Three nights pass.
The hospital runs as usual—lights on, doors opening and closing, patients coming and going. The night shift continues without a pause.
One bed remains unused.
No wounded man arrives.
No silent departure at dawn.
No trace left behind.
Xuyan works through it without comment.
Charts are filled. Gloves are changed. Orders are followed. If anyone notices the way his eyes flick toward the entrance a little too often, no one says a word.
By the fourth night, the city feels wrong.
Before his shift begins, Xuyan walks a different route—cutting through a narrow alley where the streetlights flicker and the air smells damp. Trash bags line the walls. Water drips somewhere unseen.
Then it happens.
A howl cuts through the night.
Low.
Long.
Not human.Xuyan stops.
Another howl answers it.
Then another.
Not one.Many
The sound echoes between buildings, crawling up the walls, vibrating through the ground beneath his feet.
He turns slowly, scanning the darkness.
Nothing.
He takes a step forward.
The alley opens into a wider clearing—an abandoned space hidden between warehouses. Moonlight spills down, pale and cold.
Five shapes move within it.
Large.
Too large.
They step into the light one by one—massive bodies, thick fur, eyes reflecting silver. Not dogs.
Wolves.
Five of them stand in a loose circle, heads lowered, bodies tense. They move with purpose, positioning themselves like soldiers preparing for something unseen.
A plan.
Xuyan backs away instinctively, pressing himself into the shadows behind a stack of crates. His breath slows as he forces himself still.
One wolf lifts its head.
It turns.
Its gaze locks onto the darkness where he hides.
The air shifts.
The wolf steps closer, nose lifting, muscles coiling beneath its fur. The others remain still, watching—waiting.
Closer.
Closer.
Xuyan presses a hand over his mouth as the wolf's eyes glow brighter under the moonlight, sharp and aware, as if it can sense something more than just a human presence.
Then—
A distant sound breaks the tension. A car engine. Voices. Light spilling from the street beyond.
The wolf pauses.
After a moment, it turns away.
One by one, the wolves melt back into the darkness, disappearing between buildings as silently as they arrived. The night swallows them whole.
The alley is empty again.
Only silence remains.
When Xuyan finally steps out, his legs unsteady, the moon hangs high above the city—watchful, unblinking.
Somewhere far away, another howl echoes.
And for the first time, the absence at the hospital feels less like coincidence—
and more like a warning.