“No,” Natalie replied. “I have no idea what just happened with him, we were just attacked, again, and everything is just so…”
Axle walked up to her, causing her to feel a little apprehensive. She was never sure of what the man was going to do. But he just grabbed her gently and lowered her to the chair, making her sit again. Natalie noticed that she was shaking, so she took a breath, trying to recover herself.
“Look, I know everything you’ve seen right now might shake your reality, but it’s going to be fine. Just stay calm, I need you alert in case something happens. I can’t have you zoning out here. Okay?”
Natalie frowned, pulling away. He wasn’t trying to reassure her, he was just trying to keep her safe, because of the bracelet she had on. But then she recalled everything that he had done for her—the monsters, saving her life. He had gotten her out of the caves and had spent the last few days doing his best to keep her safe. She hadn’t gotten a chance to say thank you.
“Axle,” she began, not sure how to even thank him. “You’ve saved my life. I don’t know how to thank you.”
He took a look at her, and smiled for the first time since they had met. It wasn’t a half bad smile either. “I don’t do it for the thanks. I’d just rather see you alive.”
“Yeah, well, either way you’ve done a lot, and I just have to say thank you. I’m sorry for yelling at you, and treating you like this. I probably would have been dead if it wasn’t for you, so…” She reached out and touched his arm. “Thank you, for real.”
“Yeah, want help me clean up a bit?” Axle asked, tossing her a broom.
Natalie nodded and went to work, knowing that it was better than sitting idly. Keeping her mind busy seemed to work, save for the fact that she had seen something otherworldly punch a hole through the wall. It was the stuff nightmares were made of. The creatures were made of rotten decaying flesh, with features that just didn’t make any sense.
She picked up a piece of the ceramic from the bathroom sink, holding it in her hand as Axle walked back in after disposing of the bodies of the creatures. “Axle,” she said, her voice in a whisper, so low she barely heard it.
He turned to look at her, picking up on the sound. “Yeah?”
“How did you hear that?” she asked.
“I’ve got a really good hearing,” Axle replied. “Is everything okay?”
“No, I need to know what this is,” Natalie replied. “I need to understand how you can lift me up with a single arm without feeling any strain, or how you can move so fast I can barely see you. I need to understand what these monsters are, and how all of this happens. Please, I need to know, Axle.”
He dropped the bloody tiles he held into a bag, looking at her and shaking his head. “You barely know anything about any of this, and look at the mess you’ve gotten into. The more you know, Nat, the more danger you get in. For your sake, I don’t want you getting in any more danger, because you’re just a human, and normally humans aren’t majorly affected by these things.”
“But they do affect humans?” she asked, shocked.
“Yeah, but not often. It’s a combination of things.” Axle grunted, reluctant to talk about it. “Look, these things are a delicate balance. People like me, we make sure that humans aren’t messed with, we do what we can to make sure that everyone lives a fairly normal life, and there’s no immediate danger that can’t be turned around.”
“People like you,” Natalie continued. “What does that mean?”
Axle dropped the bag and relaxed against the wall, folding his arms. “I’m not human…well, I’m no longer human.”
“But you were?”
“I used to be,” Axle replied. “Until I got the mark from a dragon. Look, there are a ton of paranormal entities in this world. Big foot?” Axle said, snickering. “That’s a paranormal snowbear. They stay up in the snowy mountains, and never actually come down, whoever saw them in their backyard is crazy. There are a lot of paranormals, and some I haven’t even seen. I’m a dragon.”
“Like, you can fly and can breath fire?” Natalie asked, shaking. She remembered the ones she had seen in the cave, raising her eyebrow.
Axle shook his head. “No, they’re a part of my pack, and while they have those powers, I do not. I’m uh…an aberration of sorts. When I got my powers, when I was given the mark, the whole thing didn’t really work out well, and so I didn’t get the full powers, and so I can’t shapeshift. I can just do, well, what you’ve seen me able to do.”
Natalie let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding, wondering what it was like. All of these creatures were operating just beyond the eyes of mankind, and they were none the wiser. No one knew that they were there. Humanity was so soaked up by itself that it didn’t bother with what was happening in the background, beyond its own perception of self.
“There are other shifters too. Werewolves, Banshees, Wyverns, Skinwalkers, Vampires—there’s a lot of them. Thing is, there’s a lot of other planes of existence that are out there, other than what you humans perceive, and sometimes creatures spill over from other realities into this one.”
Natalie nodded, knowing that while Axle looked human, he most likely wasn’t. But whatever those demons were, they were out of this world. “Like the demons?”
“Yup, they’re not yet given a class of their own, because there are so many different kinds, so we just call them demons. But they’re from a very fucked up place, and they only ever want to cause a lot of bad, so we try to keep them in check. The dragons, at least my pack, and some werewolves, do what we can to kill them and stop them from getting powerful enough to hurt humans and destabilize the balance between realms.”
“What? Why?” Natalie asked.
“Why do they want to destabilize it? I don’t know, maybe their place is shit, so they want a place that has sunlight and tofu? I don’t know, but we can’t let it happen, that’s the thing.”
Natalie ran a hand through her hair, thinking through his words as she tied it into a ponytail. There were a lot of questions to be answered, questions to be asked. There were so many, she had no idea where to start.