Rend

Rend

My life had gone from practically heaven to hell on earth in the space of a week. I found out everything I believed was just one cataclysmic lie after another. I thought turning twenty-one was the start of true adulthood and not the end of life as I knew it.

I was determined to celebrate with my friends the moment I could legally claim being twenty-one.  I told my dad my plan, his face fell, but he didn’t stop me. He even helped me set up the fire pit and supplied some of the alcohol.

I’d forgotten about his reaction until the sound of my mother screaming at him floated into the back yard over the thumping music. I caught something about the phases of the moon, but shrugged and  wandered off to party with my friends and enjoy the night.

My friend gasped as an amazingly brilliant full moon rose through the sky. I was fixated by this silvery orb and a humming started to wash over my body. I heard sounds I never noticed before, saw things I never realized, and was overwhelmed with a thousand smells.

I heard my dad yell, “Run!”

But he was too late. In an instant I shifted and was aware I inhabited the form of a massive tiger, but all human thoughts disappeared.

Sharp claws tore and fangs sliced. The smell of blood permiated the night air, and I didn’t stop until a heavy paw to the head sent me tumbling to the ground. I was bruised and bloody before the sun rose and I collapsed in a heap, again nothing but a human.

“Why didn’t you stop me?” I screamed. “I’m a monster.”

My dad hung his head. “I thought the full moon was tomorrow,” he said.

I ran into the house, and jumped into the shower, but nothing I did could wash away the horrors of that night