Chapter Four

Aella's POV

I was awakened by a loud sound.

I looked around me to see nothing more or less than trees, mostly dead. Where was I? I questioned, rushing to my feet, with intentions of reaching the pack before night falls. I noticed how green the ground was, an unusual thing that barely happened, not even in my pack.

My eyes moved to my skin. “No.” I muttered, refusing to believe this was my skin. My hands reached for my head this time—I was hairless.

“No!” I screamed in agony. 

My throat hurt, it felt dry like I have never taken water for the first time since my existence on earth. 

Earth? Where was I? I questioned, stopping to think. This was not my last destination, was it? I fought with my thoughts as I made for nowhere in particular, I just wanted to leave that place—the dead trees and green ground sight.

I reached a spot, I was better than the place I was moments ago. My hand looked burnt when I beheld it, the next time I beheld it, it looked more burnt. I needed to see my face, and behold what I looked like, and still didn't want to see. I must look horrible, there were a thousand and one reasons to look horrible: a hairless head, burnt hands and dried skin. What more? 

Suddenly, a loud voice stopped me when I proceeded to begin another journey to nowhere. I stopped in my tracks, turned around to see who had spoken, the voice was recognizable, and realization hit me: the language spoken here was different from the one I know, as I tried to speak the one I was brought up with, I disappointed myself and spoke one I never understood.

The same language this woman used and called out that made me to stop in my tracks.

“Where are you going?” A voice laughed at me. I knew it, I knew I would be insulted, the sight of me alone was funny.

“I don't know,” I confessed. “I woke up to—this.” I gestured with one of my ugly hands, to my skin, then my head.

“Who are you?” I asked the woman, a stranger I could not behold, but only heard. “Can you help find my way out of this place?” I pleaded.

She laughed again, I got angry this time. I recognized the voice as that of a woman I always talked to in my dreams, back in the pack, but was unsure if she was the one. 

“Aella.” She called.

My name was Aella, I remembered. “My Lady.” I called, realizing it was her. The moon goddess who watches over packs, brings instructions from the main God, and takes our requests to him. 

“Aella.” She called with a calmer voice. She no longer laughed, her voice this time was like she would cry for me. I mean, my looks were horrible. 

“What happened to me, my lady?”

“You don't remember?” She asked.

“No, I don't.” I answered, struggling with myself to bring to light what was going on. The floor looked transparent, suddenly, and I saw a clear view of myself. No, I shouldn't have, perhaps the moon goddess saw my heart, read it and granted my wish.

“You died months ago.”

“Months ago?” I asked, my refusal to believe the truth, stronger. I laughed, turned around in the lonely path to see the face of the goddess. “Are you joking with me? Who killed me?”

There she started. 

The moon goddess began a tale of my life. I was shocked, recalling the events one after the other, when she mentioned my supposed ceremony as Luna of the pack, and wife to the man I loved, I knew she wasn't making up these stories. 

“I am dead.” I muttered to only my hearing, although sure that the moon goddess heard my thoughts. She could hear anything, including the thoughts I was yet to have as a wolf. 

My hate for them—Lenna and Logan grew immediately, if it were a plant, it would turn into a tree that instant. I cried when I was unable to hold back the emotions that threatened to burst out of me. “I loved him!” I found myself saying, “he betrayed my trust for him.”

“Not just him, Aella.” The Moon goddess chipped in. Yes, not just him, how could I have forgotten what my sister did to me? She made out with the man I was in love with, a night to the day I would be tagged as 'wife'.

“Not just him, my Lady.” I said after so many thoughts. The little blood in my body pumped, my dried skin hurt in a bid to lay my hands on them, Lenna and that bastard—Logan. 

“I want to kill them.” I confessed. There was no way I could carry out such a task, not with the way I looked. Lenna, Logan, and the rest of the wolves would not hesitate to stone me to death again if they saw me at the gate of the pack.

I stopped crying and tried to figure out a way to do what I really had to do. 

“There is only one way, you know you can't leave this way.” The moon goddess told me. I nodded at the sound of her voice once more. Moments ago, I thought she left me for her usual place in the sky, no, the moon.

“What way?” 

“What other way?” She asked, chuckling. “You will go back through the process of reincarnation.”

“Reincarnation, my Lady. I can.” 

She laughed. “What can I not do for you? Daughter of Lucien?”

Father's name was Lucien. 

She read my mind. “The man on the Alpha throne is not deserving one bit, I need you to take him down.”

Of the truth, Logan was never deserving of that post. Stupid me, I was head heels over him and acted like a fool. “That is meant to be my post. I want it back.”

“You shall have it back.” Moon goddess said.

“What event would you want to be reincarnated to?” She questioned, suddenly.

I paused to think and then came to a conclusion. I wanted to see my mother, at least, one more time before I finally carried out my revenge on them.

“Years before my mother died in the raid.”

And that was it. I didn't return to my past immediately, I was still stuck in the dirty place in the unknown forest, and my thirst for water increased greatly. I was waiting patiently for the moon goddess to perform her magic, it meant a lot to me, seeing those traitors with a better plot to get rid of them this time.

I failed in the past, I wasn't going to fail in the present, this time. 

“Today marks the second month, sixteen days of your death,” the fairy woman began. “You shall reincarnate before the month ends .”

“Before the month ends.” I repeated, nodding.

“Thank you.” I greeted this time, admiring my dirty self for the first time. This skin would glow in a few days, very soon, and so many questions filled my head, I mean, it was my first time being reincarnated. And the last, since it only took place once, and thereafter, final death happens. 

“Thank you,” I stopped my thoughts to greet the goddess one last time. 

A loud sound followed after my greetings, and I never heard the moon goddess speak again.

She was gone, I discovered after some time. 

Another sound followed, and I fell asleep again.