CHAPTER 4: strange creatures walking around.

Theo stretched and looked out of the window to see the morning sun with his wings loosely hanging down his body he walked down the stairs. His clawed hand stroking along the dark wooden railing.

When he walked through the door, he had to remind himself to duck, as his horns that formed a broken hallow would often scrape the doorframe.

As soon as he came in, he saw his father sitting at the dinner table, reading some of the notes he made in the ruins. But his glasses were all foggy from the steaming cup of tea he was holding.

"Good morning, Theo."

"Good morning dad."

Theo noticed his fathers worried look as he sat down in front of him.

"You're sure that you are alright?"

Theo paused for a moment. Ever since the hunting incident a few years back , he had more of those blackouts. They could last for anything between a few minutes and a few hours. During those times he was basically an animal, driven by the instinct to fight, flight or eat. Back when he was younger his parents could still find him off if he attacked. But now that he was almost two meters tall, if someone ignored the horns, his parent wouldn't stand a chance. So, they would either lock him up or lock themselves up and just wait for it to be over.

The most troublesome part was that they had yet to identify a trigger. Right now, it seemed too just be random.

"Yea, I am. You know that it doesn't hurt me."

"But what if you hurt yourself when you don't know what you are doing?"

Lisa walked over and placed a plate of meat in front of Theo. "We're just concerned about you, that's all."

Theo shook his head. "No, you really don't have to be. I'm fine"

His ears twitched as he thought that he heard something around the house. But he just shook it off. Tough there were less creatures around during winter, it was not rare for them to come close to see if there was any food.

"By the way, dad how is your business going lately?"

Joost just shrugged. "Nothing special. Found some medicine, some broken glass cylinders. I managed to sell some of the first aid kids that I found there, you know, the good quality stuff. Oh, and I found out that if you turn some of the black windows on there is a change you hear a voice. Like whoever build them wanted to tell us something."

"What did they say?"

Theo's tail flung from side to side in great interest. The fact that his father had brought him from the ruins had never been a secret to him , so he wanted to know all about that place.

"It was… hard to tell. Sometimes it was barely understandable. But they seemed to talk about something that according to them resembled the Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever."

"What's that?"

"I don't know, but it sounds like a disease if you ask me."

Theo lifted his head up as the sound of footsteps occurred again. this time it was a lot closer than usual.

Lisa noticed Theos behaviour.

"Something wrong?"

"There is something outside."

Joost placed his tea on the table and stood up to walk towards the bows that were hung up against the wall.

"Do you know what walks around outside?"

Theo shook his head. "I think it's a person."

"Hmm, no one ever comes all the way out here. I will check if they need help, and you should hide upstairs."

Theo stood up and looked at the front door for a moment before he headed upstairs. There he sat in his room, leaning against a wall, trying to listen to whatever happened in the living room.

At first, he heard someone knocking on the door. The sound softly echoed through the almost quiet forest. Soon after he heard his father opening the door.

"Good morning mister Marksson. What brings you all the way out here?"

Marksson laughed. "Yesterday I got an order from one of your clients. She seemed to suspect that you were holding some items behind as your services are running low lately."

"Look man, I barely have enough money to sustain my wife and myself. Besides I have no use for most of these items anyway. So why would I keep something behind."

"Yea I already said that, but you know. Work is work. I have to do whatever the lady askes. Otherwise, I can forget my gold for the month."

"Well, you came here. you can see I don't have any strange objects here. so why don't you just go and tell that lady that I was just running low on luck the past few weeks.

Joost's voice became a lot firmer as he tried to drive the intruder out of his house.

"Actually, there is one last thing that I could not fail to notice. There were strange footprints around your home. Would you mind if I stayed a little longer to see if there are no strange creatures around here? I am sure that the lady would hate to see her must sufficient income of artifacts getting killed by those strange, mutated creatures from the ruins."

"It is just a wolf that has been walking around here lately. Sometimes it comes close to the house, but it is never really hostile."

Theo quietly stood up and looked his door. He didn't know the man that was in their house now and chances were that he would search through their house. Locking the door would buy him a little more time to escape through the window, should the need arise.

The man laughed. "I don't know what you have been drinking, but that is no wolf. The toes are too long, and it even walks on two legs."

"If you really think that, then I'm starting to doubt your tracking skills."

Soon the sound of clattering plates could be heard after which Marksson shouted.

"Stop playing these games old man. You found a creature there and decided to keep it as a pet! You know the rules. Everything you find must be handed over to lady Livor, or else you will behind bar for a very long time!"

"There is nothing here pipsqueak. Just leave us alone!" Lisa yelled in anger.

"Don't get involved lass. He can still get out of it if he hands the creature over."

"I told you, you son of a bitch, there's nothing here!"

"Didn't I tell you to stop talking shit? I found blue fur a few hundred meters away from here. and don't you think that no one noticed that you have been buying more meat lately? If you are really that short on coins then why buy meat when you can buy bread, there will be more wildlife in spring anyways."

"What does it matter what we buy?" Lisa spoke in anger. "It's winter and we are short on food that's all."

The house filled itself with the dull sounds of flesh hitting wood and a blood curdling scream.

"What about this? You tell me where the creature is, and your wife is allowed to keep her ability to breath."

Theo unlocked the door as fast as he could and slammed it open. He jumped down the stairs on all fours and threw himself on the man that was holding a knife in front of his mother's throat.

The man immediately tried to kick him off. But he could not muster enough force to overpower the blue creature that was holding him down.

The man swiftly spun the knife in his hand and managed to stab Theo in his arm. Despite the pain and the blood flowing out, he didn't flinch. But after a few seconds his vision slowly started to become blurry until he could no longer hold his eyes open. Only now he noticed the odd, sweet stench coming from the blade. Then the world around him started to fade away.