Moon Over Min

Chapter 3: Min

I eyed the red blinking light on the security camera that was wedged into the corner of my ceiling.

Noah pointed it out one day after we heard a static noise inside my room. In our search for the source, we stumbled upon the surveillance camera.

Antonio was keeping a close eye on me.

But there were times he left the computer to put his attention on other things ― like his work, going to the bathroom, going to sleep, or anything that caused him to exit the room.

So Noah figured out Antonio's schedule for me to use that free time to explore outside, and although I have enhanced hearing ― Antonio is very hard to hear from upstairs.

He soundproofed his walls and learned to silence his footsteps.

It had been three years since Lena left the home, and it had been much quieter these days. At least in my opinion.

The slurs have decreased, the degrading has slightly stopped, and if Antonio was in his basement ― the house was still and silent.

Noah was still neglected by Antonio, but he says it's fine ― he learned how to cook better and can take care of himself. His under-eye bags have disappeared, and during school, while he escorted me around ― he talked more.

I could say that school is a way out of loneliness, but as a mammal with intelligence above everyone else ― I never had time to befriend anyone. I am forced to be taught in a room by myself. Each month, each year ― I was alone in that cold room with one teacher, and I couldn't leave without Noah there to walk me around.

Orders by Raven's Corporation of Research.

And as one of the most owned companies in America, the school had no choice but to obey their order.

Not only was I attending school to intensify my knowledge for my brain ― I had to wear a lanyard with R.C.R printed in big bold letters and go straight to the front desk to let them sign me in.

If they knew that I was a walking lab experiment with an ability to transform into a wolf ― I bet they'd toss me out and reject the R.C.R's orders without hesitation.

Wolves were hated everywhere, even at that school.

I learned the hard way that life was cruel to me, but with Noah helping me find ease in living, I might just accept my last eight years on earth as fun.

"I need answers!" The loud shout from Antonio echoed downstairs. "This demon is not growing at an escalating rate like you explicitly told me!"

That was true. For the five years, I've been alive, I've been growing at a normal rate. Like a normal human.

"What do you mean that it was a computer error!" Antonio's voice seemed to increase every time a sentence left his mouth. "Sort this out! It's only a matter of time until it craves my blood!"

I flinched hearing the loud stomps of his footsteps leading to my wired fence. He couldn't open it without a key, which Noah had, and started to shake the fence aggressively while shouting;

"You devil! You worthless devil!"

The sound of the fence being shaken caused my hands to instinctively fly up to my ears. I tried to block out the sound of the fence and the yelling.

But I could still hear the faint sound of his voice.

Stop...

Please... stop...

It hurts...

It feels like needles poking at my eardrums...

I know I'm a devil... so please... stop...

The noise eventually stopped and Antonio descended the stairs. I slowly removed my hands from my ears and listened to his footsteps go down to the basement. Once the door closed, I had let out a huge sigh of relief.

I would never get used to his anger or screams. No matter how long I lived ― I knew I'd forever hear their voices cursing my name beyond my death.

I laid down on my bed and slipped my legs under the covers. I closed my eyes to try to go to sleep.

I wanted to escape this troublesome moment by dreaming. Dreaming was, at least, my way of feeling happy with others that I had never met before.

My dreams consisted of wolves that surrounded me, and I transformed into a white wolf to run with them up a hill to jump to the moon. But one wolf always stood out the most. They had golden eyes like mine and seemed to always stare at me with fondness.

I tried to speak to them, but they would always run away into the group of trees. Never to be seen until I dreamed again.

***

Those dreams slowly began to clog my thinking process, making me miserable with angst and dread.

To give myself a clear image of my own mentality, I imagined a mountain in my mind.

A dangerous, sloped, rockless mountain with thorns sticking out on each side of it ― forcing you to injure yourself every time you try to climb it.

The journey to the top was impossible, I knew that. My life to become better than I was now was impossible ― I've always known this fact. So why was my defense mechanism ― to try to subside my own selfish emotions ― pain?

The thought of becoming happy was idiotic and scary knowing the place I would suffer in was only a few years away.

That climb to the top of the mountain always becomes harder as the rain slipped my grip on life, causing me to stumble back to the calamitous pit I was in before.

I'm going to die unhappy.

I'm going to die alone.

I'm going to die before I can revel in my woeful life.

I never asked to be a demonic wolf.

So why am I alive to suffer as one?

***

I had studied hypnopompic hallucinations before but I had never experienced it ― until this exact moment.

I had just opened my eyes to wake up, but in my line of sight ― there was a blurry presence of a small girl that had long black hair who stood a few feet away from my bed. Her body illuminated brightly and her brown eyes were glowing too. She was beautiful.

I didn't know if I was still awake or dreaming since my body refused to move. I decided to try to go back to sleep by closing my eyes again and ended up drifting back to sleep.

When I woke up again, the girl was gone, and I sat up to search my entire room for a sign of her.

She was nowhere to be found.

"Okay... I was just hallucinating..." I said, sitting back down on my bed.

My long white hair was down and covered my face a bit, which I flipped to one side, and my eyes saw an A-style envelope taped onto my window.

My room was on the second floor and the only way to reach it was by a ladder.

As long as I'd been living here, no one ever decided to visit my window. I didn't think no one knows where I live beside the ones that know I was a wolf.

I slowly got up from my bed, made my way to the window, unlocked it, slid it up, and reached my hand outside to grab the envelope before closing the window and locking it back. I grabbed my curtains to pull them together to cover the window. I went back to my bed to read the mysterious envelope.

It read;

I am writing this to the one that lives here with the white hair. If you are reading this letter, then please meet me in the woods down the road to the left. I will be waiting for you.

But if you are thinking of not meeting me, then let me explain how I know you.

I live nearby and saw you a bunch of times exiting or entering your home with someone. I couldn't help but wonder who you are, and I want to be your friend if I am able to.

Please consider meeting me,

Anonymous

I grabbed my laptop, which Noah gave me as a present, and opened it to check Antonio's schedule.

It was almost dark, which means he should’ve been pulling an all-nighter until he got too tired to continue working and would head to bed at five in the morning. Usually, he wouldn’t check the cameras before going to bed, but to Noah's knowledge ― Antonio had his computer that he watched me on set up in his bedroom, and knowing it stored all of the security camera footage on it, I had a few hours of free time until Antonio decided to check the cameras on his way to bed.

I would be worried about the footage being played back, but Antonio never played them back ― which was what Noah said.

I closed my laptop and put the letter back into the envelope. I got up off my bed, stuffed the envelope into my back pocket, walked to the curtains to open them back up, unlocked and opened my window quietly, and slipped myself through and closed it back.

"Please don't be a trap," I implored before jumping onto the ground.

I didn't waste time sprinting away from my home to the woods that the anonymous writer said to meet them at.

Noah took it upon himself to train my fragile body when I was one year old. He helped me learn how to trust myself when jumping from high heights, learn how to control my breathing while running ― he participated in extracurricular activities after school a lot, usually for fun, other times as a way to escape from home for a few hours ― and he even taught me how to silence my own footsteps.

He said that Antonio did it a lot at home from having to sneak around wild animals, and he figured it out just by observing him for years.

After weeks of learning how to do everything right, he covered for me while I attempted to try to run on my own, which was needed apparently.

According to a research article on the internet, a wolf needed to exercise regularly and stretch their legs to keep their body healthy.

So, when I was safe to go outside, I tried to run once a week and the temporary feeling of freedom soothed my mind.

I almost wanted to take this opportunity to escape Antonio's grasp, but the moment he’d figured out I was gone ― they'd come after me and lock me in a real confined cage.

I rathered stick to being behind the wire fence and have a semi-comfortable room to sleep in every night.

***

My feet stopped running, my eyes scanned the woods around me, and I sniffed for the scent of someone nearby.

My heart raced when my nose picked up a scent, then my ears heard the sound of sticks being crushed under someone’s weight. Someone was waiting for me, they were alone.

I turned to look behind me to check for any followers, before pursuing into the woods to find the anonymous writer that wrote me that odd letter and taped it to my window.

I slowly walked into the woods while being careful to maneuver around any sticks, fallen trees, or dead leaves that had fallen onto the ground. I didn't want to startle them, nor alert them of my presence. If I had a slight chance of being trapped, I'd have the advantage to slip away and make it back to my room before anyone noticed that I was gone.

My long white hair was blown around me by the light wind. The debris from the humans littering selfishly on the ground was getting stuck in between my strands of hair. I used my fingers to comb them out without pausing my journey inside the mysterious, unknown woods.

The muffled blow of the cool wind resonated against my ear. I sensed the presence of the other being getting closer to me. Their heartbeat was echoing through the woods and into my eardrums ― causing my own heartbeat to duplicate theirs.

All the sounds felt like they were ricocheting off the trees as I made my way deeper inside of the woods ― most possibly walking into my death.

The news of a five-year-old boy with wolf genetics making the headlines would’ve certainly given Wyoming a reason to run ― the threat behind my killing would’ve scared them into moving far. Maybe everyone would even abandon Wyoming altogether to stay safe.

My eyes could see more than I could hear and in my line of sight was a figure standing a few yards in front of me with long white hair and had feminine features. It was a girl. She wore a torn dress with no shoes on her feet and was about my height.

I scanned the area to check for an ambush, but it seemed that she was alone ― no one else except her and I was in this part of the woods.

When I stood a few feet away from her, about six feet in between us ― I took the envelope out of my back pocket to show her. "You wrote this?"

She nodded. "I did. Thanks for coming."

"You said that you want to be my friend..." I felt my body tremble out of fear of being wrong and humiliated. "I-I don't know if I can trust you..."

"You can trust me because I can trust you." She smiled at me. "I'm technically not the one to trust anyone, especially ones that I haven't met before. But you smell like me and I think I can trust you."

"Smell like you?"

"Mhm… I’m not a human. I'm a wolf and… I want to see if you are one too. Someone I live with says you might just have a wolf in your home, but I believe you're a wolf since it's a strong scent. I can smell it now, and you really smell like me. Like home. Like a wolf."

I felt my words claw up my throat to escape my lips. I never told anyone I was a wolf that didn't know beforehand. My life was worth more than a simple vehicle or home. If I told her the truth and it ended up being a fib ― I'm either dead as I feared or trafficked to be sold elsewhere.

"Can you not speak?" She asked. Her facial expression showed worriedness. "I saw you speak before, so am I not correct? Are you just a mere human?"

My stomach was twisting in nervousness. I was not mentally prepared to reveal my identity like this.

I leisurely shook my head side to side. I averted my gaze to the ground beneath us to look away from her face as I spoke. "I-I... I'm a w-wolf..."

"Why do you sound embarrassed saying it?"

"Because... I am a devil... a d-demon... everyone says I am going to hell where my kind goes after we die..."

"I've been told that before," She said, heaving a sigh of relief before taking a few steps closer to me. "That I was a demon worth killing an entire nation of humans. I never disagreed because I am capable of doing that but I don't want to kill anyone. It might run in my blood and genes or is expected of me since it's passed down in my generation. But I won't follow their footsteps or path. I'll do what I want and that'll be living a murder-less life."

I looked up to meet her golden eyes and my breath hitched in my throat. She did smell like me and her heartbeat was calming down after speaking. She was a wolf, though my wall was still built tall to prevent anyone from climbing over it. "I don't want to kill either," I said, playing with my hair anxiously.

"That's great!" She beamed. "That's another reason why we should be friends. We have the same views of our own mind."

"H-How will the friendship work? I am not able to casually leave my home without being sure of my human's busy schedule."

"I am not asking you to just force yourself to see me. You can wait until they're busy to come to me, and we'll play as long as we can until you have to return."

"Our friendship won't last long..."

"Why is that? Are you moving?"

"No... I..." I paused. My shock from conceding my own near-death was in effect. I was imagining the scenes of my limbs being cut off to sell to other humans. It felt like a horror scene except it will be reenacted in real life. My lips continued to move as my words were low and brittle. "I'm going to die in eight years. My body will be sold off to humans and the money will go to my owner, who's also my sperm donor."

"Do you mean… your father?"

"I am not allowed to call him that, he explicitly told me not to. He says a devil is not worth the breath of saying his name, and if he hears me say it again ― my death will be by his hands and he'll find another way to get his income."

"So... that human you are always around..."

"That's my brother. He lets me call him that, he doesn't care about my identity, and both of his parents are neglecting him for being close to me, though the birth giver he was close to... she abandoned him by walking out the door years ago and now he's barely getting any sleep. He says he is relieved but his eyes reflect sadness."

"I will never leave your side until your end day. I wish I could save you, but a wolf cannot do anything in this world except run for its life."

"I know and... I'll allow myself to pursue this friendship you want from me, but if I am uncomfortable at any time during this. Let me go home without question."

"I understand."

"And to get started on the friendship I'll tell you my name, it's Min. Min Mitchell."

"My name was given to me by my own birth giver, who is a wolf as well. It's Bi. Nothing else since last names aren't necessary for wolves."

I held out my trembling hand to Bi. "Nice to meet you, Bi."

She accepted my hand and gingerly shook it. "Nice to meet you too, Min."