Mischief Managed Year One: Mayhem of the Moon

Chapter Four- Mayhem of the Moon

TWs: Kidnapping, Pain, and Injury Descriptions

.................................................

"REEEEEEEEEMUS! REEEEEEEMUS!" A small boy with sunshine hair and sky eyes ran up to him, tackling him into the grass with a peal of laughter that Remus echoed through his own small body. They held hands and ran to the playground, scrambling to race each other to the top of the slide.

"I WON, REMUS!" came a victorious squeal, but he was no longer paying attention to the sunny boy and the bright playground; he was staring into the shadows, where a hand beckoned him. And he inexplicably walked towards it.

Don't do it! He begged himself. He tried to stop walking. He tried to shout out for the little boy or his parents but he was always doomed to make the same mistake.

"Hi there, what's your name?" the shadowy man asked in a low rumbling voice, the shifting dizzying mess of shadows that made up the silhouette of the person towering above him menacingly.

"Remus. Mister, you're bleeding," came his own small voice.

Shout at him. Tell him to go away. Tell him to get away from you, Remus begged himself again, screaming in frustration at the man covered in shadows. But the terrifying creature, who Remus could not identify, did not seem to hear him.

Remus squinted at the shadows until his head hurt. In the back of his head Remus realized that almost all of the large man's features had been determinedly blocked from his mind. Remus felt as if claws were tearing into his chest as the shadow man smiled.

"Well, aren't you a kind boy? And so pretty. Where are your parents?"

Why hadn't he realized? Why hadn't he been creeped out? It wasn't fair!

Run, stupid child, run away! he screamed at himself, as he always did. But the dream wouldn't change. It never did.

"Mister, you should go see a doctor. I'll get my friend's mom. She's super nice and she will take you. Please, there's a lot of blood."

"Woah!"

The boy made of sunshine was standing beside him, gaping at the disheveled, bloody man. Unlike little Remus, already consumed by shadows, the other boy wasn't moved with pity, but fear, as a small boy should have been. Why had he been so stupid?

"Remus come on...Remus, my mom wants us home. Remus...REMUS!"

But he couldn't see his friend anymore; he couldn't see anything but the growing shadows that swallowed him whole. His small self cried in pain but it was too late.

It was always too late.

.................................................

Remus woke with a strangled scream, covered in a cold sweat. He kicked away his covers and shakily got off his bed, stumbling to the window. He stared both horrified and transfixed at the nearly whole waxing gibbous moon high above and let bitter tears run down his cheeks.

No one came to check on him when he woke up screaming, not anymore, not since he had driven his mum into the ground. But as he glared at the moon with all the animosity and rage he couldn't take out on the man of shadows, he was struck by a new and confusing thought.

This time when he woke from the dream, a name had been at the edge of his thoughts. It was a name that didn't make sense: Rosey Denhew.

.................................................