Darkest Before Dawn

Chapter 1

It has been 12 years since that day. I spent almost ten of those in Montana on my late grandparent's ranch. The ranch was my mom's now and her and my dad and my little brother were still there. My mother was pregnant when we fled our home and we welcomed Jason into the family 6 months later. He was a good kid and we were close as we could be despite the age difference. My mother homeschooled me up until a high school diploma and she was doing the same with Jay. The ranch was a fairly self sufficient, and isolated place that's why we ran there. Solar panels for power, well water, a small but sufficient garden, a couple dairy cows, chickens, and pigs out in what was literally the middle of nowhere. To this day there isn't a paved driveway to the place, hell there isn't even a paved road for probably 20 miles. My grandfather had taught me to hunt and to fish and I thoroughly enjoyed both. We spent a lot of time together, weekends were always our time, and I missed him greatly. It was one of the reasons I left home.

But I know this mundane shit about my life doesn't interest anyone. So back to the creatures we once thought of as Grimm fairytales. They were actually fairly peaceful, as boring as that sounds, they were sick of hiding in the shadows of human society basically. The wolves had been the easiest to deal with, and then the vampires, and the others mostly just wanted to keep to themselves and not be hunted. The biggest hurdle with those first two groups was something called mates. In their societies, I guess actually in their species they are actually given soulmates, and they can figure out exactly who is theirs by looking into their eyes. Wild shit I know. Sometimes apparently they can be mated to us humans and they wanted the rights to take their mates...to seriously just take people. And of course, every single government in the world absolutely caved. What was the alternative war with those creatures? All of them? We would never win, so now every teenager lived in absolute terror of their 18th birthday when the bond would be I don't know, opened? I really didn't care to learn much about them, great mistake on my part. I knew they couldn't harm us unless we went against them first, and that was the important thing right?

Anyways in getting back to my life, I stayed put at the ranch until I was 20. Honestly terrified of going back to a society where wolves now walked among us in men's clothing. But eventually the grief of my grandfather and grandmother no longer being there and my own wanderlust lead me to the kitchen table my family was seated at shortly after my 20th birthday. My father was heated when I said I was leaving, and my mother actually sobbed. They had Jason go to his room immediately so he wouldn't witness our argument. I won out of course, my parents weren't monsters, and I wasn't a prisoner. Maybe I should've been though for my own good. Dad helped me get together all my important documents and got the card I had never needed to my trust fund set up. And yes I know my level of entitlement here, I see it just as you do. I packed up my black Tahoe with no destination in my mind. I wasn't necessarily thinking of moving out at the time just a long road trip. I ate a lot of greasey food, and stayed in some shady motels. I enjoyed ever single minute of it.

About 6 months into my trip I realized I was lonely. I wasn't ready to go home yet so I decided the next town I stopped in I would stay awhile and make some connections. I had managed to stay away from the supernatural thus far and was confident I would keep up that streak. Confidence is truly ignorance sometimes. It was near the border of Washington and Oregon where my gas was getting low that I pulled into Goldendale.

That day was almost 2 years ago and it truly was one of the best decisions of my life at least until recently. I had gotten a job with the local parks services managing a campground, had made several good friends, and still remained untouched by any supernatural presence. I had been back to Montana to visit twice and communicated with my family regularly. They were always so relieved to hear from me so I never made them wait too long between calls.

I was currently ending a call with my mother actually.

"Love you Mom, talk to you soon!"

"Love you too sweetie."