Ruby
It’s been days.
It’s been long, unbearable days, to be precise, and the only thing on my mind was how I wish I could turn back time and listen to the advice of my grandmother.
I would never forget the echo of Liam’s cruel parting words that reverberated in my ears as the gate slammed shut, shutting me out of the pack I once called home.
“I hope that’s enough of a parting gift for you to get it through your thick skull-the fact that I don’t want you anymore. Here, keep your lover’s heart,” he spat, throwing Andrew’s heart callously to the ground at my feet. Tears streamed down my face as I stood there, paralyzed by the cruelty of his rejection.
I came to the realisation that the one person who stood by me was gone, and I didn’t even get the chance to say goodbye as it was unexpected.
Loneliness descended upon me like a suffocating blanket. Unexpectedly, I heard thunder roar and lightning strike, and I looked up at the sky as nature mirrored the turmoil within me.
Rain began to pour heavily, each drop a poignant echo of the tears that fell from my eyes. It felt as if the moon goddess herself was angered by the cruel and ridiculous way Andrew was killed and the heartbreak that unfolded beneath her watchful gaze.
I screamed into the storm, the anguish of my soul escaping into the tempest. The realisation that Andrew’s heart, a symbol of love and loyalty, now lay discarded at my feet intensified the sense of isolation I felt.
The downpour masked my tears, but the pain remained, a relentless companion on the lonely journey I would face as I walked back home in my weakened state.
I slowly lowered my body to pick up Andrew’s heart, embraced it to my chest, and began walking a million miles. Each step I took, I would mutter a thousand apologies, which would echo into the wind.
As I walked through the solitude of the storm, I couldn’t shake the haunting question: Why wasn’t it me who had died? Why wasn’t I the one whose heart got ripped out?
“I failed you,” I whispered desperately, and the guilt I felt in my chest became my only solace as I journeyed back home.
It took me a week later for me to finally reach my grandmother’s house, and fatigue clung to every step, and the heaviness within me mirrored the weariness of the journey.
Without uttering a word, I threw Andrew’s heart at her feet, a painful admission of my failure.
“I’m sorry.” The words escaped my lips, heavy with regret. The guilt of not being able to protect him weighed on my shoulders like an insurmountable burden. Tears mingled with raindrops that still clung to my skin, and I couldn’t meet my grandmother’s eyes.
“Please help me bury him because I don’t deserve to,” were the final words I told my grandmother as I walked into her house.
“I wish I had done enough to protect you. I’m a failure of a Luna.” I murmured, looking out the window in raw vulnerability. The shattered pieces of my identity lay bare, exposed in the cold light of my perceived shortcomings.
“Ruby, enough of the mopping.” The voice of my grandmother pierced through the haze of my sorrow, bringing me back to the stark reality that unfolded within the walls of her home.
I shifted my gaze from the window, where my distant gaze had fixated on what felt like eternity, and stared at her with empty eyes. My breath itch for a second when I saw her holding my baby in her arms, his cries cutting through the heavy air.
“You need to eat something or at least move. You can’t stay there forever.”
Her words echoed with concern, urging me to shake off the shackles of grief that had held me captive, but it was impossible. I don’t deserve to eat, move, or breathe.
“It’s been a hundred days you’ve been crying and moping, and you need to get your life back together, Ruby. Your son needs you,” she implored, her eyes filled with a mixture of worry and compassion as she tried to comfort my crying child.
I couldn’t bring myself to meet her eyes directly. Instead, my gaze lingered on my baby, whose cries seemed to intensify with each passing moment.
The resemblance in his steel grey eyes to the one who had caused my pain became an unbearable weight. A dark seed of resentment began to take root within me. I felt a growing aversion to the cries that mirrored the cries I had wept in front of his father. I was sickened by the constant reminder of the pain inflicted by that steel gaze, and as I stared at the baby, a disturbing thought crossed my mind.
Maybe I should remove those eyes, erase the painful resemblance, and lie to him when he grows, telling him that he had been born blind. I thought darkly to myself, feeling the bitterness within me begin to blossom into a passionate hatred, directed not at the innocent baby in my grandmother’s arms but at the cruel twist of fate that had tied his existence to the source of my agony.
If only he had my ordinary brown eyes.
I now resented the fact that he looked so much like the man who had not only rejected me but had also taken away my loyal friend in the most heartless way possible, and the weight of that truth settled into the depths of my soul, fanning the flames of resentment that threatened to consume the love I once held for my own child.
“Ruby, calm down. You’re hurting yourself,” my grandmother’s urgent voice pierced through the air as she rushed to my side. Only then did I realise the pain in my hands and the blood staining my once-creamy dress.
I had been unknowingly digging my claws into my own skin, a twisted attempt to release the inner turmoil.
“It’s nothing, Granny. It’s nothing compared to what Andrew felt or that poor, innocent warrior. I should have been the one who got her heart ripped out and hands cut off,” I muttered, the words dripping with the bitterness of self-loathing.
Another dark thought crossed my mind, and I stood up from where I was sitting. A sinister glint flickered in my eyes, and I felt the pain within my chest manifesting into a dark, malevolent force within me.
My grandmother was a wise and experienced werewolf, so I wasn’t surprised when she sensed the shift in the atmosphere and back away, recoiled in fear. Her eyes widened with recognition of the unsettling dark look that had taken residence in my gaze.
The abyss of despair seemed to stare back at her, a chilling reminder that the scars of loss and rejection had etched themselves deeply into my soul.
“Give me the baby, Granny,” I demanded, my voice carrying a cold edge that made her shiver in fear, and goosebumps filled her skin.
I could feel myself slowly losing the last screw that held my sanity together as I extended my arms with a twisted desire towards her with determination to separate myself from the painful reminder of my past consuming me.
“Ruby, you need to calm down. The baby is innocent,” my grandmother pleaded, her eyes pleading for reason.
However, the storm within me drowned out any semblance of logic or compassion.
“I said, Give me the baby!” I snapped, my words laced with a ferocity that startled my grandmother.
Reluctantly, she placed the crying infant in my arms, and her eyes gazed at me in sadness as a silent surrender to the unsettling transformation she witnessed in her once-beloved granddaughter.
My son’s cries seemed to merge with the storm of emotions raging within me-a cacophony of despair and resentment.
Carrying the baby in my arms, I pushed my grandmother to the side, and I ran out of the house, my feet moving with the urgency of escape that was fueled by the darkness that enveloped my soul.
I could hear the voice of my grandmother calling my name in the background as I sprinted away. I heard her screams, a desperate call for other pack members to follow and prevent me from harming the innocent child in my arms.
It was as if my baby could understand what I was about to do; his cries became louder, harmonising with the haunting melody of my anguish.
The chilling thought of ending my baby’s life echoed in my mind as I ran to a high mountain, my grip on the infant tightening with each step.
Despair bore down on me, urging me to bring an abrupt end to the torment that would keep reminding me of my past mistake. Reaching the cliff of the mountain, I felt a wide range of emotions and a maddening impulse urging me to throw the baby away and embrace the loneliness that had come into my life forever.
I raised my child high in the air with tears in my eyes, and I heard the wind whispering a haunting lullaby of finality.
Could I possibly kill a baby? The baby I had laboured and cried so hard for until the moon goddess gave me a second chance to have him back in my life? Won’t that make me a devil and no different from Lilith? But he looks so much like Laim, it hurts. Could I live with the fact that I would be childless forever?
However, in my moment of darkness and despair, I watched my baby, my own flesh and blood, open its little mouth and utter a single word that cut through the dark thoughts swirling in my mind.
“Mama.” Little Alex giggled, clapping his little hands as he gave me a cute grin, and the unexpected sound of his innocent voice reached deep within me, reminding me of the bond that transcended the shadows of pain.
And the one thing that came to mind was how he just said his first words.
He called me Mama.
That simple utterance warmed my cold heart, becoming a lifeline and pulling me back from the edge of self-destruction.