Don't Wake the Sleeping Luna

LAUREN:

Randolph pushed the door to my chamber open and there I was sitting on the marble floor with a jacket over me. I had my back rested on the wooden surface of the bed and my position actually made it seem like I was sleeping.

But I was not.

Upon seeing me that way, Randolph went into a fit.

"What do you think you are doing, Lauren? You left your child wandering about and you are here sleeping? Is that how to act like a mother?"

"I'm not alive, Randolph. Can't you see?" I screamed into his ear in order to respond to his fit but he wasn't hearing me.

"I'm talking to you, Lauren. Is this how you'll choose to ignore me when I'm talking?" he asked my lifeless body which he still hasn't picked up the awareness of just yet.

"Daddy," Mabel called out to him and he sluggishly looked down at her. All along she had been standing beside the door leading into the room.

"What is it?" Randolph responded.

"Mommy is sleeping. She has been sleeping since. And she's cold too."

I hoped that what she said would give him an idea that I was not fine but he brushed it off with a shrug.

"She's just being irresponsible. Yes, very irresponsible. Because why would a mother decide to neglect her own child just so she could sleep?"

Move closer to my body, dammit!

I screamed that out, my frustration at an all-time high at this point. Why can't he just get close enough to notice that I was not okay?

"I'm talking to you, Lauren. Get up and take care of your child!" Randolph snapped. And he obviously didn't get any response from me because there was no response to give.

He looked really annoyed now and if he wasn't drunk, he might have continued standing there to keep lashing at me. Or at my dead body.

With frustration written on his face, he turned around to exit the room.

He was staggering as he made his way outside and I noticed how he was trying so hard to compose himself. What was the use? He missed the fact that his wife was dead but was drunk enough to find a way to scold her.

I don't know what I ever did to Randolph to deserve such treatment from him. Ever since he got back to his first lover, he stopped being the wolf that I got fated to. Made it seem like fate was never even on my side.

Mabel didn't follow him out. Instead, she went back to my body. She knelt down and looked at me with a face full of worry, so much that it made me cry again.

"Mommy. Please, wake up," she said to my body.

"I'm here, baby," I said with my spirit but I know she won't hear me.

"I'm hungry, mummy," she said and I heard a growl from her stomach. I haven't given her dinner and she was going to sleep like that unfortunately. If only I could do something.

My hand goes to her face but then I could feel it going through the face. She could not feel me at all. I wanted her to know it's alright. I wanted her to know I haven't even left yet. I wanted to know I was going to take care of her.

But how was she going to know all of this?

Mabel curled herself up again on my body, this time making use of the jacket that she placed on me as a cover cloth. It almost felt like we were one but how was she going to actually feel me.

I sobbed hard as I watched her drift off into sleep.

_________

When Randolph stepped out of his chamber the next morning, the first thing he could see was Mabel standing right outside his room.

I could tell from the look in his eyes that he noticed something odd about her.

He took two steps closer as if to check properly what was going on and even more so it gave me an idea that he was trying to figure it out himself.

"Mabel," he called her name in a tone laced with suspicion, "Why is your cloth stained with blood?"