Hongbin slowed down to a stop when he saw a familiar reddish orange coat through the trees. The other wolf slowed down when he saw him, breathing heavily.

"Found anything?" Hongbin asked.

Taekwoon snorted lightly. "If you mean losing them every five seconds, then no."

Hongbin exhaled. "We have to give it to them. They're good at running away from us."

Taekwoon then looked around. "Hey, where do you suppose they went?" Hongbin inquired.

Taekwoon didn't answer right away as he looked around, his nose twitching as he attempted to get the scent of the runaway werewolves. A strange feeling already began to set in his stomach as he recognized the place they were, but that feeling solidified into a big block of dread when he could see houses and a road from between the trees, and he caught all three scents coming from that direction.

He turned back to Hongbin, his ears flattening against his skull. "I think they went to the street..."

Hongbin stiffened, turning to look in the same direction he was. "This is bad..." he said in a small voice.

"It definitely is..." Taekwoon agreed.

"We should get going," Hongbin suggested. "You know, before they kill somebody."

Taekwoon answered with a slight grunt and the two wolves took off in search of the runaway freaks. 

Just as they came out of the woods and by the road, the scent of blood hit their nostrils. Sharing a panicked look the two galloped in search of the source, where they sourced upon a man who they recognized as the owner of the rice cake mill at the end of the street. He lay on the ground, clutching at his side, a noticeable tear in his clothes and his hand soaked in blood.  

However, his breathing seemed ragged not because of the pain of the fatal bite, but rather for a different reason. 

Taekwoon reached his side first, leaning his head down to investigate. Just as his nose touched his body though, he jerked up in a spastic seizure, making Taekwoon draw back at once.

Hongbin walked a little closer. What he saw was a sleek trail of hair that was moving up his neck. Casting his eyes down, Hongbin also realized that his hand had grown in size and the bone structure had changed, the nails lengthening and hardening into claws.

He threw his eyes up, meeting Taekwoon's. The other's gaze confirmed what he had been thinking.

The mill owner had been turned.

The werewolves' bites could turn people.

"Taekwoon-ah," Hongbin slowly said. "Stay here and watch over him. See what you can do to help him. I'm going on ahead to see if anyone else was bitten as well."

Taekwoon nodded. With his confirmation, Hongbin turned around and began walking, but then paused for a moment.

"Oh, and if Wonsik and Sanghyuk get here...tell them to come ahead and help me once they've found a solution to this mess," he informed.

"I'll do that," Taekwoon said, turning back to the mill owner as his painful transformation began.

Hongbin followed the scent trail down the road, and to his horror, close to his home. He had confidently told Taekwoon to be on the lookout for Wonsik and Sanghyuk, but what if the werewolves had gotten to them first?

He despaired at the thought of what might have befallen his friends and he quickened his paces past his house and closed in on Taekwoon's. 

He knew it was selfish, but he desperately wished that the next person he came across was anyone else from this town.

Once he smelt blood again, he rushed in the direction, finding that it took him off the road and back into the waning woods behind their houses. On getting back between the tall trees, he looked around for the source for the smell of blood, when he was attacked.

It happened faster than he could register. At first, he heard what he could only characterize as a distorted growl. Before he could turn around to get a good look at it, a massive weight pounced on his back, accompanied by a set of slobbering yet sharp fangs, sounding somewhat like the mix of a motorcycle and an injured panther.

He bucked, trying to get it off his back, but it then sunk its teeth into the top of his shoulders. He winced, because while it couldn't easily cut through his skin, its blunter teeth hurt a lot, and when it finally pierced the skin, the cut was big and deep, sending blood running down his back.

As he jumped around, it lost its balance, and with it being naturally clumsy quite quickly, and fell off. However, it didn't let go of the back of his neck, so it flailed around, stuck like a leech to his body.

Just before he could whip around and finally crush it with his strong jaws, a gunshot rang out and the pressure of his neck lifted. He opened his eyes to find the werewolf on the ground, a bullet hole in its side and a light grey smoke rising from the wound. The werewolf then huffed a little, its eyes still stuck on him, and with one final seizure, stayed still, its eyes glassy like marbles.

He shifted back into a human, reaching an arm around to his shoulder, finding it wet and aching. Gritting his teeth, Hongbin then turned around to see who had fired that shot to find Wonsik and Sanghyuk, the latter holding a freshly steaming hunting rifle.

On seeing him, Wonsik immediately ran to his side, his eyes expressing concern over the wound on his shoulder, while Sanghyuk put his gun down and loaded another bullet into it. He then followed the former down the hill to meet up with them. Behind them, Taekwoon finally showed his head, also back into a human. 

"What was that?" Hongbin asked, directing the question to Sanghyuk once all four were gathered.

Sanghyuk dug into his pocket and brought out a couple of bullets, seemingly made of a shiny metal. "Silver bullets," he explained. 

Hongbin rubbed the back of his neck, his face contorted in disbelief. "Cliche, isn't it?" he asked.

Wonsik shrugged. "We had no other plan," he justified. "Since they looked and acted just like werewolves, what with the growls and howls and monster movie stuff, don't even get me started on the turning with bites part, we figured they may also have the same weakness." 

"But silver bullets?" Hongbin asked. "Did you have them lying around or something?"

"Uh...it's a long story..." Wonsik admitted.

Hongbin raised an eyebrow but let it go, instead turning to Taekwoon who had gone to investigate the body of the dead werewolf. "Find anything?"

Taekwoon gave a deep sigh before turning to the other three. "It's the mill owner's daughter," he said with a heavy voice.

"She didn't turn back, did she?" Wonsik asked, hopeful.

Taekwoon shook his head. "Whatever cure these guys found, it's terminal."

Hongbin turned back to the two of them, his eyes wide. "You don't actually have in mind..." He trailed off, but judging from the slightly weird expressions on Wonsik and Sanghyuk's faces and the somber expression on Taekwoon's, it seemed they'd already discussed what he was thinking.

"There has to be another way," he said, almost pleading.

Sanghyuk shrugged. "I'm not sure there is," he said. "Even if there is, we don't actually have the time now, do we?"

"But just killing them..."

"We don't have a choice, hyung," Wonsik said, casting his eyes to Hongbin's shoes. "I'm sorry."

Hongbin looked at Taekwoon, standing at the side with his head bowed. "You can't actually have agreed to this!"

"It's like they said," Taekwoon sighed. "We have no time, and this is the only way."

"But they're our friends...our siblings!" Hongbin tried to appeal. "They raised us!" 

"You think I don't know that?" Taekwoon nearly snapped. "After all these years with them, you think I'd say yes if it wasn't the only option available?"

"Still..." Hongbin said, but as he cast a look over the other three, he realized that they wouldn't budge. It seemed a discussion had already taken place without him, and for good reason too. At the end of the day, they were right, there was only one way left.

He took in a deep breath, trying to avoid how clogged his throat had become as well as the unsettling chill in his stomach. "What do we have to do?"