The Vampire's Moon

I slept rather peacefully, but once I was in a deep enough sleep, a dream overcame me. The details in my dreams always seem sharper for some reason, and all the details come back clearer. The dream was of what happened the day my father died.

I watched him walk away into the woods, shoes left forgotten on the porch. I sat on the porch swing, staring down at my small, ten-year old hands. My black hair, black like my mother's, hung in my face and covered my eyes; which were still wet from crying. She had died not long ago, and every night I went to sleep with her scent in my nostrils.
That was one reason I didn't stay inside anymore. The house still smelled like Freesia, the scent of her perfume. My father hadn't spoken more than was necessary in the month that had followed. Even now he had told me only the bare necessities. There was a werewolf invading our territory and he was going to go get rid of him, and that he would be back soon. So here I was, sitting on the front porch; waiting for him to return. He had said everything was all right; so why did I have this sense of foreboding, this sense of danger, tensing my every muscle?
The crisp autumn air blew my hair around my face. The leaves on the trees were different shades of yellow, orange, brown, and gold. A single green leaf stood out in a pile of other leaves, and I walked off the porch in bare feet to crouch down next to it. I plucked up the leaf and twirled it in my fingers. Mother had been that green leaf in my life. One good thing that stood out against everything else. Now she was gone, and I was left with nothing but one last green leaf, my father. Everything else was just a pile of dead leaves.
I placed the leaf back in the pile and stood up, brushing dead leaves off the jeans and blue turtle neck I was wearing to cover my bite marks. I started walking up the steps back onto the porch, when a scream tore through the air. I stiffened, and listened carefully. Another scream sounded, and another, snarling, high pitched keening. The sound of two wolves fighting pounded in my ears, and I turned towards the woods where it was coming from.
I didn't hesitate, I ran. I ran and ran, following the sounds of the wolves and my own senses alerting me to the presence of others of my kind. The trees loomed over me like giants as I ran, breathe panting, my little legs carrying me as fast as they could through the woods. When I burst through to the clearing I froze, my eyes taking in everything at once.
My father lay on the ground in his wolf form, his stomach ripped open so his innards tumbled out onto the leaf strewn grass. Another man, in human form, was crouched nude on the other side of the clearing. Blood was smeared on his face and hands. My father's blood.
I ran to my father's side and held his wolf head in my lap. I stroked my hand through his rough, brown fur.
"Can you hear me?" I repeated over and over, more and more frantically. "Can you hear me?!"
Slowly, one emerald green eye opened. He looked up at me, and his eyes sparkled. He morphed back to human shape, fur receding back into his skin. Eventually, my father's human head lay in my lap, and his human emerald eyes stared up at me.
"Michelle," he whispered, voice faint. He winced like something hurt.
I put one finger against his lips. "Don't speak."
I reached down and tried to push the innards back into his stomach. I knew distantly that it was no use, that there was no way to heal this much damage. His stomach and other organs had been cut, and blood and other things were gushing out of them. He had a few minutes at most. Still, the greater part of me was screaming that I could save him, that I had to try.
He reached up slowly with one hand and pressed my right hand, covered in his blood, to his cheek.
"Michelle," he repeated.
I stared down at him, my eyes blurry with tears. "Don't. Don't say it," I whispered.
"Michelle, I love you."
"Don't say it!!" I screamed. "Please don't say it!!"
"I love you, my sweet little vampire. My darling baby girl." Tears began to crawl down his face. "I'm sorry, Michelle, so sorry."
"Don't say that!!"
"I have to, sweet. I am sorry. I really am. I'm sorry I'm leaving you alone. You deserve so much. I was foolish. I'm sorry." He began to close his eyes.
"No! Don't be sorry!!" I began to shake him a little bit. "I love you! Don't be sorry!! Don't leave me alone!!"
He relaxed a little in my arms. "I love you, Michelle. I'm sorry," he whispered. Then his body went limp in my arms.
"Don't leave me alone!!" I screamed.
In that moment, as I stared down at my father dead in my arms, something inside me broke. What had been left of my already fractured heart broke into millions of little pieces. I cried, sobs racking my body, and shook with the force of it.
A low chuckle made me look around. The man that had my father's blood on him was laughing. I stared at him in horror. How could he laugh at this? What kind of monster was he?
The man caught my gaze and stopped laughing, but it still shone in his eyes. "What are you going to do, little vampire?"
I glared now. "Don't call me that!"
He stood, crossing his arms over his bare chest. "Or what, baby girl?"
I stood, letting my three-fourths inch fangs hang out over my lip.
"Oh, such long fangs for one so young. Tell me, little vampire, did your father have a death wish, picking a fight with a seven foot werewolf?"
I couldn't hold it back anymore. I ran at him, the anger boiling inside me propelling me forward. The man changed to a wolf swiftly, and dodged to one side so I didn't run into him, but snapped his jaws shut on my arm. In some distant part of me, I knew it hurt and would leave scars, but I was beyond that. The anger smothered the pain, the fear, the sadness, and left nothing but a seething rage behind. I had one moment when the teeth reached as deep as they would go in my arm to remember to change into wolf form before the anger came back in a rush.
I morphed, clothes ripping and floating through the air as I changed. When the transformation was complete, the other wolf still had a grip on my paw. His eyes no longer shone with laughter, though. Fear lit his eyes, and it gave me a grim satisfaction. I was nine feet, and he was a mere seven. This would be easy.
I slashed out with my other paw, claws slicing through the side of his head. He let my other paw go in a yelp, backing off with a fierce growl. I didn't give him time to recover, I pounced on him, and pinned him on his back. I stood above him, staring down into those beady eyes. His expression said, 'You won't kill me, you're too innocent.' What he didn't comprehend, though, was that I was beyond innocence. I was beyond regret, or guilt. All I felt was that rage, and that deep, burning desire for revenge.
He seemed to realize this, and tried to struggle to his feet. I growled, and, teeth bared, gave a fierce, bone rattling howl into the air. A battle cry. The cry of a werewolf about to make it's kill. I reached down, and snapped my teeth shut onto his neck. Blood poured between my lips, tasting of metal and sweeter things. I gave a fierce yank and ripped out his throat. The wolf went limp beneath me, and I spat his bloody throat into the woods beyond. I jumped off him, then ran.
I ran through the woods, sunlight glinting faintly through the trees on my fur. I eventually stopped, miles from home, outside of a cave. I changed back, bitten arm pulled in close to my chest, and looked up at the full moon, remembering that during a normal month, father, mother, and I would have gone out tonight.
A strangled howl escaped my lips, sounding strange coming from a human throat. I looked back up at the moon, and froze.
I saw my mother. The stars seemed to outline where her mouth and nose would be. High, dark, black cirrus clouds made her hair. Two bright stars were her eyes.
"Mother," I whispered.
I knelt on the ground in a little ball, and cried. A small part of me knew that I would live, that I would one day feel better. In that instant, though, I felt as though the whole world had ended, and left me alone with nothing but the moon, the stars, my mother's face, and memories of times when I had been happy.

I started awake. Tears were streaming down my face. I calmed myself, whispering, "Just a dream, just a dream," over and over. I knew it had happened years ago, but like always, the wound felt fresh. I felt the wound open, but something was different. It didn't seem as big as usual. Something my mother had once said flashed through my head, and I said it aloud.
"For every heart broken, there is a friend or love there to stitch the pieces back together again."
My heart was broken, but it was being repaired. It was being repaired by Benjamin and Ricky. A heart twice broken, is a heart twice repaired. It took the two of them to put the pieces back together.
I looked at the window, at the darkness of the night. "Did you send me these dreams, mother?" I whispered. "Did you send me these dreams to prove that the day when I would feel better is coming?" A breeze flowed through the window, which I had left open. I smiled. "Thank you. I won't forget. I love you, mother. Tell father I miss him, and that he didn't leave me alone after all."
I lay back down, and closed my eyes, only one more tear squeezing between the lids. This wasn't a tear of sadness, however. It was my first tear of happiness since my parent's deaths. Because Ricky was the friend, and Benjamin the love, that were stitching the pieces of my broken heart back together.