Mooncryer

Prologue - The Boy With Fangs For Teeth

Sabre Wilk was only two years old when his parents noticed the first signs.

      The doctors could only guess what was going on. "He's just a baby," they'd dismissively said in response to his wild crying fits, like clockwork, at the stroke of midnight. They had the same diagnosis for how hungry he got - which was unusual even for a boy his age - as well as his sensitivity to teething. When Sabre's parents questioned the doctors, they saw past his unusual eye color; Sabre had black, glimmering irises that, although somewhat normal compared to his other symptoms, were still rare among people.

     He was five when his Awakening took place.

     He lay asleep in bed, the full moon streaming light into his bedroom like clouded spotlights. Sabre had always loved the moon. The sun was bright and all, but it didn't stand out the way the moon did among the sea of the night sky. His papa spent evenings sitting outside with Sabre in his lap, occasionally reaching up and tracing his fingers along a trail of stars. "You see that one, Sabre?" he'd ask softly. "That's Perseus. And right next to him, that's the princess Andromeda. Perseus saved her from the evil sea monster Cetus in ancient times, long before you were born."

     As Sabre grew, so did his fascination with the stars. Eventually, this love would go on to blossom into an interest in the entire sky, then the moon's affect on the tides, then the ocean itself, then the way the world worked as a whole.

     But for now, it was just him and the stars in his eyes.

     Suddenly, a lashing at his chest tore him from his half-asleep stupor. Nails burrowing into his ribcage and dragging themselves outward, that was all he could process. He whimpered, then screamed, in pain. "Mama...!" he strained to call, but his vocal chords failed him. He struggled against the invisible force of the night. He thrashed through tear-blinded eyes. His tiny arms scrambled in a vain attempt to push the force away. He tried, once more, to cry out for his parents...

       ...and what escaped this throat was no more and no less than a pained, ear-piercing howl. The resounding cry unmistakably rang through the night air.

     Sabre's vision turned red. The world around him burned bright scarlet. Thoughts and fears and pain whizzed by at a mile per minute in unending torture, leaving Sabre to only whimper and howl and struggle against it. When, at last, it finally ceased, Sabre was crumpled on his bedroom floor. The world was silent. He shook like the final remaining leaves on winter's trees.

     At first, curled up in the darkness, Sabre didn't feel the fur that prickled on the back of his neck. He didn't notice his tiny grey snout where his nose would be or the fuzzy grey ears that now perked up at the top of his head. His teeth were now glistening fangs, if a little small in order to be proportionate to the child.

     A faint red light surrounded him. The exact same shade that had flooded his vision, like the sizzling embers of an extinguished fire.

      The howl alerted Mr. and Mrs. Wilk and sent them rushing into their only son's room in the early hours of the morning. When they saw a young wolf curled up on the floor, surrounded by an odd orange glow, they could've fainted. But the recognition and familiarity in the eyes of the tiny pup was what really sent them for a loop. Was that their Sabre? A baby wolf?

       "Do you think we should call the doctor?" Mama asked in a frantic, hushed tone, carefully picking her son up and cradling him in her arms. Helena was a short woman who had married young, and looked to be no older than twenty-five.

      "What are they going to do about...this?" Sabre's father responded, also frantic. Andrew Wilk was on the taller side, easily recognized by the shocking-blue roots of his otherwise dark hair.

     "Well, what other options are there if we want to find out what's happening to him?" asked Helena.

      "We could go to your brother."

     There was a tight-lipped silence from Mrs. Wilk. "Andy, you know we haven't spoken to each other since-"

"I know. But...what if he can actually help us? What other choice do we have?"

~

     The Wilk family car's headlights flared bright on the pavement. The sun was just beginning to rise, soaking the town with the gentle hues of dawn. Before long, the car pulled into the driveway of a house identical to all the others on its street. The house's shutters were closed tightly, blocking out the outside world. A dreamcatcher dangled on the front door.

A man who looked to be forty years old answered the door, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he grinned. "Helena," he said upon meeting his sister's eyes. His eyes went past the sleeping wolf pup in her arms. "It's been...so long."

"Hello, Titus," Helena answered humorlessly. "May we come in?"

"Please do."

     The home of Titus Whipley was flooded with the smell of burning incense. Each doorway was obscured by columns of dangling beads, each bookcase lined with Gerald Gardner's Wicca spellbooks and Donna Cunningham's astrology guides. The room they sat down in was decorated with open candles and the floor was scattered with teacups whose only contents were the remaining leaves at the bottom. A threaded tapestry was spread out on the hardwood floor.

     After some prodding, Helena was finally persuaded to allow Titus to hold the wolf cub in his arms. "Young Sabre," she could hear him whispering. "How far you've come."

"What's happening to him?" Helena questioned, her eyes fixed on her son.

     "Do you not know the stories? Of the one born under the constellation Aries, during the Earth's two thousand-and-fourteenth rotation...one of the four children in possession of power unlike any other of their kind."

"There are...others? Others like him?"

     "Yes. Ancient tales of therianthropy speak of four that will come together in the future. The stories speak of four children born in each different times in the year 2014...a simple vision by a soothsayer of ancient times. When light and dark collide, many years from now, these four heroes will rise and conquer. They may be young now - let them rest, and prepare for their glistening fate. They will break from routine and accomplish the inevitable. They are destined for saving our world. These children, the tales say, are the Quillslayer, the Watersinger, the Snowphaser..." his eyes dropped to Sabre.

"This one is the Mooncryer. His long-awaited destiny is at last within reach."