THE MOON CHILD

I was lying on my bed looking through the window. It was a perfect picture. I got up and walked towards the balcony. I could feel the cold floor beneath my naked feet. I stood there admiring the beauty my eyes could capture. The sun was rising through the gap between the widely placed mountains, the golden sun rays falling on me, the soft breeze blowing on my cheeks, birds chirping. Everything seemed so magical. Somehow the feel of morning always amazed me. I could feel myself closing my eyes and drifting back into my childhood memories. FLASHBACK I was sitting there in my dad’s lap, on the swing looking at the same view as I can see now, he was laughing and I was confused, I don’t understand I just asked him if we could get the white sugar candy in the sky, they seemed tasty from far. “Honey, they are called clouds and sweetie I don’t think it’s possible for us to reach them and for you to be able to eat them” “Mommy can get it for us daddy,” I said, looking at him innocently. “She can jump very high; I have seen her do it”. My dad looked at me in amusement and said “look, there is your mommy, let’s go and ask her if she can get it for us” I turned around to see her, she was walking towards us, she was huge with grey and white fur, she had dark blue eyes unlike my dad’s , he had light green eyes and I could say that I was the proof of their love as my right eye was dark blue just like my mother’s and my left eye was light green like my father had.  I saw my mother shifting into her human form, while my dad went to her and covered her with a floral blanket. “Mommy!!!! Can we go and get the clouds, daddy told me to ask you “I ran towards her in excitement. My mom looked confused while turning towards my dad demanding an explanation.  PRESENT My mother appeared from behind and patted on my shoulder. “How did you know I would be here, mother?” “ Hope, I am your mother, you are a part of me, I can feel you and understand your actions” she claimed “Also I know that you come here whenever you miss him” “Mom I don’t understand what is going on and what exactly happened the day before yesterday, I am 22 years old and cannot shift but I can still feel a kind of weird sensation in my body whenever the full moon arrives like my wolf is trying to talk to me…” I looked at her with a confused expression “…. and I swear I felt her trying to come out the day before yesterday”.  My mom looked down the balcony, staring at the rose garden feeling as confused as I was not knowing the answer to the question I just asked. I am Hope, I am 22 years old. I belong to the Grey Wolf Pack. My mom is the Alpha. She was an alone child to my grandfather, so after he died the responsibility of being an alpha was shifted on her shoulder.  She was the only female Alpha amongst the 18 different packs around our country. In the beginning, it was really difficult for her to be taken seriously in the conferences and the meetings or the events that came around regarding the U.W.A Or we can say United Wolf Association that included all the 18 packs around the country and had a council of its own consisting of 5 members to maintain the peace around the country, but our pack was really supportive of her leadership.  Somehow they knew that after grandfather she was the only one who could handle the responsibility. She was different, just like my grandfather.  My grandfather taught her everything that a male is supposed to learn in order to become an Alpha. Not only she was excellent in combat skills but her approach towards the pack problems and concerns was always different. She always thought out of the box. Our pack was the only pack in which females were trained or we can say allowed to train along with the male warriors. Those females who wanted to join the fighting squad were more than welcome while those who couldn’t handle the violence were just trained for self-defense and emergency. Neither were the males forced to join the squad but it was made sure that everyone was trained enough to fight in case of emergency. Unlike other packs, in our pack hospital, we did not have only female nurses, anyone who wanted to be a help in the medical section was trained and allotted their positions according to their capacity. We even had male caretakers.  As a result, our hospital was the largest and most successful one for werewolves, probably because mom believed in the thought process that everyone should work according to their skills and not gender. We also had the biggest research and development center because she believed in improving and changing with time and believed that we can learn from our past, present as well as future. She owned a company that worked in future technologies; it was named after my father ‘Alexander Corporation’.  Her father died the same day my father was killed. In a rogue attack. She was on the field fighting when she felt a sharp pain in her chest and felt her wolf growl in agony.  She understood what it was and couldn’t move at all for 5 seconds. My grandfather saw her freeze in the middle of the fight and understood what it was. He made her leave and find my father. She ran frantically in the direction her wolf was pulling her but then stopped at the sight she encountered. Dad was lying with blood all over his body, she could not believe what she saw, and an instant pain was visible on her face. He was dead, she moved close to him looking at his face, crying out loud and growling, tears were flooding down her cheeks.  She pulled him close in her arms and started kissing him obsessively all over his face begging him to get up but there was no reply. She was hurting, hitting the ground and howling so loud that it would make anyone shiver around her. Uncle Roger, also her best friend and her now beta tried to come close to her to calm her down but her energy was so strong that he could not make anywhere near 5 meters of a radius around her. She left a loud cry and fainted but before her head could hit the ground, uncle roger caught her. She was in a coma for the next nine days. I remember sitting in front of the I.C.U scared and confused. I did not understand what happened to mom, why she was not waking up or where dad was.  All I understood was that she was in deep pain; I could feel her aura from outside the I.C.U. Uncle Rogers would not let me see her in that state.  He was taking me to have lunch when we heard a loud growl coming from the I.C.U; he lunged towards the room and saw my mom sitting upright on the bed.  He slowly moved towards her. She looked up to face him, held his hands and started crying. I could feel tears flow down my cheeks too, although I did not understand what was happening but I could feel her pain. I went close to my mom, held her finger and said  “Mom, why are you crying? I want to go to dad; uncle roger is not taking me to him.” “Mom I am scared “I whispered.  She looked at me and pulled me strongly into a hug and kissed me on my forehead. “Mercy, our pack needs an alpha, and we all need you” uncle Drax said softly coming closer to mom. Mom did not understand want uncle Drax just said.  Uncle roger stepped forward to my now confused mom and held her hands saying “alpha didn’t make it that day Mercy; he was attacked by seven rogues while trying to reach you”. I could feel my mother shiver, I looked at her and there were tears in her eyes and pain in her expressions. It was the last time I ever saw my mother crying. I was five years old at that time to understand what she was going through but now when I look back I can say I understand completely.