Flesh and Fur

The night draped itself over the old pier masking its cracks and splintered imperfections. A hot day had left its memories on the dusty soil and with no breeze the mile long lake barely mustered a ripple, making it appear like a mirror that could be disturbed yet never broken.
The moon was beginning to climb high. Full, yellow, dark.... It was a blood moon; so called as its dullness masked the stalking predators from their bewildered prey. More murders occurred on nights like these. A moon like that brings out the lunatics. So even planets had their dark sides, comforting really, to know that I was not the only one.
I had fled to this lonely place to be miles from anything or anyone. Only a few short hours ago I had awaked caked in blood. Not my blood. The foreign salty smell of it still lingered in my nostrils. To know that you had killed yet have no memory or control over the deed was punishment enough for this curse, forgetting the back breaking throbbing pain and my senses constantly slamming into each other, and of course, the poisonous eruptions as flesh turns to fur. No, it was those lost memories were truly the essence of this curse. I was a werewolf born not made and this was my sentence every month to metamorphose into an evil beast whose only thoughts are of the chase and the kill. A monster confined to movies and legend that could make grown men shiver. And I despised myself.
I’d tried to end it too many times. My neck was tattooed with rope marks, my body covered with scars by blades, bullets and blunt objects that cracked rather than broke my skin and bone. A truck had hit me once. It had knocked me clean across the road. I had heard shouting and crying so with the fear of hurting someone I ran away, limping into the bushes like a stray dog.
I looked out across the lake and wondered why this hadn’t ended it. My lungs had filled with stagnant water yet I had just floated to the top staring at the moon. It had washed the blood from me at least. I smiled at the thought, as much as someone like me could smile. It was then I noticed the door, odd I hadn’t seen it before. A random fixture that clung to the pier, attached to nothing and with no purpose, surely one push and it would fall? The wood creaked beneath me as I crept toward it, what if it were a magical doorway that would transform me, take the life I’d bourn for so many years and separate flesh and fur forever. I would know happiness, even in a short life. I could have friends and lovers and even children. I could have a name, I had one once, many moons ago, but with no one to call me it, it had been forgotten, even by me. If I could just reach that door maybe I would breathe freedom and know day as well as night…but it was too late. I had lingered too long. The sun was beating down the blessed moon and that familiar tingle was rising through my fur. The heat enveloped me, as if my aura had slipped beneath my skin. I knew that the monster was coming back, he wouldn’t be happy to find himself on a pier, naked and in the middle of nowhere, I felt his anger even now, but it was too late to care. My spine snapped back straight, the bones cracking a familiar symphony. My silver fur disappeared into white flesh and the last thing I saw was my worn paws becoming hands and feet once again.