In the back of the dark, wooden tackle shack, huddled up in the densely packed storage room—that had a sign on the front of the door that read 'employees only' in a large, black sticker, which had a red-striped band at the top and white writing, that was also peeling in the corners, revealing the different shade of wood underneath—Sullivan looked up at the flickering light above her head. The desultory pattern of the low, buzzing hum from the electrical wiring filled the room eerily, it was the same noise that came from the 'Hawkins National Laboratory' basement during the first scene of the show Stranger Things. The light swung lazily, barely noticeable, but, of course, Sullivan had her eyes trained on it, with a blank expression on her face, making it easily notable. The long hours of the night shifts began to take their toll on her, especially as of late when she got up early in the morning before her father, to make them both breakfast before she left for school and he left for work. It was most likely a rainstorm that caused the electrical problem, it was either that, or Harley's generator was going bust again. Whatever the reason, Sullivan was beginning to lose her mind.

Too engrossed in the poor circuitry of the light, Sullivan didn't notice that the door to the storage room had swung open and revealed Harley, the burly man who owned the tackle shop and who also happened to be Sullivan's godfather. He stood with an equally tired expression, catching a glimpse of the young girl staring at the light with a dull and sunken look. She had been holding a small, clear, plastic container with a slightly dented lid, filled with fishing bait worms that wiggled and slushed about over each other in a tangled heap. Harley sighed to himself and stepped in, gently placing his left hand on her right shoulder and his right hand over the grub box. Sullivan blinked and cast her gaze over to him, giving him a tired look. He removed the grub box from her hands and placed it on the shelf in front of her, sliding it towards the gap between the other grub boxes with different live baits. Harley was an old soul, and never rose his voice to anyone, not like before at least. He placed both of his hands on her shoulders and squeezed them.

"Go home, Sully. It's late," he stressed, "and you have school tomorrow. I don't want to be the reason why you fall asleep in the middle of class, landing yourself in another week's worth of detention," he told her in a soft, but deep-toned, voice. Even with his dark, bushy beard, that seemed to have grown longer since the last time she saw him, which was when she arrived for the night shift, and with the folded collar of his dark red and black plaid button-up shirt, Sullivan could see the fading remnants of an old tattoo that he wore along the right side of his neck. It was larger than the palm of her hand, possibly even his, and even for a burly man, he had hands the size of bear paws. If you were to ask her what she thought the tattoo was of, or even Harley himself for that matter, you wouldn't receive an honest or sure answer. It was one of those things he didn't talk about much or seem to even want to think about. The heavy-set bags and wrinkles surrounding his eyes conveyed just how exhausted he truly was. His past was behind him, but there are some things you just can't run away from.

"I'm fine, it's only seven—"

"It's almost ten, Sul," Harley interrupted her, shaking his head, causing his slightly greasy hair, that fell into his eyes, to swish. He has been running his hands through it too much, Sullivan thought to herself, something must have happened.

"Right," she responded, nodding her head faintly.

Harley gave her an unsure look, knowing that she was hiding something. "Everything...  okay at home, Bub?" He asked in that stereotypical voice you'd hear people in the movies use when they spoke to a child.

"Everything is fine," she answered shortly.

"If not, you can take my room and I'll sleep on the sofa. I can check in on your old man in the morning, you know."

"I know. But everything is fine," she repeated, looking him dead in the eyes. "I'm fine, Harley."

He was silent for a moment, scanning her face for any sign of hesitation or feeling of unsureness. "Okay..." Harley spoke slowly, and in a low voice, as he nodded his head once. "Do you need me to drive you back home?"

Sullivan shook her head. "Thanks for the offer, but I think I'm going to walk it."

The look on Harley's face proved that he wasn't happy with her answer, but he had learned to not argue with her. She was strong-willed and very independent, especially with being an only child, and dare he even say it, hot-headed a lot of the time. With a soft kiss pressed to her forehead, and a tender-hearted hug, Harley let Sullivan walk out of the storage room. He followed behind her and flicked the light switch off, closing the door once he stepped out, turning around to lock it with the keys that hung from a chain on a belt loop of his dark blue jeans. Sullivan grabbed her coat from the wooden coat hanger hook from behind the counter and pulled it on, leaving the front open. As she began to walk to the front door with the small 'welcome, we're open' sign facing towards her, Harley's heavy, black Timberland boots echoed dully in the main area of the tackle shop.

"I will see you tomorrow, Harley," Sullivan spoke up as she bid him farewell.

"Aren't you going to be cold?" He asked with his eyebrows furrowed. "You know, I think you're getting sick, maybe you should zip it up, just to be safe."

"I'm fine, Harley," she told him as she turned around, walking backwards slowly. "I will see you tomorrow."

"Get home safely, Sully," he reminded her, pointing his inked-up fingers at her.

"Will do." She saluted, placing her hand on the door handle. "I always am," she finished in a playful tone, stepping outside, and closing the door before he could say anything back to her.

The trick with the door was that you had to use your entire upper body strength to close it fully. Sullivan reminded Harley to get it fixed every single time she entered the shack, but he never seemed to listen to her. From the other side of the door, Sullivan could hear Harley's deep, barrelling laugh as he walked over to lock the door, finding the knitted eyebrows on Sullivan's face to be rather amusing, that, and when she clenched her jaw angrily, glaring at the door as she slammed into it. With the roll of her eyes, she waved goodbye to him, just before she pointed to the lock and then back to him. Sullivan smiled to herself at his gleeful expression and turned away before she began walking around the side of the shack and into the forest. On her way, she walked over to the generator and scanned over it to make sure everything was okay, or if she had to alert Harley about it to make sure the storm didn't fry it and cause a fire. But everything seemed to be fine... from what she could make out at least. Sullivan lightly kicked the wired fence around it, pulling her hood up before she stuck her hands into her pockets.

As she turned away, a crack of lightning piqued her interest. Sure, it was raining, but it wasn't raining too heavily for the storm to have lightning or thunder for that matter, but, even so, Sullivan never really questioned Mother Nature. With her eyes cast down on the forest floor, she jumped over a few roots, missing the crunching sound that the dead leaves would make when they were dried up because the rain caused the leaves to turn to mush, preventing her from hearing it. She even picked up a large stick to swing around like a lightsaber, making noises that didn't quite match that of a lightsaber, but anyone familiar with the franchise would have picked up what she was trying to achieve, just before she quickly grew bored and threw it behind herself, back down to the ground. Half expecting to hear a thud, or at least a small squelching or splashing sound from the small collections of puddles surrounding her, she stopped short in her tracks when she didn't, and an unusual and uncomfortable feeling of heat and pain washed over her. She brought her hands out of her pockets, balled them into fists and turned around with them raised, breathing heavily when she saw nothing there, but the stick was propped up against the tree trunk.

"I don't have time for this," Sullivan muttered in annoyance, lowering her arms before she turned back around with the roll of her eyes. "People's ideas of 'fun pranks' have really gone to the dogs," she continued, feeling around in her left-hand side pocket for the small torch she had left in there from the morning. "'It's just a prank, bro'," Sullivan mocked in a deep, dumb voice, "'it's just a prank', oh, spare me the bullshit." Her eyes rolled back as she stuck her tongue out and fake gagged. "I'm always surrounded by idiots," she shook her head, trying her best to ignore the burning sensation that licked at her lower body, around her ankles, before it climbed its way up until it encased her in an unwelcome embrace.

Sullivan continued to mess around with the small torch, squeezing her eyes shut tightly as it shone in her face once she got it to work. It flickered a few times and she hit it against the palm of her hand, once, twice, smiling proudly to herself when it stayed on. When she shone it in front of herself and continued to walk, the hairs on the back of her neck stood up and a weird, damp feeling made her skin crawl. Sullivan slapped her other hand against the back of her neck, pulling a grimace when she felt a cold sweat creep up. Maybe Harley was right, she thought to herself, maybe I am getting sick, maybe I should have taken his offer to stay for the night, it's not like I don't have clothes at his place, I'm there during most of my spare time. Internally groaning at her poor life choices, she decided to continue walking her journey home, the route she was taking cut about six minutes or more off her journey than if she had gone along the road.

Once more, her body lit up in agony. All she could do was groan and clutch her stomach as she dropped to her knees, letting the torch fall into the wet mud, flickering. The water from the small puddles on the ground soaked into the knees of her jeans and at her thighs as it splashed up. The contrasting temperatures of her body and the water was shocking. Looking up, she saw an unnerving figure just further away, watching her with a tilted head. As it tilted its head again, this time to the other side, the hair that was covering the left side of its face moved, exposing the rest of its face and neck. Sullivan could see what had looked like blood had dripped down from its mouth and down its neck. But what had freaked Sullivan out the most was when the rays from the moon peeked through the gaps in the trees, and through the flashes of lightning, its skin had a crystallised glimmer, like a human or non-human diamond. Somehow, even from the large distance that separated them, she could hear the faint menacing laugh that bubbled up from its throat. Slowly, it turned its head towards the direction that Sullivan lived. It turned back and grinned before it stepped back teasingly.

"Think again, you disco-ball freak," Sullivan hissed from between clenched teeth before she pushed herself up, yelling out in anger and pain as she rushed forward, feeling the internal fire grow from within her body, increasing in intensity and pain. She then noticed that the figure had started to run unnaturally fast.

Sullivan's feet kicked back the wet piles of leaves as she accelerated forward. The tormenting laugh echoed and bounced around the trees causing Sullivan to not know the exact location of where it was coming from, but she kept running towards her home. Nothing is going to take him away from me, the dark corners of her mind awoke and seemed to take over, I'll kill it before it gets the chance. The laughing continued and sounded like it was coming from right beside her on her left, but from Sullivan's peripheral vision, she saw nothing but trees. The storm worsened. She felt something tap her right shoulder, so she swiped her fist out, hoping to connect it to whoever was out there, with some force. But when she swung, she found that she swung into an open space, hitting only the raindrops that fell through the gaps in the trees above her, which caused the laughing to increase. Her eyes darted around on the right, but there was nothing. When she turned back, she saw the flowing, white grown, the long, chestnut-brown hair, and the barefooted woman—if it even was a woman—more clearly.

"Hey!" Sullivan yelled lowly in anger, curling her top lip up in disgust, watching the 'woman' as it turned its head to look back at Sullivan. Either it was the darkness playing tricks on her, or what she was seeing was real, but the 'woman' had glowing red eyes, too clear and vibrant to be simple contact lenses.

Sullivan's blood pumped unnaturally faster at the sight. She could feel the painful throbbing in her head, her racing pulse at her fingertips, her mouth drying up despite the increase in saliva, and her breathing deepening as her body shook violently. The bones inside her body felt like they began to splinter apart, growing longer, thicker, and stronger, before connecting once more. They cracked and sounded like they were sliding over the top of each other before locking into a new position. The sound echoed in her ears. She was forcefully thrown into a hunched position as she ran, and a snarl exploded from her throat. White wisps of smoke, or at least she thought it was smoke, began to twist around her. Her skin sizzled with a flaming heat, followed by a feeling of her skin splitting open before she was expelled forward and up. The feeling of her jaw dislocating and the cartilage of her nose snapping sent a wave of fear and terror to shoot up her spine. She had no idea what was happening to her. Involuntarily, her eyes were forced shut as she continued to move forwards. The last singular remaining thought that Sullivan had before she was overcome, was one that told her to protect her father, nothing else.

When her eyes opened, and she finally landed, she saw large, dark-brown paws, almost black in the lack of light. Instead of stopping and freaking out at what she saw herself become, she listened to that one thought and sprinted forward on all four paws, still chasing after the 'red-eyed woman', gaining more speed than she did when she was still human. A loud, deafening howl broke through the trees, one she couldn't stop herself from creating. It shook the ground beneath her, and her mind was soon clouded and swallowed whole by a million other voices that she couldn't control or block out. She didn't recognise them, and she shook her head stressfully—as the wolf shook its head. White trails of salvia dripped from the snout and the sharp canine teeth snapped at the 'red-eyed woman's' ankles. Its menacing and tantalising laugh was replaced by a sound of fear, a whimper of regret. Fear that Sullivan had caused. Something that Sullivan seemed to thrive off.

The voices in her head told her to stop, but she wasn't listening. The thunder boomed and the lightning broke through the dark-grey clouds. A feral instinct took over and she picked up the pace. Another wave of anger rippled through her as the small, dim light from the back window of her house came to her view. They weren't close enough for anyone to hear, especially over the emerging storm, even the neighbours would be deaf to the ferocious snarls and ear-splitting screeches from the wolf and the 'red-eyed woman'. Which might have been a good thing as Sullivan leapt up, pushing off her hind legs to knock the 'red-eyed woman'—who turned its head to look back at Sullivan at the wrong time, its body twisted slightly in the white gown that had specs of mud kicked up the length of the front and back—down to the ground, trapping it underneath the large paws that slowly extended sharp claws into the 'red-eyed woman's' porcelain skin. Bounding footsteps approached, but they didn't sound human, they sounded more like her own after she transformed. Somehow Sullivan heard them over the thunder. The 'woman's' red eyes widened as Sullivan's dark-brown eyes glared down at it. It wriggled underneath Sullivan's paws, making whimpering noises.

'Sullivan, that is enough!' A deep voice ordered.

She turned her head to her right. Sullivan's face was inching down dangerously close to the 'red-eyes woman's' face. There was a pack of large, heavy-set, bear-like wolves crowded around her and the 'red-eyed woman'. One of the biggest—a fully black pelted wolf—stepped forward slowly. There was an aura that gleamed in strength, power, and authority around the wolf, it was stronger than the others. Sullivan could feel a crushing weight on her mind, most likely from the black wolf, but she snarled and shook her head violently, keeping her eyes locked with the black wolf. There was no doubt in her mind that she wouldn't back down. The 'red-eyed woman', with blood that dribbled down its mouth and neck—blood that stained its teeth—tried to escape once more, but Sullivan snapped her teeth at it, the wolf's salvia splattered everywhere. Another whimper broke out, only to be silenced by the thunder that only got worse, along with the rain. The rain which soaked Sullivan's long and matted fur.

'Step down,' the voice ordered again.

If Sullivan could grin, she would have. Something inside of her told her to do it. Something dark. The 'red-eyed woman' came close to harming Sullivan's family, which wasn't something she took lightly, no way, no how. The 'red-eyed woman' crossed a line. Instead of obeying and stepping away like she was told to do by the black wolf, Sullivan swiftly turned her head back and wrapped her unhinged jaw around the 'red-eyed woman's' head, shaking side-to-side violently, hearing, and even feeling, the porcelain skin crack like a marble statue before Sullivan tore the head completely apart from the body. She clamped her jaw down until bits and pieces crumbled around her, falling onto the wet mud and the exposed chest of the body. It was only then when she removed the weight of her paws, leaving a dent on the 'red-eyed woman's' chest, and it was only then when she stepped back, and turned her eyes back to gaze into the equally as dark eyes of the black-coated wolf, that the violent part of the storm had stopped.