The first time I met her, I knew she was everything I ever wanted.

Her hair was being swept backward in the breeze as she giggled playing around with her elder's apron. Her grandmother, brushed her hand through Maia's hair, braiding it carefully, and she smiled at her little treasure.

I gathered my legs in a squat and hugged them close to my chest, hoping that the bush would hide me from prying eyes. I rested my chin on my knees and peeked curiously at the child in front of me.

Maia raised her head and before I knew it, her chestnut gaze locked onto mine, and her warm smile made its way into my heart.

The second time I met her, however, I realized, she was everything I wasn't supposed to crave. She was meant to carry a burden too big for her, and in my lack of a better judgement, I found myself unable to stop the rapid escalation of events.

As I struggled to release myself from my brothers' tight hold, I saw Malum spit her out for the second time.

Her slender body was fiercely groped by giant vines that wrapped around her neck and legs, pulling her to the depths of oblivion. Flames engulfed the water intertwining in a freak show I had never seen in my life.

"This is not what was supposed to happen!" I shouted at Crassus who stood unflinching on the shore.

"You have always been weak, little brother," he scolded me, his dark gaze not moving from the atrocious scene before us. "This is our packs only hope of survival, and I will not take any more risks to put them in danger."

"Even if that means the woman will die?" I pleaded, but he stood there unchanged.

"Is this who we are? Is this what we've become?" I questioned him, but he didn't answer.

When I was about to plead once more, the heavens gates opened swallowing the moon and suns, and for the first time in the past 86 moons, rain fell from the sky.

The parched earth welcomed the raindrops with an inexplicable hunger, as thunder struck everything in its path.

"Rain!" shouted everyone, as they held out their hands to gather small sips of water to drink.

"We are saved!" they exclaimed as the water poured on them. "The goddess has saved us!"

The rain pattered down on us, the wind rushing through the lanky limbs of the lifeless trees as thunder rumbled through the sky.

The majority of the pack wolfed out, and they started to howl in acclamation. But all I could think of is how this will end in another death. Another life lost. Another sacrifice.

Annia continued to chant, and I could see how draining were the power of the incantations she cast.

"Nascimur lunae, cinere et sanguine. Omnes una manet nox. Per hoc renati sumus. Per hoc salvamur," she muttered, as blood trailed down her cheeks, from her eyes, and from her nose.

"Brother! We must stop this!" I demanded, "If we don't, we will lose both her and Annia."

"And that is a sacrifice I am willing to take," he confessed.

Just as he uttered those words, Maia's body was thrown up in the air once again, her frail body tainted with blood. The marks Annia made on her face and hands bleeding out, as wind blew against her, throwing her around.

"This is madness!" I shouted. "Father would have never done this!"

"Father is not here!" my brother snapped, his fangs out at me.

The wrath of the sky hit her body without mercy, the thunder pushing her back to the depths of the lake.

And just as everyone was beginning to feel relief, as the so-said ritual would have stopped, darkness took control of the sky, the ground started to shake, and the chambers of the earth cracked open as if ready to swallow us whole.

It was at this point that Annia plummeted to the ground, as she mumbled:

"Nefastus..."

"You are killing them!" I shouted, horrified from what I was seeing.

The others gathered around Annia, attempting to aid her in some way, but she seemed to have lost consciousness.

Malum's level raised, folding towards us with hunger, and from its middle, from the burning flames, surfaced in the sky, their goddess.

Her unruly hair floating in the breeze, similar to the first time I laid my eyes on her, her body engulfed in vines.

She rapidly flew in our direction, the storm wreaking havoc in her path. Her expression was blank and nothing like I had ever seen.

"The vessel has returned..." the pack started to murmur.

Where Maia's feet landed on the freshly damp soil, vines sprung from the cracks of the earth, spreading through the area. Grass grew thickly forming a path in her way, and the trees that were close by came back to life, with bright green leaves growing rapidly before our eyes.

"We are saved! The curse is broken!" one person shouted, and he daringly walked towards her with enthusiasm, his tail wagging in the air, "May we flourish once again!"

But before he could utter any other word, she arched her arm in his direction, and vines sprung from underneath him, stabbing through his skin, entering his body, poisoning his insides. And right before our eyes, a beautiful pomegranate bloomed with dark red fruits growing and ripening from the dead person's body.

"Nefastus," she whispered, and her empty gaze, pitch black, lingered aimlessly through the crowd in front of her.

The pack stormed away, horrified, as they hid behind Crassus.

The person they sacrificed was nowhere to be seen.

Time had run out.

Something worse than the curse was coming.