The Many Regrets of a Cyborg Werewolf

Unending Eclipse - XXXII

The screams from outside woke her up even before the knocking at her bedroom door. A cold sweat of panic shooting down her back as her father burst in, his own face an expression of terror. He beckoned her to come, but she didn't understand what was happening. She wanted to get dressed, but he said there was no time. Her mother appeared soon after him, terror in her voice as she pleaded with her daughter to hurry. So she did, rushing to her parents even as the confusion turned to fear, and the screams and commotion outside grew more intense. Her father's words were hard to make out, mangled by his hoarse breathing. It wasn't until they were rushing down the stairs that she noticed the blood on her father's clothes. Yet he didn't stop urging them to hurry. They were going for the barn, that was his plan, until they approached the rear of the house and saw bright orange light beaming through the windows. Yet it was the middle of the night. She knew the barn had been set ablaze. Father stopped them, forced to reconsider his options. The pantry. That's where they were going. The small wooden cabinet was the only place left to hide in the simple house. It was desperate, and as they ran to the kitchen he quickly pulled all the shelves and what little food they had out onto the floor before hurrying his wife and daughter in. She didn't understand. Not his words, not the hiding, not what was going on outside. It all happened so fast. So fast that she didn't realize until the doors closed that her father wasn't hiding with them. She begged him not to go, as did her mother, but his parting words betrayed the melancholy of his actions.

"I love you both," he said.

The pantry doors shut, leaving the daughter and her mother clinging to one another in complete darkness. Her mother urged her not to make a sound, but the daughter couldn't help but weep. She pressed her hand over her own mouth, trying to squash her sobs, flinching with every scream and crash that came from outside, the intensity of each exceeding the last, until they heard the sound of wood splintering just outside. There were heavy footsteps, voices, and the pantry doors violently swung open. Men in black cloaks immediately set upon them both, grabbing the daughter and her mother and dragging them out. Their screams and pleas went unheard as the men silently dragged them from the house, only to set fire to it the moment they were out. They were separated, the daughter watching in horror as their home burned and her mother was dragged away. The men gripped her wrists so hard she could hardly feel her fingers, her knees and feet scraping against the dirt and rocks as she was dragged into the center of town and thrown into the mud. The daughter looked up to see other young girls, likewise clad only in nightgowns, cowering as they no doubt went through the same experience. The town burned around them as the men in cloaks seemingly destroyed all in their path, only for one in particular to approach the girls. He differed in that his cloak was red, and he lacked any hood to obscure his aging face. He was bald, his eyes maddeningly wide, and a symbol was painted onto his forehead in red. He looked at each girl, one by one, poking and grabbing their faces as if they were cattle, until he got to her. His repulsive face came close to hers, and she flinched, causing him to grab her by the jaw and force her to look him in the eye.

The man in red spoke in words she didn't understand, and suddenly more men in black grabbed her by the arms. Again she was dragged, this time down the street, and she saw that the church was likewise aflame. More horrifying, though, was what was erected before it. The cross from within the church had been brought outside, stripped of its homage to the lord, and implanted on a mound of rocks. She struggled as they brought her to it, screaming and biting her captors, but to no avail. They soon had her tied to it, ropes around her wrists and chest, and the young girl believed she would be burned at the stake. None of this made any sense, nothing about it seemed real, nothing but the fear and panic. She called for her parents, begged to be returned to them, begged for answers and mercy, begged God himself, but no one answered. Instead the only response came from a new horrific element to the whole ordeal: a large, wooden contraption that looked like it came right out of a dungeon. The girl panicked, fearing she'd be tortured to death, but the strange wooden gantry was not for her. One of the girls she had been with was brought over, laid face down on the platform, and bound. Then, with four men operating it, the contraption hinged upwards, raising it up to the girl's level on the cross, until the girl attached to the gantry was above her. They looked into each other's eyes, mere breaths apart, and saw the fear they both shared. The girl on the cross looked to the men below, the one in red speaking in strange words to the others before pointing to the sky. She followed his line of sight to the moon, a red shadow creeping over it. They waited until the shadow reached the very edge of the moon before the men in red said something that caused one of the others to approach the girls, and in an instant he drew a knife and slit the girl on the gantry's throat. Blood poured from her neck onto the other girl's face, and she was too horrified to react. It didn't seem real, and only when she felt hands on her face did reality set in. They forced her mouth open, right below the girl's bleeding wound, and the man in black said only one word she could understand.