The Twelfth Moon || ✔️

74. The Aftermath

I had run until my legs had given out under me. I crashed down against the soft soil of the forest, unable to move, to breathe, to do anything at all.

My stomach was churning - and I wished I could rid myself of my memories and throw them up. But the acidic feeling that lingered in my throat only reminded me of every horrid thing that had just happened.

My entire world had come crashing down ever since I had set foot in this sunburned town again. It still succeeded in taking all good things away. The town was truly cursed.

Or perhaps I was. Benjamin had said the night I was born, our Moon acted strangely. A lot of people - Beckett included - seemed to take that as a sign that had something to do with me.

Perhaps this was it. Maybe I was doomed to live a miserable life, filled with nothing but death, pain, and betrayal.

Was there no escaping this ruin that my life had played out to be?

Everyone around me had lied to me - Jerr, Benjamin, my parents, Lotta. I hadn't thought I'd be grateful for it, but the pain that Aven's brutal honesty sometimes caused, was nothing in comparison to this.

My chest was on fire, burning with every breath I drew. I wanted to stop breathing, to stop this aching, but my body insisted on keeping torturing my lungs.

Even here in this forest, I was surrounded by nothing but death.

Dead wolves lay scattered around me, having left this world in their beastly forms. I hadn't come across any shifted wolves in the town - but by the looks of it, their heavy fighting had been here.

All over, piles of brown and grey fur lay here, smudged with red and unmoving.

I tried to distract myself, to think of anything but this sunburned war, while my legs were still unable to move.

I tried to get my eyes to stop seeing that venomous green all around me - but the alternative of the dead and bloodied wolves wasn't much better.

I tried to make myself feel anything but this hollowing sensation - but there was a gape inside me that I couldn't close.

So I listened, to make my ears stop tormenting me with those I love you's and Jerr screaming my name after me.

But the forest was eerily quiet. All the killing had chased away all life here - the birds had fled, or were at the very least hiding and not making any sound.

I could hear some rats scurrying about, biting away at the carcasses. The rodents seemed to be the only creatures willing to face the forest at this moment, but the aftermath of what had happened here was as unsettling as all the rest.

So much death.

And I couldn't help but feel that now, Jerr was responsible for that, too. He had played the game - lead this pack into war, a war he knew we couldn't win.

And for what? While I had seen Aven do horrid things in my time in Rahas - none of them had been without reason. He had never even touched me, and he had been upset about Willis' death. So why would he kill a family of innocents, just to get Jerr?

What did that mean? That he wasn't a single hair better than Beckett? That Jerr's family somehow wasn't innocent?

It seemed our Moons never intended to bless me with a peaceful life.

I forced my eyes to shut, feeling tears burning behind them, and my lips trembling as I pinched them together - the only thing I could do right now to not completely fall apart.

I listened to the wind, gently blowing and caressing me, comforting me with its softness.

Or mocking me with it, proving that even a kind gesture like that, didn't do me any good.