Dusk

- 1 -

Marinette's P.O.V.

They say not to go out after dusk, it's when the monsters lurk. It's when innocent people go missing, and people wind up dead. This has always been the case, so the stories say.

Chat Noir. Rumors of a beast worse than any horror story from your fairy tale books. A man, if you could call him one, was a terrible person who had been around for ages. Hundreds of years, and left only terror and bad luck in the dust.

Hypnotizing green cat-like eyes lure you into a false sense of security before he strikes, and nobody ever sees you again. Midnight black slits hidden in radioactive green hues attract you, and his talon-like claws at the end of each long finger rip into your chest, and rip out your soul. People say he locks you in a dungeon and tortures you until you finally take your last breath. The last thing you hear is his cruel laughter, and the last thing you see is his eyes.

Those emerald green eyes.

People have glimpsed him in the shadows after dusk, in the dimming light of town square or at the forest's edge. Some say he is tall and terrifying with long razor sharp claws and teeth formed into pointy fangs. Others say he appears normal until he convinces you to trust him, his neon eyes just a simple mossy green with flecks of gold. Then, before you know it, he transforms into a cat-like beast and rips you from your peaceful life, and rips your soul from your spine.

Just like meat off of a bone.

I can't see how people come to this conclusion, you're supposed to be doomed if you see him. How did these people live to tell the tale? If he is so dangerous, how have they survived?

I'm not saying I don't believe a word they say, there are disappearances and deaths to prove it. Bodies decorated with ribbon like streaks of ripped skin, all drained of blood. The most noticeable one being the pieces of torn flesh right below your chin. All victims with their eyes bloodied and nearly falling out their skulls.

The look of pure terror forever cemented on their ghastly, pale faces. 

But, I like to see the good in people. No matter how bad they are made out to be.

Silly right? The Baker's daughter with a dead mom and no friends, having sad thoughts for the thing who was said to have killed her mother. If anything, that gives me a reason to hate him. To wish the cruelest of deaths over him.But I don't. I mean, I don't like him, but I believe everyone deserves a chance. After all, no one had seen him kill Sabine Dupain-Cheng.

They had just found the body near the line of the forest, baring those same claw marks and battered bruises. Hair missing in some places, clothes torn in hundreds of sections surrounded by mangled earth and crunched leaves. All lain atop a thick coating of scarlet sticky liquid that was once warm and teeming with life, but now just as dead as the leaves on the tree during Fall.

Maybe that's why people tended to avoid me, the poor young girl who lost her mother at the hands of a beast. Here in Paris, new ways were unwelcome. The year 1709 was nearing its end, and people are as judgmental as ever.

It had even been three years since she was found.

I'm mostly around my close friend Alya, and I frequently help my father at the bakery. I guess you could say Alya and I are friends, but her closest friend is Nino. I'm convinced she likes him much more than a friend, maybe they would marry after schooling is over. Not like that would be too long with there only being a year left.

I continue to quickly walk down the barren street. Why would I bring the legend of Chat Noir up? Because I was running late. I'd sat beside the forbidden forest too long waiting for inspiration. You see, I have a passion for designing and creating my own clothes. When my help is not needed in the bakery, I like to sit at the edge of the forbidden forest. The harmless creatures wander the forest by day, but at night the horrific ones come out. The sweet harmless animals give me inspiration to create new designs. I try to leave just as the people start to gather their children to get inside. It's just something that pumps new inspiration into my veins, being so close to something so deadly, but seeing that it has a totally different side. A side that smelled sweetly of flowery perfume and honeysuckles.