Night

by Luna Rubra

The night embraces him, now more than ever. But now, despite how much he runs, how much he curses, there is no return. He's been cursed, and now he is the terror that roam through the night.

The night terrified him, and so he tried to run away, searching for some kind of shelter in the shadows that brought nothing but nightmares for anyone else. In his wild rampage through a sea of trees and bushes, branches and leaves, he filled an otherwise calm night with the noises of his desperate flight.

He breathed what felt like a viscous air that made his lungs burn, his muscles screaming for rest. But he kept on running desperately through the forest, forcing his way through anything less solid than the trees' trunks that he barely dodged. He ran with all his remaining strengths, trying to wear out every single muscle he had until his body would feel it was made of lead and he would simply drop out of exhaustion.

It was not the darkness he feared, but rather the light that breached through the dome of branches and leaves the forest provided him. It was not the night he feared, but the bright light that stripped him of his mask and humanity and showed what he knew to be inside him all along.

He tried to run from himself, and he would still go far, far away before he would escape. He would never escape. He would never run far enough to prevent this...

Suddenly there were no more trees to cover him and he felt naked. Under the moon's scrutiny he was paralyzed, panting loudly but somehow forgetting to run. A familiar wave of rage burned up his stomach as his eyes caught the source of that cold light. It was all her fault. It was she who insisted on revealing him on those nights, stripping him of his humanity and allowing the beast to emerge. He hated her. He hated her with every inch of his being, and it was a hatred so overwhelming it soon took all of his body. The feeling burned so intense inside him that it erased everything else: his escape, his fatigue, his thoughts, himself. She had that power over him, and he hated her for that.

There was no way he could know how long he kept staring at the moon, still like a hypnotized man. The man was already gone, and then he threw his head back and let out an animalistic howl that filled the night and sent chills through people's spines.

For he was their nightmare, lurking through the shadows of an otherwise pacific night.