Other ʸᵒᵘ ˢᵉᵗ ᵐʸ ˢᵒᵘˡ ᵃˡⁱᵍʰᵗ 𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠|𝐩𝐨𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐲 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐠𝐞

[caustic]

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐆𝐑𝐎𝐕𝐄,
𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐆𝐀𝐑𝐃𝐄𝐍.

𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐦𝐲 𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞.​

​

 

[caustic]

𝘵𝘸; 𝘢𝘭𝘤𝘰𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘮, 𝘢𝘥𝘥𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯
𝐛𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐬
The days piled together, and he carried the burden of recollecting, forced to pick through the slivers of blurred memories. A sigh escaped him as he splashed frigid water onto his face, sinking into the bitter bite of the streamlets, awakening him from weariness. An emptiness yawned within him, digging deep like fangs. Sobriety. Such an immense and abrupt tug had him tumbling into it.
The exigent essence of his addiction rattled him. However, he maintained composure despite the tremors that wracked his hands, chasing through his mind to recall the beginning. A vicious binge had occurred, and Elias acknowledged it, embraced it, and soon seethed with an ire over it.

Overall, the ordeal was abnormal for him.
Eli masqueraded the act of functioning with keen proficiency, so much so that many bought into his grand facade, and he fed his beasts in secrecy. Even he remained in awe of his ability to dance to society's tune while slipping through the cracks, straight into utter misery; the rift between the lie and the truth stifled.
Perhaps Elias still bore the marring of track marks, but he shunned needles enough now to attribute them to a time long since passed. Another story to weave so he might continue the delusion, fueling any denial. Regardless of how Eli dabbled in many drug scenes, alcohol had sent him spiraling this go-round. That friend he returned to in a horrendous loop. Loyal as a dog. The noose slackened around his neck.
The abstraction made Elias grit his teeth.

A fluorescent light flickered overhead, amplifying the room's ambiance as it clung to life, exposing the gradual and dismal decaying. No one came here much often, not to this motel, and whatever regularity it once had trickled dry, the empty melancholy suited its name.
The Blue Rooms.
It was cutesy if not for its withering state. Yet it held an appeal to him. So tangled in the motel's odd gravitation, he had rented a room for a month after looping Hotel California (it seemed à propos) and getting plastered before waking up and combing over his capriciousness life choices. Similar to how he had awoken today, except he rode on the tail end of a chaotic bender instead of one night of binging.
Although hesitant, he stared into the mirror, scrutinizing and bitter. The overt wreck of a human peering back at him made him snort.

"Looking great, Eli, just astounding."

Akin to being caught in the eye of some storm, Elias awaited a subsequent, inevitable plummet. A dive into the bottle; perpetuity he had yet to break. Besides the medicine cabinet, tacked to the wall, was a pamphlet.
With trembling fingers, he pulled it off. A scintilla of humor laced the entire situation. Between the downing of beers and the intoxication, he always pinned the damned pamphlet somewhere he would discover it when sober. Printed in bold font- clear and cutting- was the word RECOVERY.

"Sure."

Muttered after a wry chuckle, Elias sought something somewhere in the text with intensity. Then, it surfaced, glaring, not from the pages but from remembrance. They kept the center running 24/7 and always welcomed those struggling with addiction, and his infliction of the disease came riddled with ravenous greed. There were two options, another fork in an already serpentine road.
One he trod more than the other, and one he would traverse today. Elias scrambled to make himself presentable while inside him, a perpetual war raged, and the recognition had, to his surprise, bolstered a determination. If he idled, the cycle would reel him in. So he moved with haste while retaining repose. To circle the drain clashed with getting his shit together.

Although he had to laugh, the center was near the motel, walkable in its distance. Fortuitous for an alcoholic, no doubt. A hollowness seeped through him. Yeah, he had sobered one-hundred percent up. Still, he forged onward. Not taking much with him, he slipped out into the midst of foul weather. It carried winter's nip, and he shivered, bracing himself against the frosty winds.
No trepidation tethered him when he reached the center, and Eli entered with a boldness. Not his first stab at getting clean, and by now, apathy consumed him. It carved Eli's expression, embellished by the fatigue in his eyes; another rodeo. When no one greeted him and echoes of others talking bounced to where he stood, he hurried along.

"Ah, shit."

They had begun the meeting. Elias slinked into the room, where individuals gathered in a collective tailored for mending. Some faces were familiar and some new. However, when Elias saw him, he perked at the empty seat to his left, and he, lackadaisical in his movements, took the spot.

"Asher."

Where had his life led him during their distance?
Meanwhile, upon that thought, Elias knew he had not shaken the pungency of alcohol's odor, nor had he tamed the wild look to his visage. No one needed to inquire where he had been; it wrote itself like prose. Regardless, grinning like a Cheshire cat, he murmured to Asher, careful not to further push his luck. Some leniency existed within the room.

"Been a hot minute, hasn't it?"

 

[caustic]

During the peak of the evening, Elias Dawn hiked within an untamed wilderness, distant from what had transpired, lurking amidst the grand reaches of forestry, which shrouded the little town of Timber Grove. Greenery and bramble might have consumed it in reclamation if not for the followers within The Moon's Shadow.
It stressed Nikolai's dogma about how they were children of nature. Brutal as they were. Able to, in time, bend such a force to their will. Not errant as mortals, whom he proclaimed blighted. Fools who stumbled without knowing what they had lost or gained.
Upon dwelling on the concept, it dragged Elias back to memories immemorial of when Nikolai had once drummed into him how they, as shifters, transcended humanity. However, Eli never curbed his veiled intrigue with the lot. A fraction of him pitied them, and the rest brimmed with strange envy.

Adrenaline hastened his heart. The city felt so near.
Such was the cyclic call of an opposing portion inside him, entranced by the ways of those Nikolai shunned.
There was a wry comicality to it. Mortals denied any existence of shifters, their glasses tinted rose, and their eyes shut tight. However, there were wolves among the flocks of nescient lambs.
The major packs which had birthed the game- wrote the rules- individualistic as they were, had worked to enforce this balance. No matter how they would clash like pups amongst each other.

Meanwhile, loners? Wildcards and shunned for it. Often, others viewed them as liabilities. Potential catalysts to set humanity off to discover how much of a lie their reality was.
Despite his roots, deep as they ran, Elias did not quite buy into it all, not as if he would utter his skepticism aloud.
Nikolai painted the world a stark black and white, while Elias sought the gray areas sprawling between with stubborn perpetuity.
This predilection never dissipated, despite how Elias had aged and amassed sheer power and rank. The means behind his rise were serpentine and often kept hush-hush—a pack secret.

Yet here he was, all the status he held aside, plucked to patrol the vast edges of wilderness, which would lead into Timber Grove should one traverse far enough. Somehow, Elias did so without grouse, despite a shameless resentment swelling in his chest. Horrid rancor embedded into him like a thorn pricking flesh.
Perhaps his ego led him to have a fluffed pompousness, but the task suited a scout, not an individual on the precipice of grasping the reigning rule of Alpha. Doubt had wormed inside him, and again he questioned Nikolai's faith in his capacity to lead.
Par for the fucking course.

With gritted teeth, Elias shoved any pestering qualms into the recesses of a psyche he opted not to explore. Not today.
A wearied sigh had escaped him as Eli's fleeting focus rested upon a glimmering array of dancing lights which, from a distance, made up Serenity.
An abrupt tautness had struck him as a wave of foreign anger welled within him, acrid, like bile in the throat, and his breath quivered. It dragged him from his dream-like fascination with the city, like gravity tugging him to earth, ground, and grit.
Something was wrong.
The surge of raw emotion came in swift pangs, yet the overwhelming disorientation entangled with it soon assuaged, and it hit Elias where the turbulence arose.
Nikolai.

Bristled and perturbed, Eli started the trek back, keen purpose in his swift steps. Although, he did not get far.
Blinded by his disconcertment, Elias slammed into a frame mightier than his.
Calloused fingers encircled his wrist. Muscles taut, Eli exhaled, then slackened.

“Fuck sake, Nikolai.”
Tetchiness seeped from Eli's tone.
Being caught so off guard had him a tad mortified.

"Have you forgotten who you're speaking to?"
Despite Nikolai's palpable whirlwind of emotions, subdued humor existed within his gruff voice.

"I could have mauled you."
A slight grin curved Eli's lips before he stilled, scrutinizing Nikolai unabashed. The dourness which glinted within the Alpha's amber-hued stare quieted him.
Large droplets of blood trickled from the yawning gashes in Nikolai's chest.
Before Elias could express worriment, Nikolai interjected, his countenance twisted into a disgusted snarl.

"Loners, the vermin. Elias, I need you to poison their pitiful faction in Serenity from the inside. Spread my message, but first, you must be covert. Play along, and bring back what you learn."

A weightiness tinted Eli's gaze as he grasped the severity of the matter in a snap. Eli's jaw clenched as he found himself both rattled and nettled. Despite their differences, Eli had a profuse fondness for Nikolai, viewing him as a father figure where there once was an absence.
It was enough to make it so he would follow him through the murk and beyond; Nikolai never second-guessed Eli's loyalty.
Not suspecting Nikolai felt keen on enlightening him on what had occurred, at least for the moment, Eli glanced towards the star-speckled sky.

"Now?"
Spoken after a long, languid expire, Eli caught a faint glimmer of repressed uneasiness beneath the ire in Nikolai's mien.

"Yes."

Nothing more needed addressing, even if Eli yearned to unravel what Nikolai kept tucked from him in his secretiveness. They split paths then, Nikolai going off somewhere amidst the pines and Eli heading back to town.
When he arrived, it had stunned him that the state of being within Timber Grove remained as when he left it, as if no one had an inkling of any trouble afoot and perhaps were more clueless than himself.
Regardless, he strived to get in and out, gathering essentials in a dilapidating, frayed backpack. To put himself on the correct course, Elias resolved to stay in the city for a few days.

Able to dodge getting snared in an elaborate conversation with a fellow pack member or whatever else may delay him, Elias tossed his backpack in his old pickup before pivoting around to settle into the driver's seat.
The journey to Serenity had a solemn air, a bitter taste, and Elias began strategizing.
The best bet he had was to scope the party scene. Some loners flocked to the wilder sides of the city. Not that he blamed them.
Carried on the wings of that notion, he drove the lengths to arrive at a more discreet club named Eve's Touch, which his attire suited. The ever-churning rumor mill had produced morsels of gossip that some loners pushed drugs here, and he guessed he would turn the page on that to scour for any truth behind it.

A heavy, thudding bass line greeted him when he exited the truck. While more muted from the outside, the music still cut into the brisk night. It was just his speed, and Elias traipsed to a black, polished wooden door with a rectangular slot higher up, yet centered.
Without dawdling, he spoke the password into the open slot.
"The taste of the forbidden fruit."

The whole give-your-password-at-the-door arrangement was old-fashioned, but it had a particular, mystifying charm.
Some time prior, he had come here, slinked away from Timber Grove, driven by the insatiable desire for freedom and the need to fill that perennial hollow. It worked for a brief period. To be here on business brought more rigidity to this visit than he fancied.
A burly bouncer opened the door for him, waved him in, and Elias stepped forth, viewing a stretched layout and a collective of moving bodies, some entangled together, as they swayed to the beat of a punk-rock song.

Two girls danced on adjacent poles, donning nothing but frilly lingerie, which showed enough skin to hook looks yet had an equal amount of adornment to keep anything revealing clad.
Of course, Elias was enough of a dog to stop and watch. A whiff, albeit saturated in an aromatic perfume, of another tugged at him, and he flicked his sights to the bar. With piqued intrigue, he followed the vague scent.

It led him to a woman ordering a drink. To narrow it down to her was of ease and more of a given since the only person else in line was some plastered guy.
Eli weaseled his way to the front. The drunkard spewed curses, all of which he ignored.
As he fetched his wallet, he leaned against the bar before tapping the smooth surface, now fixated on the girl—the other shifter.
A coy, kittenish simper played on his features.
"I'll pay for her drink."