Insatiable hunger after. Meat. Sugar. Collapse.

Stage one dumps muscle and liver glycogen. Stage two burns through mobilised free fatty acids. Stage three, the last hours, is gluconeogenesis under extreme ATP debt — the same debt that later doubles as a senolytic. The LERV co-factor dependency gives the drive a specific object: not food in general, a metabolic requirement the shift is built around. This is why the folklore of the werewolf's hunger is not generic appetite. It has a target.

Mitochondrial density is what makes the night possible and what makes silver lethal. The engine is the vulnerability. The same organelles that power the hydraulic programme are the ones cytochrome c oxidase inhibition will stop.