The darkness came slowly, seeping from the starburst orange of sunset. He awoke with its eyes in his windows, the full moon raining vague light onto the floor with darkness curling around the corners. And his eyes grew wide.

It took him with the force of a gale, sucking the breath from his lungs until he fell to the floor. He was gripping at the floorboards to hold onto his consciousness, and it was futile. The disease was raging in the moon's mocking light, a fire in his veins. His temperature rose steadily, astonishingly. His bones were crackling sickeningly as they bent.

A scream rose in his throat. He choked it down, and he closed his eyes tight. The only way to deal with it was to close your eyes and pretend it wasn't happening. Let it take you.

And so the pain swam away as his consciousness bowed its head to the passing of the Beast.

It was the gleaming yellow that brought her out of the house and onto the lawn. Why she didn't call her father or anything else, she didn't know. She wasn't about to turn back now, not with those two yellow lights, like fairies or miniature moons. Distantly, she was afraid—but there was something numbing about the sight, so preternatural and yet so real at the same time, that told her not to leave. Inch by inch, she stepped closer.

(maybe it was the curse, maybe it was the imminence of magic but it was hypnotic to her weak, weak mind)

The orbs came closer, slowly, bobbing in the darkness. She reached out for them. A snarl filled the airwaves immediately around her, and in one spot of moonlight she saw what it was. It was hulking in the patch of lazy moonlight between them, its long spine curved and stooping and its face elongated, the face of some frightening, rabid dog. The mangy gray of its fur acted as camouflage.

Her breath caught in her throat as it lurched forward. She fell into its embrace. The teeth connected with her throat and then it was all over.

But the night, the night was far from over.