D is for Deeper Underground

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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