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Milky horizons, dark skies you pretend are clear enough to see the stars. There’s a serene breeze ruffling the curtains where you sleep. Because the moon is so high everyone must be sleeping. Right?
WRONG. You are as wrong as I. Some people just aren’t that lucky. Eugene Gale is one of those unlucky types. I might even argue he’s the most unlucky of them all. Running like he is through dark, thick forestry. Leaves in his hair, dirt caked on shoes that were already falling apart. Drenched in a cold sweat shivering just the same as the delicat grass he stomps and stumbles on. He’s blind as a bat in the light, even more so in the dark. And this sinuses are fucked.
“Crack!” Behind him is the constant cracking of branches, endless ruffle of leaves behind him. He’s not running he’s being CHASED. Oh god! His mind saplies endlessly. Tonight’s the night he dies- he’s sure of it. There’s so much he needs to do. Gift Gray a new pair of gloves. Ones that aren’t stained in vilionce. Go with Big Ben to stamp his chicken card: there was only two left! He wanted to beat Gogo at tekken, see Gerard preform on stag again, braid teddy’s hair just once, return that comic he borrowed from Rowan in the eighth grade, maybe even learn that one guys name. Yet here he is on his death bed in the middle of the freezing cold woods. His younger sister just started the tenth grade, he won’t even get to see her graduate. Hell he won’t even get to graduate.
“SLASH!!” Blood dribbles next to his sneaker. It’s really just his luck. Isn’t it? His wrists burn, ripped open on the unkind hands of a tree. He grabs on to the trunk, falls into is frozen embrace. He feels like his lungs might explode. He exhales harsh into the silence, salt dewy on his face. Rainfall on the ground. He’s tired and hes scared and it’s not fair.
Not one bit.
That unlucky boy really thought the eleventh grade would be different. Thought it might treat him better. He was a fool. He knew it too. He fucking knew the first week of school when someone was cleaning some rain gutters and threw a book at his head my mistake. His luck didn’t change even he did. The world was still full of goffer holes made just for him to step in and twist his ankle. It’s funny. So funny he finds the strength to laugh humourlessly in the dark. If you’d ask him about that stupid book the week it hit him: he’d laugh. Tell you it’s was a kids fantasy book: full of all sorts of paranormal fairytales and pseudoscience. But now at the cusp the end: he’d ask you back instead if it said whether or not werewolves were actually harmed by silver? Or better yet if there was a page in there titled something like:
What to do if your fifteen year old sister suddenly turns into a giganchuan hairy beast on the full moon! I guess I forgot to mention that part. The one currently chasing this unlucky boy was none other than:
YUJI GALE
Try and keep up
-Grade Ten
-Blue belt in Judo
Eugene Gales younger sister and most unlucky of all…
…A newly turned werewolf.
What a silly thing for me to forget to mention. It’s probably because even Eugene himself has to keep recalling it. Can you blame him?! His kid sister: the one who slapped his hand at age five for trying to steal a chocolate bar. His kid sister who still got such severe night terrors when she was twelve that Eugene used to sleep on her bedroom floor. His kid sister who was now breathing spit into his face like an ugly beast. Who could believe such a thing? Even with eyes burnt in orage staring him right in his face he can’t possibly mend the fact that his kid sister is on the other side. That’s not a goffer hole, that’s a fucking ravine.
What did he ever do to deserve this? Tgat what he things when he turns away to sprint for his life. Hadn’t he tryed hard enough? When the air freezes with a curdling scream. He doesn’t even know it’s his own. Why wasn’t he strong enough? As the burn peels arose his skin, and the blood spills away. Fertilizing the greenart with his failure. Not to protect himself. No. The gash tgat scorches past his skin to bare his flesh. It’s not a scratch it’s a brand. It boils his blood to a paste. Vinafare and baking soda on his counter. A childish experiment colour graded in a cruel red. He staggers. It’s so cold. Yuji must be freezing. His kid sister who beat up his bullies in elementary school, and slap him with her pinkytail braids. A fifteen year old girl who still helps him make his lunch every morning. That’s what he was too weak to protect. Warm bright tears curl down his face like summer rain.
Why isn’t he enough? Than that unlucky boy smashes his head on the ground.
Maybe even the unlucky sleep under milky horizons. They just don’t wake up to serene breezes and paperthin curtains. Instead they wake up to shaking hands, hospital beds and apologies that should be theirs.
…
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. That proverb sticks with him danm well when he slaps a club approval form on his home room teachers desk. By slapped he obviously means placed anxiously and bowing three times like a monk. At that point he’d been living with his brand about a week. It still catches and rubs uncomfortably on his clothes. Every friendly pat on the back bringing him to tears. But every thread stained in blood fuels his feet against that road. A road that begins coarse with the founding of:
‘Yeongdeunpo’s own Investigation, Knowledge and Education into the Supernatural’
Also known lovingly as:
YIKES.
They’re nice enough to permit him use of the old annex building for a club room. He can feel hell in there for sure. The janitor even finds enough pity for him to give him a preostoric little fan tgat sounds like a snoring dinosaur. It takes less than a week for it to be stolen. Which is actually way longer than he thought. His luck is changing already! Big Ben gifts him his grandpas consistently half broken printer. Him and his big heart. Finally the last peice is a placer tgat Eugene marks concisely with a sharpie:
EUGENE GALE
An old world flycatcher
This beginning is marked with the snap of a squeaky permanent marker being capped.
…