HORNS (BoyXBoy)

Prologue

Prologue

When I was little, my dream was to be a superhero.

I think all little boys aspire to be one at some point, really, but for me it was a dream I'd latched onto literally rather than figuratively because I'd thought it was something achievable. My fixation with it began after I saw a retro cartoon depicting a man in a blue suit who could fly around, smash through buildings, and carry planes on his back, and even catch meteors.

It'd left me gaping in wide-eyed wonder.

I'd lain there with my chin buried in my palms, getting carpet burn from the old, stained shag carpet in that dingy motel room digging into my elbows, watching with my heart pounding. That one cartoon had turned my tail into a propellor, flapping in rapid circles while my cloven hooves had waved in the air behind me. Those moments, for me, had been the birth of my first dream.

Why?

Because as I'd stared at that scratched motel screen, drinking in his technicolor magnificence, I'd truly believed that he was a real person somewhere in the world. I'd thought it was a cartoon based on a real person because, at the time, I'd already seen so many men all around me doing similar things, like lifting rusty cars and throwing them clean across fields with their bare hands to see who could toss them the farthest.

But you know what...?

Heroes aren't real.

I learned that the hard way when I turned seven years old and my biological father went into a fit of rage and snapped my neck like a toothpick for tentatively calling him, "Daddy."

I still have the scar on the side of my neck from where the bone came out... but I'm getting way too ahead of myself, and you're probably confused as fuck, so let me start with the basics. After all, there's a lot to cover and I don't really know where to begin.

Might as well go with the most simple of beginnings, right?

My name is Horst McKenzie. I'm twenty one, intentionally goofy, head over heels in a one-sided love for my best friend, and I'm not human. I'm a kinda, sorta, off-breed wolf-goat... thing. Yes, yes, you read all of that stuff about my hooves and tail right.

I do have hooves. And a tail. And other stuff.

Strange, right? Well, you don't know the half of it. All those films you see on television about supernatural creatures like werewolves and vampires are based on truths hidden in modern society.

Its too complicated to explain the whole thing, but I'll give you a brief rundown.

In a nutshell, there is a hidden civilization full of supernatural creatures living among humans, in plain sight, and I am one of those beings. Everything you've ever heard of in mythology likely exists somewhere on the planet. Every creature, every demigod, every devil, every monster you could think of exists--including dragons and genies and faeries and vampires and werewolves. I should know. I'm friends with a bunch of them.

We live in a society called the Underground, a layer of denizens that blend in with your average every day people or spend the entirety of their lives hiding from the outside world. We've kept all forms of proof pointing towards the supernatural away from the light and coexist with normal every day humans such as yourself. We're your doctors, your nurses, your grocery store employees, even that one member of your military squadron who seems a little off but always gives a smile and pulls through. We're war generals and presidents and world leaders.

FBI, CIA--you name it.

The reason we've managed to maintain our existences as little more than myths and inaccurate movie plots is because we are all over the world in every position of power you could possibly think of, and we're all connected. Our network for things of this nature is on a protected and private but global scale. We erase whatever threatens our peace. Even people.