The Werewolf [COMPLETE]

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            I awoke the next morning, and the next, and the next. And I didn't know why. Why weren't they doing it? Why weren't they ending what they had started? Why weren't the Werewolves killing me? I couldn't tell if I were waiting for it to happen— Not that I was wanting or wishing to die, not that, not that anymore. I had abandoned the idea of suicide. I had considered it, more than once or twice, more than minutes, more than hours, but I hadn't done it. I couldn't. I couldn't do it, because it wasn't my life to throw away anymore, it was their life, it was theirs. They had given me their years, their days passed and their months that still had to pass. I had to live them, even if I didn't want to, even if I really didn't want to. I wouldn't kill myself, I wouldn't tighten the knot or pull the trigger, but I was ready for someone else to do it. I was waiting, I was waiting for it to happen and it wasn't happening.

            For there I stood, morning after morning, living for another day, for another dead on the snow, a body that wasn't mine, a corpse that wasn't me. The Werewolves didn't kill me. They had attempted once, and had failed, they had attempted twice, and had failed, they wouldn't have failed on the third attempt, but they didn't attempt. There wasn't anyone left in their way, they had gotten rid of the obstacles, of the men and women slowing them or stopping them. They had everything, the motive, the location for the crime and the weapon for the crime; they had everything that they needed to kill me, but they didn't kill me.

            They killed others. They killed our Captain. They killed Elizabeth Shelton. The woman who had been righteous, who had listened to the Village's accusations and defences, who had seen the truth behind the lies and the lie behind the truths, the woman who had sentenced two Werewolves, the woman who had been good, accepting to carry out the executions of both Owen Hogan and Kathleen Sculley, the woman who had protected me when I was accused; that woman, they had killed that woman.

            We all knew how it went by then. The Captain was dead. Long live the Captain. Elizabeth Shelton was dead. Long live Emily Pierce. For she had chosen. And she had chosen me. I was the Captain. It was me, who had never advocated to follow the rules. It was me, who had never wanted to fight the Werewolves or the White Werewolf. It was me, who had stood against the Village, and not with the Village. It was me.

            I couldn't do anything against it. I didn't want to be the Captain, I didn't have the skills nor the mind to be the Captain, I didn't have the strength to be the Captain, I was tired, I was so tired. But I couldn't refuse the role. I couldn't convince her to revoke her choice or even reconsider her choice. It had all been decided and done before the rise of the sun. In the morning she was dead, her name was on the snow, with her identity, her title and her successor.

            After that, the Village had tried to make me the one carrying out the judgments. They had thrust the gun into my hand and twisted my finger around the trigger. They had dragged me to Ann Becker's trashing form and they had yanked the barrel of the gun before her forehead. And I was left on my own, staring at the old woman jerking and jolting in Louis Hawkins' grasp, strapping her hands together and shoving her to the platform. She had no ways of escaping, she was trapped both physically and metaphysically. She had been sentenced. Her age had condemned her. She was the oldest to that day, she was the oldest to that day and the day before it, but she hadn't stood up or talked up to save Kathleen Sculley the day before it.

            The Village, if it could still be called anything like it, the Village had voted for her, the Village had voted against her, it had voted and it had been decided that she was to die, on that day, on that place, in front of her hysteric granddaughter, shouting profanities, shrieking curses to everyone and no one, to the world, to the village, to us, to him, to her, to them, to her own person. They had wanted me to kill Ann Becker, knowing that I would not only sentence the grandmother, but that I would also sentence the granddaughter. Page Hayes would not survive without her parent. She would lose her sanity, and with it, her reminder to eat, to drink, to live. We could see it, we could all see it. In the way her eyeballs bulged out of their sockets, in the way her pupils dilated and her irises jumped to and fro, from one place to another, from one object to another, from one face to another. She was going to lose it, and when she would, she would lose her place in the game, and when she would lose her place in the game, she would lose her life.