Mist crawls through every crack and branch.
Lures his victim, waits for his master to command him to strike. Onyx feathers flutter against the engrossing silence. The inhabitants of the woods awake to see the spectacle. Who will win this time - life or death?
A girl is running.
Her sleepwear ripped and crumpled, now only a shadow of her innocence. The embroidered rosy hearts the only witnesses of the girls dismemberment. Her heart is trying not to listen to his smarmy voice.
He is racing her with the promise of feasting on her already broken will; to save her of the ones who tainted her, shattered her - lusted her. He will give her everything she wants and everything she fears.
Dead leaves crumble under her feet as she scampers through the frozen soil of the woods. Thin branches leave welts on her dusky skin, blood freeing itself from her shell like skin, but she is nothing but grateful that finally, she can feel.
He, grateful to the monster that brought her near him, licks his fangs. Her thin figure dodges fissures of mother earth, her determination almost sparks mournfulness in him. As soon as you have attracted his attention, you won’t be able to escape him. You can run, kick, scratch and even scream, it won’t matter. Wood’s citizens silently pray for her even with the knowledge that she is already sharing a bed with death. The wolves noticing the pursuit whimper silently and the owls damn the skies for not trying hard enough. She feels his presence, smells thousands of girls parfum who lost to his will. He spreads his arms wide open, calls to her, whispers to her crippled self. The mist is getting thicker making it impossible for her to navigate through the gloomy woods. His power pushes her to her knees and her cries are swallowed by the trees surrounding her. A piercing wind lashes her wet, crimson cheeks. The mud under her bare feet as slippery as her grip on her own soul. He hurls her entirely to the ground, pressing all of him onto all of her. The young girl’s tears moisters the cold earth. She reaches for the last straws to avoid the abyss, reaches her hand knowing there won’t be a soul to take it. The darkness grips her around the waist. Frosty lips kiss her right under the earlobe. “You are mine now.”, he breathes into her ear, sending a flood of terror through her core and awakening her inner wolf. The fragment of her heart that still clings to life bares its teeth and starts to howl and brawl death’s enchantment. “Let me live!”, she cries. “I don’t need you to find peace!”. She hears the hollowness of her own words. She doesn’t mean them and he knows it. Her inner wolf died with her the moment her uncle ripped her open and shedded misery into her. “I am your only hope for cure, my dear.”, he boasts. “Don’t fight me. Your soul wants this too.”. Minutes and hours pass as a senseless struggle goes on between them, her wolf all skin and bones. He breaks them with the click of his fingers. Her soul shatters to the ground. His bulking figure radiates as much power as his name. It was Depression himself, in all his form and all his glory, who flipped her onto her back, and she watches the stars as he infiltrates her, knowing that soon she would be one of them. Soon another lost girl, trying to battle depression the best she could, would look up to the spotted night sky, find her among all these stars, and gain encouragement in letting go of her robbed life.