The girl shivered in her white nightgown. She did not shiver because of the cold, for the chill was something she had grown rather fond of. No, she shivered because she was afraid, so afraid. And she cried with her fear, her tears falling down her cheeks while she stared at the moon, the beautiful moon, lighting her darkness with its glow. She knew every shape and form of what the moon looked like. She knew what the moon looked like in winter, in spring, in summer.
It was fall again. “Fatal Fall” so it was dubbed by the children who were too young to be subject to “trading” at Ballum’s Orphanage.
Selli wept in the locked room she had shared with solitude for the past 17 years, cried to the moon, her own sole howl among the wolves at night. It was night that she had always felt safe; night had always brought the dreams, the escape, as the moon danced in her head.
She heard footsteps and Selli turned towards the door. The bars on the windows created an ominous shadow as the moon shone just in front of the threshold to Selli’s fate. Her heart began to pound, fear forcing her system to quicken its pace, to escape. Her life refused to flash before her, she had locked her life away forever, she had sworn never to look back at it. Only the possibilities clouded her thought.
Maybe he had found a group of last minute, eccentric parents.
The footsteps neared the door.
Maybe Mrs.Ballum decided she wanted one more child.
The footsteps stopped outside.
Maybe he was going to hide her, keep her safe from all the evil that would have come for her.
Selli heard the fumbling of keys in Mr.Ballum’s fidgety hands.
Maybe Ballum was just visiting; maybe he had decided to let her stay another year.
The key turned in the lock.
Maybe she was wrong.
The door opened, and Selli screamed.
Two gargantuan men followed the frail figure of an aging Mr.Ballum. His face was lined with the sorrow that he carried with every child he was forced to sell, concealing the kindly man that cared for them.
Selli scrambled against the wall, her hands clutching at the bars behind her back, shaking her head and screaming “NO! No no no!”
“I’m sorry Selli.” Mr.Ballum said. “But I have to let you go.” Ballum said as he led in the two men and locked the door behind him.
“Another year! That’s all I need another year and I can be free!”
When the men made towards her, Ballum stopped them. “Just a moment please, she’ll be better handled calm. “ He turned back to Selli and spoke with the voice of a parent trying to console their child. “Selli,” Malcolm Ballum looked sincerely at Selli, his sadness clearly noted, but lost in the fear that consumed the girl. “I already let you stay a whole year over my quota. It’s time, I’m sorry.”
“PLEASE!” She pleaded, her tears reddening her pale face, while the two men watched with amusement at her suffering. “I’ll do anything! Just please let me stay!”
Mr.Ballum looked to the floor, then, with a sigh, gave the gesture to the men to take her. Selli screeched again, and one of the gargantuan men seized her arm and pulled it from the bars, and staggered back as Selli slashed his face, releasing her.
“Sullen little b****!” He clutched his face and looked to his companion. “Why isn’t you grabbing her?!” The second mans eyes were large, the moon in them, soaking through into his head. The moon, shining through the bars seemed to brighten, even as it was eclipsed by the transforming girl.
The moon shone down on its child, as the nails turned to claws on her now large paws. Her body seemed to swell massively, as hair rapidly sprouted from her body, and her head was no longer an effeminate, sad girl, but a ghastly beast, which now towered over the frightened men. She slashed at the first man’s face again, this time cleaving the entirety of flesh from his face. The second man still stood motionless, as Ballum fumbled with his keys in a panic to open the door. The man’s spine cracked as Selli slammed him into the wall with a swipe of her paw.
As she neared Ballum, she heard only whimpering from the small, pinkish man. She leaned in close to him, her snout almost touching his small, spectacles hanging on the edge of his nose. She gave him a sniff, and then proceeded to divulge on his neck. Her teeth cleaned the dead men, and she moved her hulking mass with the utter grace only the moon can bestow.
No human mother had loved her. No figure had ever stepped in to give her heart and home.
But the moon would love her, this child of the night, this babe of fur. The moon would love her and give her a home, the moon would light the way, and the moon would shine down on her every night, and kiss her as she hunted. As she fed. Slaughter is what men do to pigs and animals, rape is what men do to women, but hunting, hunting is what the women do to men. In the night, under the stars and the mother of madness, the scorned give in to their… lunacy.