One Moon

One glistening eye stared up from the bottom of Silbury pond, waiting.

The water had calmed into an almost pristine stillness and as the season’s changed to winter, the top froze and soon the freeze began to deepen.

From the very bottom of the pond; the eye of Bali stared through rain, snow, wind, day and night, fixed on an area on the surface of the pond. Nothing else could stare, not his wide open mouth full of fangs, nor his 6 finger razor sharp claws or massive wolf like body or any of its poised, tense limbs. They all seemed trained on the glimmering surface.

A couple skated overhead and distracted his gaze one day. He watched them skate off across the pond and then back. They skated some more but left all too soon and he was back to staring at the surface ice of the pond.

He couldn’t see the woods or his nemesis perched in the trees watching him. He couldn’t see fish until they fluttered by him or brushed his side. In fact, at the bottom of the pond all he could reflect on at all besides the glimmer of the surface was himself.

Sometimes it snowed over and sometimes it became clear but he maintained his focus just as he had for countless years. Who else would defend the children and innocents from this plague incarnate? He thought.

He could stare no where else. Nothing else mattered. Not for centuries, not for millennia. That the monster be destroyed once and for all was all that consumed him.

The Monster-

Villagers converged at the dimly lit riverside pub as the night rose out of the eastern horizon. A young boy came up from the river with some fish, sold them to the owner and then ran down the road towards home. No one saw the monster creep up on the shore out of the river and hide in the bushes by the bridge.

Hunters from the black mountains returning to the village were crossing when one of them saw something under the bridge. They approached the river and saw two red eyes looking back.

The hunters came up with a story of a creature with eyes like a red moon. They repeated it through the valley towns all that autumn and into the late winter until the creatures name became the Red Moon. In that frigid cold when two hunters were by the river one night they saw two red eyes looking at them from the woods.

Both of them had been trying to get some dinner for their families but when they saw the red eyes one of them chased the creature and there was a fierce fight.

As one hunter looked on from behind the trees, Red Moon killed his partner with one quick blow. Then he watched as the creature seemed to possess the body of the dead hunter. In an instant the creature’s body shriveled up and the hunter looked out with the same red glowing eyes.

A new hunter, he raised his head slowly and grinned because Red Moon the creature was dead. Red Moon the creature was now a man.

The Man-

Before Red Moon had cursed him to be frozen at the bottom of the pond until the moon returned, Bali had been tracking him. For hours, days, years, decades, and millennia; Bali would not die or resign his one pointed focus on destroying the Red Moon creature completely. He simply miscalculated his enemy’s capabilities.

What was this magic which kept him as if chained to the bottom of the pond? The trickery of this ancient villain. Why didn’t he foresee Red Moon using black magic and why hadn’t he used his own? Rage had blinded him and it was his fault he was at the bottom of the frozen pond.

His gaze became angered as night closed on the pond one afternoon. As the moon came up, he saw two glowing red eyes in the glimmer of the trees near the pond.

Mocking him.

The rage shot up inside of him so fast that he let it pass over just as quickly. He calmed his gaze and would focus on the glimmer of the sky or the moon light.

Seasons passed and as the moon neared it’s previous position, he convinced the one eye he had left to close and relax.

For one day he resolved to stand with his eye closed; deep in concentration.

Urgo-

The hunter had now become powerful and revered amongst local outlaws and decided to return to the pond and kill Bali as he came out of the frozen curse.

His men were 8 in number and spread out around the little pond. Each one held a spear and a torch while Red Moon the hunter, wearing a pointy hat; held a torch and a small musket.

At the bottom of the pond Bali could hear them positioning around the pond, plunging the handles of their torches into the dirt by their feet, and as they did he opened his eye slowly.

He took quick inventory of the men and torches and then suddenly he heard gunshots. Many of Red Moon’s men died, falling into the pond leaving only their leader to escape as the moon neared its final position where the curse would be lifted.

Bali felt his limbs loosen and his body begin to move with the subtle tides of the pond. The moon overhead was back in the position it had been a year ago. He began to walk and then slowly found his way to the edge of the pond and broke through the ice.

Immediately looking left and right and into the trees; no signal of Red Moon. Bali approached a tree and leaned against it. He looked into the forest and saw a hunting team so he turned around swiftly and began to run away from them before being spotted.

He felt the red eyes behind him, stopped immediately and turned around. He could not see a body amidst the trees or a trace of the glowing red eyes.

The hunters all yelled and pointed their muskets at him and out of the dark background came the red eyes on the face of a hunter. Bali was astonished that the creature was now human-like.

“That’s the monster! Kill it! Kill it!!!”

Those were the last words Bali heard before close range musket blasts tore him to pieces.

Bali-

Red Moon continued in the body of the hunter for years to come and degraded the hunter’s former life. Although he would now answer to the name Urgo he severed all of the latter’s old ties and made alliances with a band of criminals. They would camp by the side of different village rivers and prey on passing merchants, women and the like.

One night a young boy travelled the path to the village at sundown. The gang who had set up by a rocky river saw him on the path and closed in on him.

The largest of his group jumped out and stood in his way. The boy ran but only to be apprehended by Urgo’s 2 men.

When they found nothing of value in his knapsack they stood him up and looked at him. The boy suddenly looked at Urgo:

“Hey, you’re the Red Moon.”

Urgo fumed and demanded the boy tell how he knew about the Red Moon.

According to the boy; his people told of a creature they called Red Moon who was killed by hunters. When Urgo pried further the boy told him that they believe the Red Moon is still alive in the body of a man. When he prodded more the boy continued that there was a young man in his village who had sworn to kill the Red Moon.

“Who is this young man!?” Demanded Urgo

“He’s just a boy still and is training to one day kill the Red Moon creature.” The boy answered.

“the elders say he was born to kill Red Moon.”

Urgo gloated and looked away in thought as the boy looked down and spotted a long thick branch. Urgo’s 2 men flanked him on both sides and watched him with cold eyes. Urgo looked back at the boy and asked:

“Who is this young man?”

In the new dark of 8pm they saw Urgo’s eyes unintentionally glowing red for the first time as he stared back at the boy.

As they gazed in disbelief the boy took up the branch and jabbed one of Urgo’s men in the throat. With the other end of the branch he quickly slammed it into the face of the second one and grabbed his musket as he fell.

Urgo looked down at the young boy raising the musket, aiming at his head. The boy smiled and answered the question:

“His name is Bali.”

End