Rosa. She was my everything. My muse. My love. Beautiful, kind, generous, a wondrous smile. To hear her laughter was to see the sun shine. Feeling her touch upon my face set me at ease no matter how stressed I was. To hold her in my arms was all I wanted after a long day. 

But, she became one of those...things. 

A beast. A monster that thirsts for blood and hungers for flesh. 

It started out like a normal illness. A simple cold. Maybe a touch more coughing than usual, but certainly nothing too worrying. No. Those Healing Church bastards took her to their sanctum and gave her some of that so-called healing blood. I had never believed in this odd religion of blood. The robed figures walking about the city. The odd statues. The hushed whispers. All of it struck me as something to be avoided. 

But Rosa believed. She told me the Church had cured her younger brother of a deathly ashen plague. Still no source of the plague could be found, but this special blood the Church had control of somehow wiped it from all the people. All of them good as new. The way it was explained, I suppose this plague must be what Rosa had. Why else would the Church bother with such a seemingly simple cold, I told myself.

Ah, but I digress. Rosa had been taken for a day before being brought back to my home. She seemed well. No more coughing, and the color had returned to her cheeks. At the time, I was overjoyed to have her in good health again. And for a few days more, all was as it should be. We spent our time together as normal couples do. Eating homemade meals together. Talking hours into the night of our planned future. Embracing one another in bed the passionate way only young lovers could.

Then the night of the hunt came. It was a relatively infrequent occurrence, but it had happened enough that I was used to it. Every now and then, a beast or two would make its way into the city, and Church hunters would scour the streets and dispose of any they found. If only I knew then these beasts came from the Church’s own misdeeds. 

The first night, with pale moonlight shining down from the clear sky, Rosa began acting unlike herself. She was more prone to brash words. She would cut me off mid sentence and act as if I wasn’t just speaking. She even scrambled atop me on the second night, and rode me to her own climax, leaving me a sore mess. She had never before acted as such, but I wasn’t entirely worried. Being young, I assumed nothing and just went along with her behavior, savoring the new aggressive tendencies. 

As the nights after the hunt came, Rosa seemed to change more. Each night, she would become more aggressive. One night, she bit me hard enough to draw blood. When I pushed her away, I noticed her teeth were elongated, sharp as a nail. Fearing what this could entail, I locked her in the cellar. I know this was not entirely a good idea, but I had no knowledge as to what changed her. It didn’t occur to me the Church had anything to do with it until later.

Banging on the door, Rosa screamed to be let out. Crying out how hungry she was only served to worry me more. If she was starved enough to attack me, then how could I trust her in her current state? I was no animal, however. I made her food and did my best to slide it into the cellar without letting her get out. She demanded meat. More and more every passing day. It did not matter how much I gave her, she was not satisfied. 

On the fifth day, I was at my wit’s end. Rosa had stopped banging on the cellar door, but she was now making odd noises. Growls, almost. Throaty noises that sent a shiver down my spine. All throughout the night, she made these noises. I could not sleep. The fear that if I let my guard down, I would open my eyes to see her standing over me, a look of animalistic hunger in her eyes. This was not the Rosa I had fallen for. 

And yet, every now and again, she would speak normally. Her usual sweet voice would cry out for me, wanting to be held and told everything would be fine. She would even promise to not harm me if I would only let her out. I almost gave in to that. Standing right at the cellar door, my hand on the knob, I was so close to seeing her face once more. Just as I was about to turn the knob, however, she let out another of those throaty noises. I recoiled in terror and pushed the dining table against the door. 

On the seventh night, there was a full moon. Howls came from the city. Dogs baying at the pale orb. Rosa howled as well. But hers were monstrous. They filled my soul with dread. Along with the howls, agonized moans could be heard coming from Rosa’s new room. Cries of torment and pain. My heart ached to go help her, and a little voice in the back of my brain told me that, somewhere inside, the Rosa I loved was within her. I just had to appeal to her humanity. Perhaps I could reach my lover yet.

Taking precaution, I threw on two old jackets, hoping the extra layers would somehow protect me in case I failed. Old wood floors creaked and groaned as I slowly pushed the table out of the way. Nearing the door, I could still hear howls and pained moans. It was disturbing to listen to. Taking a deep breath to calm myself, I opened the cellar door. Rosa did not jump out at me. Instead, she was huddled down at the bottom of the stairs. What little light shined down showed me her form was hunched down in pain, arms folded over her knees. 

I called her name, and at once her noises ceased. Calling her again, she looked up. What I saw was not the face of my beautiful Rosa. It was the head of a wolf. Elongated snout, fur sprouting all over the face, a coal black nose. Strangely, she still retained her pale blue eyes. This thing stood then, and I took note of the new body. Her arms and legs had somehow stretched out, giving her a tall, lanky look. The midsection had caved in, giving her the appearance of a near dead creature, the ribs easily visible to the naked eye. The dress she wore before being tossed into the cellar had been ripped and torn, leaving only shreds of it still clinging to her body.

“Help me,” this monster cried, its voice an odd mishmash of Rosa’s delicate tone and the snarl of a wild predator. Walking up the stairs towards me, it almost fell down several times, as if it didn’t know how to use its new body. Shakily, I stepped back with every movement the creature made towards me until I was pressed against the wall. With nowhere to go, I looked on as the beast opened its arms, circling them around me. I was pulled into its chest, whereupon the beast stroked along my back, being careful to not pierce me with its claws.

“My sweet, please forgive me,” it spoke in that mixed voice. “I did not mean to hurt you. Please, please forgive me.” At once I was both appalled to be held in this thing’s arms, and also delighted to know my Rosa was not lost. Giving in to my love of Rosa, I wrapped my own arms around the beast, and assured it I could look beyond the deed. 

As we stood there in one another’s arms, the beast...no, Rosa, began to sob. She let out a waterfall of tears, and told me of her worries of what had become of her. Like myself, she knew not the cause of this transformation. 

Despite her retaining her senses, she still hungered for meat. However, she did not wait for me to cook it, and instead began to devour it still raw and bloody. It was sickening to watch her eat like that. Her new muzzle opened up wide, almost unhinging itself in order to take the cut of meat whole. Sounds of her chewing and munching the raw meat was enough to send me to another room. 

That night, I allowed her to share our bed again. Clambering onto the bed, she wrapped her long limbs around me, holding me close to her now furred chest. She felt oh so warm, and I could feel her heartbeat, pumping faster once I settled comfortably in her grasp. She had since that morning discarded her torn clothing, leaving her new body bare. It was surprisingly pleasant to be in her arms that night. I slept as peacefully as I had before this transformation. 

Moans of pain woke me with a start. Rosa was on the floor, huddled in a fetal position, crying out about her bones shifting once more. Her spine jutted out slightly, and I could see the individual vertebrae moving to new positions, causing her body to become even larger. Ribs changed size, opening up, almost threatening to pierce through skin.

My sweet did not leave the bedroom that day.

Night fell, and the dim moonlight was hid behind a thick blanket of clouds, unable to grace the world below. Rosa was holed up in bed, bundled up in the sheets like a toddler. Refusing to eat that night, she instead asked me to stay with her. My presence calmed her, she told me. 

This was the Rosa I knew. Her body may have changed, but if this was how she felt, then I knew it was still my beloved inside this body. I sat beside her, and spent my time reading. Occasionally, a hand would poke out from her coverings, only to seek mine out and squeeze. She just wanted to know I was there. During her slumber, she had unhooked herself from the bundle of sheets and was freed. Taking note of this, I surveying her form. She no longer resembled the beautiful woman she once was. She was now fully a beast. Some hybrid between man and animal, as if a wolf had decided to stand upright. Reaching out, I ran a hand through her fur, and at once, she let out a weary but happy sigh. My touch still gave her joy, even in her sleep.

~~~~~~~~

This is the last known journal entry of a man who lived within Old Yharnam. When hunters broke into his home, they found the man and this beast sitting beside one another in the dining room. The man fought to defend the beast, but was easily overpowered by the hunters. As was protocol, they burned the beast and then arrested the man for harboring such a creature. He awaits trial in the coming week.