If there’s one thing video games had taught me, it was that all happy lives are destroyed by prophecies. Happy lives, happy families, happy moments, whatever. If there was a prophecy involved, it would kill the mother, dirty the daughter, craze the father. It was always like that. I was lucky I didn’t have a family.

However, it would soon be Christmas and I was still working at night, hunting and feeding. During the day, I had days off, being a teacher. I still met Youngjae at night. Every night, every hunt. It was so stupid how we seemed to be becoming friends. A shadow spirit and a human…

Getting that snow out of the way with a shovel wasn’t as difficult as people said it was. Well, I had a hunch that it was easy for me because of my nature, but people didn’t need to know that, even if I wasn’t wearing any winter clothes while doing that. I wasn’t cold, but I wasn’t warm either. Temperature mattered little to me. My kind had Stripes, each of them marking a particular experience in life, each of them bringing new strength, bringing the shadow spirit closer to, well, a spirit. After a certain number of Stripes, the spirit lost his or her blood, and so the heart was used to control body heat by burning pure energy.

I could’ve made the snow melt, but that would’ve been a bit too much. Looking completely stupid with normal clothes in a foot of snow seemed a bit more human. At least I hoped so. I couldn’t even bother going to buy a winter coat just for that.

A dog’s bark made me stop working and I went to the back of my house, noticing a big dog there with green eyes. Said eyes were slightly glowing and it made me chuckle, smiling a little.

“No need to hide, Taehyung,” I said, and I watched the dog’s outline buzzing until it became a young man with pure green eyes and a little smile. He was wearing very light clothes and his wifebeater was so thin it almost looked transparent. I could see the red Stripes starting on his belly, marking their way, the newest ones on his shoulders.

As I said before, the Stripes were a spirit’s evolution. The maximum was seventy and the minimum was obviously none. None when the spirit was in the womb, one once he was out, since the birth was counted as an experience. The first Stripe appeared right above the bellybutton and the others appeared afterwards, going up the stomach and backside until they reached the shoulders, from which they went down the arms until they stopped at the elbows. Every five Stripes, a new racial ability was gained. Darker hair, night vision, etc. The seventieth Stripe allowed us to control our beast form. As for the beast form… I’ll talk about it later. It’s complicated stuff.

“I wasn’t hiding, Black Hawk,” Taehyung chuckled, tilting his head in a cute way. “I just wanted to look… incognito.”

He kept silent for a moment, looking at me, tilting his head the other way.

“You’ve evolved again,” he noted, staring at the Stripes that went down my arms, almost reaching my elbows.

“I got sixty-eight. Only two left.”

“You’re twenty-five, right?”

“Yeah.”

“This is so ed up, Black Hawk. Our kind never goes that fast in evolution. There’ll be a legend about you, I can bet, amongst our kind AND amongst the humans, although not for the same reasons…”

He showed me his arms, sighing.

“I’m twenty and I only have forty-six of those. Heck, my dad is almost fifty and he has forty-nine Stripes. People like you just don’t exist. You’re way too good.”

I sighed, rolling my eyes. ing kid. What was he here for anyway?

“Tell me why you’re here and then leave.”

“Right. I’m here for a prey.”

“A prey? Why not make the letter appear instead?”

“Too important to risk it, according to the bosses. Here.”

He gave me the letter and I sighed, taking it. He smiled a little.

“Well then, see ya,” he said, turning into a shadow dog before he ran off. I opened the paper as soon as he was gone, reading it quickly.

To Black Hawk,

Name of prey: Kibum Kim

Age: 23

Profession: DNA Analyst

Lives: 843;264, quarter F, city D

The why: Kibum Kim has found a way to analyze a shadow spirit’s DNA despite the fact that it shouldn’t even be possible.

I groaned, frowning. This time, I had read the reason. Confidential preys always had important reasons. I cursed before I headed back inside, leaving my shovel against the wall. Night had to arrive soon. I had to become Black Hawk and go kill that .

**

I was running and jumping, hurrying to my prey’s house. My weapons were my Redblades, which were the only weapons able to kill a shadow spirit that had obtained its 55^th Stripe, since that Stripe brought a resistance to all weapons except for Satan’s Blade.

I reached my goal soon enough, slipping inside the laboratory I had gotten the address for. The prey wasn’t in the room… but it smelled like human. A lot. The prey was close by. It would come back soon. I jumped on a higher spot, waiting.

The guy arrived quickly with a cup of coffee and I jumped on him, not even bothering to pull out my blades. He wasn’t worth it. I landed on him and held his throat in a hand, squeezing. My eyes were cold gray, which was the color they took when I was angry or aggressive. The guy seemed strangely calm as he greeted me with a little smile.

“Black Hawk… came to kill me?”

I hissed, fangs out. He continued talking, not too bothered.

“Careful, little hawk… there’s an eagle nearby…”

Pause. I growled, but he kept on talking.

“When the bird of prey will find a bigger one, when the snow will melt, the felines will hunt the bird and force it to find a new nest. Snow will fall again, the bird will try escaping it, but the cold will be too much and prevent it from hunting. And then there will be spring, the hunter’s wings opening as the nest will now have the weapon that will allow it to control darkness and destroy Hell’s felines.”

He huffed, but I sank my fangs deep into his throat to shut him up. Somehow, he managed to repeat what he had said, but also to add a few words.

“That… is the prophecy of your life… and you… can’t… escape… it…”

I sank my fangs deeper, killing him and shutting him up before I fed. Once I was done, I engraved a bone and burned the computers the guy had seemingly used to record his research. It was useless to have engraved the bone, but hey. I had to do it. Pride thing.

Not too worried that he had stored his research elsewhere, I headed out, aware that the whole building would burn down, before I headed back.

**

Two hours later, I was on a roof when Youngjae slipped by my side, sitting next to me. He tilted his head, looking a bit sad.

“You seem bothered by something.”

I shook my head. Bothered? Not… not really. But… aish. Maybe a little.

“A thing with tonight’s hunt. My prey had some sort of prophecy or whatever. It’s stupid, really.”

“If you’re bothered by it, it’s not stupid. Tell me.”

I sighed, but told him. He frowned once I was done, tilting his head.

“It sounds important… The bird, the hunter, that’s you. I wonder what it means though… that there’ll be a bigger one. Maybe that there’s an enemy nearby waiting to kill you?”

“Don’t care.”

“… okay. Just make sure you don’t get killed. I don’t want to lose you.”

I couldn’t help a little smile. I didn’t want to lose Youngjae either.