He's a hunter, I'm a monster

70 drops of blood

'So our portals are linked.. I don't have any work to do here anymore.. are we going back to the human world?' 'I can ask Keith to come over and make a plan together.'

I nod instead of using words.

We walk through the portal hand in hand, he explained how different locations and portals work but.. we just need to make sure I end up at his house.

'Awh.. your ears!' Is the first thing I say once we reached the human world again. 'I miss yours too.'

'

About fifteen minutes later Keith is here as well.

'Ted! Fuck dude, never leave again without telling me.'

He wraps his arms around me and holds me tight.

'I'm sorry.. I should have told him to tell you sooner, it just didn't came to my mind.'

'And now what?' 'That's why you're here, we need a believable story.. you know we've all been suspects but they don't think we're involved anymore. We can't act like we found him.. we'll be back at the top of the list.'

We end up talking and talking until we finally came up with a decent plan.
I will walk around the city at midnight and wait for someone to recognise me and call the police, I will keep mostly quiet and act in complete shock.. traumatised about what had happened to me, it all is a big lie I'm going to carry around for the rest of my life.

We discussed everything.. even my answers to questions they could ask me.. literally everything.

And now it's almost time, I will use my power and walk to the other side of town to just walk into the centre.

'It's going to be a while until I'll get left alone and send back home won't it?' 'No.'
'No?' Both me and Keith repeat. 'We've our people on our side, you will recognise them, with them on our side we can close the case quickly and you'll be able to go back home.'
'I don't know.. I don't think it will be that easy.'

'

It's time.. time to do this. I leave my weird power form and the time starts to go on as normal.

As soon as I walk into the busier side of town I get stopped.

'I'm sorry but.. are you Teddy Wood?' 'Y..yes?' I answer in confusion.. all my emotions from now on are going to be faked. 'You've been missing for months! Hold on, I'm calling the police right now.'

Frozen in place I wait for the next steps.

'

'Where have you been?'

My hands start shaking as I avoid any amount of eye contact.

'I.. I shouldn't be h..here.'
'You're safe here. Are you aware you've been missing for 14 months?'

14 months.. a year and 2 months.. really? I shake my head.

'Well you have.. we almost closed the case, we thought you died.'

Dramatic much..

'Is there a family member we can contact?' 'My mom is the o..only one left,' I mumble quickly.
'Oh.. you aren't aware she's missing too?'

I shake my head.

'Is there anyone else who's or were close to you?'
'I.. I'm in a relationship.. well were, I don't know if he moved on thinking I.. died.'

Damn lying about Josh seems harder than I thought it would be.

'We can call him for you.' I nod as an answer.

'Shouldn't we question him more?' I overhear them.
'Look at him, he's not going to talk.. I doubt he ever will, maybe he will loosen up if someone who were close to him is here.'

I overheard the phone call as well.. they just told him to meet us here and apologized for calling at such a late time.

'

His eyes immediately lock at me when he sees me.. he's nervous, I can feel he is. I would like to calm him down but I don't know if I can do it without making it look suspicious.

'Ted? Is it really you?'

We're playing a game.. a sickening game, but we need to. I nod as I stand up and walk over to him.

He wraps his arms around my shoulders and pulls me in a hug.. he never hugs me like this? It becomes clear as he carefully move my hand to his heart. He want me to calm him down.

I light push his chest and start to let a few tears run down my face.

'Hey, it's okay.. you're safe, no one can hurt you anymore.'

It's all planned out.. every word.. every stutter, all of it is practiced.

It's difficult to keep lying but I have to, I need to lie in order to make everything go away sooner. Me being mentally traumatised.. PTSD even, we need something like that so they give up.

'We should send him to a hospital to get checked, we don't know why he has been missing.. we can guess abduction but we don't know.'
'We'll need more people on this case again, maybe even a therapist if he won't talk.'

I like one of the two so much more.

'We don't know what he experienced, we shouldn't push him to hard already.'

'So we're bringing you over to a hospital,' he says like I totally didn't hear their conversation.
'Can.. can I join him?'
'I'm sorry mister Lee, but I'm afraid we can't do that.. we don't know what happened to him or who was involved.'

He fights it a bit more until finally agreeing to just go home.. all like we had planned.

'

'He has several old wounds, but they all seemed to heal, it's like he hasn't been touched for over a month, besides.. he's healthy.'

Do they really think I'm stupid?
Do they really think I don't hear them.

I just need to act like I don't.. it's going to be a long journey but I'll manage.