FRACTURES OF MOON

FRACTURES OF MOON
Ares's point of view
The night haunted me, crawling back into my mind in flashes—broken images, half-formed thoughts, and disjointed memories that refused to stay buried.
I didn’t remember everything.
But I remembered enough.
I was surrounded by bodies.
Blood.
So much blood.
And in the middle of it all, a blur of dark hair—my mother. She stood just at the edge of the carnage, her expression hollow, her eyes full of grief. I couldn’t hear her voice, but I knew what she was saying. Why, Ares?
I tried to speak, but my mouth wouldn’t move.
My voice came out broken. “I’m sorry…”
The words slipped from my lips as though I had said them hundreds of times before. I didn’t know who I was apologizing to anymore—my mother, the dead, or myself.
I blinked—and the moon reappeared above me, full and terrible.
Its silver glow poured over me like a curse.
I stumbled backward, caught between dream and memory, and suddenly pain surged through my body like wildfire. My limbs trembled. My chest tightened. And before I could brace myself, my body began to change again.
I dropped to my knees.
My nails dug into the soil. My heart hammered like a war drum inside my chest. I gasped as a searing pressure rolled through my spine. It felt like every bone was breaking, tearing, reassembling.
I screamed.
Louder than I ever had in my life.
My back arched, my vision blurred. My pupils dilated so wide that everything turned into light and shadow. Heat flared under my skin. My veins lit up like fire. My voice, once human, now sounded like the guttural cry of something ancient—something wild.
I was shifting again.
Tristan’s voice echoed somewhere nearby, calling my name. His hands grabbed at my fur—fur—trying to steady me, to anchor me. I wanted to tell him to back away, to run, but my mouth couldn’t form the words anymore. My jaw was already lengthening. My teeth tore through my gums, reforming into jagged fangs.
Everything hurt.
My body stretched and contorted, muscle tearing only to rebuild in real time. I was caught between man and monster, and for a brief, terrifying second, I thought I might shatter into pieces.
The sounds coming from me weren’t human. I growled. I snarled. I whimpered.
I was losing myself.
But then—
I heard it.
A soft voice in the air.
A lullaby.
It floated around me like a breeze. Gentle. Warm. Familiar. The melody curled around the pain in my chest and soothed it like water over fire. It wasn’t loud. It didn’t demand. It simply… was. A mother’s voice, perhaps. Or something older than memory.
It pulled me back from the edge.
I stopped thrashing.
My snarls quieted into heavy, controlled breathing.
The pain didn’t vanish—but it dulled, as if the sound of that melody absorbed some of it. My claws still shook. My spine still ached. But I wasn’t lost to the beast anymore. I was still me—even in this monstrous form.
Tristan crouched beside me, breathless. His eyes were wide, filled with awe and disbelief.
“I’ve… I’ve never seen anything like this,” he muttered. “Your first shift… it was supposed to be worse. You were supposed to lose control. You were supposed to tear everything apart.”
I blinked at him with golden eyes.
“I heard… a lullaby,” I said slowly, the words difficult to form through a half-shifted muzzle. “It calmed me.”
Tristan’s brow furrowed. “A lullaby? I didn’t hear anything.”
I stared at him. “You didn’t hear it?”
He shook his head. “No. There was nothing but your screams—and then silence.”
I looked away, toward the shimmering lake. The moon’s reflection danced on the surface like liquid silver. It didn’t make sense. That lullaby… it had felt real. It had reached deep inside my mind, wrapping itself around the rawest part of my soul. It wasn’t something I could have imagined. It wasn’t a trick of exhaustion or pain.
It knew me.
And it wanted to protect me.
“Maybe…” I hesitated. “Maybe it’s connected to my blood. To whatever magic still lingers in me.”
Tristan didn’t dismiss it. He never dismissed the impossible. That’s why I trusted him.
Instead, he said quietly, “Whatever it was, it saved you.”
We stayed near the lake through the night. I didn’t want to move. The ground beneath me, though cold and damp, felt grounding. My limbs ached, but I could feel my strength growing. Slowly. Silently.
The longer I stayed in this form, the more I began to recognize the shape of it. I could feel the weight of my paws, the tension in my haunches, the sharpness of my senses. I could hear birds fluttering in distant trees, and I could smell deer tracks from hours earlier.
It was terrifying.
And exhilarating.
I wasn’t human anymore.
Not completely.
And yet, I still was. Somewhere inside this monstrous shape was still the boy who wanted answers, who had never known where he truly belonged.
Eventually, the moon dipped behind the trees, and the sky bled into grey. Sunlight crept between the leaves, casting long beams over the lake.
Tristan stood, stretching. “It’s time.”
I took a deep breath, then let it out in a heavy growl. My limbs trembled again, but not with fury this time—with readiness. With understanding.
As the first golden rays broke through the forest canopy, I felt the shift begin once more—only this time in reverse.
And gods, it hurt.
My bones snapped inward. My muscles contracted. My fur receded into my skin like smoke. I dropped forward onto all fours, then collapsed as my human form reclaimed its shape. I screamed as my jaw retracted, my spine realigned, and my ribs felt like they were being crushed and re-molded.
Then everything went black.
When I opened my eyes again, I was back in the hut.
My body was wrapped in a thick wool blanket. My clothes were torn, soaked in sweat and dirt. I could still feel the deep aches in my muscles—like my entire body had been through a war.
Tristan was at the corner of the room, arms crossed, watching me silently.
“You passed out,” he said after a moment. “I carried you back.”
I sat up slowly, wincing. “Thanks…”
He handed me a bowl of water. “You’ll be sore for a while. The first shift breaks you down to rebuild you. It’s not kind.”
“No,” I whispered, staring at the bowl in my hands. “It’s not.”
The silence stretched for a while.
Then I looked up. “I killed someone, didn’t I?”
Tristan’s jaw clenched, but he didn’t lie.
“You did. Before this shift… you did.”
“Who?”
“We don’t know yet.”
I swallowed hard. The taste of guilt was bitter in my mouth. “I saw them. Their bodies. In my memories.”
He nodded.
“I saw my mother.”
At that, Tristan’s gaze softened. “What did she say?”
“She didn’t say anything. But I knew she was disappointed. Maybe afraid.”
“Your mother loved you, Ares. She feared what would happen to you—but she never stopped loving you.”
I stared at the dying fire.
“I think the lullaby was hers,” I whispered. “Somehow… some part of her stayed with me. Through all of this.”
Tristan didn’t speak for a long time. Then he nodded slowly.
“Maybe it did,” he said. “Or maybe your soul remembers who it really is.”
I closed my eyes.
I wasn’t sure which hurt more—the memories I couldn’t fully recall, or the ones I could.