The moon turned red. It was a violent red like the sky itself had been wounded. It cast a crimson glare across the earth.
Bloodthirsty howls filled the air.
They rose in waves, it was nothing like the usual midnight calls of wolves. These were a mix of human and beast. The entire world reacted in fright peculiar to each individual. Mothers clutched their children and tried to get them to safety. Soldiers reached for their useless weapons. Elders incapable of running whispered prayers.
Chaos erupted before the clock even struck midnight.
In the small town of Havenridge in New York City, ten-year-old Raven watched from the attic window where her mother had hidden her before she ran back out to find her brothers, she watched as their neighbour doubled over in the backyard. His body convulsed, bones snapped and reformed as fur tore through his skin. His eyes glowed gold as he leapt through the air mauling her father, mother and two baby brothers.
She had known Mr. Lionheart since she was wise enough to remember faces, he was the nicest neighbour on the block. It seemed like he had been taken over and had no idea who the people he just killed were. Her mother had baked him birthday cakes every year. He used to barbecue with her father on some weekends behind the house.
All across the world, the centuries old curse awoke. The werewolves dug their teeth into any human they could find. They shifted uncontrollably. They turned on their loved ones, humans they had lived alongside peacefully for centuries.
And Raven ran.
She ran from the only home she had known, barefoot and breathless, the scent of blood thick in her nose. Behind her, the town burned. She didn't know where she was going. Only that she had to survive.
*****
Raven had stopped counting the days.
She had hidden in a hollowed out tree trunk for the first few days.
She should have died. She almost did out of starvation.
She was found instead by a patrol looking for survivors. They brought her to a camp full of other survivors, fed her, gave her a blanket and a small mattress, and told her she was safe.
That was a lie.
The camp was surrounded by a high fence and guarded through out the day by soldiers with torches and guns with silver bullets but it couldn't stop what was already inside.
The red moon came again, and someone shifted. In the middle of the camp.
By the time the soldiers were able to kill the creature, twenty-three were dead. One of them was the only friend she had made, a boy her age named Ellis.
She never let anyone near her after that.
Years passed, the world as she once knew it was destroyed. Only a handful of humans were left in any given town. Raven had learnt how to move silently, she had learnt to hunt. She didn't need anyone, didn't want anyone.
There were no more Blood Moons now. It had been years since one appeared. The howls had begun to change. They were becoming more organised.
As she lay on her reasonably comfortable bed she had crafted all by herself, she saw a werewolf watching her. It didn't charge at her, it didn't try to frighten her, it just watched her.
Raven tightened the grip on her handmade knife. It almost looked like it was mocking her. Probably wondering what she could do with a knife that was barely sharp enough to cut through foam.
She half expected it to come closer and find out but it turned its back to her and raced into the dark forest, a place that used to be filled with buildings.
Raven knew it was time to move on. Where one werewolf was, a pack could be found close by.
******
Raven had a small, weather-worn backpack slung across her shoulder, a faded thing with a single broken strap and a patch of Scooby Doo that had lost most of its stitching. She found it years ago in a crumbling yellow house on the outskirts of a long-dead suburb, surrounded by a ring of bones. The skulls, some human, some animal stared silently from where they'd fallen, as if warning her not to touch anything. Naturally, she'd taken the backpack and left everything else. If the dead wanted to keep their crap, they should've done a better job of surviving the apocalypse.
Now, ten years into the world falling apart, she knew one truth: never stay in one place too long.
She moved quietly through the remnants of what had once been a bustling town. Cars sat frozen in time, most of them rusted over and split open with moss and vines that had long claimed them. Weeds sprouted through shattered windshields and wrapped around steering wheels. The silence was broken only by the occasional flutter of wings
The main road still reeked. Not fresh rot, but the long-dried memory of death. She dipped into a narrow alleyway, hoping to avoid being seen.
Then she heard a scream. It was sharp, high pitched and sounded young.
She froze only for a moment, heart pounding against the cage of her ribs. Then she moved.
Raven took off. Her fingers gripped the hilt of her knife, the one she'd just sharpened with a stone.
She found the source of the scream at the end of the alley. A boy. No older than fourteen, maybe younger was curled on the ground, bleeding from his nose and mouth. Two men loomed over him, kicking and snarling. One was bald with a jagged scar running down his temple. The other wore a jacket far too clean for someone supposedly struggling to survive.
"Hey!!!" Raven shouted at the top of her voice.
Both men turned. She looked down at the boy. He wasn't moving, not really. Just breathing in shaky, broken hiccups.
"Stay out of this, lady," the bald one barked. "This doesn't concern you."