Four - Milo

Four - Milo

Fear. Life wouldn’t be life without it. All my life, here has been a great factor. If I am going to die, I won't be scared. I’ll have very few people in my life, but they all care. That’s all that matters. However, I will never have a wife. If I let that happen, maybe I will fear death. I know what being in the department can do to someone. I know. My father was a DPI, and that messed with his head. Sitting in the apartment I bought about a year ago, my cat, Agro, chases around a small glitter ball. He’s so happy, yet he doesn’t realize what’s going on in the world.

I’ve shifted in front of him once. He was pretty okay with it, but wanted nothing to do with me. That’s something I laughed about. Mostly, Agro loves me unless I run the shower, and he’s in the bathroom. He needs a friend, is what Asher constantly tells me. Agro is like me; Maybe he wants someone to have around, but he’s okay.

My maw is a damn good healer. Each time I’d gotten a cut or bruise, she was there. When I turned 18, she was still around even then. Gabe passed and Maw shut down. She didn’t go to work for two weeks. She was what everyone thought David was going to be like. Maw became the one needing to be healed. Gabe was one of the finest leaders we’d ever seen. I was close with David, not so much Gabe. We all looked up at him. The day of the funeral, Maw baked pastries for Gabe and the others. She put one on a plate with a marigold and a candle beside it. She believes in respecting those who have passed. Everyone thought she was baffling; everyone but me.

Did you know vampires don’t turn into bats? They’re bastards, but we have no choice but to respect them. The Shaw Pack is the strongest in the city. A vampire clan, the Solaire clan, is also the strongest vampire clan in Dahlia. So, we have mutual respect for each other. Their leader. William Solaire admired Gabe and paid his respects.

DPIs have investigated the vampires as much as they can, but they have found nothing too terrible about them. My dad would come home late at night, pissed off. He was being replaced by someone. I thought my dad was the best DPI ever, but now I know he wasn't. The Department keeps us, specialized people (as they call us), safe and in-check. They don’t call us mutants or anything, but most human department workers hate us. We have to stay hidden. If someone like us were to fall in love with a human, that’s fine. If we can hide what we are, then we can interact with the humans. David thought it was a good rule that we needed to follow. There’s more than just vampires and werewolves to worry about.

Shades. These are lifeless creatures. We think they’re probably dead people’s spirits trying to get revenge on the people that killed them. Sometimes they’ll just take the life from people for any reason they get. When they take life from someone, it’s called draining. They aren’t common in Dahlia, but they’re around.

Vampires. No, they don’t turn into bats. Many people think they do, but that’s Hollywood bullshit. One thing they got right was the sun. All vampires are sensitive to the sun. They won’t instantly turn into ash, but they’ll get severe burns. Vampires are immortal, unless I ripped their heads off. I’ve run into a few but never really messed with any.

Demons. I actually know little about ’em. I know that there’s a bunch of differences.

Humans. They aren’t like us. However, some of them have gifts of some sort, like being an elemental. You can probably guess what that means.

We are all different, but in the end, we all live in Dahlia. Dahlia is a quiet place. It’s obviously got a bit of crime like every other city, but not much. The worst we could ever have is a shade. One shade can be responsible for hundreds of deaths. I’ve never encountered one; and I don’t really plan on it. Many humans don’t or barely know we exist. The wolf population has been climbing since the department allowed us to interact with others. When a human and someone like me, a werewolf, have children, they’ll be werewolves. The reason for this is simple; the wolf gene dominates over the human genes and leaves only the basic heredity for the kids to inherit. I’m not sure if vampires can have kids.

The thing about living is that it’s so easy to die. Living is the hard part, death is an option, but many people don’t choose it. I want to live long enough to make my maw happy and proud. I’m not saying I’ve always felt like a failure. I just wish that I could make her happy. She hasn’t been happy in so long. Is it my fault?

In a couple of years, I want to make her laugh. It’s all I need; All I want. Holding onto my arm is something she does when she’s feeling sad. When Gabe’s body was lowered into the ground, she cried on my shoulder. That’s one thing I hate most in this world; Seeing my mom cry. If there’s a star that never dies out, that’s my mom. She’s this light that makes everyone happier. If she doesn’t make you smile, that’ll be her aim the rest of the day. The damn woman gets David to smile; that’s saying a lot. Not that it’s hard to get him to smile, but I mean like a genuine smile. Gave used to get him to smile all the time.

David cried by my side before. He might not remember it, but I do. His sister had wandered off for the seventh time that month and he was scared. It's scary that humans always run off but this is different. Something happened. David loves Amina even if she’s not actually his sister. It’s a great thing, but seeing him torn like this, he’s scared; and David doesn’t show his fear often.

Amina had something happen to her that made her freak out. David, Gabe and Amina were in the kitchen, making dinner. Out of nowhere, she screams, falling to the floor. David and Gae try to help her up, but she pushes away from them. She’s bever pushed them away before. David got dropped off at my house while Gabe and a few other adults looked for Amina. After the two backed away from her, she bolted out the door. David and I were only twelve, so she was ten. Maybe she didn’t know what she was doing, but the Shaws didn’t talk about that night or the next few months ever. Amina kept running. No one found her until three months later.

If I’m being honest, I never could have thought that Amina would do this. She often runs off into the woods, but she’d tell David and Gabe. When she did this time, it took a while to get the truth out of her. Amina is a quiet girl. She’s always kept to herself. When they brought her back home, Gabe instantly held a pack meeting. Maw told me to stay home, but I wanted to tag along. She let me.

“Thank you, everyone for everyone, " Gabe began. David stood beside him, avoiding eye contact with everyone. Amina wasn’t there. She was in the recovery center for two weeks; we weren’t told about her injuries. “As all of you know, Amina has returned from the disappearance which lasted three months. I figured I’d start this meeting by informing you all that she is safe and discovering quickly. Anyway, I’ve been receiving many questions and I will answer them. Why did she run away? Amina told us she saw an overload. For those who haven’t heard of a vision overload, I’ll fill you in. When someone like Amina can trace several trails from various locations and from different time periods, there are overloads that can occur. We haven’t had many people suffer from these overloads, but they happen.” Gabe takes a breath that’s visibly hard for him to take.

“Amina could hear the visions she was seeing, causing her to have a mild anxiety attack. To paint a picture, if everyone were to talk in this room for thousands of different subjects, if some began screaming, crying, yelling; you’d feel overwhelmed too. Not only did she hear talking, but she heard tires screeching, gun shots, horns, and animals. She heard so many sounds that all she could do was scream. Amina also has the amazing gift of being able to feel the people around her and reliving the events that occurred in that place. However, she took in all these events at once and became extremely claustrophobic. Therefore, she pushed David and myself away.”

“This is when we back away. Still not being aware of what was happening, she dashed out the door and disappeared into the forest. Yes, Amina often goes into the woods to clear her mind. I figured I’d give her a few hours before going out and looking for her. Call me a terrible parent, but that is one way Amina has learned to cope with her anxiety and I approve of this. About a week had passed by and I looked for her on my own. After no sign of her, I asked other pack members for their help with looking for her. We only have a select few of outstanding seekers in this amazing family we’ve created. However, many of these seekers were out for personal reasons.” Just as Gabe is about to continue, he looks at David. David sits wide-eyed at a table now, looking at the floor. It was hard for David to relive this again. A chair screeches against the floor and someone runs. Ash quickly sits beside David and punches his shoulder, smiling. Gabe smiles and continues.

“Moving on. Why did it take so long to find her? I found Amina on the outskirts of Slateville. This small town is twenty hours away from Dahlia. By foot, this could take weeks. For a ten-year-old, I don’t want to imagine how long it would take. I believe Amina was attempting to reach her relatives that live in Slateville. Even though she had her overload, she had told me that the entire journey she was followed by time. She will work on turning her tracing off. If you’re a seeker, you would know that this is hard to do. Therefore, it took so long to find her. It’s hard to focus on one trail for an extended period. I will not answer some questions they have asked me because of keeping Amina safe. Thank you all to those who have helped with the search and rescue mission that has taken place over the past three months. Thank you.” Gabe walks over to the table where Ash and David are sitting.

Maw let out a sigh, turning to me. She took my arm, and we went home. As I pulled the blankets over myself that night, Maw walked into the room and sat on the end of my bed. I sat beside her and waited for her to give me a speech about running away. But the speech never came. Maw never began speaking. Instead, she gently played with my hair and moved closer to me on the bed. Her hand gently touched my cheek.

“You need to promise me something, Milo.” Maw’s voice was soft as she softly smiled.

“Okay. What is it, maw?” Even as a kid at this moment, I wasn’t scared. Maybe I should’ve been.

“You need to promise me you’ll protect those Shaw kids. They’re your friends, right? And they’re part of our family. That’s what we do in this pack, Milo. We protect each other. Amina... She hasn’t found her place yet. David will monitor her, but you need to help him with that, okay? It’s a strange world out there, and we need to stick together.” She kisses the top of my head before leaving the room. I turn the lamp by my bed off and roll onto my side. I am the protector of this pack.

(This one was a lot longer than I intended it to be, sorry!)