Nine

Calendars are artificial constructs, I keep telling myself.
The number of days in a week or month, the number of months in a year. These are all based on arbitrary standards that society has chosen.
The length of the year and where it starts varies, adjusted constantly to compensate for these inconsistencies.
September was once the seventh month. Now, it’s the ninth. The ninth of September, on a year set from an arbitrary start, has no cosmic meaning.
I repeat this over and over as the skies turn red, and taloned beasts crawl out of the shadows, sniffing for prey.