*1st POV*
*Year: 1982*
The light, that was all I remembered when I lay there in the alleyway, the victim of a mugging, just a random mugging. No rhythm or reason, just unlucky, mostly me, but the guy was unlucky too. I was flat broke and about to be kicked out of my apartment, and the car was a piece of garbage on its last legs.
What they say is true, though, the first thing I saw was the rain dropping on my face, but the next thing was a bright white light. It wasn't welcoming or warming, but rather just there, ready for you when you were ready to go. Like an old friend with a beer in hand on the porch, just sitting there waiting to hand you an empty chair by their side.
That's when I felt the first sting, not on my physical body but rather my soul...mind, either one, I felt pain unlike any I felt before. Then it spread across my body, slowly making its way through me like a virus, one that never stopped tearing at me like I was on fire.
I then saw it, colors beyond what any could dream of, eyes that never stopped watching me move, darkness only the oldest of demons could dream of, a beast that chased and was chased like predator or prey. So many different feelings, and so much pain beyond what I could understand. I tried to grab my head, but there was no body to control, no head to grab.
I could feel the things that were made of all this eat at me, claw at me, wanting to take a piece of me. I could feel their profound hunger and need for a vessel, a conduit of some kind. I didn't understand any of it, but I felt something, I felt a happiness unequal to any before, I felt the fear of every living being, of things I didn't know, as it all turned into a bright white light.
I saw nothing, I just saw a thing, a being unlike any I could ever imagine, typing away atop a white dead tree whose roots still grew devouring bones upon an endless graveyard. It took one look at me, that was all it took and my mind snapped, I laughed, I laghed as my soul was sucked into the meat puppet of a newborn infant. While my voice came out as a cry, my soul, my true voice, was of laughter.
Endless laughter that even God himself would find terrifying beyond compare, a thing that no one could truly understand. My cries wailed through the hospital all night, my parents were stumped, at least they told me when I was fully grown, and the hospital staff as well. I was awake all night, I kept every child in that room up all night.
I understood why, I understood from the very moment I was born that I would never be regular, never again.
*Year: 1987*
When I was five years old, I started elementary school. I tried to be regular, but I was always smarter than kids my own age. Sure, I knew things they didn't know, yet it was the late 80s after all, so a few things were still unknown, but nevertheless, I was still a bit smarter and well knowledgeable. I still tried to fit in. My parents, Richard Crane and Rose Crane, raised me with all the love they could muster.
Richard was a travel agent; he had a small shop in town, but sometimes he went out of town to help with more "specialized" cases. My mother, Rose, was a dog trainer, mostly German Shepherds, for the police force, and boy were they something, real friendly even in the end, but you could tell they were ready to hunt. Hunt for what, well, racism never changes, no matter the decade. Not my mother, thankfully, mostly just the local cops in town, whom you always had to keep an eye on.
That was all a damn lie though, I saw the silver and books, I saw the lore books and well they keep nice looking guns. I wasn't a gun nut in my last life, but even I could tell they had real nice ones, all this plus some more "specialized" weapons made purely of wood.
Right now, I had suspicions, just questions that needed answers, but probably wouldn't anytime soon.
*Year: 2000*
Supernatural, that was the world I was in, a week passed after my eighteenth birthday, and well, they told me everything. They told me of the creatures that went bump in the night, the monsters, demons, and witches. They told me that Dad traveled whenever there was a case, alongside one of the more specialized dogs. Apparently, beyond raising a few police dogs, they had some hunting dogs on standby to help out.
I mean, I suspected something after they started training me, showing me out to shoot a gun, how to hunt, how to fight hand-to-hand. Heck, for my fifteenth birthday, I got an encyclopedia book of all mythological creatures in alphabetical order. It was an...interesting revelation, and it was also the first time I dreamt of those things, and my laughter, my horrid laughter, came back fiercer than ever.
I could hold it in though, I could keep it quiet, but somehow my mind didn't heal, no, no, no, I was just holdign back all this time. The next week after this little revelation, my parents invited me on a hunting trip, just the three of us, and no dog as well. They wanted to teach me how to hunt a simple Werewolf, classic scenario, teen dies in a park on a full moon, heart ripped out, and thought to be an animal attack.
All the makings of a werewolf attack, and so they began tracking them down, making sure to track the thing. Showing me all their tricks and tips they wish they knew the first time.
"Now John, one thing you have to know about a werewolf is that even when they're not transformed, they are still as deadly as you or me, except the normal methods won't kill them." my father said as we were stationed outside a log cabin outside the town of Mashval, Ohio. Small little place, not a lot of people, but the perfect feeding ground for a werewolf.
He was holdign a sniper rifle loaded with silver rounds, waiting for the guy to step out as my mom was near the door, shotgun in hand, loaded with a bit more powerful ammunition. They were showing me why it was always better to work in a duo rather than solo, how they had each other's backs no matter what.
They were wrong, you see, the werewolf wasn't alone, they had friends, the first to go was Mom. The pack descended on her right as the door opened. They jumped out of the bushes and snatched the shotgun out of her hand, then began slamming her head into the door. Dad, though, he shot one in the head, the one who attacked her first, and began reloading, giving them plenty of time to kill her.
He shot again once they were done, and just as they began running up to our position, the first shot had given us away. They were fast and tough from what I could see, as the third shot merely grazed the third one, with Dad quickly handing me a handgun and telling me to get ready to fire. Once the last two were upon us, my dad was able to shoot on in the chest as the last one began pouncing on him.
I could tell that the third one was still alive as they struggled to get off the ground, and I could feel my hand shaking, having never fired a gun at another humanoid being in this life or my last. I fired, eventually hitting them right in the heart, or near it, just as my Dad began being choked by the last one.
Strangely enough, though through this whole ordeal, I was calm, I wasn't panicking or even scared. No, I was smiling, all to the horror of my dad as the last bit of light left his eyes, and the werewolf turned around as they saw me pointing a gun at their face, my eyes wide open as I felt something flowing through me. I enjoyed seeing the terror in my parents and the werewolf pack's eyes.
The feeling of something being hunted when they thought they were the predator, the feeling of being turned into prey, and falling into a hunter's trap. I sucked a big breath of air in savorign it as I shot the silver tipped bullet right into their heart, and they began puking u blood unable to stand up.
They fell to the ground alongside their brother, and I savored a new...flavor as the end was coming, their end more specifically. Sure, my hands might've shaken the first time I shot the gun, but that was my nerves taking over. I didn't understand why I loved this all, I could just tell that the fear was tasty beyond anything I ate, my broken mind forcing a smile on my face, as I watched my father, werewolf 3, and werewolf 4 slowly die in front of my eyes. My father was running out of breath, and the other two were bleeding out.
My mind was never clearer than that day I found something I truly enjoyed, the thing that would fuel my life.
Fear...