_*]:min-w-0 !gap-3.5">Maria still remembered the first time it happened.

  The memory came to her now as she y in her sleeping space, the prickling feeling under her skin getting stronger even though she tried to make it go away. Unlike the full-on attacks that came with the full moon, these warning feelings could sometimes be stopped if she tried hard enough.

  She closed her eyes, and the years fell away.

  Sleep had come easy that night, the tired feeling from the day's work in the young blood bags section of Blood Farm #17 pulling her into sleep right after lights out. The farm guards worked the children constantly at cleaning cages, scrubbing blood-taking rooms, and tending the small food gardens that added to the blood bags' tiny food amounts. Children were valued for what they'd be worth ter—current work was just training for adult blood giving.

  She woke up to pain worse than anything she'd ever felt. It started as a burning feeling deep in her muscles that quickly got worse until it felt like her bones were trying to break through her skin. The cramping was terrible, her body twisting without her control.

  Scared, she tried to scream, but only a choked sound came out. The other children in the sleeping room kept sleeping, not knowing what was happening to her.

  Something was happening to her body—something impossible. She could feel her muscles moving, her face stretching, her teeth growing sharp in her mouth. Terror took over as she realized she couldn't control what was happening.

  In the dark, she fell from her thin mattress to the floor, curling into a ball as the pain crashed through her in waves. Her simple gray sleep shirt tore at the seams as her body twisted and changed.

  The night turned into pieces of pain and fear. At some point, she must have bcked out, because her next clear memory was waking up when the morning arm sounded, naked and shivering on the cold concrete floor beside her bed. The torn bits of her sleep shirt were scattered around her, and her muscles hurt like she'd run for miles.

  Bruises marked her arms and legs where she had no memory of getting hurt. There was dirt under her fingernails and a taste in her mouth that made her want to throw up—something wild and metal-like that wasn't quite blood.

  Scariest of all was the gap in her memory—hours lost to something she couldn't expin or understand.

  One of the older blood bags who watched the children's sleeping room found her there, shaking and confused. The woman's face went pale at the sight.

  "What happened to you?" she'd whispered, quickly gathering the torn clothing before any guards could see. "Get dressed in your work clothes. Say nothing."

  That night, three of the older blood bags had come to her sleeping space after lights out. They spoke in hushed voices, their eyes always checking for any sign of guards.

  "Never seen anything like it," the oldest one had whispered, a woman so thin her cheekbones seemed ready to break through her skin. "Must be a special curse from the light itself."

  "What happened to me?" Maria had asked, her voice small with fear.

  "Something changed you. Made you not human for a night," another woman had said, her eyes wide with a mixture of fear and wonder. "The demons sometimes talk about creatures that change with the moon, but they live in the wild pces, not in farms."

  The third woman had squeezed Maria's hand. "It's punishment for special sins. Sins so bad we don't even know what they are. The demons punish all of us with their fangs, but you got this extra curse too."

  "Why me?" Maria had asked, tears running down her face.

  "Maybe to test you more," the woman had suggested. "The light tests the strongest ones hardest."

  "How do I stop it?"

  The oldest woman had shaken her head. "Don't think you can. Comes with the full moon, regur as the demons' feeding schedule. But we can help you hide it."

  They'd taught her their methods for hiding the transformation—how to know the warning signs, how to find pces to hide during the change, how to clean up evidence afterward. Most important, they stressed the need for silence.

  "Never speak of it," they'd warned. "Not to anyone. The demons would take you away if they knew."

  Over time, Maria came to understand that her condition was unique among the blood bags at Blood Farm #17. Those who had helped her that first night continued to help her hide her transformations, passing down what they knew to younger blood bags as they themselves got older and weaker.

  Alone with her curse, Maria had begun to see it as a divine mark—proof that she was somehow chosen, even in her suffering. This view grew as she got older and as the older blood bags who had first helped her were gradually "processed out" when their bodies could no longer meet quotas.

  By her tenth year in the farm, Maria was alone with her curse. She had made her monthly transformations part of her growing understanding of punishment and redemption, seeing them as a purification ritual—painful but necessary on the path to eventual freedom.

  Now, lying in her bed at eighteen, Maria pressed her hand against her chest where the prickling feelings were strongest. She had learned to track the moon's phases by counting days between episodes. She had gotten good at predicting when the full transformations would come, pnning her hiding pces ahead of time.

  This current discomfort was just a warning, a reminder that the full moon was coming. In about two weeks, she would need to find a pce to endure the change—maybe the abandoned cleaning closet she'd discovered near the blood-taking building, or the gap beneath the eastern fence where rain had created a small hole.

  "The light gives hard tests to the special ones," she whispered to herself, words she'd been saying for years. "It hurts me because it needs me."

  It was easier to believe the pain had meaning, that the curse marked her for something important rather than being random cruelty in a world already full of suffering. She had built her entire spiritual understanding around this belief—that punishment had purpose, that suffering could be endured if it led toward freedom.

  As the prickling feeling went away, Maria closed her eyes again. In two weeks, she would change into something not human, losing herself to the curse for a night. For now, though, she was still herself, still able to lead the others toward the light she so deeply believed would eventually come.

  Outside the sleeping area, the moon continued its steady journey through its phases, calling to something in Maria's blood that she had no way of understanding. Not yet.