Luna's Descent

Am I sick

Ruby went home, still feeling a little unsettled after her strange encounter with Mitchell earlier. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off, but she pushed it to the back of her mind. Maybe Mitchell was just stressed, and Jeremy was probably still at basketball practice. Nothing was really wrong, right?

She grabbed the house key from the usual spot under the flowerpot and let herself in. As soon as she stepped through the door, an overwhelming dizziness hit her. The room started spinning, her vision blurring like a camera struggling to focus. Ruby grabbed onto the wall for support, her legs wobbling under her.

Her breathing quickened, and a cold sweat broke out across her skin. Suddenly, a voice—soft but urgent—echoed in her mind.

"Ruby, the time is drawing near," the voice whispered, feminine and familiar, but distant like a memory she couldn’t quite place.

"What… what time?" Ruby stammered, looking around the empty room, hoping to find the source of the voice. But there was no one there.

She felt her pulse race, her heart pounding in her chest as images began flashing before her eyes. In quick succession, she saw the same image over and over—a white werewolf, its fur gleaming under the moonlight, standing in the forest, staring at her with piercing blue eyes.

Her knees buckled, and she collapsed to the floor, darkness sweeping over her.

Ruby woke up hours later in her bed, the moonlight streaming in through her window. She rubbed her eyes, trying to shake the grogginess from her mind. The last thing she remembered was blacking out in the hallway. How had she ended up here?

As she sat up, she heard voices—her parents whispering just outside her bedroom door. It was more than just whispers, though. They sounded like they were arguing.

"It's high time we tell her," her mother, Diana, said in a low but firm voice.

"No, we can't," her father, Chris, responded sharply. "She's not ready yet."

Ruby felt her heart skip a beat. *Tell me what?* she thought, her curiosity piqued. She wanted to press her ear to the door, eavesdrop on the rest of the conversation, but something held her back. Instead, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and opened the door.

"Tell me what?" she asked, her voice startling both her parents.

Her mom froze, her eyes wide with surprise. "Ummm, darling, you're awake," Diana said, forcing a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

Ruby narrowed her gaze, her suspicions growing. "What is it you wanted to tell me, Mom?" she asked again, this time with more urgency.

"Nothing. It's nothing," her father interjected quickly, his tone too dismissive.

Ruby folded her arms across her chest, frustration bubbling up inside her. "Am I sick, Dad? Why do I keep getting these weird flashes in my head? And that same voice keeps ringing in my ears. It’s been happening for years now. What’s wrong with me?"

Her mom shifted uncomfortably, clearly caught off guard. "It must be because of those books you’ve been reading," Diana said, trying to steer the conversation away from whatever they were hiding.

Ruby frowned. "I haven’t read any paranormal books in ages," she replied. "But I still keep having these… visions, or whatever they are."

"We understand, sweetie," her mom said, reaching out to stroke Ruby’s arm. "We’ll go to the hospital tomorrow after school, okay? But for now, you need to get some rest."

"But Mom," Ruby started, her protest cut off as her dad stepped in.

"Shhh, that's enough," Chris cooed softly, guiding Ruby back toward her bed. "You need to sleep. It’s probably nothing serious."

Both her parents leaned down to kiss her on the cheeks as she lay back down. "Goodnight, sweetie," they said in unison, their words sounding forced, like they were trying too hard to be calm.

"Goodnight," Ruby replied, her voice barely a whisper as she stared up at the ceiling, her mind still spinning with unanswered questions.

As the door clicked shut behind them, Ruby couldn’t help but feel that something wasn’t right. The way her parents were acting, their reluctance to answer her questions—it all felt wrong. And the voice… the visions… what did they mean?

She closed her eyes, replaying everything that had happened in her head. Ever since she turned sixteen, these strange things had been happening to her—visions of wolves, voices in her head, and an overwhelming sense of something looming on the horizon. But now, at eighteen, it was getting worse. Much worse.

For years, the weird flashes and dreams had only come at night, but now they were happening in the middle of the day, even when she was wide awake. The white werewolf haunted her every thought, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t make sense of any of it.

"Am I sick?" Ruby asked herself again, her voice trembling with fear. She had considered it before, wondering if maybe there was something physically wrong with her—something the doctors could fix. But deep down, she knew it wasn’t that simple. The flashes, the voice, the werewolf—they felt too real to just be hallucinations.

She tossed and turned in bed, her mind racing as she tried to piece everything together. There was something her parents weren’t telling her. She could feel it. And whatever it was, it had to be connected to the strange things that had been happening to her.

Ruby pulled the blankets up to her chin, trying to ignore the rising anxiety bubbling inside her. Her parents’ whispers still echoed in her mind. *Tell her what?* she kept wondering. What could be so important that they were hiding it from her?

As the minutes ticked by, Ruby tried to calm herself, taking slow, deep breaths. But even as she lay there in the quiet darkness, her mind refused to rest. The flashes of the white werewolf came back again, unbidden, as vivid as before. The wolf was so real, so close, as if she could reach out and touch its fur. And the voice—the woman’s voice—it was clearer now than it had ever been before.

"Ruby, the time is drawing near," the voice repeated in her head, making her shiver.

What time? What does that even mean? Ruby thought to herself, frustration mixing with fear. She hated how helpless she felt, how little control she had over the strange things happening to her.

Eventually, exhaustion won out, and Ruby’s eyes fluttered shut. Her last thought before sleep claimed her was of the math test she had completely forgotten about.

But somehow, Ruby knew that the test was the least of her worries. not with the migraine she was having at the moment