A Mysterious Man

It was a gloomy morning when an eighteen-year-old Lucas yanked himself out of the bedroom and into the kitchen to get some breakfast. His mother, who had been bedridden since the day he was born, was watching the morning news with his dad by his side.

The clanging noise of plates and utensils made his dad peer over and smile at the sight of his son.

"Son, good morning. Did you have a good sleep?"

Lucas, who was taking more food than he normally would, looked out from the kitchen as he smiled at his father.

"Yup, better than before."

His dad nodded and went back to watching the morning news. Lucas took his plate of food out of the kitchen and into the living room and placed it on a small center table before leaning over to kiss his mother.

"Morning, babe. You look handsome as ever, Lucas."

"Oh, stop it, mother."

They all chuckled at the embarrassed Lucas and watched him sit down on the floor to eat his breakfast. Everything was just as great as any other morning that they had. But there was something in him that he knew that would change in a few days.

After all, he was the last grandson of Silas Red.

After breakfast and a few chats with his parents, Lucas went out to meet his friends — Lucian Grey and Maximus Conrad.

They had both already transitioned with their new life and had been living with Timothy and Evelyn in a small cabin at the center of the forest — a little fortress as they might call it.

This transition would happen to Lucas as well, and he was as excited as the others were before it happened to them.

"Hey Lucas, are you ready for Sunday?"

Lucas showed him a huge child-like smile, making his friends laugh at his face.

"Guess you are," Max said, tying his hair back into a bun. Lucian, who was right beside him, chatted along with Lucas about the transition when he remembered seeing someone by the port earlier that day.

"Oh hey, Luke. Can you still remember your little girly best friend back in middle school?"

Lucas stopped in his tracks and looked up as if he was trying to remember who Lucian was probably referring to when his memory remembered one.

"Beatrice Caldrich?"

Max nodded, looking at Lucas with a hint of a smile on his face.

"Yup, that's her."

Lucas, who was not following the teasing tone of his friends, tilted his head to the side making the two sigh in exasperation.

"Oh, you are such a slowpoke. I saw Beatrice down the port with her father earlier. They were carrying loads of bags."

"Uh-huh, by the looks of it, Beatrice looks like she would be staying here for a long time."

Lucas felt the excitement in his chest to see his friends. It has been a long time since the last time they played Sharks and Minnows and the last time they swam on the cold beach of La Ber. It was the last memory he had of her.

"Wait, so you mean-?"

Lucian and Max looked at each other and grinned widely.

"Yup!"

Lucas gasped, eyes gleaming with excitement as he ran away from his two friends and ran straight in the direction of the motorbike. He hopped on, started the engine, and rode away from their garage to the direction of Beatrice's house.

"Do you think Beatrice would still remember him?"

Lucian looked at Max with a contorted expression.

"Maybe. Do you think we should've told him that there was an anomaly there with Beatrice and her father?"

Max looked over to his friend and scratched the back of his head.

"Maybe. But how the hell are we going to explain to him his kind when his transition was still days away?"

Both of the guys sighed, before looking back at the tracks that the motorbike left on the gloomy sand of La Ber. Max scratched the back of his head as he looked towards the direction of the beach.

"Well, let's just hope nothing will happen during the encounter," Max said, hoping for a sigh of relief later once Lucas had returned.

Lucian hummed in response, before walking away from Lucas' front porch and into the direction of their fortress.

"Yeah, I guess you are right."

- - -

Meanwhile, Lucas had reached the Caldrich home at a speed that could give him a ticket and could lose his new driver's license but he couldn't care less. His friend had arrived at the port and was excited to see her again.

He parked the motorbike near a huge tree next to where a red car was parked. Beatrice's father worked as a firefighter and her mother was living in Le Dion, in the lower eastern part of the country — where the sun always shone in the morning.

They were separated but remained civil for Beatrice. Once every winter day, Beatrice would come down here to La Ber to see the Winter Village and swim at the beach near Lucas' house.

That's how they met. But that was ten years ago, Lucas was hoping that she would remember him and how they were before.

He excitedly skipped to the front door and pressed the doorbell button. He shifted from where he was standing and ran through the line in his mind.

A voice from the inside called, "Who is it?", making Lucas question whose voice that was.

'That doesn't sound like Calvin,' he thought. He had knew Calvin since he was a little tot and he never sounded that way.

Frowning, he waited until the front door open. He could hear shuffling behind the closed door and was about to knock again when it opened widely, revealing a white-skinned man, with jet-black hair and blue eyes.

And suddenly, Lucas' world stopped.

He felt a strange pull of gravity towards the man, making him lean back a little and breathe ecstatically.

He could also hear a voice in his head, screaming and scolding him for something he did not know of. He heard a maniacal growl from the other man as he whispered his words.

"You selfish dog! What the hell did you do?"

Lucas stared down at the man, feeling out and vulnerable as the man growled at him. What the hell was that? What just happened?

He stared at the man who was mad at something he knew of. Feeling his anger, Lucas' heart suddenly ached in pain.

"You damn mongrel! Did you imprint on me?!"