Jaebum grabbed his backpack, pushing the door open. He locked the door to his classroom, went out the Arts department. He greeted a young student and walked out the front door, being done with his day.

The twenty-five years old arts teacher walked out, only wearing a short-sleeved shirt and some loose pants when it would be winter soon. Some lazy snowflakes were already falling. Jaebum reached out and one of them fell on his finger, melting into nothingness immediately. He chuckled and started walking again, soon enough reaching the quarter where he lived.

The house he was walking towards was gray, simple but beautiful. Neat. It was his house, of course. He went in. To his right, there was a couch. A few meters in front of him, there was a little step down that lead to the kitchen and the dining room. There was also a short corridor to the bathroom and his bedroom. To his left, there were two sets of stairs, one going up, and one going down.

Jaebum put his backpack down before he went to the dining room. There was a glass door there and so he went to look through it, watching his courtyard. He stayed there for a few minutes, quiet, before he turned and went to a small wooden dresser that stood there. He crouched, opening the bottom drawer. He pulled out a long box covered in leather and put it down on the table that was right behind him. He touched it with the tip of his fingers and there was a clicking sound. Jaebum opened the box, smiling when he pulled out a sword and a dagger, both sheathed.

The longest blade made a singing sound when he unsheathed it. It was red like blood and its edge was so sharp one would almost get cut just approaching it. Jaebum made the sword dance a few times before he sheathed it skillfully, putting it down into the box and then grabbing the dagger, doing the same and putting it back as well. Once both blades were safely inside the box, he closed the latter, locking it, and put it into the drawer.

He looked up at the collection on the wall. A dozen of blades were there, sharper than anything, shining beautifully in the light. All of them were ready to be used.

It took an hour before Jaebum was done testing all of his blades. His favorite one was obviously the one he had put away into the box. That one was special. Some called it ‘Satan’s Blade’, or just ‘Redblade’. It had special properties, but most people weren’t aware of that. Jaebum wasn’t ‘most people’, obviously. His pure black hair and his icy blue eyes that changed color according to his mood were proof enough of that.

And if that wasn’t enough, he was… different. His physical appearance wasn’t the only thing that set him apart.

Jaebum wasn’t human. He was one of those creatures called ‘shadow spirits’ and his demonic ‘beast’ form was controlled with the silver chain around his neck. He was the only one around whose beast form was controlled that way. Others had various ways, but Jaebum was definitely unique. Shadow spirits were very rare, only a thousand of them in the entire world; and none of them had the same transformation method as he did.

**

[Jaebum’s POV]

Let me tell you about my story. At times, I shall let the narrator do so. But for now, it is my turn.

People around me – my colleagues, my students – knew I was usually a cheerful person. I would talk a lot, help everyone out, smile. What they didn’t know was that I wasn’t the same at night. It wasn’t some kind of personality issue or whatever. It was just pure disdain towards human kind. I just had to look human when I was amongst them. However, at night, I could be my true self and obtain money and food. A lot of each.

Every night, a letter appeared in the drawer on top of my Redblades. Not everyone deserved a letter every night. But I was different.

To Black Hawk,

 

Name of prey: Donghae Lee

Age: 29

Profession: Reporter

Lives: 126;373, quarter B, city D

The why: Donghae Lee is a dangerous man. He is planning on unveiling a research on our kind so that humans destroy us. We may be powerful, but humans are extremely numerous. Our noble and pure race must prevail.

I didn’t even bother reading the reason, observing the photograph they had put with the letter. Good stuff, a prey. Plenty enough to fill my stomach. The Brotherhood only rewarded the best hunters with a prey every night. It was only normal for me to get rewarded that way. After all, I was Black Hawk. I was the best hunter out there and nobody would even dare say otherwise.

Burning the letter, I went to get changed. Black clothes, looking normal, but allowing me to hide in the shadows when necessary. Not that I really needed it all that much. It would hide my face properly, however, only unveiling my eyes that would always glow, which was obvious at night. Once I was done getting changed, I went to grab a sword and a dagger. Ready for the hunt, a dark vortex formed around me and I disappeared, reappearing on a familiar rooftop I knew enough to teleport there. It was very high, high enough for people down on the streets not to see me.

I started running.

126. 373. Quarter B, City D. Codes only the Brotherhood knew about. I knew of them. I knew where my prey lived.

Donghae Lee was sleeping. Preys were often sleeping at that time of night. Too bad for them. They would usually never wake up.

Turning into a dark mist to go through the wall was easy. I found myself in my prey’s bedroom. Unsheathing the dagger – the sword was only there in case I’d need to fight, which rarely happened – and slashing forward made a singing noise similar to a falcon’s cry.

Donghae Lee opened his eyes. All he had time to see was the dagger digging into his throat. No time to scream, no time to regret anything. His last living moments were spent remembering the falcon’s cry and staring into the icy blue of my eyes.

The throat was slit, the prey was dead. The feast could begin.

It took only twenty minutes before I was done, only leaving the viscera and the bones. Human meat was the best. Done with my meal, I used my dagger to engrave a symbol in a bone. Being an arts teacher was paying off. The outline of a hawk diving towards its prey was well drawn.

The mark was done. I got up and left.

The day after, Donghae Lee’s death was on the first page of the newspaper. People had recognized the symbol. People knew of Black Hawk. I smirked, reading the news, instinctively brushing the tip of a finger on the black hawk tattoo that marked my torso. It was small, hidden right under my left collarbone. The proof that I was a hunter for the Brotherhood. The best hunter of the Brotherhood.

Marking a prey with the hunter’s symbol was a proof of strength amongst the Brotherhood. I had killed and eaten a few thousands of preys ever since I had obtained my fangs – which we weren’t born with, obviously. One prey per night, on average, ever since I had those. Not just because of the Brotherhood’s contracts. I had gotten my fair share of street fights when I was a teen and it usually ended with at least one of my foes in my stomach.

**

Life was always the same. Quiet, peaceful. I liked it that way. My kind didn’t have DNA that humans could uncover with mere technology. If they tried scanning a piece of hair I had left at the feast, it would usually make whatever machine they had unable to recognize anything about it. As if it didn’t exist. So life was good. It would’ve stayed that way if I hadn’t decided to go on the familiar rooftop, one night, to watch the stars after hunting.

Lying down in the snow, I looked at the tiny spots only one of my kind could see through the glow of the city. And suddenly, there was a song. A beautiful song, delicate and bewitching, so perfect that it made me doubt its existence. There were no lyrics, only notes.

I sat, looking around. There was a silhouette further away. That was where the song came from.