It was a dark and stormy night. Miguel sat by the fire, half asleep and in a dreamy sort of daze. The flames cast eerie shadows on the walls, like demons seeping from his soul. He struggled to keep his eyes open as the clock ticked down the hours.

He was jolted awake as a deject sob reached hi ears from just beyond the door. Startled, he suspiciously got to his feet, and fists began pounding frantically on the wood.

He opened the door expectantly, and a wreck of a girl fell wailing in his arms. He closed his arms around her protectively as thunder sounded amidst the pouring rain, coaxing her into the warmth of his living room and sitting her down on the black couch. She sobbed into his shoulder, gasping for breath.

Miguel just let her cry. “Serafina?” he asked quietly.

She looked him straight in the eye, tears streaming down her cheeks, and for the first time he saw her face. Her eyes were blackened; the side of her face was bruised and swollen. Miguel gasped, and Serafina clenched her eyes shut in absolute dejection. Her clothes were torn as well, caked with mud.

“Serafina – what happened to you, love?”

Momentarily she ceased choking on her tears, her lip quivering as she tried to speak. “He…D-David…I…” Again she resigned herself to tears.

Miguel held Serafina tight, but inside his thoughts were raging. David. His best friend David had hurt his Serafina. As he drank in her battered, sobbing figure his mind wrapped around what happened. Her thighs were bruised – her skirt was torn. David had raped her – his Serafina.

Serafina’s sobs died down with the dying embers of the fire. Miguel guided her to his car as she shook, opening the door for her like he always did. He drover her home in silence, his thoughts still spinning in his skull. His Serafina. His Serafina!

She got out of his car, and Miguel watched her walk up the steps to her door. The moment it closed, he opened the glove box. His dad’s pistol sat there, tempting him, and he pulled it out with steely determined gaze.

He turned the key in the ignition and his car lurched forward and began to drive as if it had a mind of its own. Before long Miguel found himself standing on David’s doorstep, pounding angrily on his door. The moment David opened it Miguel pulled the gun on him.

“You sick bastard!” he shouted, advancing into the living room as the boy backed away fearfully. He waved the gun menacingly in David’s face. “Did you think I’d let you get away with it? My Serafina?”

David didn’t get a chance to answer – his brain was splattered on the wall.

~

Serafina heard a knock on her door in the dead of night. She opened the door cautiously; the wan face of Miguel was staring back at her. She threw her arms around him without a second thought.

“Miguel…”

He pulled away from her, and she gasped at the sight of David’s blood on his hands. “Serafina,” he murmured.

“Oh my God!” She backed away from him slowly, giving way once more to her hysteria. “You murderer!”

“I did it all for you…” He tried to grab hold of her hand, but she recoiled violently.

“Get the hell away from me!” she shrieked.

Miguel looked pained at her disgust. With a shaking hand he pulled out the gun, aiming it slowly at Serafina’s heart. “I’ll forever love you,” he whispered. “Even if you’re doomed. We’ll always be together because we’re both under the moon.”

Serafina tried to run; she didn’t stand a chance. A shot rang out, and Serafina’s body fell limp upon the ground. Tears streamed down Miguel’s face as he lowered the pistol, and without hesitation he turned and departed from the desolate house. He let the rain wash away the blood on his hands, thunder rumbling in the distance.