Blood Moon

A cool breeze brushes across my face, taking a deep breath to savor the fresh air. I have a look at my surroundings. I find that I am sitting in the meadow by my old home, reading a book. A small smile graces my lips. This is one of my favorite things to do. It never fails to give me peace in an otherwise busy world, I get to enjoy the nature around me without interruptions. The thought on how I got here is what brings me out of my peace, I am not sure on how I got here or when, I haven’t been here in years.

Shrugging off my unease, I glanced down at the book that I seemed to have been reading, by the looks of it I was already halfway through. Gliding my forefinger over the page I can’t recall what the book was about, glancing at the page the words inked on it started to spin and morph. Unease filled my stomach. Confused and startled, I slammed it shut and I look around me. The space around me no longer felt peaceful and the more I looked, the more unease filled my body. The beautiful meadow I had been sitting in only a few seconds ago changed into something darker. Cruel almost, as if every aspect of it was a living entity.

A voice came from somewhere beyond one of the trees in front of me, calling out to me, I couldn’t understand what they were trying to say. The ground underneath me shifted, and the leaves above my head began rustling. The earth beneath me began to open and take on the shape of quicksand, pulling me under slowly. The more I tried to grip onto the grass or the roots of the tree the deeper I sunk, with all my best efforts I still continued to sink, all until I was under the earth suffocating and screaming for help. I felt dizzy and sick, and my mind began to spin uncontrollably, as soil began to fill my lungs.

I awoke coughing to the blaring of my alarm clock. Opening my eyes slowly, trying to find it, the light streaming through my dark purple curtains made me instantly shut them. My breaths were still labored from the strange dream. Clutching my chest, I took a few moments to regain my breath and slow my heart rate.

Turning myself around facing away from my window, I opened my eyes once more, this time without any troubles.

I looked at my clock and saw it was five in the morning, I groaned into my pillow beside me and stretched over towards my night stand blindly, switching my still blaring alarm clock off. I remained there in my position, unmoving, and cursing whoever thought waking up early was a good idea for students. Not once making any gesture or showing any indication that I was ready to get up for the day, in fact I was ready to go back to sleep. Yawning, I sat up slowly, feeling puffy and stiff. I eventually got out of my warm bed and made my way towards the walk-in closet at the corner of my room near the window, switching on the light as I entered the room. I began hunting for a semi-decent outfit for school.

After 15 minutes of looking through my clothes, I decided on dark blue skinny jeans and a red tank top with small patterns embroidered on it. Taking them off their hangers I go to grab my black converse which was thrown lazily by the door. These shoes were so worn though I’m surprised it can still be called shoes at this point, at the last second before leaving the closet I grab the black leather jacket hanging on the door to complete the outfit.

Sighing, I take my clothes to my joint bathroom dragging my feet over the floor to shower. Getting in once I had stripped down I turned the tap on and a rush of cold water hit my face waking me up from my groggy state, quickly I adjusted the temperature and began to clean myself making sure to scrub my skin trying to thoroughly scrub off any remnants of my dream. Once I finished I dried and changed, thankfully finding that I had a pair of clean socks on the bathroom sink. I must’ve left them there by mistake yesterday when I was putting away my laundry and clean towels. Secretly praising my easily distracted mind I cleaned up the bathroom. And brushed my teeth.

The steam after my shower was thick, making my chest feel heavy, giving me flashbacks from that nightmare earlier. Shaking the uncomfortable feeling off, I walked towards the bathroom door, tossing my pajamas into the laundry hamper.

Walking into my bedroom I grabbed the hair brush I began to comb through my hair, not coming across as many tangles as usual, deciding it was a good enough hair day to try something different with my hair. I put my hair up into a half up half down with two braids going down. I instantly regretted my decision once I was done, my arms were screaming at me the entire time. I applied mascara and lip gloss, to try make myself appear at least somewhat human, I don’t use any eye shadow. This was due to my amazing talent of being terrible at doing my make-up and it is not from the lack of trying. Once, I tried, and I ended up looking like the walking dead. That’s one day I will never forget.

I was in elementary school and I had decided to wear make-up that day, I mean all the girls in my class wore some or at least bragged about being able to wear make-up. So I went into my mom’s make-up bag and pulled out dark-co loured eye-shadow. Of course, being as young as I was, I placed dark smudges all over my eyes and a lot of blush and foundation.

When my parents saw me, they tried so hard to get me to take it off, but I refused to, and stated that I looked gorgeous and that they were jealous. Honestly to this day I am amazed by my confidence in myself. I remembered the frustration on my moms face and my dad struggling to hold his laughter in. After a while, my mom had given in, mumbling how this was a learning curve, or at least that was what she was trying to make herself believe.

As I walked through the front doors and into my classroom, children from my class asked me with genuine curiosity as to why I decided to dress up for Halloween so early. Distraught, I ran into the closest bathroom, which turned out to be the boy’s and ran straight to the mirror. Every time a boy would come in I would scream at them to get out, which they did of course, probably because I looked dangerous. Exactly like a zombie or a raccoon, either way, I looked like someone to stay clear of.

I looked at myself in the mirror eventually after crying and saw what they saw. Upset, I washed all of it off and made a promise that I would never wear make-up again. Now I never put more than mascara on my eyes and no more than concealer anywhere else, but even that was pushing it. I know what you are thinking, Clare, you were small back then. Yes, I know but let me tell you that zombie-like face has haunted me ever since. Every time I even think about it that face pops up in my mind and I dismiss the idea instantly. I’m pretty sure I still had nightmares of it every now and again when I went to middle school.

As I walked to my bed I caught a glimpse of myself in my mirror, looking myself over, my outfit complimented my curves and black hair perfectly, the mascara seemed to make my emerald green eyes appear bigger. So much has changed since that little girl I used to be. Deciding I looked human enough, I turned and grabbed my phone, backpack, and car keys and went downstairs. As like every day, no one was there to greet me, just the deafening silence that has become somewhat comforting over the years. My dad was never home, at least not when it mattered.

I grabbed an apple off the kitchen counter and walked out the front door, locking it, and got into my black BMW. As I started the car, my indie rock playlist blasted through my speakers and I drove to my local coffee shop to get my annual coffee and went to school.

The school car park was empty, which was reasonable as it was only around half six when I arrived, so I parked in the far corner under the huge willow tree. Since it was early, I took out my phone and scrolled through my Instagram, listening to the playlist and drinking my coffee. I don’t know how long I sat there for, but when I looked up, I saw that a lot of my peers started arriving.

I switched my car off, took the keys out of the ignition, grabbed my backpack and phone and got out of the car. As I walked away from my car, I pressed the lock button on my keys and heard the loud beep, notifying me that it was now locked.

Walking up the cement steps to the school was like walking into hell, all the surrounding faces were smiling and laughing, talking about their boyfriends or the latest gossip that was circling the school recently. While I walked alone towards my locker. School was a place where you could be surrounded by people and still feel isolated and alone.

I put in the code for my locker and as I opened the door someone slammed into me with such force it knocked all air out of my lungs. I regained my strength back fairly quickly and turned around ready to reprimand the idiot who did that, only to see blue eyes looking apologetically at me.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to slam into you like that, my friends as you can see are complete jerks and as all jerks do they seem to try to cause trouble”, he said gesturing toward the guys behind them. Only then did I notice the group of guys, which to my luck just happened to be the jocks of Stanley High. The most popular, jerkiest, and as snobby as they come, they are generally known as the players and the guy who slammed into me was the leader of the pack Liam Thompson. They were fairly new to town and kept to their close friend group, never really allowing anyone else to join.

You would think that would put a damper on their popularity, but as it turns out, the people at my school seem to find their secretiveness and mysteriousness charming. All the more reason to try to get in with them. For a little background information on prince charming over there, he is the guy all fairy tales revolve around, he has dark brown hair and crystal blue eyes and the body of a freaking supermodel. All girls loved him, and all boys envied him. That was Liam Thompson, all right, he was everyone’s cup of tea, apparently.

And now he was standing in front of me, sending apologies my way. And even after all, that’s been said, you wouldn’t blame me if I wasn’t sceptical of what his intentions were.

I regained my voice and shrugged, “No worries, just make sure that next time you aim yourself away from everyone else”

“Will do, hey, I didn’t catch your name”

“Clare. Clare Smith”, holding my hand out to him.

He took it with both hands and in a British accent said, “I’m delighted to meet you, Clare”

I couldn’t help but laugh at him, and that earned me a playful glare and a chuckle.

“I hope to see you under different circumstances next time”.

“Yeah that would be a lot better” I smiled and turned back around to my locker getting the first four periods’ books out. I couldn’t help but always feel like something wasn’t settling with me when it came to Liam and his group. I had Maths, double Chemistry, and Biology. Man do I love Mondays, slowly the unsettling feeling and thoughts of Liam disappeared.

As I walked to class, I felt a tap on my shoulder and I turned and my best friend in the whole world stood in front of me.

“Hey, Andy, how was your weekend?” His full name is Andrew, but that is a mouthful all on its own.

“Boring as per usual, studying for Chemistry and getting my dad off my back for slacking off with football. Honestly, he screams at me for not doing well at school, but then he needs to lecture me on everything else!”

I rolled my eyes and gave him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder, “Hey, at least he is there to care about you the last time I spoke to my dad, like a proper conversation is when my mom died and that was how long ago?”

“Three years, I know, but it still sucks that I can’t do anything right when it comes to him”

“You do plenty, he just doesn’t seem to worry about that much”, I sighed.

We entered the class and sat at our usual seats at the back of the class. As I sat down I glanced at the board and saw that we were doing Trigonometric functions today and I groaned inwardly.

This was going to be a long day. As the day progressed, time seemed to pass ever so slowly and finally, it was time to eat. My stomach ached, obviously not happy with my apple and coffee for breakfast. It made me walk slightly faster to the cafeteria.

Now, this was my favorite time of day. Andy and I walked into the Cafeteria, and as I glanced around the room, I was met with those blue eyes from this morning staring at me. I shook it off and walked toward the Canteen to get my food, I decided on fries and cola and paid for my food. While waiting for Andy to pay for his, I started nibbling on my fries.

When he was done, we walked towards our table filled with all our friends. Well, they were mainly Andy’s, but details aren’t important. All you need to know is that we hardly hang out with them and when we do, they are either kissing each other or disappearing to go do other things which suited us perfectly.

Eventually, our Cafeteria break ended, and I walked back to my locker, gathering the last of my books for the day.

Upon walking to class, the smell of cologne filled my nostrils. And I glanced around me, and yet again I was met with those same blue eyes.

“Hey, I didn’t know that you took advanced Latin classes, hardly anyone takes this subject any more.”

It took me a while to grasp that he was talking to me, “Oh yeah, that’s why I like it so much it means fewer people”

He chuckled and said, “Man, do I know what you mean by that”.

As he said that, he walked to his seat, leaving me stunned. Liam Thompson seemed to be amazing to me a lot today.

The rest of the day flew by quicker than I imagined and as I got home I saw my dad’s car in the driveway and as I got out of the car I saw the glass by the doorstep.

I rushed into the house to find my dad staring at the now wrecked house. I slowly walked towards him, and that seemed to snap him out of his daze.

“Dad, what happened?”

“I don’t know, I got home and the door was wide open and the windows were smashed, I ran into the house to see if you were okay only to find you weren’t here.”

“Yeah, I was at school... Who did this? Better yet, who would do this?”

“I may have an idea, but from now onward I will be home every day when you get back from school and I will be notifying the pack what happened.”

Why would he do that, he only ever brought the pack into this if it was unfortunate, “Dad?”

“Yes?“, he said, turning away from me.

“If the pack is now involved and whoever did this seems like a very dangerous individual, does that mean...“, I trailed off.

My dad looked at me questioningly.

“Does this mean I will be able to shift again... I mean I know the pack was banned after the rouges killed mom but....” I drifted off yet again, not being able to find the right words.

“Yes, this means they have found us, and we need to be on guard”

“Who found us? Surely it may just be a break-in or something?”

“No, I would be able to smell the difference... No, this...this is the same scent from your mother’s death”

The world we used to reside in before we went into hiding is completely separated from the human world. The moon goddess created it after humans began hunting us down thousands of years ago. Only shifters can pass through the barrier some humans have passed through if they were mated to a shifter. Otherwise our two worlds are completely separate. Where we are living now is not too far from the border, in fact it isn’t far from our original pack grounds.

I glanced up at him and memories began to flood my head. My father is the Alpha of our pack called the Blood Moon Pack. We have been in hiding, not being able to shift into our wolf form for nearly three years, not since a pack of rouges killed my mom and a lot of our pack members. I was forced to hide among humans, not talking about who I truly am to anyone. Other shifters can feel the magic off of us when we shift this is just one of many ways we can determine if someone we come across is part of our world. Since moving into the human world our pack was banned from shifting, to keep us safe and hidden from the shifter world.

My dad has been talking to his beta for these past years, discussing challenges that the pack faces and tracking down the rouges. As it seems now that we have become the hunted once more, and this time they seem to be taking this a lot slower. As if savoring the fear they may bring.