What’s in a happy ending but unexplored tragedies? He called her Klementine. Dryads keep themselves to themselves, and Junhoe often finds himself dangling from tree branches. Cue the endearing chance encounter, typical misunderstood antagonists, enduring “love.” The minute details of their bond don’t matter.

“What matters is correcting a mistake,” Seungyoon, a witch of normal proportions, connects the dots.

There’s one question nobody’s asking: who was she? 

More importantly: who was she to Junhoe? Interspecies relationships are few and far between. Cowards label experiences as twisted cautionary tales. Junhoe doesn’t acknowledge restrictive adverbs like “not” or “never;” he makes a hobby of dismissing good intentions.

“It’s unnatural,” Seungyoon concludes, pacing circles over charred drapes and toppled cauldrons—Jinhwan is apt to throw a fit when he stops running for his life. “Vampires: cold-blooded flesh; remnants of man’s folly; why’re you so special?” Plucking excess skin from the dull tip of his crow quill, he goes to work on my fourth Apollo’s Rune. 

Magical effects neither stack, duplicate, nor transfer. Half-breed werewolves already proved miracles of Nature result in unnatural monsters of the imagination. Junhoe’s pursuit of happiness was doomed at the starting line—and Klementine’s dryad sisters knew it. She grew old, and he grew hungry; the supernatural world is filled to the brim with clichés.

“You strike me as a lizard with a big mouth,” Seungyoon finishes with a flick of his wrist. “What keeps those fangs from yapping about?” Junhoe opens wide at every opportunity, embracing what man made us.

Sensing the approach of a fellow big mouth, I ask, “Do you mean to kill me?” 

Skulking behind my tortured torturer, Donghyuk stands upright. Scaled skin stretches, glassy eyes buried beneath a vortex of teeth. Globs of spit melt Seungyoon’s cranium, venom burning brain cells. His eyes roll back, body falling onto Donghyuk’s extended jaw. 

Single black feather fluttering in the natural breeze, I bid farewell to the presumed evil villain of our tale, “Try harder next time.”

“Hello, Bobby,” Junhoe greets as I laugh.

“Just in time,” I compliment, finally freed from the wicked witch’s dastardly double-knotting skill. Birds screech far off. Enemy forces signal their arrival with slow flaps of heavy wings. The culling is brought to Jinhwan’s stoop by Nature’s will damned.

“Miss me?” Hanbin boasts a sharp smile—it’s all in the diet.

Jinhwan says boys should wage war outside; it builds character. Four valkyries lead the force flocking north for springtime’s bloodbath. They destroy for the questions no one’s asking. We survive for our right to tragic endings.