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Throughout history, it’s easy to find plenty of odd accounts. Monstrous figures used to haunt every corner of the world. That's what so many legends were made of. The strange and unusual finally confronted with the rules of a more rational world.
As the centuries changed hands, however, these great tales were largely chalked up to being fictitious. No werewolves lurked under the full moon, and no vampires would need permission to enter into an abode. This was the common understanding, and anywhere who argued otherwise were viewed with concern.
It is hard to claim that a figure of folklore can still exist when the world is so wrapped up in the physical and explainable. If there is no proof that something exists, then it cannot. At least, this is a very simple way of explaining it.
In reality, the existence of the supernatural is far more muddled. Clean cut explanations aren’t going to be found easily where the ‘monsters’ of the world have taken up residence. It can be hard for humans to track down these secret spots. If they happen to stumble down a particularly strange alley, they might just be able to find where the creatures have grown to call home.
These pockets of existence can often be found made up below the cities that mankind made. A particularly unique example of this being secret doors that were carved behind the skulls of the Paris catacombs. A true example of how humans reached toward the skies, the creatures that they distorted through folklore were forced to dig further and further into the ground.
The underground cities burst with life that humans would struggle to understand. All different kinds of myth, folklore, and tall tales could be found huddled under the concrete streets. Various types of homes were shoved in every wall that could hold them, and markets swallowed up the dirt path just beyond the door steps.
It was a difficult life for many creatures. Largely it was a communal experience. There had been squabbles when the humans had first begun to push them out of their natural habitats, but an understanding was able to be found. They had all suffered at the hands of man, but there were too many for them to continue to push back. Every species of curiosity would have to survive together if they were going to have any hope of avoiding extinction.
Still, it was tight under the earth. It was a constant fight to carve out enough space to hold all the unique and beautiful kinds of life that had to find home down there. None of the creatures down below were built the same, and so not every house would fit them either.
Some took this to heart, however. As, while many of the more strange monsters of the world took to the ground, there were plenty of the creatures that chose to risk exposure by living amongst the very beings that had tried to destroy them.
Just as with the underground cities, these bolder entities were most often found in cities. If they’d been around long enough, it was easy enough to afford an apartment. With so many people all in one place it was also easy to fall between the cracks. In a suburban neighborhood someone could note if you were picking up groceries every other week, but in an apartment no one was ever guaranteed to notice you were even there.
This worked out best for the more humanoid creatures out there. There were means of disguising one’s appearance, but those that inherently looked like humans were always going to have the easiest time. A few details would be off, but the world had gotten so fast. People were far less likely to notice when something was wrong.
Each decade, and even millenia, had a fluctuating number of entities on the top layer with the humans, but as of this decade the numbers were more skewed. The upheaval of the top side was just as complicated for the creatures that lived outside of it. Those that were able to carve out their own niches within that system were able to keep going, however.
The obvious choices for his category were going to be beings that used to be human. Vampires, werewolves, or some other kind of distorted entity did their best to make it among the living breathing man. They each had their own hook ups to deal with, every supernatural species would, but vampires found it the easiest to co-exists with man kind.
With hospitals and blood banks being well established at this point, it was easier than ever for a vampire to break into one of those two buildings to find some easy chow. If breaking and entering weren’t their speed anymore, there were blood markets underground that they could also access. And, of course, in a world that had such a fixation on the strange and taboo, there were also the people who were willing to let a vampire bite them, for their own satisfaction.
Vampires had the option to turn a person if they so chose it, as well, but that happened very rarely. It could be hard enough for one vampire to figure out their means of feeding, to throw someone else into that uneasy chaos would be cruel beyond measure.
A few odd modern vampires would pop up occasionally, but the largest part of the vampire population came from the 1800 and 1900s. It petered out around the 1960s, and so those vampires that wandered the busy streets of New York, London, or even Paris were the ones that were the most well equipped to adapt to the changing world. They’d already survived so much, if they didn’t want to start amongst the mortals they’d have decided it long ago.
This is where Gerad Way lands.
A former soldier from WWII, they remembered being there for D-Day but then things become muddled. He’d hopped around Europe following the end of the war. He wandered from village, to town, to city, and did it all again from country to country. They struggled to consume those that had already lost everything, but he did what needed to be done.
He eventually ended up on a boat back to America. Passing through the remains of Europe they’d been able to pick up enough money to secure a decent enough voyage, though it could be argued whether the people were aware of him or not. Subsisting off of rats helped keep them under the rayder, but it left them starving by the time they’d made it to the shores of New York.
If they took the time to think about it hard enough, they’d be able to pinpoint many of the details that followed their return to America. As it related to their day to day existence, things were always going to be muddled. He wasn’t even entirely sure if they could remember his life prior to waking up amongst the rubble of Germany.
It was probably for the best. Anyone they could have remembered were long dead. If he’d tried to find his friends or family soon after he awoke maybe he would have had a chance to find the person he was before, but it was safer this way. They’d seen what could happen to immortals who remembered too much of their old life. He could still hear their screams as they let the sun consume them. It was the only way those madden vampires could find peace, and he wasn’t ready to accept that.
He may have lost the person he was before, but they’d been able to find something more than that. It was around the 1980s when Gerard ended up in a small punk bar. He’d wandered for a while that evening, until he ended up in that bar in New Jersey of all places. It was dirty and small. They did their best to slink into the shadows as people jumped around and slammed into each other.
They longed to join in with the innate human chaos. The way the people stomped their feet, thrust their elbows forward, and swung their fists. They were all brought together by the need to express an anger that was bursting out of them. He didn’t want to draw any undue attention to themself, but they were enamored with the passion that swallowed the crowd around him.
Then they saw him.
He was also sequestered in a corner. He had white and black striped shirt with a leather jacket on top. On his face, and what stood out to Gerard the most, were sunglasses. Unlike normal sunglasses, this one had three shades attached to it. Two where humans would normally have eyes, and an extra on the forehead.
Gerard glanced around the bar. When they saw that everyone was still focused on the stage, he weaved his way over to the stranger. They scooted in close to him and smiled. “Do you mind if I sit here?”
They let their fangs poke out. They watched as the figure recoiled. He couldn’t see through the lenses, and he wondered how his eyes looked behind them. If his intuition was correct, then things would be okay. If it wasn’t, however, an awkward conversation would soon follow.
“No, it's fine. Do you come here often?”
“First time actually. I have a place in New York right now. I just lost track of time and ended up here.”
The man snorted, “You walked all the way to New Jersey from New York? How did you not notice where you were?”
“The sun had set. Things were dark. I didn’t have a place in mind. I just needed to go somewhere different. Haven’t you ever felt like that?”
Gerard watched as the man looked around the bar. Their eyes followed where his head was pointed and, once again, they saw that no one was paying them any mind. He turned his head back to them and nodded. They watched as he took his sun glasses off and revealed a third eye underneath. “Yeah, I think I can.”
Their smile widened. He placed his hand next to the man’s on the booth and wrapped their finger around his. “I’m Gerard.”
“Will, Will Wood. It’s been awhile since I’ve found another one of us running around up here.”
“Oh, there are plenty of us stumbling around, you just gotta know where to look.”
“Do you think,” Will put his sun glasses back on. His hands were shaking. “Do you think you’d be willing to show me?”
“You still live underground, don’t you?”
“If you can call that living. Hiding down there. Doing your best just to survive most days. I’ve wanted to try and set something up here, but I can’t just put makeup on this thing like others can.”
Gerard watched as he tapped the side of his head and they nodded. “There are ways of fixing that.”
“Fixing?” Will’s brow scrunched upwards. He sounded scared.
“I don’t mean getting rid of it. I know some friends who have the means to work some magic for you. You’d need to be able to be consistent about it, but they’ll be able to offer you a few different ways of hiding that third eye.”
“I’d been told that I’d have to have it ripped out to survive here.”
Gerard grabbed ahold of his hand. They squeezed it tight and said, “You never have to compromise yourself to make it up here. There are always other options. If you truly want to survive here you need to make sure that you can still be who you are. That is the true way of living amongst man.”
They looked over at the crowd as the set began to wind down. When they looked back at Will, they could see tears rolling down from behind his sunglasses. He scooted closer to him and wrapped their arms around him. They felt arms wrap around them as well and heard a soft, “Thank you.”
The two of them left that bar that night clinging to the other. As Gerard watched Will begin to become accustomed to the world of men, they began to move their assets over to where they met. They didn’t quite get why at first, but they watched as Will appeared more comfortable as the two of them walked around New Jersey rather than New York. He grew accustomed to this as well.
The 1980s melted into the 1990s and then so on and so forth. There were plenty of ups and downs to go for both them and the humans they surrounded themselves with, but they held onto each other like no other.
Sometimes, when things were particularly dark at night, Gerard would worry about what would happen when Will would inevitably leave before them. Three eyes were unique enough, but that didn’t mean that he was immortal like they were.
He’d hold himself while he stared out the window. They’d try and will themselves into calming down. If and when they lost Will he knew that they’d be able to make it through that. They’d made it through worse before. But, for the first time, they felt fear for losing someone. They didn’t think they’d ever be foolish enough to do that to themselves.
When these thoughts would come over them, they’d eventually feel Will’s arms appear behind them. His head would rest on their shoulder and they’d hear him say, “I’m here. Don’t worry. I’m right here.”
They’d never tell him what it was he was worrying about, but he knew enough to know what to do. Being held by someone else was able to drag him down from his fretful cloud. They may not last an eternity, but the two of them were there in that moment. And that was more than Gerard had grown to ask for.