Cold marble altar behind my back, warm liquid flowing from my left calf and burning gaze of the beast on my face, I got the trifecta of temperatures as I bleed slowly to death. Making my belt into makeshift tourniquet has bought me time to think my options clearly, or as clearly as someone left hazy from anemia can think. Touch the orb, bleed to death or try to stop the bleeding? I have no medical equipment sans my makeshift one and taking of my sock to stuff it into the wound would require me to bend my leg and that is not a good thing now. Not that the sock would really even help. Bleeding to death is not an option I'd choose even if to spite the orb and the wolf. So that just leaves taking the bull from the horns and riding this rodeo to the end.

As my distracted and rapidly weakening mind wanders to rodeo metaphors I take a look at the wolf, now sitting like a obedient house dog would, even if its shape is disturbed by excessive amount of legs. For the 5-6 hours it would only lie on the floor and only look up to me when I moved my legs or body, now I have its undivided attention. Is he the master of the orb waiting me to throw it to him, or is the master sealed in the orb and the wolf is just a house dog waiting for him to be released? Perhaps the orb is an obstacle to the wolf and he wants me to destroy it? Too many choices to discern the truth from so I stop trying.

I prop myself half-standing by leaning on the altar and look at the orb. It would be hard to believe that the orb was an entity of good, with it looking like condensed darkness and the fact that it disintegrates everything that touches it. The thought of being slowly broken apart from touching the orb makes me take my distance as far as I can while leaning on the altar. But the choice is made; I have no options but to leave it at the fates to decide. I extend my arm and grab the orb.

It is not me that breaks apart, but the crystal surrounding the vortex of black. Heavy, pitch black smoke falls down the altar like waterfall from all sides and air is filled with similar particles of those decaying spears. The wolf's howling is dampened by heavy curtains of that smoke rising, forming a sphere around the altar with me inside. Air grows hot and heavy, hard to breath and my leg begins to throb with pain unlike I have ever felt before. I lose the strength of my muscles and fall down the altar's side. Trying to lift my arms to guard my face from the ashy particles falling on my face proofs useless and my consciousness begins to fade.

I'm woken up by falling raindrops hitting my face. As I gaze up I see that the windows on the ceiling have broken and shattered so that the rain has no problem getting in. Amidst the shards of glass and soot flakes spiraling columns of the black smoke rise towards ceiling. The room is longer white I think as I rise up and notice that the altar, which is supposed to be as tall as my navel is now inch or two under my waistline. Didn't really take me that much brain power to figure out that the altar didn't shrink. I grew and warped, my once normal frame now taller than anybody I've ever met, even little hunched over, which seems to be my current default state. Shoulders wider apart than ever, even if my body is as slim as it used be before the change.

I try to find my cellphone to use as a mirror but my possessions seem to have suffered some burning damage, including both my clothes that I was wearing and the stuff I left lying on the floor. My now abnormally slender and long fingers search the remains of my backpack and find the phone, that luckily only has a small crack on the touchscreen screen and some scorching on the sides. As I bring the phone to my face I noticed my fingernails are now more animal, sharper and more angular than before. I can already guess what I will see before I look in the mirror, but the act proofs my expectations, my hair now black, clumped in triangular scales and my red eyes burning. I have indeed been possessed by the wolf.