The Brand of The Blood Moon

Chapter 2

8 Years Later

Panic spread across the village like how maggots covered the dead like a blanket. It spread like the blood that soaked through cheap peasant clothing: permanently dying the ground a dark crimson. The blood was still warm and thick in the cracks of the road. Men took their last breaths, lungs full of smoke, alone instead of with family and friends beside them. Women were pushed down in the streets and mounted like horses by barbaric men.  Mothers wailed pleas to their children to run, to hide, to do anything but watch the pillaging that unfolded in front of their child's innocent eyes. Babies cried for their mothers' warmth when plucked from their mothers' breasts, but inevitably, the only warmth they got was from the fires of a burning town.

The moon did not glow like a soft lantern leading souls in the night. The moon glowed a tint of dusty red. It reminded the people that were scurrying below it of the demon's eyes that destroyed the town. Eyes that only searched with the intent to commit the sins of mortals. Demons showed greed among all the other sins. If they desired something, they were willing to commit all other sins to get what they want. Either they take what's theirs or the alternative was death. Healer Onni knew all too well of death the same way demons did, but she did not bring death like demons. She had death written across her aged features. Worn beige skin around her eyes and cheeks hung low as if the skin was trying to pull the old woman down into the grave. The long and heavy wool dress she wore was barely enough fabric to hide her dropping bosoms and flabby limbs. Her figure looked like she was only two steps away from death, but a healer's trade was to banish death's cold fingers around the soul. The woman wanted to use her gift one last time, and that was how to cheat death. Not for herself, but for her young apprentices in the dark cellar with her.

She stood like a great oak tree by stone steps. The three apprentices,Kensley, Torana, and Alira, could only stare at those stairs with pure hope and paranoia.  Damp and slippery steps that were the pathway to freedom, but also the path to a fate like the town members running for their lives. Light from the raging fires above reached through the wooden planks that boarded up their hiding spot. The wild fire light slipped through the cracks like ominous snakes looking for their next meal to devour. It was the feeling of dread that pained all of them the most. The feeling of not seeing the light of day, and being cursed to an early death bed. They sat still as can be in the corner until Kensley started squirming. It looked at first as if one of the cellar rats climbed in her clothing and she was trying her best to be calm, but Alira and Torana soon realized that wasn't the case. She scratched at her face and flower printed dress- now dirty at the bottom from the cellar water.

Two years ago, Onni told the two older girls that she found Kensley on a burning stake on her way to find medicine out east. Kensley was to burn there for the use of witchcraft alone in the middle of the forest. She hid in the trees, and once the people thought Kensley dead and left, she rushed in to save the poor girl. Her clothes were burnt to a crisp, but her skin was as smooth and as white as milk except for her hands. Her palms fused together where there were supposed to be separations. The skin around her wrist grew brown and red boils that hurt to the touch; however, that never stopped her from completing Onni's day to day chores and medicinal lessons. That's why Alira liked Kensley so much. She was not a quitter.

Alira tried to console the poor girl. Her sweet round face littered with freckles and lips small and pale was now unrecognizable. Her frizzy golden hair matted to her forehead from large beads of sweat. Kensley's brown eyes rolled into the back of her skull. Sometimes the light that crept through showed the whiteness in her eyes, and the absence of sanity. Her mouth released a horrid noise like there was no more saliva to moisten up her vocal cords. Alira tried to stop her frantic movements, but her squirming became constant rocking in return.