Dark Moon Arising

• Xanthe Quirk, Grade 4
• Short Story
• 2017

Crash! Thunder crackled over the open sky as Jia, leader of the dusky wolves, tried to get her pack to safety. Jia had heard stories about the Dark Moon Storm, which only let its fury down on Comet Valley once every 200 years, but she had never thought it would be this bad.
The wolf cubs whined and howled in terror as the pack stumbled up a natural, rocky path that lead to a cave. Proceeding up the path was extremely difficult as the wind was against them and rain was pouring down in heavy sheets. Once they reached the cave, Jia felt a strange presence from the cave and she thought she heard a growl, but she couldn’t be quite sure as the noise was shrouded in the roar of the wind.
All of a sudden, a pair of gleaming yellow eyes appeared in the gloom of the cave. Jia sounded the emergency howl and the wolves flooded out of the cave like the overflowing river that ran through the Valley. The creature tried to pounce on a cub, but it was stopped by the rain. Jia caught a glimpse of a feline body slinking back into the darkness. Jia told her pack to keep running, until they reached the Angel-Oakwood gateway.
As they came closer to the gateway, something caught Jia’s eye. It was a large boulder, inscribed with a swirly, glowing pattern. Jia had felt there was something she had forgotten, and now she knew what it was. The storm would rage on for another three months before it stopped, but there was somewhere the pack could go. That place was Galaxy Garden Peak, a garden atop Meteor Mountain.
Jia’s brother, Tian, realised that Jia had stopped and howled to halt the pack. Then he trotted up to Jia and asked, ‘Hey Jia, everything ok?’
‘Yes, I... I’m fine.’
They set of running again, and soon were confronted by another danger. It was a huge water serpent, Jia suspected it was guarding the Angel-oak-wood gateway because just behind the serpent was a towering oak. The snake lashed out at Jia, but she was too quick. It slammed into the ground, and its crystal fangs smashed to pieces. Defeated, the scaly beast slunk away, into a nearby pond and the pack raced towards the oak tree.
As soon as they reached the tree, they found out the oak’s trunk spread out into a kind of cave, lit by glowing mushrooms. Jia also noticed a staircase made of branches. She told her pack to follow and soon they were at the canopy, and one of the cubs almost got zapped by some lightning.
Surprisingly there were a few bird’s nests full of eggs, being sheltered by the parenting birds. Jia ordered some wolves to collect the nests and carry the birds down to the bottom of the tree. How ravenous those wolves were, they gobbled down the birds, and Jia sighed and whispered to herself, ‘It’ll all be ok.’