yes.”
Orin stared.
Hale corrected himself.
“Them.”
“That’s exactly the problem.”
Outside:
Screaming.
Steel.
Fire.
Orin stood before the cellar door.
He had spent years learning that capability was not permission.
Now restraint might mean watching neighbors die.
Sena arrived.
Bleeding from the forehead.
“They broke the east gate.”
Orin looked at her.
“How bad?”
“Bad.”
“Can the guards hold?”
“No.”
Orin closed his eyes.
“Can you stop me afterward?”
Sena held up a silver chain.
“I can try.”
Terrible answer.
The only honest one.
Orin walked toward the gate.
He changed deliberately for the first time.
Not surrender.
Invitation.
The wolf came.
Pain.
Fur.
Teeth.
World exploding into scent.
Fear everywhere.
Blood.
His own excitement.
That frightened him.
Good.
Fear was information.
He attacked the raiders.
Not like a hero.
Like an animal.
Fast.
Terrible.
Three fled immediately.
Others fought.
Orin broke weapons.
Arms.
One throat.
Then another.
He lost track.
This was exactly what he had feared.
Then the raiders ran.
Orin chased.
Sena shouted:
“ORIN!”
Nothing.
Again:
“ORIN!”
The wolf continued.
Then Hale stepped into the road.
Stupid.
Brave.
Extremely Hale.
“Enough.”
Orin stopped.
Hale stood twenty feet away.
Unarmed.
“Come back.”
Orin smelled his fear.
Enormous.
Hale stayed.
Orin took one step.
Then another.
Toward him.
Sena raised the silver chain.
Orin saw it.
Remembered.
Cellar.
Rules.
Hands.
Name.
He changed back.
Collapsed.
Three raiders died.
Two by Orin.
Maybe the third.
Nobody knew.
Eleven townspeople survived injuries they likely would not have otherwise.
Nobody called the outcome clean.
Orin insisted on that.
Some people called him a hero.
He corrected them.
Some called him a monster.
He didn’t correct them.
Both words were too simple.
Years later, Orin taught guards.
Not werewolves.
Ordinary people.
Which meant the lesson translated surprisingly well.
He asked:
“Who here is capable of hurting someone?”
Nobody raised a hand.
Orin sighed.
“Then this will be a very long class.”
Eventually hands rose.
“Good.”
He pointed to the strongest recruit.
“Are you dangerous?”
The recruit smiled.
“Only if I need to be.”
Orin’s expression changed.
“No.”
The room quieted.
“That answer has buried many people.”
The recruit frowned.
“What should I say?”
“Yes.”
“Just yes?”
“Yes.”
Orin walked closer.
“You are dangerous.”
He pointed at another.
“So are you.”
Another.
“And you.”
Then himself.
“So am I.”
“Training does not make that untrue.”
He continued.
“Good intentions do not make that untrue.”
He touched the silver bracelet around his wrist.
“Control does not mean pretending the capacity disappeared.”
A recruit asked:
“Then how do we know we’re good people?”
Orin smiled sadly.
“I don’t know that ‘good person’ is a permanent condition.”
They stared.
“Try good practices.”
He wrote:
NOTICE.
RESTRAIN.
CHOOSE.
REPAIR.
ASK FOR HELP.
Then beneath them:
DO NOT WAIT UNTIL YOU FEEL HARMLESS.
That evening Orin walked home through the forest.
Moon nearly full.
He could feel the wolf.
Quiet.
Present.
Not enemy.
Not friend.
Not excuse.
His.
A rabbit moved through brush.
Orin smelled it.
His mouth watered.
He laughed.
There it was.
He continued walking.
The wolf came with him.
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