Ring. Ring. RING......... RING RING!
Noise. Why was there noise? There shouldn't be noise. Was it time? It couldn't be time. His hand felt along the coffee table for an alarm clock. It was as he had thought; there was no alarm clock and there couldn't be one. Yet he was awake, and there had been a noise. The noise.
Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring ring ring ring ---
Recognition at last dawned and one of Loch's eyes opened. Someone was pressing the call button three floors down. He hadn't been aware that it still worked. He opened his other eye, blinking away the dust. As he slowly rose to his feet, the ringing noise began again. It was as if there were ten thousand painfully loud bees buzzing around inside his head. Loch shifted the curtain ever so slightly to the side and stared down through the tunnels of snowflakes at his unwanted guest. A man, a policeman by the look of it, stood at the door with his hands stuffed in his armpits for warmth. Loch's heat still worked. It would have broken long ago if it were normal, but it was powered by a powerful generator four stories down, buried beneath the two hundred square foot yard behind the collapsing building. Out of sight, out of mind.
Loch glanced at his sleeping place. A thick layer of dust coated everything, as if the window had been left open during a snow storm, except the snow had been replaced with a disgusting, gray, almost powdery substance. He did not imagine the cop would understand his strange habits; something would need to change.
The ringing began again with renewed vigor. It seemed this copper was not going to give up. The pale man flicked a hand at the room around him. In one swift motion, all of the dust lifted itself and flew through the opening window. It almost looked like a phantom, gathered in a dark, strange stream, but Loch knew better. Once all of the dark particles, even the ones buried in his white blonde hair and clothes, had left, the window shut itself and the curtains returned to their original place. The policeman never looked up. Even if he had, all he would have seen was a normal, closed window.
Loch took two steps to glance in the mirror of the small bathroom. Good enough.
He pressed the call button and spoke into the ancient speaker. Hopefully he was using it correctly; nobody had ever visited him in this location before. "Come in. It's unlocked."
The couch absorbed him as he fell back onto it. He glanced down at the newspapers he had received however many days, months, or years ago. The present date was an unknown detail at the moment. It would be safer to hide them. He piled the sets of newspapers on top of each other with one hand, moving as little as possible, and tucked the pile under one of the couch cushions. The couch creaked slightly in protest at the movement; it was much more movement than either of them were used to. By the looks of it, he needed to make a trip to a store to modernize the place once again.
As his eyes fell shut again from the exhaustion of movement, he could hear the poor policeman attempting to make his way up the staircase. Hopefully the unfortunate man wasn't afraid of heights. No, Loch hoped that he was afraid of heights. That would make up for the annoyance of waking him up when he would have much rather continued with his... he supposed it could be considered hibernation. A quiet cuss echoed off of the empty walls and made its way up to him. There was no sound of boards breaking yet, though.
When the door at last creaked open – after the cop had checked every other door to figure out which apartment was Loch's – Loch had rearranged himself so that his legs were stretched out on the couch and he faced the door. The couch wasn't very big, but he wasn't all that tall, either. He was just tall enough that people did not realize he was short, but just short enough that standing by anyone of average height made him appear small.
"Good morning, sir." A man stepped into the room, immediately acting as if he owned the place. He wasn't a cop. Sure, he was dressed like one, but he wasn't. Loch tried to hide a flash of a glare by yawning, and then composed himself.
"Yes. What's the issue?"
The thing, the annoying thing frowned at his straightforward behavior. Considering his species, he did not have much facial hair. However, he did have the amusingly large nose that was common among lycanthropes. The poor boy was hardly more than twenty, and clearly had little to no experience with cop impersonation. Lycanthropes tended to enjoy being or pretending to be cops. It was most likely an ego thing. "You do realize that this building is filled with safety hazards?"
"Not your department. What's the issue?" He hadn't decided yet whether he should be grateful or not at the cop being a fake. Lycanthropes were Others, and dealing with Others rarely ended well. Technically, he was an Other, too, but he had decided to stay out of the political and social chaos of that world. They were even worse than the humans.
The lycanthrope, confused by Loch's unexpectedly blatant responses, took a moment to recollect what he had probably planned to say. "Hm. How did someone as young as you afford a place such as this? I'm sure it couldn't have been that expensive given its current condition, but it is three stories. Why would you want to live here, anyway?"
He supposed that he did look like a teenager. His habit of forgetting to eat for several days in a row gave him a very thin appearance that could make him look up to twenty-five, but no older. Now that he thought about it, he probably hadn't left the place for a very long time. He needed to eat. "You're welcome to search for... what was it? Drugs and the sort. I won't ask for a search warrant so long as you're quick. Some of us have things to do."
The fake cop became increasingly nervous at the mention of a search warrant. Loch mentally slapped himself. Too many clever comments could rise suspicion.
Nevertheless, the fake cop began his search of the desk, tiny hall closet, and vanity drawers. Despite the lack of much to look through, he took his time. Typical of his breed. They were lazy, egocentric creatures. It made sense that they impersonated cops. Loch saw confusion flicker across his face at the presence of only one other change of clothes in the closet, and crossed his fingers behind his back. Very fortunately for him, the boy seemed too afraid to ask him to move from the couch so that he could check under the couch cushions. The ancient newspapers would have been very suspicious. At last the check was over and the creature smiled at him. His teeth were too sharp, too large. He imagined they looked normal to people who could not see through the shadows – his name for the illusions.
"Thank you, sir, for being so cooperative. I'm Cal Farsey, by the way. This is my card. If you ever have anything to say... call the number." He still wasn't sure whether Loch was an Other, but he clearly had his suspicions. Loch would have preferred no suspicions at all – he was shocked that they had found him at all in his reclusive location – but uncertainty was better than nothing. Loch took the card, raised an eyebrow at the lack of a police logo, and tossed it on the table. "Once again, thank you. Have a nice day!"
No cop would ever be so polite. This lycanthrope had much to learn. A newbie, perhaps. Or just an idiot like the rest. Loch nodded, letting his head fall backwards onto the couch's armrest. He was so tired. Once the cop was gone he would have to get food. That was one problem with not having a fridge.
Once the footsteps faded, Loch stood. Pulling the curtain ever so slightly to the side, he looked down at the parked police car. It was only shadowed like a police car; he could see the true crappy gray car underneath. By the looks of it, their budget was running low. Their warlock wasn't all that great at illusions, either. The young lycanthrope pulled out his phone and leaned against the car, speaking very seriously to someone. Loch sighed and decided to listen in. He hadn't done so much in one day for a long time. He allowed the sounds from three stories down reach his ears.
"All went well. The place is like the setting of a horror movie. He cleaned up one room and the bathroom connected to it, but everything else is left to rust. The room's décor is bland enough that it could count as modern by any standards, but it all looks a bit moth bitten and... well... old. I didn't see a car or anything, but it could be parked around back. He didn't indicate that he realized what I was. I think he's just some eccentric teen who inherited a bunch of money and decided to live alone. He definitely acts like someone who thinks he's above the law. He doesn't change his routine much. If he is one of us, I think he's useless." Loch flinched at the insult, but said nothing. For the last fifty years he had given up on interaction, anyway. Blend in, watch, listen. That was entertainment enough. Was he useless? Probably.
"We'll keep an eye on him anyway. Did he have a fridge?" The other voice was female. A hint of a Scottish accent by the sound of it, but she was trying to sound American. It was amusing when people unsuccessfully faked accents. His own accent was Spanish at the moment due to many years spent in Spain, but he was originally born in Egypt.
The boy glanced up at Loch's window. Loch took an involuntary step backwards, but quickly returned to the window. He had a spell over it; nobody could see him. He only lifted the spell for the silly photographers who came by to take pictures of the old buildings. It was his way of leaving a little surprise for them when they looked through the photographs. "There was no fridge. There was a collection of water bottles in the closet and one change of clothes besides what he was wearing. Does that indicate anything?"
"Probably not. There are too many eccentric people these days. For all we know he could be an undiscovered Other. He might not know he's an Other. You may return to your post." There was a sudden silence. She had hung up.
Shoving the phone into his pocket, the boy hopped into the car. He was clearly eager to get out of the 'horror movie' section of the city. Loch continued to watch the empty street a minute after the car had vanished, and then he moved. He made his way down the ancient staircases with a stomach so empty it could not growl. Someday he would make them less treacherous. He did not necessarily have to walk to reach his car, but with Others watching, he would have to be careful.
The snow-dusted city appeared calm to the outside observer, with very few people willing to venture outside into the twenty degree weather. However, he could hear the chaos within the buildings. He would never understand why people enjoyed talking. They were like birds with their endless chatter. There were very few genuine birds out today to add their chatter to the mix; those that were present huddled on top of the buildings that were poorly insulated enough to let the heat escape. Reminded of the heat, Loch conjured a thin bubble of heat around himself to keep him warm until he was able to replace his threadbare clothes. He needed to fix the heat in the 69 Camaro. He had bought it just as it was presented to the world. It had only two thousand miles and all-original parts on it at the moment; something that probably made it a rarity.
The streets grew busier and busier as he neared the heart of the city, but he stopped before he got there. From his pocket he withdrew the money he had neatly folded many years ago and paid the parking fee. The city wasn't a place that changed much, even as time passed, but he could see that things had definitely changed since he had last fallen into 'hibernation'.
He bought a newspaper from one of the street boxes and stepped into a quaint little coffee shop to read and eat. Just looking around at the street outside and the people inside, he could see that styles had changed. The cars were very different and of much greater variety, the clothing was much less colorful, and the people were much more colorful. Most of them held miniature touch screens, even fancier than those that had been made-up in the movies he had seen, and one person was talking on one. It was a touch screen phone by what he could tell. Loch could not help but smile at the novelty his increasingly long periods of hibernation brought when he woke up.
Since he wasn't surprised at the change like time travelers or people frozen for long periods of time in the movies, it was fairly easy for him to figure things out. He was used to sudden, confusing change. A moment later he had bought hot chocolate and ordered as large of a breakfast as he could find on the laminated menu. He glanced at the date on the newspaper first; December 1, 2014. Not as long as he had planned on hibernating thanks to the lycanthrope, but by the looks of it, it was as good of time as any to hop back onto the roller coaster of life.
The world news hadn't changed much; as usual, there were wars over silly things, social unrest, and so on. He was curious whether the humans realized just how predictable they were. They probably did and just did not care. That reflected his attitude towards most things as well.
Then he found what he was looking for: murder. There had been seemingly random killings under mysterious circumstances once a month for the past twenty years, by the looks of it. Yet the killer, or killers, was still uncaught. Loch contemplated on the article for a moment, then realized why it looked familiar. The murders were just like those that had occurred last time he had read the newspaper. That was nearly thirty years ago, not twenty. Perhaps the killer or killers had taken a break. Or the newspaper was lying. Either explanation was a perfectly logical possibility.
A large dish stacked high with pancakes was set before him, followed by hash browns, eggs, and a milkshake. He pulled it towards him and glanced up at the waiter. Then he saw what he hadn't seen earlier. Black hair shaved on the sides but long on top, narrow, solid aquamarine blue eyes without pupils, pointy ears, taller than six feet; he was a naiad. Loch blinked quickly several times as he mumbled a thank you. With the blurriness and uncertainty created by blinking, he managed to see what the humans saw; a tall Asian guy with dark brown eyes and normal ears. Naiads barely had to conceal themselves to appear normal.
The food disappeared quickly, but it wasn't what Loch was focused on. He watched everyone in the café as he ate, trying to appear as inconspicuous as he could. Now that he was actually paying attention, he realized that every worker at the little breakfast café was one of the Others. Many of their customers were Others as well, but there was a mix of normal folk as well. Perhaps there had been a population jump? He would have to look around more to know for sure.
The human world had definitely progressed. Now he just had to figure out how to figure out how much they had progressed without asking around and sounding like he was insane. He did not care about sounding insane; he cared about the attention that came with it. It was time to go to the library. He waited for the naiad to come with his bill and tossed all of the money he had left on the table. Things were a lot more expensive now. Before the library, he would have to make another stop.
The bank was not in the same location as it had been when he had last fallen asleep, but it still had the same blue logo. Thanks to taking his time with breakfast, the bank was open, but Loch decided it was time for him to start adjusting rather than taking advantage of the open bank. He recognized a device outside as an ATM, though it was much more attractive than the ones of the eighties. As far as banking went, it did not appear that much had changed. He ran his fingers along the edge of the screen and closed his eyes, an image of the inner workings clicking together in his mind. A second later, one thousand dollars in hundreds slid out of the machine as if they were eager to escape. Loch put the cash in his coat's inner pocket - it would be hard for the street thieves to swipe it that way - and motioned at the nearby cameras, causing them to reset. The constant presence of cameras was a new development.
The sleepy city was waking up, but as usual the inhabitants were too busy with their own lives to notice anything unusual about his behavior. Loch did not have to look hard to find the library; libraries almost never moved to like banks did. Books needed big buildings, and moving them took too much effort to do it often. When he entered the library he began to head towards the books, but he stopped when he saw something that astonished him. There were rows upon rows of computers, thin ones at that, free to use right before the books. It was probably a good idea for him to figure the new devices out before reading through thirty years of history.
He lowered himself into a chair in front of one of the computers and looked at his options. There was already something open on the screen, but he did not know what to do with it. This was going to take a while.