And so the lamp became the beast

You don't take hints, do you?

'What are we doing?' Ryujin asked, joining the pack. They were gathered in a half circle around a small house. This wasn't how I had imagined spending my Friday night.

'Waiting. San's inside.' Chaeryeong turned her piercing blue eyes to Ryujin. 'We're about to have a new pack member. He's 13'.

'That's young right?' Bangchan looked in Ryujin's direction. 'You were sixteen', she said to him.

'It's very young. We've never had a new wolf this young'. Bangchan sounded uneasy.

'This seems to be a pack of firsts'. Wooyoung muttered, looking at Chearyeong and Ryujin.

'Half of that is your fault, tool'. Chaeryeong tried to joke with Wooyoung, but the anxiety of the pack made the joke fall flat.

'Why would this happen?' Ryujin asked. They heard a young boy groaning in the house. He sounded ill. They could hear San say, "It's okay. Just stay calm."

'Our numbers only go up when there are too many vampires around, but this doesn't make any sense.' The Hwangs's flashed across Ryujin's mind. Bangchan shook his head. 'No, this can't be because the Hwang's are back. They've been here before. The pack tends to stay around five when they're here. Chaeryeong turned after they left. You're here now.' Wooyoung's guilt touched the pack mind. 'This should be enough. But now a 13-year-old has turned.Well, is about to'.

'So, what do we do?' Ryujin asked.

'We wait. He'll change tonight.'

'How can you tell?'

In the house, they heard Ricky yell, "You can't tell me what to do! You're not the boss of me!" There was a short pause. "Get off of me!" Things started being thrown around in the house. Every wolf tensed. "Let me go!" A young boy screamed. It started to turn into something else.

"San, you have to get him out now. There's not enough space!" A desperate man's voice echoed. An anxious ripple raised the hackles of the wolves waiting outside. San burst through the door a minute later. He was carrying a child who was barely holding his human form. The boy was small. His head would probably only come up to San's chest. Ricky shoved San away from him. Ricky hit the ground as he growled on the ground, his skin vibrating with the rage he felt.

San grabbed Ricky's face. "Ricky, focus! It's okay. You're going to shift now!" Ricky looked up. His eyes had changed from a warm brown to a bright green. The inside of his irises were tinged golden brown, and his pupils were quickly growing until these new colors were barely visible.

"Don't touch me!" Ricky shouted a moment before bursting into his wolf form. Shreds of his jeans floated through the air around him. Ricky's grey-brown fur burst from his skin. He growled and whimpered as his bones broke and healed in his new form. His ark brown skin disappeared entirely. Ricky's fur differed from the rest of the pack. Whereas they had sleek fur that remained close to their lanky frames, Ricky's fur was fuzzier. His ears were too large for his head. His paws were too large for his legs. Ricky was a large wolf, roughly the size of a car, but he was much smaller than Ryujin, Bangchan, Chaeryeong, and San. Ricky looked like a very angry, very big, puppy. San very quickly shifted as Ricky got ready to bolt.

'STOP'. San shouted at the fluffy wolf in front of him.

Ricky froze. His eyes went from wolf to wolf. 'Why is this happening?'

'It's your blood right. You're going to be okay.' San tried his best to sound comforting.

'Why can I hear you? Who are these wolves? Am I like you?'

'We are your pack, Ricky. We are your family. You will be able to hear us anytime you're a wolf. You are like us, and we are like you.' Ricky looked down at his paws.