I feel like this needs saying, considering the image that popped up after this video loaded. Most of these songs I haven't seen the music video for and when I upload the songs it's just selecting a youtube video (cuz Blogger's connected like that) that I have never watched because youtube just doesn't work here in Ethiopia.
So, I have no idea what you'll be watching if you hit play down below, but I know what you'll be hearing.
Even before his fifteenth summer,
Daniel knew he wasn't a city boy. But now, smack dab in New York
City he was face to face with the one place he didn't want to be.
The city reeked. Homeless people,
methane, trash. It also was deafening. Horns, shouting, radio.
His first night, he thought he was
going to go crazy from sensory overload and the depression that
followed it. If he couldn't get revenge for Lacy, then he might as
well try to find a coven or nest that would put him out of his
mystery. His breed, they bred for life. He only had so long to live
before he knew the loneliness would get to him. He had planned on
assisted suicide to begin with, but had hoped to make a kill or two
first.
But it was impossible to follow the
scent.
Daniel didn't have anything specific to
go on, the only blood in the forest had been of Lacy and the other
couple they had formed a pack with, Steve and Natalie. There had been
the scent of gun powder and a tang in the air that spoke of silver.
But he hadn't seen the bullets. Silver was expensive, the humans had
dung it out of the bodies of his family to be reused, and in the
process had skinned them. Daniel had returned from hunting to find
the three of them with muscles showing, flies already starting to
gather. Without their fur, it was only the scent of their blood that
identified what body was who.
The only helpful scent had been that of
oil from the car, and he had traced that scent through the woods
until he came to the city that never slept. It was an awful place,
where the stars were barely visible and he couldn't make out the
surface of the moon. He still felt the lunar pull and connection, but
he missed being bathed in moonlight. The street lights were too
bright to allow for that.
He hadn't known what to do when he
first came to the city. There was no direction for him to follow and
everything was so strange. Daniel wondered around aimlessly,
stumbling through alleys and tunnels and digging through the trash.
But last night...
Daniel's nose was always sharper as the
full moon approached, even in human form. He had scented that oil, a
large amount, and followed it. It wasn't the first time, but he
followed any large saturation of it. Like last night, it usually let
to an auto repair shop. But this one, this one was different. There
was another scent, fainter, that came from a corner in the back where
there was a table covered with parts. There was the scent of oil,
and then soap, and fainter still, of blood and fur. Both of which he
intimately knew.
Lacy. Steve. Natalie.
And others, the smells so faint they
had blended together with age and he couldn't make out individuals.
But Daniel knew his pack wasn't the first to have their wolf skins
laid across this table.
Wolves were smart animals, using
tactics to fight as a team and bring in a kill. But they were also
wild animals, who didn't have sophisticated emotions or morals. As a
result, Daniel had found since his fifteenth summer he only felt the
basics, one emotion at a time, and they were all consuming.
It wasn't the full moon, it was still
almost a week away, but the lunar pull wasn't what allowed him to
change. He may only be able to make a full transformation
surrounding the full moon, but he could still shift.
Daniel's knees switched direction, his
thighs bulking up while his calves slimmed. His hips and chest
expanded, the muscles growing as coarse copper fur sprouted over his
skin. The shirt he was wear was tight, itchy, but it ripped with his
expanding chest and he tore off the rest of it with his muzzle.
He was still humanoid, standing on two
legs. His face had a wolf's snout, but his dull hearing informed him
his ears were still human and his eyes were also not at their full
strength. So he wasn't the large wolf creature that hunted in the
woods, but he still had teeth and claws and lost himself to violence.
It was only this morning that Daniel
had been aware of what he had done, after stealing a paper. The
garage was ripped apart, the family living above it killed. He noted
that the article used words like 'creature' and 'monster', making
statements to paw prints and claws. Everyone knew about his kind, but
it was an unspoken rule to not mention them. Saying the name of any
supernatural was supposed to bring bad luck, and death on it's heels.
He had an idea that the nests in the
area, maybe some of the covens as well, had known he had shown up,
but now that he had drawn such public attention to himself they were
concerned about his presence. It explained the silver wearing girl
under a parasol at the end of the alley shortly after reading the
article. And the man who had been following him since lunch. He
would flash a pointy smile when ever Daniel looked over his shoulder.
New York City's others lived alongside
humans because of their ability to hide and keep the living
arrangement they had with the city out of public awareness. Daniel
had destroyed that, and so now they were either going to kill him or
toss him out of the city.
The full moon was coming, and with it
the time when his strength was at it's peak and the nests' at their
weakest. Right now, while he was slightly stronger he was also
terribly outnumbered. And would be still in eleven days time.
The warning displays would be enough to
send any one else off, but Daniel knew he couldn't leave. He may not
remember killing that family, but he did know the rage he thought
over his pack's death hadn't disappeared. He hadn't killed the right
people. Maybe the vampires and witches had known about the poaching,
maybe not, but they certainly weren't interested in helping him.
Right now, the city was panicked. The
humans knew he was in the area and thus hyper aware. While those
fanged smiles were for him he was sure he wasn't the only one seeing
them. The panic was good, he hoped it would flush out the butchers,
but it wouldn't do to have all this other attention on him. He needed
to go to ground, some place close to the garage to watch who came and
went, and come the full moon he would attack.
Then, and only then, would he allow
himself to be caught.
But for now, he needed a place to hide.
No, a place to be safe and in full sunlight. Daniel looked up at the
buildings around him. They wouldn't dare follow him on to the roofs.
Too much sun.
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Yay, nay? Tell me what you think.
OOoooo. Nice. I like the picture you painted here and am sad there's not more.
ReplyDeleteThanks. Yeah, many of these I think I could expand.
DeleteJust stopping by from the A-Z list to say hi :)
ReplyDeleteOh, excellent theme! I love using prompts to inspire short pieces of fiction but I've never used songs. Will definitely be trying it!
Good luck with the rest of the challenge honey, great theme!
Xx
Songs are a great way to find prompts! I'm glad you like my theme, and I certainly encourage you to use music in the future.
Delete