[21st October 2009]

The night the newsreader announced the conspiracy theories were right, it was a Wednesday. It had been a perfectly average kind of day. I had just finished a late-night study session and made it home in time to catch the ten o’clock news broadcast.

Photographs of official government documents discussing their existence which had surfaced on the internet seemingly had credibility. The truth that mankind had lived in fear of had been confirmed; creatures of lore and myth were real and lived among us. They'd hidden in plain sight for as long as time memorial.

My world hadn’t changed as I walked the twenty minutes home, from the university building to my dingy city flat. The streetlight that shone down onto the steps as I descended from the exit still flickered. As I made my way over the carpark, I heard a guy from my study group struggling to start his car like he did on a daily basis. The corner convenience shop’s neon sign buzzed when I passed by as it usually did, and the homeless man that sat huddled in a derelict buidlings doorstep still presented his cardboard sign. It read, ‘Humanity is Dead’, in messy black marker pen.

I pulled my hood up over my head as I walked by and though I wasn’t blind to his misfortune, I wanted to be blinkered from it. Maybe my humanity was dead because ignoring someone in need wasn’t moral. I knew that, but like most people, I looked away from horrible things. Despite knowing all that was imperfect about my everyday life, I didn’t pay it any mind and strived to focus on the positive. Perhaps it was pitiful how easily I accepted that some things were just out of my control.

A media storm was brewing in the Technosphere, and the silver linings beneath its clouds were getting thinner and harder to find. My world was about to change beyond recognition, but even now with the gift of hindsight, I couldn’t say if it changed for better or for worse.

Only moments after I closed the door behind me, I abandoned my coat on the hook, kicked off my boots and flung my bookbag aside with little regard for the mess I was leaving in my wake.

My phone had been vibrating non-stop all the way home as new notifications flooded in. I had ignored it in favour of keeping my wits about me while out on the street’s past watershed. The area I lived in was not the city’s dodgiest place, but it was by no means upper class either.

I had moved out of my parent’s house in favour of the little room I now called home, by choice. I lived a relatively normal student life; despite suffering the mild poverty of living under the thumb of my student loan, I was enjoying getting by on my own - even if it meant surviving on microwave meals and takeaways, washing my clothes in the local laundrette, and spending what little money I was left with between Thursday and Saturday night at student bars. I suppose I was happy; this chapter of my life felt like a rite of passage.

Stood in the kitchenette, in front of the microwave and already wearing my pyjamas, I was waiting for the ping to let me know that my takeaway leftovers were nuked to perfection when my mum called. It never entered my head not to answer because I didn’t dislike my parents, unlike many of my peers. Far from it in fact. To me, they were amazing! We had a healthy relationship, as well as being my parents they were also my friends.

I answered the video call to see both my mum and dad’s faces looking at me from the screen, I instantly smiled, but they both wore expressions that I knew meant something unpleasant was afoot.

“Hi, sweetheart,” Dad said. I can still hear his voice in my head. “Have you heard the news?”

Until that video chat, I had had a steadfast image of who my father was fixed in my mind. His identity was a part of mine - I was who I was because he was who he was - A fifty-four-year-old museum archivist; who had an addiction to coffee and collected vinyl records from the bygone era of his youth. Out of the blue, my beloved dad confessed to being an elf. At first, I laughed. How ridiculous! Did they really expect me to believe that?

Apparently yes, and they also expected me to pack up my life in England and move with them to the safety of my uncle’s cabin in the arse-end-of-nowhere - The Black Forest, Germany. An uncle who, incidentally, I now realised was also an elf. The whole of my dad’s side of the family was all elven! My mum was ‘mortal’ at least, as if that was some kind of consolation, but that ultimately meant I was only half-elf.

It was all too much to comprehend in the short hour I spent on the phone with them. I eventually hung up, saying that I needed some time to think things over and that I'd call them back soon. With so much on my mind, I forgot about eating and went straight to bed.

The next day’s lectures went straight over my head, and I was glad when five pm rolled around, and I could escape the constant chatter about ‘mythicals’ that blasted from the background through my internal monologue. All I felt was confusion and panic over my current situation. I was also a little pissed off that my parents had kept such a massive, life altering, secret for so long.

My friend Lindsay’s room was not the haven I had hoped for either. Theresa let me in, and I was engulfed in the very topic of conversation I was hoping to avoid. My mind was a mess, my nerves were frayed, and I couldn’t even tell my best friends why - my mum had made me promise to keep my identity a secret until they had figured things out, whatever that meant. Luckily, when I explained that I looked as drained as I did was because I was tired and had not slept the night before, Lindsay and Theresa believed me. It was only a half-lie.

“Did you hear about the killings in Moscow?” Lindsay said as she looked back at me from over her shoulder. She was sat at her dressing table, straightening her bleach blonde hair.

“What?” I mumbled in a daze. I'd just sat down on the bottom bunk of her bed.

“You’ve got to have seen it! It’s all over the news. There are riots in America, talk of revolution in Europe, and the Russian’s have reacted about as badly as possible - which is no fucking surprise if you ask me. They’re rounding them up like cattle for execution. It’s total carnage!” She continued as she stared at her reflection in the mirror while going back to doing her hair.

“All this talk genocide and us and them is so medieval. When will everyone realise it's easier to get along if we've all got to exist on the same planet...” Theresa rolled her eyes. I loved that she was Lindsay’s opposite. Theresa was mild and of few words, yet whatever she said had thought behind it and rang with profound wisdom.

“They’ll be another Holocaust, I bet,” Lindsay replied nonchalantly and set down her straighteners to top up her eyeliner. “D’you reckon that hot guy I’ve got my eye on will be at the Omen tonight?”

How easily Lindsay flit from such a grotesque topic to wondering if she would get laid blew my already shattered mind. I blinked rapidly in bewilderment at Theresa.

The short twenty-year-old with a cute, red pixie cut merely gestured to the back of her corset; she wanted me to fasten it for her. By now, we should both have been used to our mutual friend’s affinity for downplaying the devastating. In truth, Theresa was better at handling her than me. “Subtle,” Theresa whispered, shooting Lindsay a look to show how uncouth her comment had been.

“He’s been there for the last three weeks, and you still haven’t made a move on him. Do you think tonight is the night you grow some and throw yourself at him?” I asked, attempting to be witty which was an effort considering my mood. Usually, Lindsay was not the type to wait for a guy to approach her. She had a ‘go get ‘em’ attitude when it came to men that I admired. By no means was I a prude or a wallflower, but I was pickier and tended to prefer boyfriends over fleeting sexual affairs. Admittedly I was currently going through an agonising dry spell having only been dumped by my boyfriend of two years, three months ago. I still had not found a suitable rebound. The thought of getting involved with someone else at that moment left an unpleasant taste in my mouth. Unfortunately, it was getting increasingly difficult to keep my 'inner goddess' at bay - she was a hungry mistress and required male sacrifices to remain tame. Sometimes she made me feel like a predator on the hunt for flesh. Increasingly she invaded my thoughts and filled my head with erotic and blush-inducing imaginary scenarios at the slightest thing, and sometimes alarmingly inappropriate times. Some nights I wished I could let my hair down like Lindsay and be brave enough to go in search of the human touch I pined for. I sometimes felt traped by, and not safe in the knowledge that wasn’t a slut. Perhaps, Lindsay fell into that category a tiny bit - she didn’t even attempt to keep her goddess in check, and let her loose and regularly consumed as much male flesh as possible. Here I was stuck with a high libido that I struggled to keep up with. All four of my past boyfriends had left a lot to be desired - I had made do with dining at the table of sub-par teenage fumbles. Even if one of them had been the renowned high-school man-whore, he was a quantity over quality kind of guy. As long as he got his kicks, it didn’t matter about mine. Still, underneath all the bravado, he was a sweetheart, and I revelled in the fact that I had stolen him away from all of the ‘popular, pretty girls' and had him all to myself. Apparently, I was alluring enough that it did not matter if I was the unpopular punky type associated with a clique of equally unpopular ‘alternative’ people. But it was also a little ironic that that was probably the extent of my allure - I was somehow exotic to him.

“Could be!” Lindsay beamed, turning around from the mirror with a grin. “I’m looking crazy hot tonight.” She squeezed her upper arms into her chest to show off her cleavage, it peeped through the mesh fabric of the top she wore.

“You’re not going to pull anything in that get-up though, Ana,” Theresa stated, eyeing over the outfit I had chosen to wear. She was right, it didn’t do anything for me, but I was past caring. I was also not in any kind of mood to argue when Lindsay stripped me out of my baggy top and threw a velveteen garment my way.

“Without the bra.” She demanded. “What’s the point in wearing something sexy if your underwear screams grandma!”

“So... This is better?” I asked as I eyed over myself in the mirror, which hung on the back of the dormitory door. The gap between the hugging velveteen fabric of the crop top and my black acid washed combat pants showed off my flat, toned stomach and my pert, ample bust. Lindsday nodded and me and my two best friends huddled into and stared at our reflections. Giggling and grinning in appreciation of our shared style and taste for ‘underworld’ fashion which was an eclectic mix of something reminiscent of the 1990’s grunge and emo style, slightly influenced by the punk scene and a smidge gothic too. Lindsay in all black - black heeled boots, black fishnets, a black PVC skirt, black bra under a black sheer long-sleeved top, completed by black liner around her twinkly baby blue eyes.

Tiny Theresa hugged my upper arm and nodded in reply to my question. “You look hot, babe.” But so did she! Her five-foot frame was dressed in a faux corset and frilly ra-ra skirt but her heels did little to help her on the height front.

Contrarily, I had chosen to stay in my flat combat boots; at five foot eight, I was already freakishly tall for a twenty-one-year-old woman. I guess now I knew about my elven heritage; my physic made sense. Long pin-straight black hair, pensive grey eyes, porcelain skin and a svelte figure were how I would have described myself. Neither pretty nor ugly, but I figured there had to be someone out there who thought I was breathtaking.

Pulling on my black denim jacket, I was ready to head out to our bar of choice, Omen.