Faceless Night [Part 2].

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The color was a shiny black, as dark as the night. He walked among the dry branches soaked by the rain. Only the two pearl-like orbs on his face, his eyes, could be taken with him anywhere. He moved through the bushes and once again his body twisted to gaze at the cloudy sky, hoping the full moon would never appear. Hoping the rain would finally favor the curse that condemned him. Hoping to keep watching his lover's body only in the form of a black cat. He tried to meow, but his voice suddenly grew heavy, no longer resembling that of a cat. He tried to retreat, sneaking his body back into the bushes, to avoid the full moon's light.

But, alas, the sky remained the sky, reigning over the universe. The full moon emerged, blurring the pearl-like color that grew on his face since birth, his vision darkening, fading away, as his eyes grew larger, taking on the shape of a man's eyelids. The bushes trembled, brushing against the surface of his black fur as it turned into human skin and body. Now he stood completely perfect, as a man under the curse.

(At three o'clock in the early morning), a blind man felt his way down a footpath with a stick made of wooden branches. He walked slowly and stumbled his way from the back garden of the house belonging to Gadis and Gilang, still naked. As a blind person who always sharpens his hearing, he only heard the sound of the wind blowing. The night had completely forgotten the dialogue of human children.

Occasionally, the end of his stick touched the wet grass. He was heading towards the clothesline that stretched along the front yard of the house. Searching for his clothes there, he stopped for a moment because he felt something strange. It wasn't like usual, within a radius of five meters from the house's terrace. The sound that he knew very well, like the sound of a flag fluttering in the middle of the night, but the sound wasn't there, and his clothes, yes, his clothes weren't there either. Instead, he found the sound of two young children snoring soundly. He knew who they were, even he knew them long before they were born. His children. His two sons and daughters.

The tip of his stick stopped beside Gadis's ear. Then his naked body bent down, feeling for the head of his beloved child. He cursed the full moon that cursed him—if only he could be a perfect father, not blind when he was human, and blind when he was a cat. He was startled after feeling the softness of his children's heads with affection. His non-furry hand felt a wet lump of clothes under their heads. Before he could pick up the clothes, the sound of a wooden door screeched right in front of him, one meter away.

The woman walked out completely naked. "I know you'll demand the promise of the heavens tonight, my love, just like I will. After my promise is fulfilled, I will tear apart every inch of your body until there is nothing left!". The woman spoke after embracing her husband's body for a while. He let the warmth take over every inch of his body, a warmth he had been longing for. A warmth that made him jealous when he was just a black cat. Jealous when he saw every beautiful curve of his wife's body embraced until she moaned by another man's body. When he was still in the form of a black cat. The jealousy that made his heart ache.

"But you are just a mermaid, whom I found stranded on the shore of the blue sea. You're nothing but a female fish!"

"I've stayed away from the salty sea water ever since you found me for the first time, my husband. Do you forget when you had to endure hunger until the full moon arrived? There was no fish except for me back then. Because I, the queen of the fish, had ordered all the sea creatures not to come near the shore. Because there was you, a wild black cat, who was lost and looking for prey!"

....

Continue to part 3.