CHAPTER 2: THE CURSE OF THE MOON

The Alpha staggers backward, his breath seizing in his throat, only coming out in painful and shallow pants.

“The child shall be executed…” he announces for all within and without the birthing den to hear.

“No!" The shriek of the child's mother shatters the stillness that follows the Alpha’s announcement.

“No, she is mine…my daughter!” She says, propelling herself forward and stumbling over her hands and legs in a blind rush to snatch her child from the grip of the midwife.

“That is no child…that's an anomaly,” the Alpha’s voice carries so much frost, the air in the den instantly turns brittle. “She is a sign of warning from the moon and she must not be allowed to live."

As if in agreement with the Alpha’s words, the blood-soak moon hangs heavier in the sky, the fiery crimson stain blooming brighter across the canvas of the night sky. No one in the room moves, each holding their breath waiting for someone else to break the silence so they don't have to.

Although the Alpha's commands had been pretty explicit enough, deep down, beneath the sickening stench of fear and the loyalty to their Alpha, something more lethal is slowly making its way into the very nexus of the pack…hesitation brought about by the fear that now cripples them all.

“Do it…purge us of this abomination” the Alpha commands again, his voice cold as steel, yet no one steps forward.

“Hahaha," every head whips in the direction of the child now laughing in her mother's arms. The sound that escapes the child is soft but also very wrong in a way that no one could explain. It was the sound too ancient for a child taking its first breath.

“She is just a baby…please don't hurt her,” the mother anxiously holds her child closer, her fingers digging into the clothes she is wrapped in, tears uncontrollable streaming down her face.

“Have it your way then, let the curse live…doom us all to hell,” the Alpha turns away, already on his way out and almost tripping on his own feet in his haste. His words send a ripple of murmurs surging through the pack again.

“But she will never be one of us,” he turns when he gets to the mouth of the den, slowly allows his eyes to roam the room, watching every face to make sure his words and the implications of them sinks into every mind, before turning one last time and leaving the den.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Under the cover of darkness in the woods just beyond the borders of the packlands, the moon now back to a beautiful ball of silver white light, a woman clutches a child close to her heart as tears continuously stream down her face.

“She will never be one of us…” The Alpha had said, his words a discordant ringing in her ears. Even though she had managed to spare her daughter from the jaws of death, it came at the cost of her living as an outcast, never a pack or family to call her own.

“I'm sorry my sweet child. Mother tried her best but it still wasn't enough," she says, her eyes fixed on the child with all the love a mother can bear for her own child. “Your name shall be Menodora, just because you will one day prove to the world that you're a gift from the moon and not a curse.”

The tiny baby cooed in her arms, grabbing her pinky fiercely in her tiny fists, almost like she was scared to let her go as well.

"Mother has to go now, maybe someday, when the time is right, we will meet again." With a light kiss on the forehead, she gently places the baby on the ground "Goodbye my darling child, mother promises to never forget you.”

PRESENT DAY

MENODORA’S POV

“The curse…” it is a word I'm more than familiar with, almost like a second skin.

"The child who should have died along with the moon…” those are the words I grew up with for a greater part of my existence.

They never let me forget…even when I was no longer a member of their pack. They reminded me when I stumbled through my first steps alone, on the border of the packlands. It hung like an unspoken word when the children of the pack began to manifest early signs of shift at ages 10 and I didn't.

My shifts…those are the most devastating and embarrassing parts of being me. Where others have beautifully defined shifts, my shifts come in half and half…never fully a wolf and never fully human, never fully forming claws, never fully covered in fur.

I live as an outcast, just like the Alpha wanted, never fully a part of the pack.

“You will anger the moon and that would lead to a bad hunt," the elders of the moon council would warn everything I tried to join in pack hunts.

“The moon will curse us all," they said every time I tried to join in sacrifices to the moon on the sacred ritual grounds.

With so many rejections, I soon learned to live in silence and to keep my distance away from the pack as much as possible…I didn't have anything to live for to begin with, especially after the execution of my mother just a few days after my birth.

“Bringer of the curse and an agent of Fenriz,” that was the label for her execution, simply for birthing me, the child of chaos and curse of the moon. I know deep down, they would have loved to kill me as well but fear of the unknown held them back.

Eyes everywhere, no matter how far I tried to put distance between me and the pack, I knew they were always watching, waiting for the perfect opportunity to put an end to my existence.

The observation and the intent behind it becomes more obvious every time I would run into a member of the pack on one of my rogue hunts, their gazes causing the temperature of the air to drop and frost forming all over my skin.

“It's only a matter of time," I say to myself one night as I lay on the cold ice ground, the moon washing my skin in the silver light of her glow. “A matter of time before this game of hide and seek finally catches up with me…and I know it would not end well.”