Chapter 1

Chapter 1: "How do I overcome this past?"

Have you ever had a nightmare featuring something in which the person or creature in it is something that you fear the most? It doesn’t matter if it was a vampire, werewolf, witch, or any other creature of supernatural? Would you believe me if I told you that those creatures were real?

I have learned from first-hand encounters and stories- that these creatures are very real. I know because I hunt them, so they won’t hurt the innocent bystanders of the world.  I know the pain that comes when they hurt and kill the people that you are closest to.

They took the life of my life-long friend, Harlee. She was also a hunter, she learned how from the time she was a toddler. She learned how to hunt from her parents. With the guidance of her parents along with the teachings of my dad, I learned how to hunt.

The only reason she lost her life so soon was the fact that she was with me on this hunt. She lost her life on that fateful day because she was protecting me. The monster that we were hunting in the dark dirty sewers of town turned and started to go after me. I would have lost my life were it not for Harlee. She pushed me to the side, away from the shifter, and moved to intercept the beast.

It was worse because the shifter had taken the form of her older sister Mackenzie, who had been killed by a rogue werewolf the year before.

“Mackenzie.....” she said with tears rolling down her face.

As she dealt the killing blow, the shifter swiped across her neck with a knife. As the shifter died, Harlee also began to wither away. I was sitting on the floor in the corner, covered in blood, my eyes wide as I saw her fall, her pale skin stained scarlet. I ran over to my friend, seconds seeming to pass like years before I fell to my knees in front of her.

“Harlee!” I cried as I clutched her hand.

“....William.... I’m so sorry...that I have to leave you. Just promise that you will continue to live.”

She lifted a hand to my face and wiped away some of the blood - her blood - with a weak smile. “Pro...promi...promise W...Will....William.”

“I promise, Harlee!” I told her, tears rolling down my face. “Please don’t leave me.”

“I’m sorry,” she said with her final breath.

That was the first time I lost one of my friends. I didn’t know how to react to this loss. I was confused on how to change the way I lived because of this tragedy. I know it sounds bad, but I am oblivious to normal life, but I had never lost a friend before, so this was strange to me.

I suppose that I should explain it further, but I hate to talk about Harlee because we were practically siblings, but I feel like if more time had passed, we would have been much closer. I hate talking about her because I was the one who caused her death. I feel some sort of survivor remorse.

I should explain further, I suppose, who I am. My name is William Archer. People typically call me Will or Archer. People always seem to think that “Archer” isn’t my last name, but it is. I come from a long long line of archers. Can you beat the facts of my lineage?

We never actually told anyone in my family that we hunted monsters, well my Mom knew but no one else especially my younger siblings.

I had just come back from a hunt and I frowned. Isabel, my only sister, was the only one in the house that I saw. “Where’s Dad?” I asked her.

“In the garage, I think,” she said. “Where have you been? It’s been over a week since I saw you.”
“Dad, had me go and visit some relatives that live out in Utah, okay sis?”

“Okay,” she replied before running up the stairs to go to her room.

If they were to know what actually rested out in the world they see as safe, they would have nightmares for life. When I found out about what Dad did for a living, I had nightmares for years after it. I was four so that didn’t help anything.

That’s right, I was only four years old and I snuck out of the house to go with Papa. Which I wasn’t supposed to be doing. I was in the back of a beat-up green American made pickup...in its backseat..for somehow my papa had managed to get an old truck that offered an extra row of seating. One thing that still bothers me to this day is the fact that he never noticed. Never. I had managed to climb into the backseat and hide under a blanket, all without him knowing.

All I know is that he pulled away from the house at dawn and only stopped in front of a motel after sunset. It was only then that he got into the back, searching for his duffel bags, that he found me.

“William!” he said anger in his voice.

I looked up with bright brown eyes hidden behind a floppy mess of blond-brown hair.  “Don’t be mad, Papa!” I told him, cowering in the blanket that I had wrapped myself in.

He took a deep breath and looked at me before he hefted me out of the truck. “Well, you’re here. Might as well come and see what your papa does for a living.”

I nodded and said, “Sorry Papa.” Well, more along the lines of a yawn instead of actually attempting to say my words correctly.

“Come on. I have to check in any way. You need sleep, and while you sleep I will go and get us some food, okay?”

“Okay, Papa,” I whispered as my eyes closed as he led me into the motel.

I was with Papa for a week, as he hunted a nest of shifters. When he got back from a  day of hunting, he would teach me more about why he goes so far from home. In that week, my mom called at least three times a day to make sure that I was safe and hadn’t lost my life. She would always end up yelling at Dad because he never did return me home after finding me.

I don’t know whether I am happy or not that I actually learned the truth about my family’s hidden work. But I know now that I don’t want to go back away from this lifestyle.