The Sad Look
Every part of my body hurts really bad.
It felt like I ran a long way backward in the snow.
My head hurts with every heartbeat.
The sun, which usually made me feel good, felt mean as it shone through the bare trees.
I was naked and cold, and a bad, scary feeling stayed with me.
I looked at my body for answers.
I saw bruises and cuts. And then I saw it.
Dark fur, not mine, stuck in my ripped shirt.
A little bit of red, dry blood, on my arm.
This showed what the beast did, the night I couldn't remember.
I felt like I was going to throw up.
What did I do?
Feeling super bad and guilty made it hard to breathe.
Not remembering anything was terrible.
My mind made up for the scary things that could have happened.
Did I hurt someone? An animal? Elara?
That thought made me really scared.
I had to know. I had to find her.
I really needed to see her, to know she was okay.
But I was also really scared of what I might have done, of the monster she saw.
But I needed to know more.
I walked through the snowy woods, trying to see if she was there.
Her small footprints would look different from the big, pawed prints I thought the beast made.
But the snow was all messed up, with lots of prints that didn't tell me anything.
My heart beat fast because I was hopeful and scared at the same time.
The forest was quiet.
Only the sound of a frozen branch breaks sometimes.
It felt like the world was waiting to see what bad things happened that night.
Every shadow looked scary, every leaf that moved made me jump.
A few days ago, this forest was our safe place.
Now, it felt strange and scary, because of the beast inside me.
The places we liked – the mossy rocks, the sunny spot – now felt haunted by something bad. By me.
I kept looking in the woods.
I was getting more and more tired.
The cold went deep into my bones, but the fear was even colder.
What if I found her… hurt?
What if I found something even worse?
The sun went higher.
The shadows looked like scary shapes.
I started to lose hope.
Maybe I lost her forever.
Not just because she was scared, but maybe she was gone.
Then, I saw something.
A small messed-up spot in the snow near a big old tree.
And next to it, a small footprint.
Smaller than mine. Elara's.
I couldn't breathe for a second. She was here. Just now?
I felt a little bit better. She was alive.
But then I saw something else on a frozen leaf nearby.
It was small and clear. A tear. Frozen hard.
One frozen tear.
It showed how scared and sad she was.
It was because of me.
The monster I became hurt her.
I felt a pain in my stomach.
It was my fault. My monster self made her scared and sad.
Seeing that frozen tear hurt me.
It wasn't just thinking about bad things I might have done.
It was real proof that she was suffering.
It was like her sad look was still there, even though she wasn't.
I knelt down next to the leaf.
My own eyes started to water.
That small, frozen tear had so much pain in it.
It showed how bad I was, how I changed into a monster.
How could I ever see her again, knowing I did this beautiful forest now felt like it was showing me how monstrous I was.
The warm sun now just showed how guilty I felt.
The single frozen tear on the leaf kept reminding me.
It was like her sad look was following me, showing me the fear I caused.
And I still didn't know what else I did that night. What other hurts did I cause?
The bad feeling of not knowing pressed down on me.