Moontime

This is what happens when I'm forced to write on the worse day of my period...



The night is so cold and still she considers going back, but going back would kill the dramatic effect of her point, her point being that she is the master of her fate, that she knows best how to lead her own life, that she is not the weak, stupid child everyone insists on treating her as, that she is a grown woman, a woman capable of using her wits and in possession of the courage to carry out whatever is needed when it is needed. Clarissa is a woman with a mission, although whether the object of said mission is to prove to her parents or to herself that she is who she thinks she is, is yet unclear to her.
Walk. Do not turn back now, she tells herself. She has no specific destination besides out. When her parents asked her where she was going her refusal to answer was more out of not having anywhere to go than simply to infuriate. They told her not to go. Not on a night like this. Her mother had said the full moon would curb most. Most, but not her. She had to prove she was made of more grit than the rest of them. She had to prove she wasn’t a little girl any longer.
Being young and bold, it did not cross her mind to grab her red hooded jacket hung near the door on her way out, nor did it not cross her mind that her moon time was in synch with the swollen moon in the sky.

It did, however, cross his mind, in fact, it did more than simply cross his mind, it sent his mind into a spin. Her smell alone drove him, the smell of fear and blood. Luck or fate had led him to be in just the right place at just the right time. His ears picked up when he heard the slam of a door and the steady beat of her quick footsteps on concrete as she walked into the night alone. He ducked behind an Oleander bush as she passed, so close he could feel the heat of her rage; see the flush of it on her exposed skin. The smell of her blood was intoxicating. She was just what he sought tonight; prey.
He would have her and it would be soon. This find was too good to be true, too good to let go. Her smell was so strong and sweet and the pain in his gut so strong, his desire could not be ignored, let alone denied. This was the way the world worked, the natural cycle of life, predator and prey. Fairy tales give a false sense of security to little girls weaned on them, for in the tales it is possible for a girl to win over the big bad wolf, but this was no fairy tale.
He followed her on silent feet. The way her hips moved only fueled his desire. Twice she stopped to listen and look behind her and both times he was quicker, darting into the shadows, patiently waiting for his time to strike. He did not want to be interrupted with this one. He needed her to take him some place special, some place hidden and quiet, a place no one would hear her scream and if they did no one would care to help.
He caught up to her in a dead end alley way, between two large, crumbling, brick buildings. The night held still, there were no sounds except the sound of their breathing, hers fast and furious while his kept even and slow. The only light came from the moon itself, high in the night sky. He shook with anticipation of this moment. It had been so long since he enjoyed something this sweet. Seeing the flush on her throat began a frenzy from which there was no return.
She faced him, her back against the wall, no tears, no words. Most girls would be begging for mercy by now, the sight of him usually bringing at least tears to their eyes. But this one, not so much as a quivering lip. It was no matter to him. The only thing that mattered was the smell of her blood overwhelming him in her trapped space. His senses all but left him as he focused on the pulse at her neck. No, he would not be able to take his time with her after all. This time he had no choice; rational thought had left him completely.
He leapt.
There was a flurry of movement, flesh and blood, a sudden flash of something hard and silver and sharp. He was right about one thing, it was quick. So quick, that he heard the wet sound of a knife slicing through flesh before he could feel his insides spill out onto the cold alley floor. The last thing he saw, her standing over him, watching him bleed, a flick of her dainty wrist and the blade was gone.

No one was near to witness what went down in that lone, dark alley, save the moon herself. No one was witness to just the kind of grit Clarissa was made of. It was just as well. A girl has to keep her own tricks up her sleeve.