THE RISE OF AN OMEGA

Kira’s POV

Without wasting much time, I began to blast the tendrils with my force field, but they kept on absorbing them. Ryker used his claws to slash at any that came from behind; our backs were faced against each other. I attacked the ones coming from the front, and then he attacked the ones coming from behind.

But the entity was smart. Dark tendrils appeared from the left and right side, going straight to our middle where our backs faced each other. We were forced to separate.

"Kira!"

"Ryker!"

The entity laughed ominously. The voice was the same as the voice in the forest, but there was no face this time around. It made me more confused about its personality.

A few tendrils came at me. I created an energy barrier around me, preventing them from getting to me. Immediately, the tendrils changed direction to Ryker’s.

He was going to be hit; there was no way he could avoid it. He was battling the tendrils that had snaked around him; he wouldn’t know about the one coming from behind me.

At that spot, without thinking, I didn’t know how it happened, but I appeared behind him. I wasn’t fast enough to create the energy shield around us, so I ended up being cut a few times by the tendrils.

Ryker screamed out my name as he turned to see that the tendrils had snaked themselves around me, lifting me.

He was about to jump, the tendrils held his legs firmly to the ground.

"Ha ha ha, now I see what’s going on between you two," he laughed ominously.

"Let her go!" Ryker yelled angrily.

"Come and get her yourself," the entity replied.

At that time, its grip on me was becoming tighter. I was slowly losing my breath.

Is this how I am meant to die?

Is this my end?

Did I become the moonkeeper just so I could meet this kind of fate?

Then what’s the essence of being the moonkeeper?

With my last strength, I managed to look up at the ceiling and prayed to the moon goddess.

"Even if it is the last time you help me, please, I don’t want Ryker to die," I prayed silently.

My eyesight was becoming dim; I was dying. I could see the dark tendrils trying to pull off Ryker’s limbs. There was nothing I could do.

My end.

My fate.

It is finished.

The next thing I saw was complete darkness. Then, slowly, a soft glow emerged as the moonlight pierced through the void. As my vision adjusted, a female figure took shape before me, a delicate crown resting atop her head.

I hesitated, remembering my ordeal with the strange boy in the forest.

"Who are you?" I asked.

I took a defensive posture, just in case. You can never be too careful.

"I am the one who bestowed unto you the power of the moon. I am the one who bestowed onto the wolves their abilities and ranks."

"The moon goddess?" I asked.

"Who else would I be?" she replied, turning in my direction.

She wore a beautiful smile.

How did I get here? One minute, I was in my house fighting with the dark tendrils together with Ryker, and the next minute, I was here. Am I really dead?

What’s going to happen to Ryker?

"Silence, my child," the moon goddess ordered.

I wasn’t talking out loud; I was only thinking, but somehow she found out about my thoughts. Is this the moon goddess’s power?

"I know all your thoughts, my dear, even the ones you haven’t thought of. Right now, those doubtful thoughts of yours are disturbing me and are rendering me powerless here in your mind."

Rendering her powerless? How?

She’s the moon goddess. How could my thoughts be rendering her powerless?

"I am not quite sure I understand what you mean by my thoughts rendering you powerless."

"Truly, I am your goddess, but I can’t come to you in the physical form. I can only come to you directly in your dreams, visions, or meditations, and it is through your heart, your mind. Once your heart and mind are weak, it makes me weak too."

I still didn’t quite understand her well enough, but I knew that I had to find a way to stop thinking negatively.

"Are you saying this is my mind space?" I asked, looking around.

"Yes, my daughter, it is your mind space."

"It’s so wide and...and..." I stuttered, looking around.

"Empty?"

I nodded in agreement.

"That’s because you’ve not been tapping fully into the power of your mind, Kira."

"What do you mean by that?"

"For creatures like us who have evolved more than the normal werewolf abilities, our mind is our greatest weapon."

Creatures like us?

What did she mean by that?

Was she a werewolf, too, before she evolved into the moon goddess?

She replied, "Yes, I was a werewolf like you. The same way you were an omega wolf—powerless, useless, hated—so was I too, until my time came. I became the strongest werewolf that ever existed, so when I died, people began to worship me, and that helped to make my soul one with the moon."

I was astonished by every word she said. Her story, though brief, was motivating.

"So like I said, child, your mind is your greatest weapon. You are a magical being, not just an ordinary werewolf anymore, but the moonkeeper." She paused, moving closer. She placed her hands on my shoulder. "Trust me; you haven’t even used up to ten per cent of your moonkeeper abilities."

"What do you mean by that? I watched the battle with the entity of the last moonkeeper before me. He was a lot stronger than I am, but he still failed. Did he not tap into his..."

"Oh no, he actually even tapped into more than that, but he lacked something."

"What was that?" I inquired.

"For every moonkeeper, there’s something that their soul needs, something worth fighting for, something very important to them they need to discover. It’s different for all; even I can’t tell you what it is. You need to figure it out yourself."

"But how am I supposed to figure this out? Isn’t caring for the werewolf faction enough reason?"

"Honestly, I don’t know. You have to find out by yourself."

"How do I destroy this entity?"

"I don’t have the answer to that either. The only thing I can tell you is this: find the crescent moonstone, the one you saw in your dreams the day you found out you were the moon keeper, the day you got all your childhood memories back."

Talking about the childhood memories made me see flashes of how my mom locked my memories and how they were killed.

Could she have been saving me from the entity at that moment?

Could it be that it was the entity that killed my parents?

"Was it the entity that killed my parents?" I asked, my eyes filled with anger.

"Most likely, my child."

"What do you mean ’most likely’? Aren’t you the moon goddess? Shouldn’t you know everything and anything?" I yelled in anger.

"I am the moon goddess, but that doesn’t make me omniscience and omnipresent. There’s a limit to what I can see, what I can know about, and where I can be," she replied calmly.

"Then you shouldn’t be the moon goddess," I shot back at her angrily.

I used to think the moon gods and goddesses were the most powerful beings, beings that know it all, but hearing all this from her made me disappointed.

"Look, my child, moon gods and goddesses—we are stronger only when we were on earth. But as gods, our hands and powers are limited. It’s why we bestow powers to certain beings that we know are capable of handling things here on Earth. Our hands are tied because we can’t make decisions for you. You have to make your decisions yourself," she said, bowing her head in what felt like shame.

"The crescent moonstone, how do I find it?" I asked.

"That I don’t know either, but I can lead you to someone who knows."

"And who is that?" I asked impatiently.

"Elder Anthony. He knows about legends and tales; he would know where you can find it."

"After I find it, how do I use it?"

"You are the moon keeper; you carry the symbol of the crescent moon on your arms. When you see it, trust me, you will know exactly what to do with it," she replied, a wide smile appearing at the corner of her lips.

"You have to go back now. You are dying, and so is your alpha," she said, turning her back to leave. Then she stopped abruptly. "I lied when I said I didn’t know who killed your parents," she said, then walked into the darkness.

I knew what that meant. The entity had been behind my parents’ death, even though in the vision I saw about their death, I didn’t see signs of tendrils or anything that suggested it did. But as powerful as it is, I knew it could make people do it for him.

I vowed on the spot that I was going to make him pay for everything.

The moon goddess was nowhere to be found. I was left in the initial darkness I had seen when I first got here. While I was thinking about how to leave the space, her voice echoed in my ears: "Your mind is your greatest weapon."

I closed my eyes, and the next thing I saw was the dark tendrils rolled up on me, covering every single part of me. From the tiny space in between each roll, I could see Ryker; his limbs were almost off.

I growled loudly, my eyes turning yellow. Immediately, a bright white light shone from every part of my body. I heard a loud, painful growl from the entity; the tendrils that surrounded me began to loosen in a way that suggested that the light from my body was burning it.

"Ryker!" I yelled.

I hope I wasn’t too late.