PROPHECY OF THE BLOOD MOON

CHAPTER ONE

The first thing Aaron felt when she came to was pain. Her arms, her legs, her midsection, every part of her body ached. And her head, her head felt like someone was running a marathon while dancing on it.

She let out a small groan, one that couldn’t even begin to quantify how much pain she was in at the moment. At the sound, a person shuffled as they moved beside her. Someone else was here and she offhandedly took it to be one of her friends.

Where am I?

She couldn’t muster the strength to open her eyes, and instead tried to recognize where she was by the smell and sounds she could catch. It was both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. It smelt like a hospital. But not quite. It smelt of traditional medicines instead of hospital drugs and this made her curious. This curiosity made her attempt to open her eyes. After struggling for a while to get her eyelids to open, they finally did, and at that, it felt like the number of people dancing a marathon on her head increased from one to a million. It was way too bright.

It really wasn’t, but the sensitivity of her eyes was really high. Gosh, how long was she out?

The person she had sensed was sleeping beside her moved again, but didn’t wake up. She tried to move to see who it was, but couldn’t for fear of worsening her headache. She tried instead to wake the person.

Hey. Hey, wake up!

That was in her head though. In reality, she couldn’t get past making a weak and breathy “hhhhhh….”

It did seem enough though, because the person sprang up immediately.

“My lady, are you awake? Are you finally awake?”

The voice sounded like it belonged to a female; a young female, a teenager.

The person turned away from her and rushed towards the door, “Doctor, Doctor! Someone go get the doctor!”

Before Aaron could say anything, the person was gone. She sighed softly. She raised a heavy hand to her head. Something big was definitely wrong with her. A concussion? She was doubting her sanity because she was definitely sure that the person who just spoke was a female, and she had no female friends. And did the person call her “My lady”? In Chinese?

Aaron groaned. Her head was aching way too much right now for her to be thinking so much. It was literally banging.

The next best thing was for her to go back to sleep, and so she did.

The next time she woke up, it was night and her headache had subsided to a dull thrum. She tried again to mentally recognize where she was and felt someone holding her wrist. She opened her eyes, looked at her hand, and saw it in the grasp of an old Asian man. He looked Chinese.

He had a moustache and a goatee, thin lips, and thin brows coated in seriousness. He was talking to her.

“…Your pulse is a little weak, but that is to be expected. You need to take a lot of rest, and also a few walks per day to strengthen your muscles. You cannot take any solid foods just yet since…”

At this point, Aaron was beginning to realize that it might not have been a concussion that made her hear Chinese earlier, because she was definitely hearing Chinese right now.

“Hold on”

What?!

Her own words didn’t come out in English either.

She sat up from shock.

The doctor berated her immediately, “Don’t get up so fast, My lady. Your condition could get worse”

There it was again, that title. What the hell was going on?

“Get worse? What could be worse than this?”

Just then, her headache came back in full force, and she let out a small groan of pain, her hand to her head. The doctor let out a dissatisfied tsk, and helped her lay back down.

“You have to be more careful, My lady.”

It wasn’t a language she knew how to speak, but one she definitely recognized. How… Why…? What the hell was going on?

What the hell is going on?

She looked from the doctor, to the girl who had gone to call him in. She didn’t even know what to think. She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath to arrange her thoughts.

Okay, let me get my facts straight. I woke up with a terrible head banging headache, there’s a man who is apparently a doctor and a young girl who both refer to me as “my lady”. Somehow, we are able to communicate in a language I didn’t even know I could speak. My actual friends are nowhere in sight, and I have no idea where the hell I am.

She opened her eyes again and studied the two people, before settling on the young girl who looked about fifteen.

“Who are you?”

The girl looked confused, almost heartbroken before replying, “My lady, I am Er Xi. Do you not remember me? I am your maid.”

My maid. Of course.

“Alright. Then, I guess you’re a doctor?”, She asked the older man who seemed to have been acting like one.

“Yes, My lady.” The doctor replied, his fingers intertwined in front of him.

“I see. Then… who am I?”

At this question, both the doctor, and Er Xi who was apparently her maid (L-O-f*****g-L), looked at her with worry evident on the faces. The doctor wore a more contemplative look.

“Oh no. My lady, have you lost your memories?”

Er Xi wasn’t even done asking her question before she burst into tears, crying loudly. This only aggravated Aaron’s headache.

She raised both hands to her head, trying to alleviate it.

The doctor turned to the wailing Er Xi and spoke softly, but firmly, “Please stop crying, or excuse us”.

At this, Er Xi, stopped crying, rubbing her eyes with her hands, trying to dry her tears, sniffling all the while.

“I’ll stop crying and stay with My Lady.”

The doctor moved towards Aaron and said, “My lady, I would like to check more things, if you don’t mind.”

Aaron didn’t even say anything. With how hard her head was pounding, she couldn’t even if she tried.

She was asleep in less than a minute.

The next thing Aaron heard was the sound of a grown man crying very exaggeratedly. She woke up, since staying asleep wasn’t exactly an option with the loud sobbing. She could even hear someone whispering for him to quiet down.

Too late.

She took a deep breath and released it with a low grunt, upset to have her sleep disturbed. Her head didn’t ache as much as it had before, and some parts of her body did still feel sore. It was still a huge improvement.

Before she could even open her eyes completely, there was already a man at her bedside holding her hand; it was a different man this time, not the doctor.

Who is it this time?

Aaron sighed a low sigh of frustration.

“Oh my daughter.”

...Daughter?

“My sweet baby. How did this happen to you? If I had known this was going to happen, I would have stayed beside you, and not gone anywhere. Oh my baby. I love you so much, thank you for being alive. It doesn’t matter if you remember me or not, I’ll take good care of you, okay? Don’t worry, Daddy’s here”

Aaron lost all feelings of frustration at those words. They were sappy, but they were words she had never heard before; Words she had wished could be spoken to her but never were. They were words of worry and genuine care, filled with parental love.

Before Aaron could even realize it, tears were rolling down the sides of her face. The man holding her hand noticed immediately, “My daughter, why are you crying? Does anything hurt? Are you in pain anywhere?”

At this, Aaron raised a hand to her face and realized that she really was crying. She looked at the man who was apparently her father. His eyes were warm and full genuine worry, and looking into those eyes made her burst into loud sobs.

This shocked the father who looked back at the confused faces of the people standing to the side behind him. He looked back at Aaron when he felt her removing the hand he held in his. He looked at her face to see her looking at him, and after a while, she raised both hands towards him, asking for a hug.

Realizing this, the grown man burst into another round of tears as he heeded her request and gave her a hug.

At that moment, they truly looked like father and daughter, crying in each other’s arms, not minding their audience.

Aaron cried and cried, and in those tears, she let out the sorrow she had felt at being an orphan. She had always wanted a family, not just the one she chose, but a mother, a father, either. She never had homemade food, she never called anyone mom, or dad. She had even been bullied for being an orphan before.

Feeling the warmth of this embrace, finding herself in this strange place suddenly felt like a gift, and she fell more into the embrace.

It took a while for Aaron to fall back asleep because just when her sobs died down, she remembered again that she was literally hugging someone that was actually her dad, and she burst into another round of tears. She decided not to think about whether she was dreaming or imagining this moment, she was going to savour it no matter what. She was scared to fall back asleep because everything was so unbelievable, and it had seemed like she was dreaming, but if this was a dream, she didn’t want to wake up from it. She wanted to keep experiencing this unfamiliar familiarity.