Fear the Glow of the Moon

© 2019 Samurai, all rights reserved.

Chapter One
The city was burning, and the only survivor was the child.

Tears ran down her cinder-streaked face, tracing paths through the soot. Her body was free of burns, despite having been in the explosion, and though her bones rattled with pain with each breath of ash-choked air, she was very much alive.

She shouldn’t have been.

She was the very child they had come to kill, the very flame they had sworn to extinguish. And yet here she was, the only thing alive for miles around.

The charred forest loomed ahead of her, and she crawled towards it, dragging herself across the blistering ground. Through the black clouds that dominated the sky, a sliver of moonlight shone, and she didn’t understand why the sight of it made her spine crawl up her back. A gust of arctic wind sliced across the land, conquering the heat of the hellish city; it chilled the child’s bones and made icy blood rush through her veins.

She cast a terrified glance over her shoulder, and all she could see was the dying embers of the perishing city. Ashes floated on the wind like mournful snowflakes, and nothing moved within the darkness. Nothing was there.

As far as she could tell.

The moon continued to cast its wicked glow upon the land, and the air grew ever colder. She finally made it into the trees, shivering, hoping to hide from the moonlight. But it pierced the fragile shield of the forest, shining in the sky as an ever-present reminder that whatever it was that she should fear. . . it wasn’t going anywhere.