MAYARI

SURVIVING THE CURSE OF THE BLOOD MOON

My life involved growing up on the edge of the maps, living and existing in places where pack law was at its thinnest and not a single form of kindness can be found. I learned quickly how to adapt to my situation.

I did everything I possibly could, just to survive. Ranging from, but not limited to stealing heat from dying fires and learning how to run without snapping twigs. I learned how to sleep lightly. That is the only way to survive before death would decide for me. That is the only way to survive those who constantly hunted me.

One thing I quickly learned was that lone wolves are illegal, but I become one anyway…I do not have much of a choice.

My first shift came in the late hours of the night, nearly killing me. On my thirteenth birthday at the time, the moon was so full, bright, a breathtakingly beautiful ball, hanging overhead with no cares in the world. Nothing about my shift however, reflected its beauty.

The sound of cracking bones, loud and frightening like the sound of thunder during a rainstorm, my bones had started to break and then stopped midway. Claws that never fully formed tore through my palms, leaving them bloodied. Silvery white fur, the colour of the first snow on a winter night, ghosted my skin in quiet mockery.

For the first time since I was born, I let out a scream, not from the pain, but because I understood clearly what this was. I was not failing to shift by choice…no, there was something holding me back. 

From that night onward, silver served as a reminder, every wound leaving a scar if I was lucky and when I was not…it left a vision.  

Visions of women, hands and feet bound in chains, dragged into ritual circles and stripped of their power by the men of the council. 

The older I grew, the more the whispers around me increased. “A plague you could catch just by saying my name out loud." They call me all sorts of names but the very name given to me by Slaon.

“The wolf who does not submit," the wolves will sneer at me. 

"The wolf who does not bow,” the Moon council calls me.

Then came the hunting…at first, they came at me in pairs and then in groups until one night, they stopped hunting me all together. Being constantly hunted, it was quite unnerving to see them stop all together…but they were only waiting for me to slip up.

The perfect slip came seven nights ago…the night the pack heir died. Somewhere in the Monkali valley, my blood flowed in steady pumps, my wound fresh from being caught in a silver trap that I had not sent until it was too late. That night, I remember thinking to myself just how tired I was. A tiredness that ran deep in my bones.

The moon that night was full and sharp, the air heavy with anticipation. My spine pickled in awareness of a danger I could not name and my vision blurred a little from the loss of blood.  

In the far distance, I felt a thud, the sound of a body as it hit the ground. Then came the pull, a consistent and painful throbbing at the back of my head, begging for my attention. 

I knew immediately, they were going to blame me. They came for me at dawn the next day. Although the wolves who had caught me could not look me in the eye, I knew it was out of superstition and not out of compassion or mercy.

I looked ahead and could see the Moon council waiting for me in the clearing. There was no need to pretend this was a trial. They already had their minds set to execute me anyway.

"This creature is a destabilisation to the order of the moon" it was the elder with the ice cold eyes speaking. "She exists out of hierarchy, outside of obedience."

It dawned on me then. They feared what they could not control. I existed outside of obedience and control, that made me a threat. I laughed then, it came out cracked and sharp, like jagged glass. They didn't fear what I could or might do, they feared that I could not be controlled. I finally understood the truth.

They had me bound in silver and prepared the execution circle beneath the cover of the moon. They had confidence that this time, they would succeed in finishing the job they could not finish the night I was born, but how wrong they were.

Pain I have learned has a way of unlocking doors. The moment the blade cut through my flesh, the moon went crazy, screaming in a way that was not loud, but clear enough to be heard. She screamed through the howl of every wolf who had ever had their knees bent to her. Shifts were broken and alphas all around me lost control. The sky also fractured with a light that was not of this world.

I felt my shift, crashing into me like the waves on the beach. For the first time, I did not stop mid-shift, my shift coming in full, like the lid of a pressure pot blown open. It was calm and oddly terrifying, but it felt complete. 

I did not run like they expected, neither did I fall to my knees in surrender. This time, I stood tall, the ground beneath my feet solid like never before. I stood as a testament of what they had tried to erase.

To later generations, they would label that night an uprising, labelling me a monster, the crack in the order that held the moon. They would whisper my name as a curse, a warning to anyone who tries to defy the authority they had so carefully crafted.

Through it all, as I stood tall in the wreckage of their certainty, one truth rang clear through my mind, even clearer that the howls that were now being torn from my chest:

I was never a curse and I was never cursed, but instead made a correction for all to see and somewhere deep inside of me I was convinced that this was only the beginning.