Blood Moon Short Story

Blood Moon

In the dark twisted woods, known by locals as the Dead Woods, lived a wolf pack. They were deadly, anyone who crossed them disappeared. But even the fiercest warriors have their weak links. The Sandré, as they were called, hid in the deepest depths of the cave, a secret so dark it would terrify the most vile soul. In that cave lived a midnight black wolf who was known by the name Darque. She was a young wolf, and why they had her locked away, why they were terrified of her, was because of her disposition. She was the most kind hearted being anyone has ever met. Absurd, you might say, that this warrior tribe could possibly have a girl this sweet, the girl who stopped to smell the flowers, or chat with the birds on the home from

the stream. The Sandré were afraid of her, afraid of what would happen if word got out. They would be the laughing stock of the forest, not to mention the other pack the Deses would do. So she was locked away, for no one to see. They had tried to change her when she was young, but when she was ordered to kill, she couldn’t, instead making conversation about the weather and how pretty all the autumn colors were, with the golden colors drifting down in a slow rain. She didn’t want to be a fighter, but it was expected, assumed that she would eventually grow out of this phase, and if it meant Darque could explore the world around her, and not be confined to the rocky glen, she would try.
“Que, you have to at least try to hit the squirrel,” exclaimed Rafe, bored of the endless practicing.
“I am, Rafe.

I just don’t want to hurt him,” Darque always acted like this. One minute, she was excited, pouncing on Rafe, trying to get him to teach her to act like a wolf, the next moment, she was sitting, staring at the ground. “He didn’t do anything”.

“But this is what we are, what we do. We are hunters, if you don’t catch food, you die of starvation. It is how we are, we can’t change that,” Darque tried to interrupt, but he kept talking, “But that isn’t it. We are wolves, the squirrels and other forest animals are afraid of us, and it is just as it should be. We live to be feared, we enjoy it, we thrive in it," After, he finished talking, Rafe stalked off and disappeared into the trees.

“I understand. But I just can’t be like that,” Darque murmured to herself, watching the sun go down and disappear into a midnight blue. As the moon rose, she saw it was eerily glowing red. A blood moon, she thought to herself. Little did Darque know, this wasn’t a normal blood moon. It was a special kind, the kind that only happened once every thousand years. Something happens to those who witness this special moon. A change, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.

As Darque turned and sauntered back into her home, the blood red moon faded back to its pale white glow, and the wolves began to

howl.
The next morning, Darque dragged her tired body out of her cave and made the trek down to the pack’s camp. When she reached the end of the mountain trail, she saw something strange. The camp was empty, nobody was there. It was as if no one was ever there. Thinking that they could just be out hunting, Darque curled up in one of the straw beds and fell asleep.
“Darque! Wake up!” Somebody shouted. Darque groaned as her eyes opened slowly. “We need to go, now!”
“I'm awake okay, so stop yelling,” mumbled Darque. When she turned to see who had stolen her sleep, she saw Rafe standing over her.
“They're gone, I tried to track them, but the pack just disappeared, no trace of them," Darque sniffed and realized there wasn’t the familiar smell of her pack. It was just the forest. “Darque, we need to go and find them!” Rafe was yelling again.
“I can’t. I’ve never been out of the glen before. I wouldn’t know what to do, I wouldn’t be able to survive,” whined Darque.
“Que, it’s our pack. We need to save them,”
“We can’t just leave though, this is home, what if they come back, and we aren’t here?” replied Rafe.
“It is going to be dangerous here. Once the Deses know our tribe is gone, they’re gonna try to claim our territory. Do you really think we could hold off the whole tribe and manage to stay alive?” Rafe asked her.
“No, I guess not.” We could hide in the cave though, and stay there.”
“They are also wolves, they could track us.” This conversation continued on for some time, Darque bringing up suggestions, and Rafe shooting them down. One by one, each of her ideas were being brought down. Slowly, Darque had run out of ideas, just as Rafe ran out of patience.
“Fine, let’s just stay here and die. I’m sure that will be really helpful to our pack. You know let’s even help the Deses so they don’t have to go through the trouble of killing us, and starve ourselves,”
“Shouting won’t get us anywhere, now will it?” stated Darque primly. Rafe growled, whirled around, and stomped off. “Wait! Rafe, I’m sorry. I should be taking this more seriously.” she rushed after him.
“What’s the point Darque. You’re right, we wouldn’t find them. We don’t have anywhere to start. So many thi… Whoa. That didn’t used to be there did it?” Rafe had just stopped short from falling into a deep trench, that like he said, had never been there before.
“What is that?” They both asked simultaneously, staring into the huge cavern below them.
“Do you think we have to go down there?”
“I hope not. I don’t know how we would get down there,” stated Darque. “I’m pretty sure climbing wasn’t one of our classes, when we were young.”
“How would you know? You were never there,” Rafe tried to make a joke, but the attempt fell through. “Wait, Darque. I think I can smell Altair.” Altair was the leader of the Sandré, and one who always tried to be understanding of Darque. After all, he was her father. When she failed the tests of nature, he was forced to disown her, as the customs were. From that point on, Altair was seen as Alpha, and nothing else.
“Really! I guess we should go down there, even if it is just to see,” she said, yipping with the joy at prospect of seeing her pack again. They started examining the trench to find the easiest way down. Rafe started walking toward the edge.
“Rafe! I’m not sure that’s the safest idea,” yelled Darque, trying to get him to back away from the edge.
“Wait, come here. I think I see some sort of staircase. It looks like it’s going down into a cave.” Darque slowly meandered to the edge, nervous of the steep drop. Rafe saw her hesitance and rolled his eyes.
“Hurry up, we need to go.” Finally she made it to the edge and saw it was indeed a staircase. The pair looked at each other with understanding, and padded down the mysterious staircase. As they entered the cave, their eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness. They saw a single dark tunnel splitting into two pathways.
“I know we really should stay together, but I think it would be best if we each took a tunnel,” said Rafe. He looked into Darque’s eyes, and for a moment he thought they flashed red. Strange, he thought, like a blood moon. She nodded her head and trotted down the left trail.
Darque lost her thought. She had no clue how she got into this clearing. The last thing she remembered was enter the cave with Rafe, then she was here, in the unknown area, collapsed on the ground. She started to get up, the winced of the pain in her back leg and shoulder. She limped to the moon rays to inspect her wounds. Two large gashes on her shoulder, and one one her leg. Something glimmered on the edge of the clearing. As she limped over to the edge, she started remembering what happened.
Darque walked through the empty tunnels, looking at the walls, when suddenly she ran into a door. Huh, she thought to herself, and pushed through it. A large white wolf growled, startling Darque. The wolf lunged at her. Darque yipped as the white wolf bit her back leg. Snarling, Darque lept back, and tumbled into the clean, white snow. The other wolf had a gleam in it’s eyes as it stalked over toward her. Darque slowly staggered up, shaking. With her teeth bared, Darque lunged in for the kill. Her teeth clamped around the other wolf’s throat. The white wolf fell, dead. Blood stained the snow scarlet red, and a full moon shown through the trees onto the glittering snow. She howled a prayer to the moon, for the one of her kind they had lost that day, before collapsing into the snow herself
Right, she thought, that’s what happened. I can’t believe I killed her. When she looked closer at the body, she saw on the white wolf’s side there was a black marking. How strange she thought to herself. She started to look around to see if there was anyway to get out of the clearing. Through the tree’s silhouettes she could see a faint light glimmering. Walking over to investigate, she saw another tunnel similar to the ones her and Rafe had walked through before. Darque followed it down, slowly making her way through the darkness until she came upon a larger cave. On the walls were strange symbols. Curious, she kept walking, examining the scrawl as she went. It seemed to be total nonsense, but she was sure there was some sort of reason behind it. Suddenly, she heard a howl she could recognize anywhere.
“Papa! Are you there? Can you hear me?” She cried out, forgetting the pain of her injuries as she raced down the tunnel.
“Darque! Is that you?” A voice groaned.
“I’m coming, Papa.” Then she saw. When she saw Altair collapsed on the ground, a large gash across his chest, she cried out at the gruesome sight, “Oh, Papa!”
“Darque, love, you need to save the rest of them. Please. For… me. We… we are all so… so sorry.” That apology was his last words, then Altair fell limp, and his eyes glazed over.
“No!” Darque screamed, “No! No! No! No! He can’t be gone. Everything was going to be okay. You can’t just leave me! You can’t just give up on us! Wake up! You’re not really gone. You can’t be!”
“Darque!” Somebody was shaking her.

It was Rafe. “Calm down.”

“No! He can’t be! He just apologized!” By now she was sobbing into Rafe’s shoulder.

“I know. I heard. I know it’s going to be hard, but you have to continue living. It won’t do him or anyone of our pack if we can’t help them. We need to go, now.”

“If I hadn’t argued with you, if I just went along with you, if we left earlier, he would be okay. It’s my fault. It’s my fault,” whispered Darque hysterically.

“It isn’t your fault, Darque. Though this really isn’t helping anyone. So snap out of it!” She nodded meekly, and he trotted down the tunnel, her trailing behind.

“Look!” called Rafe out sharply. “Its some sort of cage.” Darque sniffed the air delicately. Then cried out in joy.

“Rafe! They’re here.” Her eyes focused in on the cage. “They look like… they’re… sleeping?” She took in a deeper smell this time. “Wait, I can smell something else to chamomile and mint?”

Rafe cocked his head to the side, and then his eyes glimmered with understanding. “Remember how we couldn’t smell our pack? It was probably the mint. The chamomile smell might explain the sleep.”

“Hey Rafe, I know this probably isn’t the time, but why were you away from base? Why didn’t you get taken

too?”
“Oh… I was hunting. Yeah… That’s it, hunting,”
“I don’t believe you,” Darque glared at him.
“Okay, fine. I was picking flowers for you.”
“Really!” She laughed as he glowered at her. “Anyway, we should probably get them awake and out of the cage.”
“Yeah, but how?” he asked.
“I could probably slip through the bars and wake them up,” said Darque, walking towards the cage. She put two paws through, and squeezed the rest of her body through.
“Wake up!” she called. She poked Doka in the face, and he rolled over, then startled himself awake.
“What was that!” He whispered harshly. “Oh, it’s just you Darque. Where are we?”
“We’ll explain later. Just help me.” Darque had been going from wolf to wolf, tapping, poking, shoving, and eventually they were mostly awake.
“Darque! Hurry up and just wake him up!” shouted Rafe.
“But I’m scared to,” The one wolf left was Kasian, the bully in the pack. He constantly tortured and made fun of Darque. She quickly jabbed him, and squeaked, jumping back three feet. Kasian slowly got up, and growled.
“Who woke me up!” shouted the wolf.
Suddenly fed up with his behavior, and in a spurt of courage, Darque shouted, “I did, and we really don’t have time for this so can we just get out of here?” He blinked in surprise.
“So the predator becomes the prey, eh,” somebody mumbled in the crowd, nudging the wolf next to her. Darque rolled her eyes and turned to Rafe.
“Have you figured out how we’re getting out of here yet?”
“I was thinking that the cage didn’t look very strong. If you rammed it, it would probably break,” Shrugging, Darque looked at the other member who were busy gossiping about the new Darque. She cleared her throat, and repeated what Rafe had said.
“Sounds good to us,” chorused the pack. They group rushed forward in one motion, and one sound crack the cage was just a pile of sticks.
“Let’s get out of here,” somebody in the pack said, with the others agreeing in a howl. They ran through the halls, yipping, howling, and leaping. Then they heard the sounds of footsteps coming towards them. The Sandré were immediately silent. Coming towards them were fourteen pure white wolves with black marks.
In unison they spoke, “We are the strong, we are the living, we are the indestructible, we are the ones who live forever, who cannot be killed. We will destroy you, just as we have any pack who becomes strong enough to see the moon. We are the Ysandr.” Their eyes glowed red in the darkness. “You cannot beat us. We will stop you before you see the moon.”
“Ryos! You and Knare get the one on the end, Delores, can you get the other end one…” Darque continued barking orders, “and Rafe and I will get the one in the middle.” Everyone had been surprised at Darque taking command, but they went with it because she seemed to know what she was doing. The something strange happened. The second the ghost wolves were touched, they disappeared into red smoke.
“No,” the Ysandr hissed, “She has seen the moon. She is now, she is the destined one. She is the one we must obey. We must… stop.” The ghost wolves were staring at Darque, with fear in their eyes. Darque was just confused.
“Do you mean the blood moon?” She asked.
“No, the Regulasa Luna.” They hissed back. Before Darque could ask anymore questions, the remaining three ghost wolves disappeared into a red plume of smoke.
After pausing, trying to comprehend what had just happened, someone asked the question that everyone had been thing, “Can we leave now? It’s really strange here.”
Darque sighed and showed everyone the way out. She took one last look at the caverns below, and a shiver ran up her spine.
“You okay?” She knew it was Rafe.
“I suppose so. I’m just really confused.”
“Same. I don’t think anyone really knows what happened. But as you have been here staring down into the caves for the last hour, the have made some decisions up at the base.”
“Really? Has it been that long?” She looked up at the sky and saw, it was indeed, turning into dawn, with the bright orange and pink colors dusting the sky.
“Yeah, they decided on Ryos for the new Alpha. Are you okay with that?”
She blinked in surprise, “Why are they asking my opinion. I’m not technically part of the pack.”
“That’s another thing. You are now officially a member of our pack.” He laughed at her shocked face as the walked down a trail through the trees with the sun rising behind them.