Chapter 1

The forest is lit by the late night's full moon, with dark clouds building up in the distance and clear thunder roaring along with it. A woman with long, dark hair sprints through the forest, with the sound of howls chasing after her as she jumps over branches and runs underneath logs, occasionally stopping in a hidden corner to catch her breath, clutching her pregnant belly and repeating the same words of reassurance, "It'll be okay, we're almost there, we'll make it". As she was starting to catch her breath, the howls started to catch up to her and she decided to sprint off again, but just as she came out of hiding a wolf sprung out from behind a boulder near her, instantly standing in a defensive formation.

The woman instantly tries to react, sprinting the other way with the wolf chasing after her, she tries throwing it off, by making sharp turns and running underneath anything she sees. She runs underneath a huge fallen log but just as she was coming back up, the wolf jumps over the log and caught her by her shoulder, throwing her to the ground and all she could think about was to protect her belly first, wrapping both arms around it as she falls to her side.The wolf falls down, right infront of her but quickly springs back on all fours, snarling at the woman, as she whimpers, "Please, please don't do this", the wolf looked ready to pounce, but was stopped by another wolf howling in the distance. The wolf turns back to the woman, snorts and heads in the direction of the howl, leaving her behind on the cold forest ground.

The woman lets out a sigh of relief still clutching her belly, "We're gonna make it," she repeats. She gets back to her senses and gets up off the ground, when she feels a sharp pain in her shoulder. Looking at it she realizes how badly she's been injured, but she still decides to continue through the forest, only this time, she's not sprinting, but walking in a fast pace, paranoid of each dark corner she passes. The woman starts feeling dizzy, probably from all the blood she'd lost and just then, the loud sound of thunder rumbled through the forest, bringing rain along with it. It's cool sensation of the droplets hitting on the woman's skin, was keeping her awake, helping her to push forward even more.

As she reaches an opening in the forest, she spots lights in the distance, clearly from a small town, relieved, she headed towards it, but as she took a step forward, she felt a sharp pain in the lower part of her belly. Fluids ran down her legs and she knew that it wasn't rain water, her child, the one thing she's been protecting all this time, was coming, but not she nor the child were safe yet. She pushed through the pain, clutching her belly, forcing herself to get to the town. With each step she took, she groaned in pain, but she didn't stop. As she was nearing the town, an elder man, sitting on his porch, saw the woman from afar. He immediately stood up and hurriedly jogged towards her, noticing her belly and the wound on her shoulder, he immediately jumped into action, calling the other townspeople who are still awake to come and help as he lead the woman into his house, letting her lay down onto the nearest bed.

Not even moments later the elderly man's house was filled with with people trying to help. The doctor of the town was in the room with the woman, as well as a few other women helping him out, with the rest of the people running up and down, collecting supplies for the doctor, to help the woman. Everyone could hear her agonizing screams of pain for almost an entire hour, then finally just around midnight, her screams of pain had stopped and a different type of cry was heard, a cry from a new life, the cry of a new baby girl, but the woman went completely silent.

The doctor instantly checked if the woman was alright, but the woman laid still, not breathing, not moving, she didn't even have a pulse. The doctor tried getting the woman back to consciousness for an entire 20 minutes, but to no avail. And the town was left with a little baby girl, born at midnight from an unknown woman, who clearly went through a lot to protect her. And due to the situation she was born in, the town decided to name her, "Lumae", a name which came of the words "Iunae Lumen", meaning moonlight, as the moon has never shone brighter than the night she had been born.