The wolf.

A homeless man moved a box and sat on it.
“Right your wrongs. The wolves are coming,” he said, lighting a cigarette.

He walked past, hearing the words but paying no attention.

“You’ll see yellow eyes in the corner of your room,” the man continued, exhaling a cloud of smoke. “You’ll know it’s a warning. Every day, closer and closer.”

He glanced back but kept walking. Night came, and he forgot about it.

At three a.m., a noise woke him. For a second, in the corner of his room, he saw a pair of yellow eyes staring straight at him.

He rubbed his eyes and shook his head, forcing himself awake. When he opened them again, the room was dark. The eyes were gone.

He reached for the lamp and aimed it at the corner. A pile of clothes sat exactly where the eyes had been.

On his way to work the next morning, the same man stepped down from the box.
“The problem with feeding only one,” he said, “is that you end up with a hungry wolf. And when it’s loose… nothing but trouble. Right your wrongs.”

A little shaken this time, he kept walking, trying not to think about the eyes from the night before.

The man lit another cigarette and called after him, louder now.
“It’ll get closer. It’s just a warning. But it’s a hungry wolf, after all.”

That night, he did the laundry. He made sure there were no clothes on the floor—just in case.

A noise from the corner woke him again. He grabbed his phone and unlocked it, pointing the light toward the corner.

The room was empty.

He locked the phone.

Then, exactly where the light had been pointing, the yellow eyes appeared—glowing, fixed on him.

His heart began to race. The man’s words echoed in his head: Right your wrongs.
Everything he had ever done started flashing through his mind like a fast-forwarded film.

Could that be it? he thought. Is that what the man meant?

The eyes didn’t fade this time.

He reached for the lamp and sat up in bed, sweating, hands shaking.
How does he know?

The next day, exhausted from another sleepless night, he took the bus to work.

At his stop, a man asked him for a lighter. He reached into his jacket and lit the cigarette for him.

The man adjusted an old radio beside him.
“The wolf knows,” a voice sang. “No need to ask. The wolf comes and goes. It waits. Until it’s time.”

A sharp pang of fear ran through him, but he forced it down.

That night, exhaustion took over. He fell asleep immediately.

In the morning, he was surprised—relieved—that he had slept through the night.

He dismissed the previous nights and walked the same route to work.

The man was there again, lying beside the box. A cigarette hung from his mouth, and a bloody rag wrapped his hand.

“You made the wolf,” the man said without looking up.
“You starved it. Isolated it. Hurt it. Took from it. Now it waits in the corner, hungry. You’ll hear the growls as the eyes look right through you.”

His gaze stayed fixed on the ground, hollow.

“It’ll be there until it’s time,” he added, clutching his injured hand. “Right them.”

He started running. He didn’t want to hear anything else. This time, it truly terrified him.

That night, a stench woke him. A gust of air brushed his hair, carrying the smell back and forth.

When he opened his eyes, the yellow eyes were right in front of him—unblinking.

Cold ran down his spine as the wolf’s breath washed over his face.

Unable to move. Unable to scream.

The growl deepened. Fangs emerged from the darkness. The eyes burned brighter in the middle of the room.

He shut his eyes as another gust of wind struck his face.