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It started with a growl like an earthquake. So deep it wasn’t a sound at all.
Then the whine of a dying animal, piercing the moon filled night.
Then the smell.
Bloodshed. Death. Sulfur.
Kakashi knew that smell well. Knew it as well as he knew how to hold a knife. How to sharpen it. How to hold a gun.
The smell of a monster.
It was his tenth birthday.
Kakashi watched his father stiffen.
He remembers the tightness in his father’s broad shoulders. The pinch in his brow as he looked out the window.
How he stood.
He doesn’t remember what they said to one another. Doesn’t remember either of their words, their last words, exchanged with one another.
Just his father’s hands gripping him tightly as he fought against him. As he begged for answers.
His father’s hands spanning the entirety of his chest. Still so thin. So weak. The way he placed him on his bed before leaving across the hall to his own room.
He remembers the click of the lock on his father’s door. Though he knows logically he couldn’t have heard it. Not from that distance.
Not with all the noise.
The growing crescendo of noise.
Each new howl- each new monster joining the chorus.
One.
By.
One.
Surrounding their house.
Pitch black hides blocking out the silver moon. Absorbing all the light offered.
He remembers one outside the window.
The black smoke curling off its back.
The smell of decay seeping through the window panes and filling the house.
Kakashi remembers banging on the door. Remembers taking the knife he had just been gifted, a family heirloom, and preparing to fight. Remembers picking it up from where it sat next to their unfinished dinner. Their dishes still half full on the table.
Then there was a gunshot.
And the way it echoed in the following silence.
Kakashi remembers how his stomach dropped.
Remembers how his heart stopped.
And he knew.
He knew.
Because he’s heard the talk his whole life.
Heard the whispers.
How his father had become, Something Else, after his mother’s death.
How his father had sold his soul.
Made a deal.
Paid for Kakashi’s life with his own.
Made Kakashi into what he was.
But he picked the lock anyway.
He didn’t remember how long it took
But the smoke was still rising from the gun.
And his Dad.
His father was there on the floor.
In a halo of blood.
What was once the left side of his skull, across the wall.
And Kakashi knew.
He knew.
That he too, was Something Else.