Characters: Namjoon & You

Setting: Disney au – Little Red Riding Hood (though it’s rather based on the 2011 movie)

Genre: dark, folklore, supernatural

Warning: blood and death

Words: 893

Summary: Didn’t your mother tell you not to walk alone in the woods? It’s full of monsters.

Prompt: "Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side, which he never shows to anybody." - Mark Twain

Entry and winner for「#spread your wings」May.

According to the myth travelling on wanderers’ mouth from village to village, Death is coming for everyone who dares to enter the woods in the dead of night. Horrible screams of the reckless youngsters who break the unwritten rule still echo through the region. Their blood spills like dirty secrets on the pearl white snow, their clothes are torn into chunks and nothing else remains of them. Not a single bone.

It’s a curse only the elderly knows about and now their descendants have to pay the price. Time has never known salvation, remedy or forgiveness. But how to stop the rage of the monster they created? Every year, on a particular dark day when the new moon is out, it’s time to feed the beast’s hunger in order the save the village. One doomed soul is better than the awful bloodshed that’s waiting for them. They mask their selfishness with humility and call it a sacrifice, offering a daughter of the town. They are no better than the monster itself, murderers, each and all of them. Maybe this is the reason why they can’t be at ease when the night comes. Fear slips into their bones, terror poisons their blood and the horror mirrors in their dull eyes. They lock up their children and listen to the roaring wind while hiding in the basements. And the strangest thing is that nobody has ever heard the victims scream. Still, they disappeared under the favour of the night leaving behind nothing but blood.

You have heard the rumours, too. You have seen the carmine blood and the tears of the chosen ones. Yet, you aren’t afraid. You follow the path illuminated by the moonlight confidently, tugging at your red hood that keeps falling off of your head.

“Oh, you scared me,” you halt abruptly when a figure steps in front of you casting shadow on your fragile body. Your right hand lands on your chest even though your heart keeps beating steadily at the sight of the young man.

“Sorry,” he says dryly. The word tastes like a lie on his tongue. You don’t say anything, just keep your eyes down at the ground. The poppies are all dead in the soiled snow. “Didn’t your mother tell you not to walk alone in the woods? It’s dangerous for a pretty girl like you.”

The stranger - or not so much - warns you and the careless threat in his voice makes you smirk.

“You have always been good with words, Namjoon,” you smile, wickedly so and when you look up at him, your eyes are glowing mischievously. In the meantime, the boy, barely a man with dirty blonde hair looks close to having a heart attack.

“Y-you… but you-”

He struggles with his beloved words and he visibly shakes. His widened eyes glare at you as if he saw a ghost. Maybe he’s not that far from the truth.

“Should be dead?” you finish his sentence with a shrug and take a step closer and closer until there’s nothing more than an inch between you two so you could whisper in his ear: “Tell me, what do think what happens to the girls the villagers leave tied up to get eaten up by the monster?”

It’s an understatement to say Namjoon is dumbfounded. Actually, he looks scared and guilty. The vein on his neck pulsing heavily and his breath is getting ragged.

“I… that… but there was so much blood…” he tries to reason and you laugh. The melody of your giggle is floating in the air waking up the crows.

“Yes, I almost died but I didn’t,” you turn around theatrically just so he could see that you were very much alive. However, your genuine smile quickly fades away as you look him in the eye. “Stupid me thought you loved me yet you never looked for me.”

It’s an accusation, the sharpened sword of Damocles above his head.

“You were chosen to save us,” Namjoon explains hastily why he didn’t protest, why he didn’t try to stop them when they dragged you away, why he didn’t come when you cried after him.

“And should I be honoured because of that?” you scoff, turning your gaze away from him. In the darkness you can see your sisters’ ardent eyes. The chilly weather is creeping up on your back and anger is building up in your insides as the howls are getting louder. “He told me that the woods would expose your true, self-centered personality.”

“Who?” The boy asks confused but you hush him quiet.

“Shh…Didn’t your mother tell you not to walk alone in the woods? It’s full of monsters,” you whisper with eyes turning honey-coloured, nails becoming claws and fur displaying over your smooth skin. You are the beauty of duality: a human and an animal in one body, an abandoned soul and a forever beating heart. You never show your scars, only pretty smiles. Once you were a dream out-of-reach, now you are his worst nightmare.

Before Namjoon could escape, you sink your teeth into his musty-scented soft flesh. It tastes sweet like almost-lovers do. Above, the moon tells another tragic tale that warns the villagers: you’re coming for them. And you will hunt them down one by one. It’s time for them to meet the monsters of the woods.