Prologue
My story starts on a cold November night five years ago when I was twelve. That night changed my life forever. While it was one of the most terrifying nights of my life, it not only ruined my life but at the same time that whole night probably saved my life.
On that particular night I was in the woods at my grandfather’s house. It was a Friday and I had just started school that week. I was in sixth grade and my best friend and I had no classes together, so I was upset about that. My parents loved to go to his house because it was out in the woods, and we lived in the city. They tried to go to his house on the weekends because they wanted to get away from city life for a little bit. My grandfather lived in the country, and my parents liked the fresh air of the forest. I was hanging out and walking around the forest because I was in a bad mood. I do not know how long I was out there, but it was getting late, and the sun had already set when I heard footsteps approach me. Here’s the thing the footsteps did not sound human because there seemed to be four feet. I was not scared because of the fact that my grandfather has a ton of dogs that just run all in the woods to their own devices. It was a full moon, and the dogs acted like wolves by going crazy during the full moon. The dogs were already going crazy, I could hear them from where I was. I just assumed that it was a dog. Now that was my first mistake. My instincts were telling me to run, to get out of there as soon as I could. Now, did I listen to my instincts? No I did not. I continued to keep walking in the direction that I was going which happened to be towards my grandfather’s house and not run. Let me just tell you, I will never make that same mistake again.
Now, I was already walking towards his house, but I did not change my pace. I thought that I would be fine and that if I just kept walking nothing would happen to me. I did have a feeling that something was not right. I would consider myself paranoid, but I am not paranoid to the point that I am hiding in a bunker afraid that aliens will get me. No, I am just aware of the people and things around me, sometimes. As I was walking the footsteps got closer and closer. Someone or something was right behind me. At this point I decided to run because something was off, something was not right. As I began to run something grabbed my ankle. At first I did not know what it was, but then I felt the teeth. Whatever the teeth belonged to dragged me deeper into the forest before I knew what was going on. I tried to scream when I was being dragged, but nothing was coming out of my mouth. My leg felt like it was on fire, the pain was unbearable. I remember seeing something, it was an animal that looked like a dog. I wondered why there would be a dog pulling me by the ankle because my grandfather’s dogs were so well behaved. They would never hurt anyone or anything. My eyesight soon got blurry and everything went dark. I don’t remember anything after.
The next day I found myself in my bed, well the bed at my grandfather’s. There was nothing on my leg that made it seem that anything the night before actually happened. No mark, no blood, no scar, nothing. I had spent weeks after trying to figure out if what had happened was actually real and not just a dream. I would not be surprised if it was just a dream because I always have very vivid dreams. Closer to the end of those weeks I had decided that it was just a dream. Oh, how I wish it was just a dream now. I wish I did not go out into the woods that day, but I can’t change the past, I can only change the future.
After I had come to the conclusion that it was just a dream something happened that seemed unreal. My bones felt like they were breaking and rearranging somehow. The pain was worse than the pain of the bite. It was worse than anything I had experienced. I did not know what was happening, but I was kind of glad that it was happening in kind of the same circumstance as the bite. I was walking in the forest when this happened. I was lucky that my parents did not find out about it then, but I was not that lucky for long. I found out that the full moon caused it and I was able to track them, so that I could be better prepared. I was able to hide it from my parents until I was about thirteen. When I was thirteen I must have misinterpreted the days and I thought that the moon was happening the day after and my parents found me changing. They did not know what was going on and they started screaming and yelling at me. They started calling me “The Devil’s Child”. The next morning they kicked me out. They did not give me a chance to explain myself. I was not able to tell them that I did not know how this happened. They just kicked me out without any explanation or help. I wandered the country for the next year keeping track of the moons, so I could hide from humanity. I soon found a small town called Ridgefield. I would be able to live here, relocate and try to have a normal high school experience. At least that is what I had hoped to happen. It’s been three years since I was kicked out. Three years since I had last seen any family, or anyone who actually cared about me.
My name is Delilah, but everyone just calls me Lila and this is my very complicated story.
