Night settled fully over Oslo by the time Ingrid finally committed to the idea.
The city outside her apartment windows glowed endlessly beneath the dark sky, headlights and neon signs stretching across the streets below while distant traffic hummed softly in the background. Inside the apartment, meanwhile, chaos had already started.
Specifically, Silas.
The werewolf pup was currently sprinting across Ingrid's living room in full wolf form now while chasing absolutely nothing.
Ingrid watched him fly past the couch for the fourth time in the last minute before slowly raising her phone.
"…Okay," she muttered under her breath. "This is either career suicide or the greatest thing I've ever uploaded."
Silas skidded slightly across the floor before turning toward her excitedly, tail wagging hard enough to blur.
"What's career suicide?"
"I'll explain when you're older."
"I am older!"
Silas looked weirdly proud of that comparison.
Ingrid finally opened her recording app afterward.
The camera turned toward her first.
She adjusted her hair quickly, cleared her throat, then smiled toward the phone in the overly casual way content creators usually did before saying something insane online.
"Okay, so," Ingrid began while adjusting the camera slightly. "You guys remember that camping vlog I uploaded yesterday? The one where I nearly froze to death in the mountains because I thought winter hiking sounded romantic and adventurous?"
She pointed dramatically at the camera.
"Yeah. About that."
Silas immediately sprinted behind her in the background at full speed, claws lightly scraping against the apartment floor as he chased absolutely nothing.
Ingrid stared at him for a second.
Then pointed vaguely behind herself.
"And this is apparently my life now."
The camera shifted toward the werewolf pup afterward.
Silas froze mid-run the moment he noticed he was being filmed.
Then tilted his head curiously.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm recording."
"…Why?"
"Because people online like weird things."
Silas accepted that explanation surprisingly fast.
Ingrid slowly walked backward while continuing to film him.
"So, funny story," she continued toward the camera. "I found this little guy injured near the mountains yesterday during the storm."
Silas immediately perked up proudly.
"I survived.""You cried for like thirty minutes.""I was bleeding!"
The camera caught Silas trotting excitedly around the apartment afterward, claws lightly clicking against the flooring while his tail wagged endlessly behind him.
Honestly?
He looked adorable.
Terrifying in a sense.
Adorable in execution.
Ingrid could already imagine the internet losing its collective mind over this.
"Silas!" she suddenly called out.
The werewolf pup immediately stopped mid-motion and looked toward her.
Ingrid laughed behind the camera.
"Come here for a second."
Silas trotted over immediately in full wolf form, claws lightly clicking against the apartment floor before practically collapsing against her side without hesitation. Ingrid nearly lost balance from the sudden weight.
"Jesus— okay, you're heavier like this."
Silas only made a pleased sound while shoving his head against her shoulder.
Ingrid adjusted the camera slightly afterward until both of them properly fit inside the frame.
"Alright, say goodbye to the internet."
Silas stared directly into the camera for several long seconds.
Then awkwardly stuck his tongue out while trying very hard to look friendly.
The result somehow looked both adorable and mildly threatening at the same time.
Ingrid burst out laughing immediately as she wraps one arm loosely around his neck fluff before finally waving toward the camera herself.
"Alright, bye guys. If this somehow reaches the news, I'm blaming all of you."
Silas enthusiastically waved one clawed hand afterward despite clearly not understanding how videos worked.
The recording ended shortly afterward.
The apartment suddenly felt much quieter once Ingrid lowered her phone.
Silas immediately looked toward her curiously.
"…So what happens now?"
"Now?" Ingrid replied while sitting down on the couch beside him. "Now I make this look slightly watchable before uploading it."
Silas tilted his head.
"You can do that?"
"Yeah. It's a surprise you're way too unfamiliar with this kind of stuff."
Ingrid quickly opened the editing app on her phone afterward and began trimming the footage down into something watchable. Nothing complicated. A few cuts, subtitles, minor brightness adjustments, background music low enough not to drown everything out.
Meanwhile, Silas remained sprawled beside her in full wolf form while watching the process with complete fascination.
"You can cut reality apart," he murmured.
Ingrid snorted.
"It's called editing."
"That sounds like witchcraft."
"That's because you're eighty percent fluff and no brain."
Silas gasped dramatically.
Ingrid ignored him entirely and continued editing.
Silas, meanwhile, stared suspiciously at the phone screen the entire time like it might suddenly bite him.
Werebeings apparently didn't interact much with Bareblood technology outside necessary things. At least according to Silas. Most packs preferred older lifestyles and territories hidden away from human cities, while things like livestreams, social media, and internet culture were apparently viewed somewhere between "unnecessary" and "deeply cursed."
"The alpha says phones make people weird," Silas muttered while watching Ingrid trim clips together.
"He's not completely wrong," Ingrid admitted.Silas leaned closer toward the screen anyway despite his distrust.
"…How is the tiny Ingrid inside the phone moving?"
"It's a video."
"But how?"
Ingrid stared at him.
"You know what? Never mind. I'm not explaining modern technology to a werewolf."
"Witches understand these things better," Silas continued while poking cautiously at the screen. "And vampires use phones all the time apparently. One of the elders in Nocturne owns six for some reason."
"Six?"
"Mhm. He says it's for business."
Silas nodded seriously like he agreed.
Then immediately flinched when the edited video replayed itself from the beginning.
"…It moved again."
A few minutes later, she finally leaned back against the couch with a satisfied sigh before hovering one finger over the upload button.
The title sat at the top of the screen.
I Found Something In The Norwegian Mountains.
"…This is either going to get me famous or arrested," Ingrid muttered.
Then she pressed upload anyway.
Ingrid sat cross-legged on her couch while scrolling through the rapidly multiplying notifications flooding her phone.
"…Holy shit."
Silas sat beside her chewing aggressively on some kind of snack he found earlier.
"What happened?"
"People are losing their minds."
And they absolutely were.
Comments flooded the upload faster than Ingrid could even refresh them.
"No way that's real"
"THIS HAS TO BE CGI"
"AI GENERATED"
"WHAT THE HELL IS THAT"
"Nice editing honestly"
"Bro uploaded a literal werewolf"
"Fake"
"FAKE!!!"
"There's no way this isn't AI'
One comment near the top stood out slightly more than the others.
Go live then. Bet you won't.
Ingrid stared at it thoughtfully.
Then slowly smiled.
Silas noticed immediately.
"…Why do you look evil?""I'm thinking."
Ingrid leaned toward him afterward.
"Silas."
"Mhm?"
"How much do you like expensive meat?"
The werewolf pup froze instantly.
"Expensive?"
"Very."
Silas narrowed his eyes suspiciously.
"What do you want."
Ingrid smiled wider.
Thirty minutes later, Ingrid sat beside Silas on her couch while preparing her livestream setup.
The viewer count started climbing almost immediately the moment she pressed start.
Hundreds.
Then thousands.
Then more.
The chat moved so quickly Ingrid could barely read anything properly anymore.
"NO WAY"
"SHE ACTUALLY DID IT"
"THIS BETTER NOT BE CLICKBAIT"
"WHERE'S THE DOG"
"THAT IS NOT A DOG"
Silas sat beside her in human form this time, awkwardly staring at the screen filled with rapidly moving messages.
Ingrid waved casually toward the camera.
"Alright everybody, since apparently none of you trust recorded videos anymore—"
"WE DON'T"
"FAIR"
"SHOW THE WEREWOLF"
"AI FILTERS EXIST"
Ingrid snorted.
"Yeah, yeah. Relax everyone. Stop flooding chat."
Beside her, Silas leaned slightly closer toward the screen.
Ingrid nearly choked.
"Do not read the chat."
"Why?"
"Because the internet was a mistake."
The viewer count continued climbing.
Ten thousand.
Twenty thousand.
Higher.
Ingrid could physically feel the moment curiosity started overtaking skepticism online.
People wanted this to be fake.
But they also desperately wanted it to be real.
Which honestly made everything far more dangerous.
Ingrid ignored that thought completely.
"Alright," she finally said while glancing toward Silas. "Silas, why don't you shift into your werewolf form?"
Silas immediately looked offended.
"Do I have to?"
The livestream chat exploded the moment he spoke.
Ingrid stared directly at the viewer count rising upward at horrifying speed.
Then immediately looked back toward Silas.
"But the meat though…"
Silas groaned dramatically.
"…Fine."
The transformation happened live.
Fur spread rapidly across Silas' body while his smaller frame shifted into the unmistakable shape of a young werewolf. Clawed hands flexed slightly against the couch cushions while pointed ears pushed through messy dark hair.
The livestream chat immediately became unreadable.
Messages flooded too quickly for individual comments to even remain visible anymore.
The viewer count skyrocketed.
Fifty thousand.
Seventy thousand.
Even higher.
Somewhere online, entire communities were already screen recording everything.
People spammed reactions faster than Ingrid could process.
"HOLY SHIT"
"THAT'S A REAL WEREWOLF"
"NO WAY"
"GOVERNMENT EXPERIMENT???"
"WE GOT WEREWOLVES BEFORE GTA 6"
Silas meanwhile just looked mildly annoyed.
"Can I have the meat now?"
Ingrid smiles and ruffles his fluffy fur.
Honestly, that reaction somehow made the entire thing feel even more real.
The livestream continued for almost another hour afterward.
Mostly chaos.
Questions.
Panic.
Excitement.
Silas answering things far too casually while Ingrid occasionally realized halfway through conversations that they were probably violating several international laws she didn't know existed yet.
Eventually though, exhaustion started catching up to both of them.
Ingrid leaned toward the camera near the end of the stream while Silas rested tiredly beside her in partial wolf form.
"Alright," she said. "That's enough internet chaos for one night. The kid needs his meat and sleep"
The chat immediately protested.
"NOOOO"
"WAIT"
"COME BACK"
"ASK HIM MORE QUESTIONS"
Ingrid ignored them.
"Goodnight everyone. Subscribe!!"
Then before ending the stream, she wrapped one arm briefly around Silas and laughed quietly.
"Thanks for cooperating, pup."
Silas looked embarrassed immediately afterward.
"I only did it for the meat."
"Sure you did."
The livestream ended.
Silence returned to the apartment almost immediately afterward.
For several seconds, neither of them spoke.
Then Ingrid looked slowly toward her phone.
The notifications had already become completely unmanageable.
"…Huh."
Silas tilted his head.
Ingrid stared at the screen a little longer.
Then slowly stood up and grabbed her coat.
"You know what?" she said casually. "Let's go get food before I think too hard about this."
Silas perked up instantly.
"The expensive meat?"
"The expensive meat."
The werewolf pup immediately brightened again while rushing toward the apartment door excitedly.
Neither of them noticed the thousands upon thousands of reposts already spreading across the internet.
Or the governments beginning to panic.
Or the hidden world realizing, far too late, that secrecy had just started breaking apart live in front of millions of people.