Howls of the Forgotten Moon

CHAPTER 2

The earth rocked again, harder than before, causing spasms in my legs. My wolf instincts shouted at me to flee the danger that was fast approaching us. But I could not move. Not while Caleb is by me. Not with all we'd recently uncovered.

I looked at him, his face stiff and his body ready to burst into action. The same Caleb who believed he could heal everything with his fists and pride. But something in his eyes had moved, revealing a gap in the armor he had created around himself. He was not the same either. He could not be.

"You feel that?" I inquired, my voice firm despite the panic gripping my throat.

He nodded, strengthening his grip on the hilt of his sword. "Whatever it is, it's close."

I strained my senses, looking for anything that would hint at what was about to happen. The wind had calmed down, creating an uncomfortable stillness in the air. A silence that became too loud. Expectations are too high.

Then I overheard it. The low growl that came from the trees was too deep and guttural to be a typical wolf. It was something else, something far darker.

I turned to face Caleb. "We need to move, now."

Before he could respond, a shadow sped across the meadow, swift and undetectable. It was a blur, too fast for human eyes to track, but I could feel it. The gloom. The hunger. The power. It wasn't simply a beast; it was something much more terrible, capable of sensing our every movement.

Caleb shouted under his breath and drew me into the trees, his hold tight, pushing me along as we dashed through the woodland. The woods were once familiar, but now everything felt alien as if the earth itself was alive and attempting to trap us.

We burst through the forest line and into a clearing. My senses were screaming at me, so I stopped. "It's here," I said softly, more to myself than to Caleb. I could sense its presence like a shadow lingering just out of sight. The roar was heard again, this time louder and closer.

"Stay close," Caleb hissed, straining his voice as he surveyed the forest's fringes. "If we don't get ahead of it, we'll be sitting ducks."

I could hardly hear him. My entire attention was focused on the changing shadows surrounding us, the whispers of movement in the darkness. Whatever this monster was, it was playing with us. We were playing a game for which neither of us had prepared.

The roar returned, but this time, it was not alone. There was a snarl that was both animalistic and human-like. It was a warped voice, caught between two universes. It sent a shiver down my spine.

"Get down!" Caleb growled and threw himself in front of me.

I did not hesitate. I fell to the ground, flattening myself in the long grass. Caleb did the same, and we waited in the deep hush of the night, breathing shallowly and praying that the creature in the dark would not find us.

A towering, intimidating figure strode into the open, its eyes shining slightly under the moonlight. It was a werewolf, but there was something wrong with it: its motions were jerky, and its body twisted in strange ways. Its fur was matted and darkened as if it had been ripped up and reconstructed. It had a decaying odor as if it had passed its prime.

And then I noticed the eyes: cold, vacant, with no trace of humanity remaining.

"Damn it," Caleb whispered beneath his breath, his voice taut with rage and terror. "It's one of them."

One of what? My thoughts raced, but there wasn't time to ask inquiries. I felt the creature's stare fix on us, its eyes narrowing with a predatory glitter. It knew we were here. It sensed us.

Caleb's hand flew out, drawing me further into the shadow of a nearby tree. "Stay down."

I nodded, my heart pounding in my chest. I didn't need him to instruct me to lie down. I could feel the danger close in, the creature's stare pressing on me. The stress was excruciating, with each second extending longer than the last.

The beast let forth a bloodcurdling cry as immediately as it emerged. A vibration vibrated through my bones, making my skin crawl. It was calling for something. Is there more of this kind? More monsters like it?

Suddenly, the ground underneath us moved, sending a deep rumble across the earth. I felt the shift before I saw it: the shadows in the clearing began to swirl and twist as if they were alive. Another roar, louder than the last one, resonated from the forest's depths.

"Get up," Caleb snarled. "We cannot remain here. "We need to keep moving."

I did not argue. There was no time to argue. I rushed to my feet, guided by my instincts. Caleb was already a few feet ahead, plowing through the dense underbrush, his motions quick and purposeful.

However, when I walked, something else changed in the air. A chill. The air around us thickened, crackling with an energy that seemed strange and evil. Powerful.

Then I saw it.

A man stood at the edge of the clearing, enveloped in shadows and barely visible in the moonlight. It was tall, like the first creature we had seen, but this one was different. Its presence was dominating and its intensity palpable. And there was something familiar about it, something that sent shivers down my spine.

"Lyla."

I froze.

The voice that broke through the tension was one I had not heard in years. One I had never expected to hear again.

"Lyla," the voice said, this time more forcefully. "It's time for you to come home."

My heart has stopped. I recognized that voice. I recognized that fragrance.

But how? How was this possible?

I turned slowly, my body tense with astonishment, and there he was — standing just beyond the trees, his gaze fixed on me, his face unreadable.

Caleb had stopped in his steps, his body stiff and ready to fight. But I didn't have to hear his words to understand what he was thinking. This was horrible. This was really terrible.

The man in front of me, who had just spoken, was not a stranger. He was someone I once knew and loved. Someone I'd lost.

Damon was the name.

But Damon was meant to have died.

And suddenly he was in front of me, a distorted version of the man I knew before. His eyes sparkled with predatory desire, and the air around him appeared to his heart with evil force.

"Lyla," he said, his voice hard and calculating, "you've been gone too long. It's time to get home. "Your place is with us."

I shook my head, the terror settling like a weight on my chest. "You're dead," I said softly, the words scarcely passing my lips.

His chuckle was dark and vicious. "I was. But not anymore. "And neither are you."

Before I could grasp what he had just spoken, the ground underneath us rumbled again, and the shadows in the clearing appeared to grow darker, reaching out like ravenous fingers.

Caleb pushed forward, but I grabbed his arm and stopped him. "Don't," I whispered quietly and urgently. "It's too dangerous."

Damon's gaze shifted to Caleb, and for the briefest instant, I saw something that froze me to the bone: recognition.

Damon then vanished in a flurry of movement back into the shadows.

"Get ready," I murmured to Caleb. "This is just the beginning."