✔ The Hunters | Garou

SEVENTH HUNT

THE ANGEL

"My body is burning with the shame of not belonging."

- Warsan Shire

I could hear sobbing.

Who's crying?

I pulled my hands away from my face, and saw that they were drenched in tears.

I'm crying?

My hands, arms, legs, feet... and my entire body are tiny. I was dressed in my little wolf t-shirt, and a pair of teal shorts.

What's going on?

I raised my head and in front of me was a mirror. The reflection showed my eight year old self, eyes bloodshot and filled with tears.

My surroundings are pitch black, but behind me, I saw a form standing. She had long silvery hair, the same colour as mine. She's holding a duffel bag.

"Garou." the voice spoke in loud echoey rumbles like thunder in the distance.

"Ma?" I called timidly, recognizing the voice to be hers, despite the rumbling.

"Your father will take care of you. Goodbye." she said.

"Ma, wait!" I cried, trying to reach out my hand to grab her coat, "Don't go!"

But she disappeared into thin air.

"Ma!" I wailed louder, fresh tears now filling my eyes.

A hard knock suddenly hit my little head. "Stop whining, punk! Go to school now!"

I winced from the pain and sniffled. Turning back, I saw my father standing behind me with a beautiful voluptuous woman who gave me a dirty, disdainful look.

My father would take care of me? No, he never did. He would bring different women over, come home drunk, smoke his lungs black. He only ever gave me food, clothing, shelter, and paid for my school.

I closed my eyes.

When I opened them again, I found myself standing with my "friends" in the playground. Tacchan was there, and he looked at me with a nefarious smirk.

"You're the monster again!" He and his friends chortled.

Their bodies morphed into formless black ghosts with evil eyes and smirks. Though formless, they started beating me up. The school building and the playground made way for pitch blackness again, and I felt the tears prick my eyes again.

"In the name of justice!" they cried, as they beat me up, innocent and weak.

The formless ghosts and the blackness tightened in on me, making it difficult for me to breathe. I fought back in tears but they didn't back down.

"Stop!" the voice of a different woman resounded in the blackness, firm and commanding. The ghosts immediately stopped and the woman thrust her hand through the blackness and swung it aside like it was a curtain, allowing in a flood of light.

The ghosts disappeared with hellish, bloodcurdling screams as the light burned their formless bodies.

The woman, covered from head to toe in pure white, face included, stepped forward, revealing a pair of large outstretched wings on her back. An angel?