Laughter filled the quiet cottage of four as two small children, no older than six, came running inside all muddy and wet from the rain. A young woman with light brown hair and kind eyes smiled at the sight, she tried to wrangle them upstairs to the bath. Once she introduced the idea of bubbles they hurried up to bathe. No later than an hour passes and the children are drying up with the help of their mother as the door slams open and shut.
The sound of a gruff voice calls out from below, "Hope, where's dinner and what is this mess?!" The young woman quickly ran downstairs answering politely that the kids had been playing and she had to tend to them. He did not respond, simply sitting down at the empty table, waiting. The woman rushed into action, making quick work of the dirty floors and cooking up a light dinner for the four of them. By this time the kids had stumbled downstairs and were watching their mother cook in silence, as their dad had still not spoken since his arrival.
As soon as the food was out and the table was set, the man finally spoke and with anger in his tone answered his wife's question about work, "I finally captured that filthy werewolf today at work, and of course I did, but the idiots in the office said I had no evidence and let the monster go." He huffed, muttering something unintelligible to himself as he pushed out his chair heading upstairs off to sleep for the day, using a flick of a stick to close the door behind him. The children were still in their high chairs with wide eyes as they looked up to their mother, and the young woman now sat in her chair so drained, looking almost dead to the world after doing housework all day. After sitting in silence for a few more minutes, the woman got up with a tight smile on her face and picked up both children so they each sat on one of her hips and carried them upstairs to their shared bedroom. She tucked them both into bed with whispers of good night and silent forehead kisses, as she promised them a nice birthday for the next day.
She closed the door with a final glance to her now sleeping children as the light of the full moon shone on their faces and walked the familiar path to the bedroom thinking nothing of the day as it seemed all too normal before she fell asleep.
The house was silent except for the whistling of the wind and the crickets chirping. There was the distinct creak of a door opening and whispers of magic in the air. Footsteps echoed down stairs but the residents still lay sleeping, not hearing a thing.
A man-like figure well over 6 foot tall ventured up the stairs, his heavy feet waking only one of the house occupants. A small boy, hearing something coming from outside his bedroom door, climbed out of his bed quietly, as to not wake his sleeping sister, and moved towards the door. On the tips of his toes reaching for the door handle the little boy finally opened the creaky door. Outside was a beastly figure, the kind that haunts a child's dreams, and as the door opened the figure, that could only be described as a monster, snapped his head over to the small child. The monster, at what seemed like the scent of him, ran towards him as if it were feral. The boy scrambled backwards trying with all his might to close the door behind him.
The commotion of this woke the little girl in his room, the adults of the house lay silently asleep with a muffle charm over their bed. "What's wrong Remy? Why are you up?" The little girl asked her brother, voice groggy from sleep, as she wiped her eyes awake. "Sel. Hide. Monster." The little boy, Remy, as his sister called him, stuttered out in broken tongue. Scratching and banging on the door confirmed the boy's accusation.
The door burst open, both children scrambling to hide, eyes wide and wet with fear. The monster launched himself towards the kids, jaw unlocked, salivating at the sight of them cowering. The little boy was in his direct path and when that beast comped down the boy, he cried in pain, falling to the floor with a distinct bite mark on his hip, blood now staining his favorite pajamas. The beast revved up ready for another attack, when the little girl who was cowering in the corner crying after her brother, stood between the two, arms out wide as if she were a shield.
Her instinct to protect her little brother. She stood, in all her almost 5 years old glory, facing the monster with a look of fierce, yet fear induced, determination. The room brightened, her hair was blowing even though the window was closed. A transparent blue light formed a solid wall between them and as the monster pushed forward he was rebounded by it being forced through the door and into the wall. The crash shook the whole house, waking the two adults.
They came rushing out of their room right as the beast was stalking towards the kids. The man pulled out a stick of some kind, waving it and speaking what seemed like latin. A light flashed and the beast was thrown away from the kids, the woman rushing towards her children as the man stood there with his stick held in a threatening manner, his hands slightly shaky around the weapon, equally in rage and in fear. The young woman sat on her knees leaning over her son, who was on the floor in tears with blood surrounding him. The little girl stood in front of her brother and now her mother, arms still stretched out, unmoving, paralyzed in fear. The beast was still frozen in the wall opposite of the people piled on the floor.
The shaky man stood between them, weapon pointed at the beast. The wolf-like beast howled suddenly, scaring the house occupants out of their frozen states. As the beast howled he shrunk down into a human body, only cementing its appearances in the children's nightmares. Then the now naked man took off, his smaller form freeing himself from the wall, and started changing back into his wolf form and he ran away from the family. The beast was gone and the house was now quiet again, excluding the muffled sobs of a child in his mother's embrace and the shaky exhale of his father.