Werewolf: The Forsaken - Blank It

Appendix
The air is a tangle of scents.
Metal.
Rust.
Asphalt.
Blood.
Vomit.
Ozone. All woven together by the smell of the Shadow
— the scent unlike anything of the flesh. It is a low
and subtle scent, almost like the bouquet of a wine made
from unearthly fruits, somewhere between intoxicating
and poisonous.
She hates it. The smell of the city’s Shadow sends
its tendrils into her memory. Each time she draws in a
breath, dreams and echoes of pain and blood turn over in
the dark parts of her mind.
She wishes she could hold her breath. She wishes she
could be flesh instead, surrounded by the stink of the
physical city. She wishes she didn’t have to remember.
She wishes the Shadow were a place where things like
this didn’t have to keep happening.
But she hears it approaching. It does not know how to
breathe, so its imitation of breath is part rattle and
part burble. Phantom metal scrapes against itself. She
feels its warmth growing near her, and then its scent
drowns out the scent of the city —
rotten flesh,
boiled blood,
infected wounds,
stained iron
and, again, the perfume of the Shadow.
She hates it. She hates it for what it has done, for
making it necessary that she hunt it down. She hates it
as a hideous thing, a repulsive parody that should not
be. She hates it for drawing her here.
She feels her fury welling up within her. It is rooted
in her bowels, wrapped around her heart, stretching
through her limbs, curling in her brain.
She lets it flower.
SECTION TITLE
249
THE SPIRIT WORLD