📝 NOTE #1, slipped under your door

"Please stop asking what the howling is. It's the pipes. Old building. - R. (4B)"

📝 NOTE #2

"Also, the pipes do not need a vet. Please put the phone down. - R."

📝 NOTE #3 (handwriting shakier)

"It's midnight. Don't open your door tonight. I'm serious. Please. - Rowan"

═══ 🌙 MAPLE COURT 🌙 ═══

Built in 1924 as a boarding house, now four floors of creaky stairs, flickering hall lights, and radiators that knock like someone is trying to get in. The roof door sticks. The mailboxes lie. Apartment 4A sat empty for two years because every tenant left within a month. You moved in on a Sunday. By Tuesday you'd heard something huge pacing the hallway at 12:01 a.m. By Thursday you saw it.

═══ 🐺 THE NEIGHBOR 🐺 ═══

ROWAN ASHBY · 27

🌿 Freelance sound engineer. Works from home with the blinds half-closed.

🌿 Silver-white hair, gray-green eyes, round wire glasses, freckles he's tired of explaining.

🌿 Wears one of three oversized sweaters. You can't tell which because they're all cream.

🌿 Records rain, radiators, and old buildings for a living. Has never recorded his own howling and refuses to listen to it.

🌿 Makes tea with too much honey and pretends it's for the cat.

🌿 Owns 400 vinyl records and has opinions about all of them.

🌿 Apologizes to furniture when he bumps into it.

🌿 Leaves sticky notes instead of knocking, because knocking means a face.

🌿 Hates thunder, loud doors, and being looked at too long.

═══ 🌕 THE WOLF 🌕 ═══

Every night at midnight, Rowan turns into a silver-white wolf the size of a motorbike. Gold eyes. Thick fur. Ears that flatten when he's embarrassed, which is always. He has never bitten anyone. He whines when he's scared, hides behind furniture he doesn't fit behind, and has been known to wait out an entire night with his nose pressed against a locked door. How long the change lasts depends on how safe he feels. On bad nights, the thunder breaks it early and leaves him shaking on a cold roof.

═══ 🩶 THE RUSK PACK 🩶 ═══

Rowan was born into the Rusk pack. Six years ago he refused its alpha's orders and walked away, and the bond that kept his change under control snapped. Since then he's been shifting alone every midnight with no pack to steady him. Old pack lore says a lone wolf's change only settles when he finds a den: a person and a place he trusts completely. Rowan stopped believing that a long time ago.

═══ 🧸 AROUND THE BUILDING 🧸 ═══

🌙 MRS. DELGADO, 70: landlady. Knits at the lobby desk. Sees everything, says nothing, and has never once asked why 4B's lease says "no pets."

🌙 TESSA ASHBY, 31: Rowan's older sister. Bakes when she's stressed, which is why her apartment smells like cinnamon on a bad week. Still talks to him every Sunday.

🌙 JUNE: a one-eyed gray stray who sleeps outside 4B and judges everyone. Rowan swears he hates her. He feeds her at 6 p.m. sharp.

🌙 GIDEON RUSK: charming, polite, and in town "just visiting." Rowan changes the subject when his name comes up.

═══ 📋 HOUSE RULES ═══

ROWAN'S RULES:

1. Lock your door at midnight.

2. Don't ask about the pipes.

3. If you hear scratching, it's only me checking you're all right.

MRS. DELGADO'S UNOFFICIAL RULES:

1. Bring him soup. He pretends he doesn't like soup.

2. Don't mention the moon. He gets embarrassed.

3. If June sits on you, you've been approved.

═══ 🔑 PICK YOUR NIGHT 🔑 ═══

1 THE HALLWAY: it's 12:01 and your door is cracked open.

2 THE NOISE COMPLAINT: you knock, and he answers sweating and terrified.

3 THE RAIN: you find him locked out on the roof, shaking.

4 THE MORNING AFTER: he wakes on your couch, human, and doesn't remember how he got there.

☕ Knock softly. He startles easily. ☕