Blurb: Gerry, Juny and Selene are Luna Witches – marked by the devil, for a horrendous fate. Following Lucifer's command, the Sentinel Lycans, Oni, Amon and Arma will travel to fetch the witches, to deliver them to hell to meet their final destiny with the demon army... however... when the young Lycans find the frightened young women, they may have a change of heart... what if they decide to keep them for themselves?

Geraldine, Juny and I have escaped again.

It was always a bold attempt at freedom... at least for the night out of the private and guarded specialty facility for the mentally unstable; specifically those with no recognised illness, but were still somehow completely insane.

In other words... we were different.

Together, all 3 of us walk forward into the thick shrub lining a barely noticeable path, our light is our eyes. We all had very good eyes in the middle of the night, when the sun was dead.

We weren't sisters, but we were similar. All 25, all with jet black hair and bright blue yes, and all incarcerated at a care facility for the strange. We had met at 18 in this Green facility. Surrounded by nature, we had bonded over the 7 years we had been locked away by our rich families. We all came from considerable wealth, so they bought us luxury care, which meant the place was a castle, and had a garden, and a proper chef.

However, we were not welcome at home – because we were a burden.

I myself, do not hate my family for leaving me here, in fact, I do not blame them.

We were burdens. You see, Juny, Geraldine and I, we had the same problem growing up. We could hardly sleep, as our nights were filled with horrific dreamings.

Juny called us the Luna Witches, because of what we dreamed about, satanic rituals which involved blood, gore and demons.

Aside from the dreaming, we all had unique traits to ourselves. Geraldine was deaf, I was mute, Juny wasn't even comprehensible to any other. Every word she said was a metaphor or fantasy or simple nonsense, although her sign language, as well as mine, was perfect for Geraldine. We learnt it for her, Geraldine's sign language was something she created. No one knew what the signs meant, but Juny and I did.

As for me, being mute, I was usually alone when I wasn't with them. I lived my words through Geraldine and Juny, who were always close by if they weren't being punished for disrespectful behaviour to the nurses.

I was mute since birth, and it didn't help that I had night terrors. I could never express to anyone with accuracy how scared I was, until I met the two girls who understood my pain and terror absolutely.

We all dreamed of hell and the devil – and it wasn't pleasant or exciting or normal. It was torture. It's like we were cursed, and you could say we were, as we all had a witches' mark on our lower backs, a scattered birthmark, a simple discolouration of the skin.

We had found each other in a similar place, where no one understood our issue. Even we didn't understand ourselves – until we found each other and formed our friendship.

That being said, our night terrors plagued us only at night. So we tried to sleep during the day, even though it wasn't allowed.

On a full moon, however, we used the natural light to run out into the dark, outside the bounds of our wards.

It was our monthly bold escape routine. No one from the dressed-up castle in the middle of a thick beautiful forest, realised our plan or suspected us of escape on this one night of the month.

Why? Because we worked on our first spell, and it worked perfectly.

Stealing a piece of hair from every member of security, we tied a knot on this night – so they were frozen in place, staring in one direction, just until sunrise.

"There's wolves out here," Juny tells us, while staring ahead, "Is it wine or blood?"

There were no wolves out here. Not in this area. So she was wrong, but I do suspect she's sensing a disturbance.

Geraldine signs to ask what she said – and Juny rephrases herself with her hands.

Death in the forest tonight.

She looks to me, for confirmation.

I shake my head, no. I didn't feel it.

But then Juny stops on the forest path, and Gerry and I watch her as her mouth opens and her eyes scat all over the place.

"I hear a heart beating!" Juny yells out, then she runs forward into the darkness of the path, where arms of the trees were welcoming her forward.

Geraldine quickly runs after her, smiling back at me, hoping I follow.

I do not respond. She disappears, while I let them run ahead.

I didn't mind being alone out here.

I walk slowly, checking back to make sure no one is following us, and in a matter of minutes, they've disappeared entirely from view – and I'm not too certain that I'm still on the correct path.

Am I lost?

My night eyes can read the forest path well, but right now, everything seems a little distorted.

I slow down to a stop, and I listen.

Total. Silence. Not even the bugs chime in.

Gerry and Juny have stopped to listen also, otherwise I would hear them laughing somewhere ahead.

What have they found, I wonder?

I look down at the mud in the path, where I was about to step, and I see a large paw print.

It's huge.

Despite my dreams of hell, and despite my play at witchcraft with the girls – I did not believe in demons, or satan, or angels, or god. Or any kind of supernatural entity – or the paranormal. I just believed my brain was broken.

The medication I took, Starlight, helped to numb out my fear, but sometimes it numbed out my healthy and quick thoughts as well.

Which means it takes me awhile to react to the thing I'm staring at just to the right of me, a few yards off.

I've fixated on a grouping of trees, where a hulking giant trunk is standing, with claws and fur... abs and legs and ears and teeth. A standing furry man – with a wolves' head, is silhouetted into the grouping of trees.

It must be a side effect of my changed dose in the morning? Right? Or the shadows were bringing together pieces of trunk, to create a thing that wasn't there.

I shake my head and look forward into the forest, away from the fixation.

Ahead, I finally spot Juny and Geraldine, frozen in fear, back to back, on the track – as two giant figures stalk around them.

Two more wolf-men.

It's real.

I turn my head back to the thing, the wolf-man or the man-wolf, whatever he was, in the group of trees.

But it's just trees.

The thing is gone.

Where did it go?

I take another step forward and almost roll my ankle as the ground elevation changes with the paw print.

I steady myself on the nearby trunk, and look behind me.

Right behind me – is a real bloody demon.

The Thing is now standing at my back.

In the open moonlight, he becomes horrifically and beautifully real.

A...Lycan.

"My name is Oni, are you Selene?" Oni snarls demonically over my head, spit and drool flying onto my cheeks and my gown, hot flecks of saliva. But instead of reacting, I'm just staring, lips parted and my eyes unable to look away. His huge crescent moon fangs are on display, and they're beautiful, but when I do not respond, Oni lowers that gargantuan wolf head down toward me, and he shows me his hell-red eyes, "Speak or die," I quickly put my hand to my mouth, and take it away, shaking my head, letting him know I cannot talk. Oni is a dark silver, like the new moon, as he tilts his head to the side, considering my truth.

In this moment. Everything in my world has changed.

Because I had seen demons in my head, not his kind, but orcs and goblins and strange ugly monsters, and I had been terrified, yet I believed they weren't real and yet... now... now my delusional mind – is real.

Because I see a demon, wolf-man in real life, some kind of Lycan, and I feel... what do I feel at having my reality change so suddenly?

I am overall numb.

Because it's never been a lie. Our condition with debilitating night terrors, isn't a broken brain – it's because demons are completely real – !

My brain is slow. Starlight fries my neurons from firing too quickly – but the signals have now caught up to the present moment, the death threat he just spoke my way moments ago, and now my eyes are turning down, and my heart beat is sky rocketing.

I can hear branches thwacking, leaves breaking behind me.

"RUN!" Juny screeches as she flies past me, "They know my name!"

She's running so fast, she distracts me as she almost barrels me over, and when I look back up, the – the Lycan, that's what he was – he's stepped away, into the shadows, vanishing again. I don't know where he's gone!

However, silly stories told around town, which spread into every ear, said that Lycans were naturally lightning fast, and in a blink you could miss their demonic movements.

As Geraldine runs past me next, I remain frozen.

Not because I didn't want to run, but because I couldn't.

The Lycan called Oni, has stepped back out into my path, blocking my escape.

"I'm not leaving, bitch. Not until you write out your real name in the dirt," Oni shows me a stick he's snapped off a tree, and he throws me the tool.

The branch hits my leg and I wince as I reach down to grab it as a weapon.

But as soon as I'm down on my knees, knuckles in the dirt, the Lycan's stepped in, right into my personal space.

His claws end up inches from my head, my hands and my branch.

Too terrified to look up past his leg, and up his giant torso, lest he bites me in half – I use one trembling hand to clear the soil of leaves and grass.

I start to write my name.

S...e...l...e...n...e.

It's messy, choppy and barely legible, but it confirms who I am.

Will it mean death?

Was he hunting me down on order?

All I can do is wait to see if he can read it.

For a second, nothing is said – but I feel his hellish breath down my back.

"That's a good girl," a low dark snarl of approval and menace, as loud as his normal snarl, but far more intimate this time, fills my ears – and then my head.

I crawl around his leg, my eyes still facing down, too afraid to look back up.

I even close my eyes as I move up to my feet, daring to stand.

When I look ahead, the path is clear – and without looking behind me, I sprint after Geraldine and Juny, who are screaming my name from ahead.

"SELENE! SELENE!"

I never look back as I run back.

I don't have to.

Because I didn't have to look twice, to reconfirm what a demon wolf-man looked like.

He was eight-feet tall, his claws were blades of obsidian, his eyes were furnaces, his voice was purely demon in nature, he was seemingly human in some small way... but... also... he... his cock was huge. Like, really huge. And I was still a virgin – so I wasn't going to forget that sight, okay?

I fly out of the bush, I run that fast, and I scramble over the fence with Juny and Geraldine.

We make it back into the safety of the manicured garden.

The security guards are still frozen, with the knot, so there's that.

But there is one new problem.

Juny's panicked screaming for me, woke the nurses who lived temporarily in the renovated castle on fortnightly shifts.

Many spotlights from the facility turn on – and shine down on our exact location. We were meant to be in bed.

Oh, no.

I watch as Juny reaches into the pocket of her gown and quickly unties the knot of hair, releasing the guards, so they can follow their duty to apprehend and subdue us.

That safety is sacrificed. To hide our connection to magic.

Juny shares a look with me, and I share the same with her. Geraldine is already playing the part, falling down and being dramatic on purpose about a cut in her foot, trying to distract from our co-ordinated planning this night.

I choose to walk away from Juny, while Juny unties her black hair, and flips the bird to the rushing security.

I just surrender peacefully to the security on my ass, and even so, my arms are twisted savagely behind my back, and one of the security that really doesn't like me, smacks me across the face as if I am fighting back – when in reality I just looked him in the eye for a second. I look the other way, tears streaming down my face, as I'm swung toward the wards we escaped from.

We were scum to them – and they treated us like they didn't even think we were human.

Could you notice the silence? They didn't even speak to us. We were just nuisances with legs.

As I'm marched back, I look over my shoulder to the forest with my watery eyes.

I don't see anything out of the ordinary at all.

But I feel that they – those Lycans – they noticed everything.

They're watching us.

I don't know why I feel this way... but I don't seem to mind if they are indeed watching.