Embracing the Monster Within [ONC 2024]

1

When Ava Scott's life changed, she wished it would have been turned upside down in one of the most dramatic fashions. She supposed, to some degree, it had, but not in the way that she had imagined that it would. In fact, she wished it so much that she had an idea of exactly how she believed it should have happened.

The vision of the fated night that sent her into a spiral would occur like this: it would be late in the night, just as it happened the first time. However, instead of sitting bored at her window, listening to the gentle breeze, the sky outside would have been dark with black clouds full of torrential rain, threatening to take out the windowpanes. Thunder would rumble through the sky, lightning flashing and casting the world into blinding white light as it struck. The trees would rattle and shake with the violent wind, the leaves being thrown off their branches fast as whips. The silvery white moon would be completely obscured from her vision, and as the night progressed, the weather would get worse. She would experience the very fear that she should have known she should have had.

Each time Ava would remember that night, imagining the way she wanted things to go, a hum of satisfaction and an almost longing would burn in her throat. As far as she was concerned, anything – absolutely anything – would have been better than what she had experienced.

Instead, the night had been calm. The breeze was light enough for her to open her windows and allow her to sit on the edge of her bed, watching the world outside. The full moon was bright, hanging high in the sky as the night grew later and later, creeping steadily toward the morning. It was serene, uncomplicated, normal – just how she liked things.

One of the things that still stuck with Ava even now, well after the fact, was that the night was too still, despite the breeze. There was no chattering of creatures from the nearby woods surrounding her home. The usual sound of crickets or of any sort of insect really had made itself known. She could hear the faint sound of the waves rolling in from the bay around the corner, but even the bay breezes didn't carry along the wind the same as it usually did.

Perhaps even the wildlife and nature knew what would transpire that night, even if Ava didn't.

Ava could also recall one of the stupidest thoughts that had ever crossed her mind, and she swore it was the reason she found herself in the predicament that she did. As she sat at her window, half-reading the book in her hand, she couldn't help but wonder what it would be like to visit the moon. Even as a very young girl, she had always felt the moon's pull, a sense of longing that stayed with her for as long as she could remember. She could recall many nights spent just like this, near her window, just wondering what it would be like to see it up close. She just didn't know what sort of horrors would await her when the moment she could see the moon, truly see the moon, arrived.

The shimmering figure that caught Ava's eye on the horizon had seemingly been a figment of her imagination. A glance at the clock showed that it was nearly 3 in the morning and well past the time she typically went to sleep. She rubbed her eyes hard, unaware that the shimmering figure was heading her way, drifting in and out of sight like fog rolling in from the ocean.

It wasn't out of the norm to have faint patches of fog rolling in, disappearing and reappearing as it touched whatever it needed to in the air to make itself be seen. So, when Ava spotted the strange figure heading her way, she thought nothing of it. Nothing felt entirely out of sorts. At least, not yet.

After being distracted for hours, Ava finally found herself back in her book. She was reading a particularly riveting romantic passage between the main female character and who was arguably her nemesis – she loved a good enemies-to-lovers trope – but something made her stop. It was the first time that night that she realized how strange things felt and she felt the hair on the back of her neck raise, and she shivered, goose bumps covering her skin. At first, Ava thought it was from the breeze, but the wind had stopped entirely.