Full Moon Madness

Prologue

"Straighten your arms and focus your vision to the target!" The voice of a woman in her early 30's was deafening that the echo lasted for seconds.

She was standing beside a six year old girl, teaching her archery. Advance archery, to be exact. The little girl needs to shoot accurately the arrow to the center target. It was such a hard task for a mere six year old girl. But fearlessness was evident to the little girl's face; she didn't even flinched. With great focus and eager determination, she gracefully released the arrow and boom!

Bull's eye, the little girl thought in excitement.

"Impressive. Gumagaling ka na," the woman slow clapped and then ruffled the little girl's hair.

"Well, my teacher's not that bad." The little girl said and shrugged.

She pinched her little nose.

"Let's wrap it up from here. We have to catch fish for our dinner later." They started to walk away from their training grounds.

"And oh," she added. "We're going to study Algebra this night so you better study."

"Noted." The little girl responded.

Seconds, minutes, hours, days, months and years have passed by yet their lifestyle was still the same. The little girl turned seven, and then eight and so on and so forth.

Now, she's twelve. But she's not your ordinary twelve year old girl. She mastered mixed martial arts and an expert in using varied types of range weapons, mainly man-portable guns and bow/crossbow.

"Aleah! Where are you?" The girl shouted, hoping to find Aleah, her teacher and apparently, her foster parent. "Aleah! Nasaan ka ba? I already grilled the fish!"

But to her dismay, no Aleah responded to her calling. Her heart started to beat faster. Aleah was never like this.

Where are you, Aleah? Nagpaalam ka lang sa akin na maghahanap ka ng kahoy but you didn't came back. You were gone 2 hours already!, she thought. Her mind is currently in drastic situation. She didn't know what to do.

"Tu-tulong..."

She immediately turned around to look for the faint voice she just heard. She and Aleah were the only person in the island, so she was ninety-nine percent sure that the voice is from her.

"Aleah! Nasaan ka?" She asked worriedly. She had been looking for her for about thirty minutes already so she didn't noticed that she was already far away from their residing place. The forest was unfamiliar to her.

"H-h-here.."

She looked around once again. To her delight, she found Aleah. She immediately run towards her, who was lying in the ground, pain was evident in her face.

"Aleah! What happened?!" She asked, bewildered from everything she saw.

Aleah's left leg was covered in blood. There was a bite mark that obviously came from a wild animal which has large, venomous teeth.

"I've been bitten by a large, wild animal. I don't what kind it is..." She was wincing in between words.

She tried to lift her up but to no avail. Aleah's injured leg was hindering them to flee away. She was about to try again when they heard a faint growl coming from the north.

"Umalis ka na dito!" Aleah drastically said.

"Ano? I'm not leaving here without you, Aleah!" She scowled, her eyes were tearing up.

"Don't be so melodramatic! Save your ass and leave!"

"Aleah, I told you, I won't leave without you!" She reiterated.

"Saving me is futile! The bite was poisonous! Leave right now!" Aleah wailed in desperation.

She obviously don't want the girl to end up the same fate with her. And the he girl understood. Tears started to flow from her eyes down to her cheeks. Unwillingly, she stood up but Aleah grabbed her hand, causing her to stumble down.

"When you arrive at our house, go to my room and find my box that was hidden below my bed. But do not open it yet not until you turn eighteen. You have to keep it safe no matter what. Remember to follow what I wrote, understand?" Aleah was crying, too. She placed both of her hands to the girl's faces, wiping away her tears.

"You need to survive alone, ok? I'm so sorry for leaving you all by yourself. Just hang in there until you become eighteen. Promise me?"

"I promise."

They hugged each other one last time before the girl discreetly flee away. She was in tears while doing so. She reached home with a big weight inside her heart.

This isn't home now, she thought.

She went inside her teacher and foster parent's room and looked for the box under the bed. She found it. True to her promise, she didn't open the box and instead, she hugged it. That day, the island was filled with mourning cry by the girl.

You are now alone, Zenia. Survive alone, she reminded herself of the cruel reality she has to face at a very young age.