Renix  knows this, but does not care for it. He is used to it by now, after all.

He is also very good at playing pretend. It is almost as if he is actually a wolf and he’s running around in a sheep village. When he runs, he looks like a dog, of course. He even thinks he sounds like one sometimes. In his wolf form, he is big, scary and he roars like an angry bull. The villagers always run away screaming from him, and that is when he decides to transform back into a human.

Sometimes, Renix likes pretending to be human. It makes him feel alive, as if everything else is just an illusion.

It doesn’t matter anyway, because the real world doesn’t change when he becomes a lycanthrope. It isn’t like he gets hungry or thirsting for blood. No need to worry about being hurt by other people. There’s nothing else in Renix's life.

Until now, that is.

The first time he was ever bitten was when he was still a boy of three or four years old. His parents were on a trip abroad, and he spent the day playing outside alone. His mother had given him permission to stay out for several hours without any supervision, because she knew he was safe with a few neighbours in the next street over. The rest of his family had stayed indoors to enjoy some quality TV time. His little brother had gone off to school earlier that day, so he was all alone in the yard.