Riesen woke up from his bed, dripping with sweat. He’d just had another nightmare. He’d dreamed that his whole village flooded, and he drowned because he couldn’t save them. He looked over at his wife, Alexandrine. She was sleeping away peacefully. Riesen didn’t dare wake her up. He decided to take a walk to clear his head. The streets were so quiet and peaceful. Riesen ended up walking until later that morning, when the sun came up. Everyone was waking up and heading to work in the fields or the buildings. Riesen’s close friend, Freudn, came running up when he saw him. He stopped when he saw his friend up close.
“Nightmare again?” he asked.
Riesen nodded.
“I’m not sure why I keep having them. Last night I drowned because I couldn’t rescue the village. The night before that, I fell into the stars because the village fell into nothingness.”
Fredun didn’t know what to say, but he tried his best to comfort his friend anyway.
“It’ll be alright. It’s probably you being stressed about your wife. She’s going to have your baby soon, and it’s a lot to think about.”
Riesen nodded.
“I guess so,” he said. “Anyways, enough about me. How are you?”
The two friends talked until the workday started. Riesen headed for his job in the fields, and Fredun was a file clerk for the local office. By then, it was mid-morning, and Riesen’s wife was already up. She frowned at him when he walked in the door.
“Another walk?” Her husband just shrugged.
“It helps clear my head after those dreams.” Alexandrine motioned for him to come closer. He did, and they embraced briefly. She wrapped her arms around him and held him closer.
“Maybe you need a break and need to go to the city. Ever since I’ve been pregnant, you’ve been so stressed and worried, and I’m starting to get worried about you.”
Riesen laughed her off, assuring her that it was nothing. It was a lot of work in the fields that he had to do that day. But secretly, Riesen’s worry gnawed at him like a gaping hole.
After work that day, Riesen sat at the kitchen table with some star maps. He was an avid stargazer, and tonight he had the day off. The harvest finished earlier than expected. That meant that everyone went home to their families. So Riesen pulled out the moon chart for that day. Tonight was a new moon. That meant that the stars would be brighter tonight, and less light from the moon would be visible. After making dinner for his wife, who soon fell asleep afterwards, he went outside at a quarter past 11.
He grabbed his telescope and paper to draw the stars. He sat and began doing so. After about fifteen minutes, he felt odd. His chest was tighter than usual. Shaking it off, he continued to sketch stars. But the sensation grew and grew, and Riesen grew increasingly worried that something was wrong. It felt like a squeezing and pulling. Not just his heart, but everything else too. Panic and fear spread as he realized a horrible truth. He was having a heart attack, and nobody was around to help. He tried to get up, but as the clock struck twelve, he fell unconscious. The night sky faded into black.
Alexandrine woke up suddenly and looked at the clock. It was three in the morning. Looking beside her, she realized her husband had not returned. She carefully gathered herself up, put on a cloak, and walked outside. It was quiet. No animals or people. Alexandrine felt her heart pound once she remembered the reason why. My husband! He’s in danger! I have to contact someone! She didn’t know how. Phones didn’t exist in this village. She cursed her home for being too old-fashioned. Phones had been in use for the past five years in most places. The only way to contact someone was to walk to where they were. Then she heard it. Sniffing, growling, and whining as the thing moved past her window. She barely saw it. Tall, brown fur, a dog snout with a wolfish snarl. It moved slowly, licking its chops. Blood covered its mouth from a recent meal. Alexandrine sat down and covered her mouth to keep quiet. It sniffed around the door before trying to open it. Fortunately, it was latched, and it didn’t come in for whatever reason. She heard villagers shouting at it, and some shot at it. The thing growled and pawed the guns away. Everyone scattered as the new moon slowly disappeared; the thing walked away, too.
Riesen woke up where he had been lying. He was alive, by some miracle. But something terrible had happened to him. Scratch marks and blood covered his legs and arms. His clothes were gone. He managed to crawl back to his house. What happened to me? I don’t remember. His wife sat outside the door, hoping her husband would return. And right on cue, she saw him outside, looking bloody, naked, and terrible. She got up to help him inside. He looked up, dazed and confused.
She helped clean him up and get him into bed with white bandages. Then, the villagers knocked. When she opened it, they asked if her husband was okay.
“He just stumbled in, injured and bloody. How do we find this beast? We’ve never found it,” she said, crestfallen.
“This time we lure it out,” someone said. Alexandrine doubted that it would work.
So the next new moon, the villagers set a live trap out in front of a building. They waited behind bushes for the beast to arrive. Risien was stargazing in front of his house. His wife stood on guard with a gun, watching for the beast. At approximately midnight, she heard something. It sounded like growls and the tearing of something. But instead of finding her husband, a huge beast stared her down. She cried, thinking her husband was gone. The beast pounced and knocked her over, injuring her leg. She couldn’t move. As it grew closer with its sharp, hot breath, she looked at its eyes. Black, with no pupils. She shook her head as it turned away, uninterested. She shot at one of the fingers, blowing it off.
The next day, she searched for her husband. He was outside, lying on his back. Again, scratches with blood. And something else. His right finger was missing. The one she shot off.
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