The Twelfth Moon || ✔️

2. The Letter

As the evening Sun made room once more for our Moon to appear, my stomach provided the room with angry and empty screams. I hadn't been able to eat today. Getting a stable source of food had always been a struggle. Especially in the first years without my parents, I had the most difficulties adapting to my new life. Food had always been scarce, but I had never needed to worry about my meals myself. And with my parents' execution, the little help we received before vanished as well.

I rarely had enough coin to buy food. My only source of income was when Benjamin allowed me to work in his kitchen, or when he had a little to spare and slipped me some of the precious metal flat cylinders. Though Benjamin wasn't as tight on his money as my family had been, Beckett couldn't grow suspicious and he had his own family to provide for.

The first months alone, stealing proved to be an effective way to get me some food. But now the vendors in the market knew my face–and even if we had some foreign merchants visiting, which wasn't often, my pack members had made a sport out of making my life miserable.

I had tried growing some plants in my house, after I stole some in the nighttime. But especially in the colder months, the plants didn't survive in my cold house full of holes. And after a few farmers had noticed crops were missing–even if the amount of plants that were gone didn't affect them, they'd taken efforts to prevent me from stealing them again.

Another option that remained, was hunting. I had tried it two years ago, when I was at the edge of despair. I hadn't eaten in a week and I thought I was going mad, so in my foolish craze, I set foot in Beckett's woods, Samvartaka. Those woods were forbidden for townsfolk to roam. They were used for his pack members to run freely–and I wasn't considered a part of his pack. Mother had always warned me about those woods, mumbling about how its name was a sign of our Moons not to ever set foot in it. Samvartaka is a remain from our ancient tongue, and mother had always gotten chills whenever she talked about it's meaning: fires of hell.

She never told me why she was so scared of those woods, shielding me from the horrors of our lives as much as she could.

But two years ago, when I was on the brink of insanity, my hunger had taken over. I had never hunted before, so I failed miserably at catching prey and satisfying my belly.

But that didn't mean there had been no hunting that night. Only I had been the prey.

If I closed my eyes, I could still see the two wolves lunging toward me. Both had dark grey fur, the color of ashes after something had been set to flames. But one of them had darker eyes than the other, almost pitch black. Soulless if it weren't for the enjoyment that passed in them.

I had tried running away as soon as I had smelled them out, but by the time I could smell them, the hunt had already begun. They let me run for quite a while as I had gone pretty deep into the woods in the hopes of steering clear of Beckett's wrath.

But it was a game to them, like everything the pack ever did to me was. So, at the very last moment, the wolves caught up to me. Taking away the hope they'd allowed me to have by letting me see the forest's edge within reach.

Their growls as they ripped into me still made me shudder, even now just thinking about it. They went at me as if they, too, had been starving for days. If they would have been actual wolves, I would not have survived. However, our kind keeps our human minds once transformed, so they knew about my healing abilities–however unevolved they may be. The two wolves knew exactly how much they could rip me apart without killing me. They knew when to stop and when to start again. They also left my face and hands untouched, knowing they were about to cause me a lot of scarring that would better remain in places I'd be able to hide.