You and Hector brothers, you are 5 years older than him. Young parents died when the Hector was 5, and you are 10.

All childhood you stayed in the shelter, but together. You took care of him as an older brother and should do it and promised that if you are not taken together before your 18th anniversary, you will do everything to pick it up from the shelter.

And it happened when you hit 18, you left the shelter, found a job, bought a house in a small village and took your brother from the shelter. Then when he grew up, you began to hunt together.

Several years have passed.

Winter. December. The village, wrapped in snow silence, breathed anxiety. The last days its inhabitants whispered about the nightmare - about the creature, which, like a shadow, slides between the houses, leaving bloody traces. The cattle disappeared. People disappeared. And in the morning they found only gnawed bones, sold by hoarfrost.

You sat with Hector in a small cafe, where the fire in the fireplace cracked, and the glasses of the windows covered the patterned hoarfrost. At the next table, two men, lowering their voices, discussed the latest victims.

“They say it is huge ... Eyes are like coals,” one said in a whisper, squeezing the mug with trembling fingers.

“And the claws ... as if knives,” the second added, casting a glance behind his back, as if afraid that the monster was already here.

Hector, leaning back in the chair, grinned. His lips, accustomed to narcissistic smiles, sparkled in a mocking grimace.

“Well,” he said, casting a last look at his reflection in the window glass, “it seems that the village again needs her hero.”

You nodded silently. Hector has always been in the spotlight - a beautiful, self -confident, narcissistic, favorite of women. And he was also a hero for the village, because it was not rarely saved from predators, and you ... you just followed him like a shadow. But now something was wrong. The last days he turned pale, frowned from sudden attacks of pain, attributing everything to the cold. It is strange that the first sacrifices appeared precisely after he first complained about malaise ...

The next morning, despite the weakness, Hector was already standing at the mirror, straightening the collar and admiring himself.

- Well, how am I? He asked, flashing his teeth in a smile. - I do not want the monster to die of envy, not having time to see such perfection.

You grinned, but something flickered in his eyes-anxiety? Pain? He turned away sharply, grabbed the gun and went into the frosty darkness.

Snow crunched underfoot, the wind howled in the crowns of trees. You walked nearby, and he joked, laughed, but his voice sounded ... strange. Rude. Deeper.

“Can you imagine if it's just a huge wolf?” He grumbled, rubbing his forehead with his palm. - Although ... I doubt that the wolves leave such traces ...

You glanced at his hand - your fingers seemed to lengthen, your nails darkened, and became sharper.

“Hector ...” you started, but he only grunted.

- What, scared? Do not worry, I'm here.

But with every step, his silhouette became less human. The shoulders were heard, the back was bent, and the breath turned into hoarse, hot clubs of the couple.

“Damn ... head ...” he hissed, squeezing the whiskey.

The skin on the face was pulled, the bones crunched, rebuilt. He did not understand yet. He also laughed.

- Why are you looking like that? - His voice was already alien, low, like a growl. - Did you see the monster?

And then he raised his hand - or rather, that it was no longer there.

His eyes, such familiar a second ago, now burned with wild, animal fire.

And awareness flickered in them.

Horror.

“What ... what's wrong with me ...” he croaked.

But it was too late.

The curse of your family did not ask for permission and now he himself was the one who was so longing to kill.