[size=15pt]Red Filled Moon
[size=1.35em] The young elf jolted awake. He looked around, very unsure of the unfamiliar surroundings. It was a white room; a wooden border stretched the whole length of the wall. Intricate designs of roses and lilies strangled the border. It was a fairly large room. The only color in sight was the dark red of the curtains that tried to smother the daylight out of the room.
[size=1.35em]His head swooned, he had no idea what he was doing here. He did know that he should have been outside doing… something… not sitting here resting… Then a rather strange thought hit him. “ Who the hell am I?” He wondered aloud. He wasn’t sure of much, but he should have at least known his own name. That much he was sure of.
[size=1.35em]He flung his legs off of the matress, his legs were having a hard time moving correctly. He knew how to move them, it was just rather frustrating that his muscles wouldn’t do what he asked them to do. Aggravated, he grabbed the chair next to his bed, and used it to hobble his way over to the door. About the time he finally reached it the door meekly creaked open. A petrified woman stood in the doorway, a white gown, and folded cap with a red cross emblazoned on it, told the elf, that this was a nurse… but why did she look like that, she was shaking, not from the chill that was in the air, but from fear. She backed up against the wall of the hallway behind her.
“[size=1.35em]What the hell is that monster doing up? He had been in that horrible sleep for months!” she mumbled to herself. Then a deep, faint voice broke the stereotype altogether.
“[size=1.35em]Miss, is there something the wrong?” He looked at her, his deep, calm green eyes pierced right through her, he was desperate for an answer. He had only been awake for a couple minutes, but the questions were eating him alive. She appeared to calm down, she looked down, straightened her blouse, the creases obeying her hands and flattening out. “No there is nothing wrong. Nothing at all. You’ve been asleep for a long time, and you startled me standing at the door is all” an obvious lie, as the shakiness in her voice gave away her clear anxiety. “Miss where am I. And who am I?”, again the softness in his voice got the better of her. Definatly not the stare, nor the voice of a monster, as she was perceiving him to be a moment ago.
“[size=1.35em]Ummmm…”, she looked down again, fidgeting with her blouse, pondering wether or nt she had the authority to tell this man these questions, she looked back up, noticeing how his black bangs framed his face and eyes so well…
“[size=1.35em]The name on the military dog tags that hung around your neck when you were admitted into the hospital was Shadowmeire. You have been in a coma for about three months”, she said, deciding that he had the right to his own name, and what he was doing in a shirt that had no back to it.
“[size=1.35em]And where is ‘here’” he retorted at pointblank.
“[size=1.35em]'Here, is Nimloth Hospital in the Talus Peaks”, she said, becoming a bit more angsty at his change in tone. “Now I have to go, the doctor will be in to evaluate you in a few hours”, as soon as she said that she clung to her files and scurried away. Shadowmeire backed into the hospital bed, as it was still easier to back, rather than turn around and waste energy. He sat on the bed, and dozed off to sleep while waiting for the doctor to visit him…
[size=1.35em] Legions of evil seemed to spring forth onto the battlefield. The undead, twisted manifestations of hatred, and terror, hellbent on the destruction of everything, surrounded a small militia. The putrid smells of sweat, blood and carnage seemed to strangle any real air that could be inhaled. The chargeing forces quickly overwhelmed Shadowmeire’s small company. He heard some men yelling some he couldn’t understand, some where just the valiant war cries of a doomed solider next to him. What he did hear was a commanding officer “KILL THE NECROMANCER!” His eyesight quickly looked over the top of the undead army at the silhouette of a person. Green flames leapt from the taloned hand and another skeleton came into being.”KILL THE NECROMANCER!!!”, he heard again. Shadowmeire swung his morning star into the helm of another skelly, smashing its skull in as the rest of it crumpled to the ground. He was making ground. He heard a sword slash past his ear, then felt a slice pierce his chain mail, he fell to the ground, only to see the empty eye sockets peering down into them. Then everything was dark.
[size=1.35em]It felt like hours. “Am I dead?’
“[size=1.35em]Where is that bright light?”
“[size=1.35em]I must be dead. Is this really it? Am I in purgatory?”
[size=1.35em]And then he heard it. A deep guttural sound, like a deep, beating bark that his ears were intently focused on. He knew that sound. It was the roar of a creature that he hated more than anything else in this world. The creature that had slain his village in one night, and had plagued his every nightmare.
[size=1.35em]Then it was a deep searing pain in his collar bone. He had been bit…
[size=1.35em]Shadowmeire shot up in his bed again. He reached for his collarbone, there was nothing there, no scar, no teeth marks. It was just a dream after all. He looked over to seen an oil lantern. It was dark now. The curtains had won their fight with the sun. Now all they had to fight was the moonlight, and the clouds were doing a good job with helping in that fight. Next he noticed a man on the other side of the lantern, a crooked nose, holding up the glare of round glasses. A thin frame of a face was shocked by his sudden movement. Sweat dripped from Shadow’s hair and down his chin, where it dropped off onto his body.
“[size=1.35em]That was quite the nightmare you were having, young man”, the red flicker of the lantern made his glasses seem to eerily glare at Shadow.
“[size=1.35em]Was I? I’m sorry for that. I didn’t mean to startle you. That nurse from earlier seems startled by me being awake as well”
“[size=1.35em]That was Hannah. Don’t worry about her she comes from a superstitious group of people from the north. I’m Dr Fredricks, I’ve been running some diagnostics and blood samples since you have woke up. While I’m waiting on that, I was doing some other paper work, When you were in the coma, I often would come in here to get away from everyone, and to make it look like I was working.” again, it seemed to Shadow how creepy this guy was, as a wry smile appeared under the eery glare of his glasses.
“[size=1.35em]Doctor, do you by chance, know who brought me here in the first place? And what cause my coma?”, the questions just kept bubbling up to the surface of his mind.
“[size=1.35em]Well i’m not sure about who brought you. The rumor was, it was a pair of stark-naked, shaggy men. Both had a yellow eye. When the help staff that night turned around, both were gone. As for the coma, it was a biological manifestation that was attacking your brain, and causing it to swell. We got the swelling down the first night you were here, but you wouldn’t wake up. We started detoxifying your blood, and that is when you awoke today, when the detox was completed just last night. The blood tests im running now is to see the ratio of contaminated blood to regular and see what we get.”
[size=1.35em]Shadowmeire understood everything that the doctor had said; he had a medical background… somewhere. He couldn’t remember where the training came from, but it wasn’t really a concern at the moment. The one thing he couldn’t grasp, was who were the two shaggy men? One yellow eye? But the eyes of humans, elves, and dwarves were blue, hazel, red, brown,and green… Orcs sometimes had yellow pupils. But Orcs wouldn’t be anywhere near a human settlement and not be shot on sight.
[size=1.35em]Then it hit him, it wasn’t a ‘who’, but rather a ‘what’.
“[size=1.35em]It sure is dark in here”, wick on the lantern had almost withered to nothing,”lets open the curtains a bit, the farmers almanac said it would be a beautiful, harvest moon tonight. Hopefully it will bring some light on the paper work!”, Fredericks yawned and stretched, opening the red curtain in a swift moment. Before Shadow could even say no, the moon shown in through the window. A searing pain shot down his collarbone and down the rest of his body. He jolted out of the bed, then crumpled to the ground. The doctor reached out to him. “Son are you ok?”, fear welled up inside of him, he quickly backed away as suddenly as he had reached out, creeping against the wooden boarder towards the door, trying to leave. He knew his folly that night was not telling the others where he would be that evening.
[size=1.35em]Shadow’s eyes teared up, he heaved from chest pains as his pupils turned into amber slits. Talons spintered his finger and toenails. The short hair on his back, arms, and legs grew exponentially, and then the final transformation took place: The bowing of his back, his forarms stretched out, canines teeth and fangs replaced his molars, his legs forced him to hunch down on all fours, his screams turned into a deep guttural roar, and his mouth stretched into a muzzle. The harvest moon had finally showed itself from the clouds, As the doctor turned the door handle, the great beast before him became aware of his presence, and stalked towards to the door, his ebony fangs gleamed in the moonlight. Only two things pervaded its mind: Blood and flesh.
[size=1.35em]Hannah heard the shrieks and the roar from several hallways away, as she came closer to the door, she heard a great crash, and then it was quiet. She had an idea of what to expect when she turned the door handle. It wasn’t close to the reality though. Fredericks was torn to shreds. He was unrecognizable. If it hadn’t been for the name tag he bore, she wouldn’t have known it was him. An eye was on his chest. Part of his hand was on the bed. He was also disembowled, and the white tile was stained the same color as the curtains.
