Lunar Descent

Alana

I ran into the woods, heart pounding, praying the angry mobs weren't following me anymore. I still couldn't believe it—my parents were dead, and I was being accused of their murder.

My name is Alana. I turned 23 just three days ago, the same day my adoptive parents died. You must be wondering how that happened. It started on a seemingly ordinary morning, although for me, there was no beauty in it. I always hated my birthday, it's just a reminder that some asshole birthed me only to abandon me at the orphanage.

That's where my first torment began. I was told I was found at the entrance of the orphanage on my birthday, and they knew it was my birthday because I was wearing a cloth that said "It's my fifth birthday—I'm a big girl now." Childish, I know, but it hinted that birthdays were once joyful for me.

Waking up in that orphanage, I couldn't recall my name or where I was from, just my birth date. The orphanage christened me Alana. My days there were terrible; I was stronger than a normal five-year-old girl, and I was always quiet, thus becoming isolated from the other kids.

At age 10, when I was finally adopted, I could hear how excited they all were for me to leave the orphanage. I didn't have much expectation regarding my new foster home, having heard grim tales of the mistreatment of foster kids. Yet, Theron and Selene were very nice people.

Even when they found out I was a werewolf on my 21st birthday they still loved me. They weren't really surprised because they revealed they had a friend who was also a werewolf. They told me all about the Exteros, the city where our kind resided and that's where I was headed with nothing but a map and the clothes I wore when the incident happened.

My adoptive parents met a tragic end at the hands of our neighbors' children, who invaded our house when we were having the usual birthday breakfast Selene always made to celebrate my birthday. Mistakingly firing a shot, they blamed me for the murders. The neighbors, who had always harbored ill feelings towards me, readily believed the accusations, they thought I was weird because I never went out.

I only went out when I had to go to school and come back straight home I stopped going out when I found out I was a werewolf out of fear of killing someone or someone finding out I was a werewolf.

Selene told me In her last breath to take the map of Exteros and some cash from her safe and run before the police arrived. I didn't want to leave at first but she urged me to and I did, I ran away and spent my day in the motel hoping to hear the news that my parents were still alive the next day.

But I found out they were dead and they were to be buried in two days. It was at the burial I was spotted and they chased me leading to me run into the woods, which luckily for me was where the entrance to Exteros was according to the map.

Only werewolves could spot the entrance according to my adoptive parents, by always wanted to ask how they knew it if humans couldn't even see it but I never got an answer, and I probably never will.

I stood in front of a big rusty looking gate and howled as loud as I could, according to the Instructions my late adoptive parents gave me, I waited a few minutes but nothing happened.