Grim Howlett's Arc

Chapter 4 of 5

Grim stood in the chemist's shop doorway and stared at the vials in his coat pocket. He'd measured the beans, tracked the weights, noted every difference between roasts. But the numbers didn't tell him what he needed to know. He needed to see the reaction happen—watch his body change in real time when the coffee hit his system. The shop had scales and glass, but it didn't have a mirror. He turned and walked back into the street, his claws clicking against the stone. Three buildings down, he found what he needed—a cracked mirror leaning against a shop wall, tall enough to show his whole body. He dragged it back to the shack and propped it against the table. Then he brewed a cup, dark and hot, and stood in front of the glass. He watched his reflection as he drank. His claws pulled back first, retreating into his paws. His fangs dulled next, the sharp points softening. Even his eyes shifted—the yellow glow faded to something almost normal. It took forty seconds from first sip to full calm. He wrote it down and stared at himself in the mirror. This was progress. He could see the monster leave. Now he just needed to figure out how to make it stay gone. The calm lasted three hours before his claws started pushing through again. Grim grabbed his notebook and headed out to search for anything that might extend it. He walked past the crooked brick foundry at the town's edge, its cracked chimney leaning against the gray sky. Rust-stained metal doors hung open, revealing empty floors inside. The place looked like it was sinking into the mud. He'd heard stories about this building—back when Monstervale traded coffee with other towns, this foundry processed the beans before shipping them out. That trade had died decades ago, but the building remained. Grim stepped inside and found old equipment covered in moss and decay. If people once roasted beans here on a massive scale, maybe they'd left behind notes or methods he hadn't tried yet. He searched the foundry's corners but found nothing useful—just broken machinery and rotted wood. Outside again, Grim followed a path into the damper areas where thick vines wrapped around decaying logs. Some of the vines had black seed pods hanging from their stems, bitter-smelling and hard as stone. He cracked one open with his claw. The inside was dark and oily. He crushed it between his fingers and sniffed—sharp, almost like coffee but rougher. A natural stimulant growing right here in the swamp. He pocketed three pods and kept walking. The path grew darker as evening settled in, but small glowing yellow pods on thinner vines lit the way forward. They gave off enough light to see by, soft and steady. The swamp wasn't just mud and rot. It had things that could help him if he knew where to look. Back at the shack, Grim ground the black seed pods and brewed them like coffee. The taste was awful—bitter enough to make his fangs ache—but the calm that followed felt different. Heavier. Slower to arrive but longer to fade. He stood in front of the mirror and watched his claws pull back, his eyes dim. Five hours later, the monster still hadn't fully returned. He wrote it all down and stared at the notes covering his walls. Coffee wasn't the only answer. The swamp had other things, other compounds that worked on his body in different ways. If he could combine them, test them against each other, maybe he could find something that lasted. The mirror showed him a creature caught between forms, but for the first time, Grim saw a path forward. One test at a time, he'd figure out how to stay on the right side of the glass.