When The Moon Weeps Blood
Chapter One
---
On the night the moon wept blood, I remembered what bones sound like when they break from the inside.
But that comes later. First, you must understand something:
I don't remember my mother's face. But I remember the smell of men.
---
I was born between a human's scream and a fox's roar—half human blood, half ancient curse.
In our village, they said the demons entered the bloodline generations ago. But what are demons? I don't know. All I know is that I was the only child in the market who was sold again and again. Others were bought once. I always returned. Like a rusty coin no one wants but no one throws away.
In the market, they examined me like cattle. Opening my mouth, touching my teeth, pressing my ribs. But always, before the hands bought, the eyes touched first.
I would close my eyes and wish the earth would swallow me. But the earth never swallowed me. The earth was busy swallowing others.
---
The first night I remember clearly:
I was no more than seven. Maybe. I don't know for sure. Time in the market passes differently.
A man bought me. A fat man, with a beard down to his chest, and a smell like rotting meat. He took me to a room behind the market. The room was small, with a wooden bed, and dark stains on the walls. I didn't ask what they were. I knew.
He said: "Take off your clothes."
I didn't move. I didn't know what to do. I was just trembling.
He hit me. On my face. I fell to the floor. He said: "I said take them off."
I took them off.
Then—I don't want to remember the details. But I remember small things:
The sound of the wooden bed under his weight.
His hand on my throat pressing until I almost choked.
The tears that fell down my face without me crying—my body cried without my permission.
And the pain. Not one pain—a double pain: the pain of my body, and the pain of knowing that this is the world, this is my fate, this is all I will ever know.
When he finished, he stood and dressed. Looked at me on the floor, and said: "You're bad. You're good for nothing."
Then he took me back to the market. Got back half his money. The trader laughed and said: "I told you, this one's only good for dogs."
I wasn't crying. I was staring at the ceiling. At a damp stain that looked like a face. That face was staring back at me too. It did nothing.
That's how I learned: No one will save you. Even the stains on the ceiling just watch.
---
The next time, I was bought with three other children. A man took us to a distant city. On the way, he stopped in a forest. Said: "This is a good place."
He had two other men with him. They took the children one by one behind the trees. I heard the screaming. Not long screaming—short, muffled screams, then faint crying, then silence.
My turn came. One of them grabbed my hair and pulled me. I said: "Please." He laughed. Said: "Please? That's funny." Then—I don't want to remember. But I remember that my eyes were open the whole time. I was staring at the sky between the branches. The sky was grey, no stars, no moon, just empty grey.
I said to myself: The sky sees. The sky sees all this. And the sky does nothing.
After, they left me in the forest. They said: "This one's dead." But I didn't die. I got up hours later. Walked. Walked until I found a village. In the village, they thought I was a ghost. Threw stones at me.
That's how I learned: Survivors aren't welcomed. Survivors remind others that death isn't the end of pain.
---
I returned to the market. I always returned. As if the market was my only mother.
---
One night—I was maybe ten, I don't know—a noble-looking man bought me. Clean clothes, smelled of perfume. I said to myself: "Finally, maybe this one is different."
He was different indeed.
The first night, he entered my room. But he didn't touch me. Sat on a chair, took out a small knife. Said: "Come here."
I approached. He took my hand. Then—very slowly—he began cutting my little finger. My nail first, then the skin, then the flesh. He did this while I screamed, and he smiled. Said: "I love this sound. It's real. Everything else in the world is fake, but this sound is real."
He cut two whole fingers before stopping. Then said: "Tomorrow I'll continue."
In the morning, they found me bleeding. The doctor said: "This finger won't grow back." They bandaged my hand. And at night, the man returned. Looked at the bandages and said: "Tonight we'll start from the other side."
I escaped that night. Climbed through the window with my hand bleeding. Ran through the streets crying, not just from pain, but because for a moment I believed the world could be kind.
I returned to the market. I always returned.
---
In the times that followed, I learned how to separate my body from my soul.
This was the greatest skill I ever learned.
When someone touched me, I would leave myself. I would rise to the ceiling, sit there, and look down. I would see my body there, on the bed, moving, being touched, being hurt—but I wasn't there. I was on the ceiling. I was in the corner. I was in the shadow.
The shadows were always kind to me. They never touched me.
Once, while I was on the ceiling, I saw something in the corner. A shadow unlike the others. It was staring at me. Not at my body—at me, up there on the ceiling. It knew I was separate. It could see my soul.
Then it smiled.
That was the first time I knew there were things that saw me. Things other than humans. And that they smile when I suffer.
---
I learned quickly: the world is a guillotine. Children are sold, women are raped, men are thrown into battlefields like garbage. The shadows smile in the corners. And the sky does nothing.
But the question that burned in me: Why don't I die?
They tried to kill me many times. Once, they beat me until I stopped moving. Left me in a pit. But I woke up hours later. Once, a man tried to strangle me. I let him choke me until he thought I was dead, then when he opened his eyes, I was staring at him. He screamed and ran.
Once, they buried me alive.
I remember the dirt filling my mouth, my nose, my eyes. I remember the heavy darkness, the suffocation, and the only sound—my heartbeat that refused to stop. I remember digging. Digging with my hands until the flesh peeled from my fingers. Digging for hours. Or days. I don't know.
When I emerged, the moon was red. Like a wound. Like a slaughtered eye.
And there was something standing at the edge of the grave. Staring at me. Not human. Not animal. Something else.
It said—in a voice that wasn't a voice—three words:
"Not. Your. Time. Yet."
Then it vanished.
I didn't know what it meant. But I memorized the words. Memorized them in my bones.
---
That night, when the moon wept blood—the same night I saw that thing—I was about to be sold again.
The market was quiet. The sellers were whispering. One said: "Tonight we don't sell. Tonight we wait."
Then a man walked into the market.
The moment he entered, everything stopped. Even the wind. The man... was ordinary. Brown coat, black hair. But his walk was strange. Each step seemed to grip the earth. As if the earth was afraid of him.
And the shadows—those that always smiled—vanished. All of them. In an instant.
He stopped before me. Looked at me. Looked at me for a long time. Not like the other men who looked at my body. He was looking into my eyes. At my soul there on the ceiling.
He saw me. There. On the ceiling. He saw me.
He said to the trader:
– How much for this one?
– "M... million."
He laughed: "This one? Half flesh and half wound? Not worth the leather of my boots."
The crowd laughed. But the laughter was afraid. As if they laughed because they didn't want to cry.
He threw a bag of gold on the table:
– I'll take her.
As I walked behind him, I turned back. In the distant shadow, I saw one of "them" staring at us. It was trembling. It was afraid.
For the first time, I felt something strange: Maybe I'm not just a victim. Maybe I'm something else. Something that even shadows fear.
---
That night, in a small room—a clean room, for the first time in my life—he placed a knife in my hand.
He didn't touch me. Didn't come close. Just placed the knife in my hand and said:
– Hold it.
– "Why?"
– Because one day you'll kill with it.
– "Who?"
– Everyone who tried to kill you. Everyone who tried to erase you. Everyone who made you climb to the ceiling.
He looked at me. Then said quietly:
– My name is Raven. And remember: No one will protect you. No one can. But you can learn to protect yourself.
– "Why are you doing this for me?"
– Because you're the only one I've seen on the ceiling. Because you're the only one who came back from the grave. Because the shadows fear you, and I want to know why.
Raven didn't understand anything. He was searching for answers like me. But he was the first to treat me as a human—not as a body, not as a wound, as a human searching for answers too.
---
He died a month later.
The plague. An ordinary, stupid disease. On a grey morning, I woke to find him gasping, his eyes glassy, his body burning. He said in a faint voice:
– I didn't find the answer. But you will. You... you are the key.
And died.
I buried him with my hands. I cried. For the first time since I was seven, I cried. Not because Raven was kind—he wasn't kind. He was harsh, difficult, mysterious. But he was the first to see that I wasn't just a body. The first to know my soul was on the ceiling.
I stood at his grave for hours. And in the corners, the shadows watched. But they didn't come close. They were afraid. Of dead Raven? Or of me, the living?
---
Months later, I was walking a desolate road. The road led to a city called "Nisc." I'd heard of it: a city without kings, ruled by priests of "The Giver." Every day, they sacrifice a child. And the people thank them because "The Giver" protects the city from "The Door." I don't know what the Door is. No one explains.
On the road, I found them—a gang of men surrounding elven children.
The children were crying. The men were laughing. And in the shadow, there were three of them whispering: "Kill them. They're weak. Enjoy."
I had no reason to help. But I remembered Raven. I remembered he said: "The weak are why the strong survive. If we all die, who will rule them?"
I didn't fully understand. But I understood something: I was once a weak child. And no one saved me. Maybe that's why I should save them.
I struck quickly. Ten men fell in minutes. My body slick with their blood—warm blood, like mine.
But their leader was different.
He grabbed a small girl, put a knife to her throat. Laughed and said:
– Come closer and she dies.
I froze.
The girl was crying. She was looking at me. Waiting for me to save her. Was I on the ceiling again? No. I was in my body. I was here. But I couldn't move.
The shadows—those three—were whispering: "Failed. Failed. She'll die like you. Like you. Like you."
And then—
A knight.
Behind the leader. I didn't hear his steps. Didn't feel him. It was as if he grew from the earth. His armor black—a color that swallowed light. His sword moved—
The leader's head flew. Blood sprayed. The body fell. The girl fell but I caught her before the ground.
The shadows screamed. Screamed with a sound like breaking glass. Then vanished.
I finished the rest. The men fled. I killed those who didn't. My body trembling. The girl in my arms crying.
I turned to thank him—
No one was there.
But in the distance, between the trees, I saw a shape. A shape I knew.
Raven?
Impossible. Dead. I buried him.
I ran toward the shape. Ran until the road disappeared. Until the trees disappeared. I reached a barren land, in the center a broken stone pillar, inscribed with writing I didn't understand.
The shape stood behind the pillar.
I approached slowly.
No one was there.
But on the ground, there was something: a piece of cloth. From Raven's coat. Stained with old, dry blood.
I picked it up. Beneath it, carved into the earth: my name. And beneath it: "Key to the Door."
I stood there, the wind howling, the sky raining falling stars, holding a piece of cloth from a dead man.
And suddenly—I remembered.
I remembered the nights. I remembered the hands. I remembered the pain. I remembered climbing to the ceiling. I remembered the shadows that smiled.
And I remembered one question that burned through all those years:
Why didn't I die?
Why did I come back from the grave?
Why do the shadows fear me?
And what is the "Door" that I am the key to?
I don't know the answers.
But I will.
Because I learned one thing in this life: Pain never ends. But pain can also become a weapon.
And if the shadows fear me—then I will become the thing they fear most.
Not because I want to.
But because I'm tired of being afraid.
TO BE CONTINUED...