Liam helps him out

“Liam...” I managed, my voice sounding strange, breathy, unfamiliar even to my own ears. I took a hesitant step towards him, my body moving before my mind could process the implications. Liam, to his credit, didn’t bolt. He looked scared, yes, utterly freaked out, but also...concerned. He saw the ****, almost feral look in my eyes, the unnatural flush on my skin.

“Ethan, mate, you okay?” he asked, his voice laced with genuine worry. “You look... you don’t look right.”

His concern, his familiar presence, a lifetime of friendship... it was like a splash of ice water. It cut through the fog of the urge, just enough for me to regain a sliver of control. I stopped, trembling, halfway across the room.

“No, Liam,” I gasped, fighting back the overwhelming tide of compulsion. “No, I’m not okay. Something’s... something’s happened to me.” Tears welled in my eyes, hot and shameful. “Look at me, Liam! Just... look!” I gestured helplessly at my transformed body, at the undeniable evidence between my legs.

Liam’s gaze dropped again, then quickly back to my face, his own expression a mixture of horror and pity. He took a tentative step closer, then another. He reached out a hesitant hand, as if to touch my shoulder, then seemed to think better of it.

“Mate...” he said softly, his voice filled with a bewildered sympathy that almost broke me. “What... what happened?”

And so, the story spilled out. The waking up different. The impossible changes. The cryptic, terrifying note. The warning. The urges. I told him everything, my voice shaking, tears streaming down my face now, the carefully constructed walls of my composure crumbling completely. Liam listened, his face growing paler with each revelation. He didn’t interrupt, didn’t judge. He just listened, his eyes wide with a mixture of shock and dawning, horrified understanding.

When I finally finished, collapsing back onto the bed in a sobbing, incoherent mess, he was silent for a long moment. Then, he walked over, sat down beside me, and did something he hadn’t done since we were about ten years old and I’d broken my arm falling out of a tree. He put his arm around my shoulders.

“Okay,” he said, his voice surprisingly steady. “Okay, Ethan. This is... this is fucked up. Seriously, monumentally fucked up. But... we’ll figure it out. Alright? We’ll figure it out.”

His simple, unwavering support, the solid warmth of his arm around me, was an anchor in the swirling chaos of my terror. I leaned into him, still sobbing, but a tiny flicker of hope, fragile but persistent, began to ignite in the darkness. Maybe... maybe I wasn’t entirely alone in this nightmare.