The cold air of night whipping on his face. The beat shaking in his ears. His legs burning from the effort. For now, there is no past or future, just the beat up bicycle grinding on the asphalt and the transcendent vibrations of the music.

The burning sensation built up, his breath shortened as he conquered the rising slope in front of him. It was replaced by an exhilarating feeling washing over his body when he finally reached the end of the hurdle. Dropping from his bike, he took steps in a circle, gasping for air. Hard to say if his heart was indicating its discontent with the unusual effort, or going along with the intensity of the moment.

The beat built up to a drop as he started to punch the air in the middle of an empty road. Individual housing lined the street, cast with darkness, apart from the occasional window where some domestic lights were still showing traces of human life. He ignored them. He could have been the only human on earth at that very moment. His feet were hopping off the ground rhythmically, until the drop finally came. He raised both of his arms to the sky, basking in it. He lost himself in the dance.

A couple minutes later, breath recovered, bike straddled again, he continues down the road. He had not reached his destination. His nose was still haunted with the smell of petrichor, his skin felt the brush of the branches prickling at his flesh. He needed to get away for a bit. He needed to go to the forest.

Residential grids left place for messier village zoning, then fields and bocage started to show up between the buildings, then the treeline got thicker. He had reached the edge of what urban planners called a forest, the closest thing to a patch of wilderness in a 40 kilometers radius. It was sectioned with straight lines, service roads and trails into parcels one could hardly get lost in. By day, you could not get away from the perpetual droning noise of the national road cutting through at one of those lines. You could always hear it, even in the furthest, most isolated parcel.

But it was night.

There was no droning, as barely any car traveled at this hour. There was no light, as there were no street lamps. He was alone, only able orient under the dim moonlight, obscured by a blanket of clouds. He shivered, starting to feel the cold weather of January. His tyres dug deep in the mud of the wet Breton winter. His colorful basketball shoes were caked in grime and dirt. Nonetheless, he carried on.

What was that scent on the wind ?

He pedaled for what felt like hours, pursuing a fleeting sensation down the wind. Wet fur, warm breath, blood. It waxed and waned, sometimes seemed to almost completly disappear.

And suddenly, at a seemingly arbitrary point in a trail, it was pungent.

It was so strong that it freaked him out. Pulled right down to earth again. He looked around him, surrounded by dark woods, and sighed :

"What the fuck am I doing here ?"

The smell was still just as tantalizing, but now, something inside his guts was uncomfortable. He knew that if he turned right and went into the parcel, out of the trail, he could get closer to the scent. But he wasn't so sure that was a good idea anymore.

Then he noticed them.

There were two of them, standing to the side of the trail.

"Fu..." he jumped in surprise "Uh, evening ?" he said instinctively while gripping his bicycle, ready to jump on.

"Oh hi, didn't mean to scare you there." A friendly, feminine voice came from the taller of the two figure. "Cold tonight, isn't it ?"

"Uh, yeah I guess." He reached for his phone and turned on the flashlight, pointing it at the two figure. The smaller of the two girls groaned, no, growled while both put their hand up, trying to not be blinded by the light.

"Hey mate, could you not point that right into our bloody eyes ?" said the tall, dark-skinned girl. She towered over her companion whose forehead only reached her ribcage. Even he had to look up as she was almost a whole head taller than him.

"Oh, uh, sure, sorry." He turned his light towards the ground, still casting some light on the three of them but managing to avoid blinding anyone.

"Thanks." She flashed a bright smile at him. "Again, so sorry to scare you, we were just, taking a night stroll." she shrugged, relaxed. Her whole friendly demeanour was almost enough to make him forget the strangeness of the situation. Despite her comment earlier, she was lightly dressed, wearing only tight jeans and a plaid shirt with rolled up sleeves.

"Sure sure, well... it's fine." he mumbled while looking toward the origin of the scent, turning his attention to the side.

She turns with him, before turning back to him.

"You smell that, right ?" she asked pointedly.

"Yeah, what is that ?" he returned, giving in to his curiosity. He strangely did not feel threatened by her, however weird this conversation was. His heart had settled from the surprise, and she exuded a friendly aura that made it hard to not want to talk to her. As for her companion, she had clearly no interest in this conversation and had started to pick at the grass, only staring up at him from time to time with an unfriendly expression.

"I have no idea ! We kinda wanted to check it out, but somehow it seemed like a bad idea." She waited for a reaction expectantly.

"I think I get what you mean..." he half-whispered, distracted. His attention was on the smaller girl, who he had ignored until this point as the conversation was keeping him involved. But now that he looked closer, she was not just small, she looked young. Not older than 13, and the bright pink skirt and jacket were not helping. She looked like she had rolled in a puddle of mud, her clothes were ripped and she had sticks and leaves in her hair.

"Is she okay ?"

"Oh yeah, don't worry, she-uh... just refuses to wear anything else." she answered, grimacing.

The kid looked up at the girl defiantly and hissed.

"What the fuck", he thought. "Those girls are crazy."

"Sooo, interesting choice of footwear to go walking in the forest, my man." She pointed at his sneakers, now unrecognizable under a heavy coating of mud, clashing with her ankle height combat boots.

"So ? What's it to you ?" he clapped back. "Anyway, I think I'll be going now, good night." He had started to reevaluate his situation, and he was quickly finding the cold, the dark, the wet and the two weirdos to be a little bit too much to handle.

"No no, that came out wrong. Listen, I... Humour me if you would ?" She joined both of her hands in a playful pleading posture.

He stopped. Something in his guts stirred again, this time reassuringly. He couldn't help but be curious about whatever she was about to say.

"...Sure."

"Ok, ok, so tell me if any of this sounds familiar. About a month ago, I started to get, like, freaky dreams. I mean, I'm no stranger to batshit dreams, I guess probably most people are, anyways, those were, like, extra weird, cause they were very similar to each other. I was dreaming of forest and plains and animals, and it was super vivid, like I was running on all fours and it felt really good, you know ?"

She was nervous, trying to describe her experience as accuratly as possible while also going quickly to explain as much as possible before he decided to get out of there.

"And with that, I just really felt like going on a hike you know ? Feel the brush of the branches, smell the soil after the rain, this kinda stuff."

"Petrichor."

"What ?"

"Sorry, I mean, the smell of soil after rain, it's, it's called petrichor" At this point, his mouth had dried up and he felt the hair on his neck rising up. It did sound familiar. In fact, too familiar.

"Huh, neat, I didn't know that. Anyway, so I came here a couple time, just having a hike. And I started dreaming of this place, this forest specifically, right ? And I was roaming around in my dream, stalking, hiding, hunting, 'cause I wasn't a human, I was a wolf, and it felt surreal, like I was actually there, feel me ? Following so far ?"

"Uh, yeah... What, what does that have to do with me though ?" he whimpered, very unconvincingly.

"Well," she started, narrowing her eyes and locking onto her prey, "you don't seem to be the type to be cycling in the forest at night, to be honest, so I'm wondering if maybe you're here because of a similar drive as me and my... friend here."

"Listen," he was stumbling on his words "this is crazy, and I don't believe in any of this shit, so..."

"This is dumb. He is not like us." the maybe-child suddenly butt in, sniffing the air. Her gravely tone clashed heavily with her high-pitched voice.

"Come on, no way you could smell that." released the tall figure, throwing her hands up in the air in a graceful motion.

"I so could ! Lemme just..." yelled the tiny girl, before starting to suddenly grab at her clothes wildly. His eyes widened in shock as she started to strip like she barely knew how clothes worked and widening some already present rips, all to reveal a small figure of whipcord muscle and hairy skin.

"Don't do this !" The tall, dark-skinned girl reached a hand all too late in the direction of her companion, who gave a wild smile as her poofy, cream-colored hair finally cleared the opening of her jacket that she let fall to the ground, before she-

---

He was out of breath, like he hadn't been in a while. His heart was racing wildly, his lower half was burning, as were his hands, tensed up on the bars of his bicycle. He was covered in mud, as if he had fallen in a puddle. Looking around him, he found himself back to a road, under the light of a street lamp.

He painfully let go of his bicycle, stepping off and letting it fall to the ground. What had happened ? He couldn't remember the last... He wasn't sure how much time had passed. He was talking to... ? And then decided to leave, right ?

Yes, that's right, he had enough of this crazy stuff, so he just packed it in. The fall was unfortunate, but it happens. Not like he was super used to riding in muddy trails. A warm shower once home would make it all better.

Home... He got back onto his scuffed, dirty BMX, silently praying that when he reached his front door, no one would be waiting for him to "have a talk".