Kill The Luna

46

I stared at her, my jaw tightening as a bitter, mocking laugh escaped my lips. "Impossible," I muttered, shaking my head back and forth as I took a defensive step away from her. "I don't buy this ridiculous story at all. If all of what you are saying is actually true, and if you are really correct about me, then why have I never felt any of this evil power before in my life? I have never, in any way, wanted to hurt an innocent person, or do anything bad or wicked to anyone around me. I am truly sorry to say this to you, but everything coming out of your mouth right now is just a cheap fairy tale. It is nothing but pure fantasy."

Elda’s expression grew incredibly heavy, the nostalgic warmth completely vanishing from her face as she looked deep into my eyes. "It is not a fantasy, Fedora," she countered softly, her shoulders dropping with a deep, exhausted sigh. "I swear to you, I wish with all my heart that I could just believe it was a fake story, but it is completely real. You don't have to be a naturally bad person right now to fulfill it. The dark curse inside your blood itself is what will force you to become evil and dangerous when the exact right time comes."

A sharp, painful memory stabbed through my mind, and I glared at her through a sudden wall of hot tears. "I still don't believe a single word of this," I shouted, my voice cracking as years of buried agony came rushing to the surface. "Fine! If you want to talk about my life, then what about all those horrible years where I was forced to be marked by a master? If I didn't get that mark, I was told I would literally drop dead. All the torture I went through, the endless physical pain, and the complete lack of fatherly love from a man who hated my guts... was all of that terrible suffering a part of your stupid prophecy too?"

Elda couldn't look me in the eye. She slowly bowed her head toward the green grass, her gaze fixed on her own shoes as a deep look of shame settled over her sharp features. "No... that part was entirely our fault," she confessed in a quiet, trembling whisper. "After your father and I discovered that you were definitely the cursed child of the prophecy, we became completely desperate. We knew we had to devise some kind of secret means to keep your existence hidden away from the rest of the world so no one would hunt you down."

She paused, rubbing her temples as if the memory still haunted her. "So, I was the one who suggested a plan to your father. I told him we could keep you under control by placing a completely different curse on your body. That secondary curse is the exact thing you have been forced to suffer from for your entire life—the agonizing curse of becoming someone's submissive Thrall. We honestly believed that whoever marked you and became your master would gain the ultimate power to control your actions when the true prophecy finally started manifesting. We thought it would keep you safely in check."

A cold chill ran down my spine, and my eyes widened in pure horror. "How... how did you even place a horrible curse like that on a little child?" I asked, my voice dropping into a shaky, terrified whisper.

Elda lifted her head slightly, her face completely pale as she looked at me. "We had to secretly hire a powerful rogue witch to do the dark work," she replied flatly, her voice holding no emotion. "With her dark magic, it was actually very easy to bind your soul."

Hearing her admit it so casually made a wild, white-hot rage explode inside my chest. I tightened both of my hands into furious, trembling fists, my fingernails digging so deeply into my palms that they nearly broke the skin. "So... you and my own father made me go through absolute hell my entire life?" I growled, stepping closer to her as my body shook with pure hatred. "You both made me suffer, scream, and groan in agonizing pain almost every single day of my existence, all because of some stupid folktale you read in an old book?"

Tears of pure humiliation and anger finally spilled over my cheeks, blurring my vision as I screamed the words directly into her face. "You have absolutely no idea what I have suffered! You don't know anything! So don't you dare act like you understand me or what I've been through! You don't know what it truly means to wake up every single morning, to live every single day of your life, and wish for nothing but death to finally come and take you away!"

Elda reached out a hand as if she wanted to comfort me, but her expression completely froze when I violently snatched the heavy handgun back off the table, locking my grip around the cold handle.

"You can go inside right now and find another way out of your problems, because I am completely done," I hissed, pointing a trembling finger toward the house while keeping my eyes glued to her terrified face. "I don't give a damn what happens to this world or to your prophecy, as long as I never have to associate with a monster like you ever again. I don't want to talk to you, and I don't want to look at your ugly face anymore. You were the evil mastermind behind every single piece of misery in my life. I hate you with the exact same passion that I hate my father, and I promise you with everything I have left... I am going to make you pay for what you did."