I’ve been thinking.

I’m pretty sure you would prefer that I had spent time writing, but this was not one of these weeks. Actually, I ran into a huge snag: I don’t feel like writing anymore. I don’t have inspiration, I don’t want to dig my brains for new plot points, all I want is turn my brain off and be a zombie for a couple of weeks.

I know why too: I can’t deal with jobs. I needed to work to pay bills, and as soon as I accepted the job, I lost my will to write, I hardly take any time to work on my school stuff, and I basically lost the drive I needed to finish what I started.

I hate feeling like this, but right now that’s where I am: I have a job I don’t want, and I no longer have the drive to do what I do want. I’m gonna have to inspect my feelings and figure a way out of this because right now it sucks.

Delay in stories

Sorry, real life is getting in the way again. Next week I will get back to my regular posting schedule. A friend of mine is getting married and I'm not gonna have enough time to devote to writing. Don't worry, I got ideas, I just cant sit down and write them right now.

A Trail part 2 (Trouble Part 8)

Technology’s good in a way. However, it can easily be avoided if the person knows what they are doing. In this case the red light was on, the recorder had run out of space, and I would not have to worry about the cameras. I studied the setup carefully, noticed that it did not go to a phone line, and counted my blessings. I went back upstairs, ready to get to work. Opening the door to the office was easy, Madeline had the key. I took out my digital camera and started taking pictures, every angle, everything that was in there. I wanted to make sure I would put everything back in its proper location once I was done snooping around. Madeline smiled and pointed out that this was a smart trick, but that she could not use it in her stories, because of their setting. I smiled and politely answered that my father used to have an old Polaroid just for that.

The office was clean. Everything had a spot and everything was quite practical and logical, nothing like mine. It did make my job a lot easier. I took out my laptop and started scanning every document; it would be easier for me to look them over once I was back in my office. I also took pictures of everything I could find, date books, address books, even receipts from different companies. I also looked over the newspapers in the trash bin. There was an important clue in the business section: many stocks were highlighted. Always the same. I quickly went over the list and noticed that all the companies I had traced back to him were there, in addition to a few others that I had not looked at. This would prove useful when trying to establish everything he owned, as he may have shares in companies I did not know about. I foolishly dismissed the pack of cigarettes until Madeline pointed out that Albert did not smoke. I opened the pack. In it, there were small pieces of papers and a bunch of keys. They keys were numbered, like the papers. There were 14 keys, and 14 pieces of paper, each indicating what the key was for. They were for safety boxes in banks, lockers, mailboxes, and even rented storage. More importantly, the names under which these boxes had been rented were listed. Thompson had used 3 different names. Thompson was for the banks, Arthur Clarke for the mailboxes and Frank Bennett for everything else.

The two new names were not familiar in any way. He had been good at covering his tracks, too good. At this point, Madeline told me she wasn’t sure about what I had said earlier, but now she could not deny it, her husband was involved into something bigger than cheating. Looking over the cabinets one last time before putting everything back into place, I found a double bottom. From it I pulled out a small locked box. I grabbed my tools and opened it. Inside, there were some legal papers that were probably important, but what drew my attention were the pictures: wedding photos of Albert getting married to his mistress when they were both pretty young. There was also a wedding ring with the pictures. I carefully unfolded the legal papers, there was a wedding certificate, issued over 20 years ago, for Frank Bennett’s marriage to Samantha Mitchell.


[Yeah, it's kinda short, but at that point in the story, I felt that adding on would simply ruin the tension of that moment. The story is getting somewhere, I promise.]

First Hunt, part 2 (Under a Crimson Moon part 2)

After that first night of conscious hunting, I started dreading the following two days. I did not know much about what I had become, so I went with what popular culture told me. Three nights of brutal animal behaviour, and then 25 days of peace. When the second night came, I locked the door to my room, and did my best to tie myself up to avoid hurting anyone. When the moon rose in the distance, fear filled me. I wanted to remain human, to stop with the killings. But, some part of me buried deep inside wanted this to happen. I wanted to be unleashed and when this desire grew, I could feel my body changing. I pushed this back deep. I relaxed, and closed my eyes. When I woke up, I was still tied up to my bed. The sun was about to rise, and I realized something that should have been obvious at first: I was still tied and had no way to free myself. I would have to yell out so that my parents would come and help me.

As I was starting to worry about this, I realized that had I changed into an animal, I could have simply chewed out the rope I used. I figured I could try it anyway, before calling my parents and dealing with another awkward discussion. As I started gnawing at the rope, my teeth felt different, sharper and stronger. The rope gave out quickly. With a shudder, I slowly walked towards a mirror, expecting my face to have changed. Everything remained the same. I was still myself. However, my senses were sharper, I felt stronger, and my nails and teeth were sharper. It took me quite some time to realize what this actually meant, but now I know that the animal and the human in me are not quite so separate, when I am covered with fur and hunting, a human mind still guides me, and when I am moving around, there is still a greater part of animal than in the average person. Back then, all of this was quite confusing. After breakfast, I asked my parents if I could go around being grounded to go to the library and do some reading. After the initial shock, they agreed. I was supposed to start working at my summer job at the gas station the following day, and I wanted to figure this thing out before having to accept or refuse night shifts. I obviously explained to my parents that I wanted to do some reading about something one of my teachers had said. They later told me that they figured I was going to see a friend or something, but that I had been punished enough.

What I knew about my condition back then amounted to what TV had told me: the three nights around the full moon would make me change, I would hunt people I loved, and only silver could stop me. I decided to look in depth at what the older folklore was. I did waste some time getting used to looking around the library, it was something I had avoided most of my life. The first mentions of this condition date from the middle ages, but there don’t mention the three nights of full moon. The people affected were said to end up being hairier, my genes kept me pretty much free of body hair so far, and so any change on that aspect would be odd, but could be blame on growing up. The people supposedly affected were also more violent, preferred meat over vegetable, and had a better affinity with dogs and wolves. Every story, except radical re-imagining of this condition, mentioned that I would have had to be bitten. The public library did not have a vast selection of books on this topic, however there was an anthropologist that had written about this condition being the rationalisation for medieval societies to understand random acts of violence. A combination of mistrust of strangers, lack of understanding of psychology, and fear of wolves and wild beasts basically fused under the werewolf myth. Other books mentioned other transformation linked to spirituality and other animals, but it hardly felt compatible with what I had experienced.

The full moon connection was also tenuous at best, however as chance would have it, I found an article in a psychology magazine that seem to indicate that people acted up a bit more during full moons, listening a lot more to their instinct than their reason. Nothing made sense really, but I did find the right excuse to avoid working on full moon nights: I would pretend I had selenophobia. Back then it felt like a smart excuse, thankfully it would become a bit stronger after I would share my new fear with my parents. When I started sharing this, my mother told me she understood, considering what had happened in the woods the previous month. My parents offered to have me see a therapist, to at least talk about the death, as I was the close to her when she died, and they feared I would have some sort of survivor’s guilt. From that day on, until I understood more about my condition, I would simply flinch and react whenever I would see a moon, real or fake. It wasn’t hard, whenever I was reminded of the moon, I remembered the pale blue light on the warm ruby blood dripping on my fur, fangs, and claws. Every time that image came back to haunt me I shuddered. Was it remorse, fear, or satisfaction?

Tonight I would sneak out again, facing the moon once more.

[Sorry I did not update Trouble as I said I would. Sitting down t write a story was a bit harder than I expected. By Saturday, a new chapter will be added to trouble. I would like to think this post however reflects the experience I am gaining every time I write. I don't have to slow myself down as much, there will be more parts dealing with this first hunt, which is basically the character reflecting on how he came into term with what happened back then. I also won't follow any version of the mythology behind werewolves beyond the basics: humans who turn into wolf like creatures. This is linked to the lunar cycle, but I may try to take it in a new direction. This is probably why some versions chose the 3 nights of the full moon... A story can only get so slow, and with the idea of one night of full moon, the werewolf of these legends could have easily slipped unnoticed.

I also realize I seem to have issues with naming protagonists. I'll try and fix that in the near future. For Trouble, it seems to work, for this one, I will give him a name as soon as I can.]

First Hunt, part 1 (Under a Crimson Moon part 1)

It’s hard to understand. I doubt any one of you reading this is going to see me, us, as nothing more than cursed people. I don’t blame you. At first I was certain I was cursed. I contemplated a lot of things, and I very much hated myself for what I realised: I liked it. Every month, for a couple of days, I felt alive. And it was nothing like what I had known before. After the first year, I understood what had happened. And with every ounce of understanding I gained, I got control. Why am I writing this text now? Because I want everyone to know the truth. I can read the papers, I can see the cover-ups. I can see how these betray fear and misunderstanding. But now I will come clean, I will let the world know, and after that, the world will still tremble in fear. But this time, they will fear the right thing.

It all started 10 years ago. I was a young boy back then. Of course, you could not have told me that, teenagers like to believe they are anything but young kids. Looking back however, I was an idiot. And like all teenage idiot, I liked alcohol, parties, and doing whatever the hell I wanted. This lead me to this clearing in the woods behind the drive-in with a bunch of people I did not know, drinking whatever we manage to buy from employees who couldn’t care less about laws. So there we were, in the woods, getting drunk, and being stupid. That’s when I saw her. She was cute, she was drunk, and she was practically naked, so I did the only logical thing: I started flirting. That wasn’t accounting for the jock boyfriend who was also a mean drunk.

He started yelling, I started punching. I felt my nose break; I heard his ribs crack when I slugged him with a nearby log. At this point, the party was over, I didn’t care. My face hurt, and I was left alone with all the leftover alcohol from the party. So I kept on drinking. It numbed the pain, my senses, and I decided to sleep. I found a comfortable log, and dozed off. I wasn’t alone in the clearing when I fell asleep. When I woke up there was blood everywhere. No one else was there. My face no longer hurt, I was sure my nose was broke, but I managed to breath without any problems. Couldn’t say that much about the other person that slept here last night, he was missing an arm, among other things.

When the police was called, I was still quite busy throwing up. The report said that a rabid dog or some other animal had come in, saw the free human buffet and went for it. Back then I had just been lucky. I had puked before falling asleep; this most likely kept the animal away. The rest of the exam period was a bit uncomfortable. The big outdoor party planned after prom was moved indoors, everybody was sad, and everyone started avoiding me, as if by surviving, I had been responsible.

Three weeks after school was over, I started feeling restless. Something inside me wanted to go outside, run, climb, move, hunt. Being still grounded for the reckless use of alcohol and other stupidities, I had to sneak out. The moon was full, and it was bright. The light was revealing the true nature of things.

And this is the important part: the moon was just revealing the nature of everything. Trees that were part of the background of every day life became living beings in the night. The sky was no longer obscured by the light of a lying sun, it was dark, the stars were no longer hidden. Everything is different under the light of the moon, and I realized back then that I was changing. It was strange, at first I felt cold, naked, alone. Then I felt my heard pounding, my body became warmer, I felt my skin stretch. I took off my clothes. I did not need the artificial skin they provided; the moon would only tolerate my true skin. Finally, I felt my senses grow stronger. I could hear everything that was around me, I could smell flowers from yards away, and I could see through the night.
What happened next was a great source of torment in my early months. I smelled something, it smelled sweet, tasty, I had to go for it. I ran, the smell becoming stronger, and after reaching a small forest about 2 miles away from home, I caught up with what drew me there. It was a deer. It was sleeping, but I was inexperienced, and loud. Still not adjusted to the changes in my body, to the claws were nails used to be, I mad a lot of noise trying to sneak up. The deer woke up. It started running but what I lacked in subtlety, I made up in speed and force. I caught it, ripped it apart and devoured it. The blood, the flesh, the taste was wonderful. As I brought my fangs deeper in the deer’s flesh, I started remembering. The alcohol, the party, the girl. I was hunting that night, I was already hungry. And when I slept, I ate. The girl that died, the rabid animal, all the sadness. It was my fault.

And I liked it.

I revelled in the destruction, I swallowed the flesh, gnawed at the bones. I devoured the dear like I devoured that poor girl’s arm. Poor girl? I had amusing sentimentality back then. It was the natural order of the thing. I am predator, but back then, I still felt attachment to these preys. And as I looked up from the deer, and stared at the moon, the light slowly becoming pure crimson reminded me of that night, the month before, when I had done my job as predator. Every memory returned. I was made aware of how, after everyone left, I woke up. She was there, half naked, trying to rouse me up. She had managed to remove most of my clothes as I slept. Washing away the fumes of alcohol that were hindering my body, I got up, and then I got in. As this primordial act was taking place, I felt the effects of the moon on my body. The moonlight rushed into me as I was losing myself into her. Her screams of joy turned to screams of pain. She saw who I truly was, and under the moon, I realised that she was just made of meat. She stopped screaming as se saw my jaws slowly wrapping themselves around her arm. She cried; I could smell the salt of her tears. And I ripped her arm off of its socket. Her blood was delicious. It filled me up quite nicely. She tried to crawl away, but I caught her leg. She was crying, pleading with me using these words that sound so empty when you see their true origins. I licked her body, it was now covered in dirt, blood, tears, sweat. I saw her eyes fill with a darkness that was beyond fear. No sound left her mouth anymore, she understood.

I was predator, she was prey. Her neck became my next snack.

I sensed that the night was almost over, I ran home, put my cloths back on and went up the wall and through my window. I took off the cloths again, looked at myself in the mirror. I wasn’t quite sure what I was, but I felt I was no longer just human.

[Yes, I am starting another longer story. And yes, this is what I wanted "Lunarity"to be like, something more visceral, more primal. A story where the character is not one we want to identify with. I also wanted to bring something new to make up for the last few days where I did not post. I will try to post another chapter of Trouble as soon as I can sit down and write it, and I will try to add to this new project of mine. I think it's time I moved away from the ultra short stories, I think I have reached the limit of what I can do in these tiny fragments of a real story. Crimson Moon here is gonna run in parallel with Trouble, but I will try to write Trouble on Saturdays and Crimson on Wednesdays. I may do some other experiments with writing, but I will no longer delude myself in thinking these work as stories.]