Chapter Text
You watch blood slowly drip from your hand into the sink. You never thought you’d injure yourself at work, but here you are in the bathroom with a cut on your palm and a broken nail. You run some water over the cut as the previous conversation replays in your head.
I’m sorry, but you didn’t get the position…Brian is well qualified…need a strong leader…appreciate everything you do for the company…
You’d accidentally snapped your pen in half as your supervisor, Kevin, gave you the news.
You worked toward this promotion for years, and they gave the position to your coworker Brian who was hired two months ago, that pretentious, condescending asshole who always glances at your chest whenever you talk to him.
You rarely think about hurting anyone, but you wanted so badly to throttle Kevin at that moment. His fake smile, fake platitudes, fake sympathy. You’re tempted to storm back into his office and tell him you quit, but it’s not like you to make rash decisions while you’re angry. For now, you try to get your breathing back under control while you wait for the bleeding to stop.
After bandaging your hand, you shut your office door and return to work. Your thoughts keep drifting to earlier, but you keep yourself in check every time you have the urge to throw something against the wall. You don’t leave your office, not even for lunch. Instead, you bury yourself in finishing reports and answering emails until you finally feel the anger start to ebb.
As you leave for the day, you run into Brian at the elevator. He gives you a cocky smile, and that’s all it takes to spark your anger back to life. You briefly debate if it’s worth getting fired for telling him to go fuck himself.
“Congratulations,” you say, perfectly calm and professional, exactly as you intended.
“Thanks,” Brian replies after his customary glance at your chest. “Hard work always pays off, right?”
Not here, it doesn’t.
“Sure does,” you say tightly. Your voice isn’t as calm anymore, and you’re about three seconds away from unprofessional. When the doors open, you pretend to look for something in your purse because getting on an elevator alone with Brian is a bad idea. “Oh no, I think I forgot my phone in my office,” you say and turn around before he can respond.
************
You spend the drive home with heavy metal blasting and a tight grip on the steering wheel. You hoped leaving work would make you feel better, but it’s only giving you more time to stew. Only one thing will help right now: eating an entire pint of ice cream on your couch and binging your favorite show.
When you get home, you change into sweatpants and an oversized T-shirt before opening the ice cream and eating straight from the container. Thankfully, it’s the weekend, so you have two days to wallow in pity. It’s also your birthday tomorrow, but all your excitement about your dinner plans with your best friend Dilara disappears. She knows how hard you’ve been working, and while you’re glad for the opportunity to rant to someone, you really don’t want that to overshadow your time with her. You don’t see Dilara as much after she got married and had kids.
Besides a few work friends you occasionally go out for drinks with, you don’t have anyone else. Your apartment doesn’t allow pets, so you have no one to greet you when you get home from work. Dating is a hard no—after a brief stint on Tinder and Bumble, you met too many flaky men to make it worthwhile.
The only thing you have to look forward to these days is your volunteer work at the local animal shelter, or as Dilara likes to call it, your "kitten therapy."
Maybe it’s time for a vacation.
After you stuff yourself with ice cream and get ready for bed, you think about white sand beaches, warm water, and soft breezes.
***********
You meet Dilara at your favorite restaurant on Saturday evening. She greets you with a big hug and a bigger smile, and that’s all it takes for the stress to melt away.
“Happy Birthday,” she says, pushing a daiquiri toward you.
You take a sip and savor it before asking how she’s been.
“I'm doing well,” she replies. “Sergio got that promotion, and we’re thinking about moving to Oakridge now that he can work from home. His mom offered to take care of Nesrin while I go back to school.”
You take another sip to hide your frown. Oakridge is four hours away. If Dilara moves, your time with her will get even more limited.
“Oh, that’s great,” you say, forcing as much enthusiasm as possible. You’re disappointed, but still happy for her. She’s been talking about finishing her degree for a while now, and you know Sergio’s mom will be a big help, considering how expensive childcare is in this area.
Thankfully, the waiter comes to take your orders, giving you enough time to recover from Dilara’s curveball.
Then she hits you with another one. “Speaking of promotions, did you get yours?”
“No. I didn’t.” The words taste rotten in your mouth.
Dilara reaches over and squeezes your hand. “I’m so sorry.”
You finally lose it, and she listens to you rant, your voice threatening to rise into a shout as you tell her everything.
“...and Kevin is no better. Saying he appreciates me right after he fucked me over. Can you believe that? I wanted to quit so bad. Just get my things and walk out. I don’t know how I’m going to do it next week.”
“You could always find something better,” Dilara suggests.
She’s right, but you wish you didn't have to. You love your job and put so much time and effort into the company, working toward a future you thought was within your grasp.
“I think it’s time for your present,” Dilara says, pulling a box from her purse and handing it to you.
You open it and unwrap the tissue paper to reveal an onyx figurine of a wolf with a dead lamb in its jaws. It's heavy when you pick it up to examine it, and upon closer look, you can see it’s old—parts of the onyx are chipped, and faded letters are etched into the wolf's head:
A N Z A K U L
“What does that word mean?” you ask Dilara.
“I don’t know, it's not Turkish, and I’ve never seen it before. I bought it from a little shop when we visited my family back in January. The woman who sold it to me said she’s never seen that word either.”
You trace your finger over the wolf’s polished body. “Thank you. It's beautiful.”
“Well, I know how much you love beautiful, creepy things,” Dilara says.
You laugh and nod. “How old do you think it is?”
She shrugs. “Not sure. The woman didn’t have a lot of information, but she did say it protects your home against evil spirits.”
When you pick it up again to put it back in the box, the wolf briefly grows warm. You brush the sensation off, figuring it's the alcohol in your system.
After dinner, Dilara gives you a ride home. You say goodbye with a promise to see each other soon. The news of her potential move sobered you, and you don’t feel like doing anything but getting drunk and lying on the couch.
You grab a bottle of wine in one hand and the figurine in the other. “Now, let’s see where I should put you,” you say as you walk into your living room. You decide to set the figurine on the coffee table for now, then plop down on the couch and admire all the lifelike details on it—the lamb's limp body, the ruffled fur around the wolf’s neck, the flattened ears and tense haunches as if it's about to leap away. Only the letters on its head are less visible, and you wonder again what Anzakul means. Maybe it's the name of an ancient god or a word of protection.
You drink until your head grows fuzzy, and your body finally relaxes. Eventually, you drift off, only waking up when a chill spreads over your bare arms.
You blink your eyes back into focus and get up. You didn’t get as drunk as you wanted, but it was enough to make you feel like shit after your nap. As you reach for the bottle of wine, you trip and hit your leg against the coffee table. You throw your arm out to try and brace yourself and accidentally knock the figurine over. It breaks when it hits the floor, snapping the wolf’s head off.
“Shit,” you mutter. This really is the worst week.
You bend down to pick up the pieces and notice a dark shape emerging from the broken head. At first, you think it's an insect until it splits in two and rises like smoke into the air.
You watch with stunned confusion as the shape twists into serpentine circles, forming the outline of a tall figure before it morphs into something solid. Features slowly emerge—a flash of a long incisor, glowing red eyes, the curve of white bone—until they coalesce into the horrific creature standing before you.
Black, goat-like horns rise above his skeletal head, and the upper half of his face is one of death: a skull with pronounced browbones, hollow eye sockets, and a hollow nose, but the lower half of his face is covered with red skin, his black lips stretched wide in a feral grin, showing all four of his elongated incisors.
The rest of his body is also red, with a man's familiar musculature, but the texture of his skin seems more like carved stone than warm flesh. Around his wrists are tarnished silver bracelets, and he’s only wearing a brown loincloth that's tattered at the bottom. He’s as much animal as he is man; he has hooves, digitigrade legs, and leathery wings folded behind his back.
He’s too much. Too big in your living room, too terrifying for reality.
“This isn’t real,” you say. You latch onto that and run with it in a desperate attempt to maintain your sanity. “This is just a dream, a nightmare. I’ve been watching too many horror movies, and you’re part of my subconscious. Maybe you’re supposed to be Kevin, or Brian, or some representation of anxiety, I don’t know, but it’s not real, it can’t be—”
He leans down and presses his clawed finger against your lips to shut you up. Red eyes look you up and down from within his deep eye sockets. Since half of his face is unmoving bone, you can’t even get a hint of what he’s thinking beyond his amused grin.
“What a sweet, frightened little lamb,” he says, his voice a deep rasp, as if this is the first time he’s spoken in years. He has an accent you can’t place, and now that he’s closer, you catch the biting scent of iron.
You can’t deny that he’s real anymore.
You try to run, but he grabs your arm and pulls you back toward him. You struggle uselessly against his firm grip. He’s at least two feet taller than you, with an arsenal of deadly weapons—claws that could shred your skin, hooves that could trample you, teeth that could rip your throat open.
He grabs your other arm, and now you can only move your legs, kicking out at his shins with ineffectual blows that only make him laugh.
It’s a cold sound that raises the hair on the back of your neck. You whimper. A weak, pitiful whimper that seems to please him, his grip easing slightly.
You stop struggling, your words tumbling out, high-pitched and frantic. “Please don’t kill me, please, I don’t want to die.”
“You think I’m going to kill you?” he asks. His tone is mocking. Condescending. He’s enjoying your fear, playing with you like a cat toying with a mouse.
“Are you?” you ask.
He lets go of your arms and stays close, crowding you until you have to take a few steps back to keep a safe distance. “I can’t kill the one I’m bound to.”
You take a deep, steadying breath, feeling slightly calmer now that the threat of death is gone. “What does that mean?”
“You released me, and now I’m bound to serve you.”
You have to crane your neck to look at him when he straightens up to his full height. “What are you talking about? I didn’t release you. You appeared out of nowhere.”
“You released me from my prison,” he says impatiently. “Now you have what you want.”
His answers are making less and less sense. “There’s no prison here. This is my apartment,” you say.
He points to the broken figurine.
You stare at it. He stares at you.
“No,” you say, shaking your head vigorously. “That was an accident.”
He cocks his head at you. “How?”
“I tripped.”
If he were capable of expression, you’re sure he’d be looking at you like you’re an idiot.
“You can see it’s broken,” you add. Now that you’re no longer afraid he’ll kill you, there’s room for frustration to grow. It’s not like you want to be chatting with him in your living room. “I’m not interested in being…uh, served. So you can go ahead and leave now.”
He scowls and turns to the side, muttering something under his breath. When he turns back, he taps his claw on his chin as he considers you. “You need to sleep. We’ll discuss this more when you’re rested.”
You let out a bitter laugh before you can stop it. “You expect me to be able to sleep knowing you’re here?”
“Try,” he says, then vanishes into thin air.