The forest was silent. There were no birds, not this late. There were no animals, not this close to the paths. The ground was covered in a thick, fluffy layer of snow, and the two ghuls moved through it in relative silence. Their movements weren’t loud– they were designed to move in sand, and snow was fairly close– and they managed to keep above the thick snow walls. Aliyna had told Nasir they were going to visit an old friend of her’s, but hadn’t given much detail about it.
Aliyna had found Nasir when he was sixteen. His ghoul genes had kicked in all on their own, and his parents thought he was cursed. They had kicked him out, and it had been three weeks before he got hungry enough to attack a person. He was lucky it had been Aliyna who had found him, then. Another ghoul, like him, but one much older. They had no relation to each other, but Alyina knew his family, and had promised his many times great grandfather she’d help any of his descendents who turned, whether willing or accidental.
He had been very lucky that Aliyna had found him.
Neither of them wore their sunglasses this late at night, when their vision was better utilized for seeing in the dark. Neither of them needed jackets, but wore them anyway, for appearances. It was better than being asked questions. Questions were bad for their kind. Once people started to notice you, when they started asking questions, they started to notice you, nasir had learned.
Sunglasses all the time you could write off as photophobia. But nails that cut through flesh like a knife through paper were questioned. Not being cold when it was sixty degrees out was fine. But eyes that were clouded over like the dead were questioned. There was only so many oddities you could have, so many times you could move in a creepy way, before people noticed you and questioned what you were.
Meta humans had been a blessing to them. Ghuls were older than metas, by several centuries, but metas were far more acceptable. They had a wide range of powers, and ghuls could write their own abilities off as being a strange meta. But that didn’t include their ravenous hunger. That, they kept under wraps. Because after all, what prey population wanted to be faced with one of it’s predators.
One of. According to Aliyna, there were more human predators. Apparently this old friend of hers was one of them. She hadn’t told him a name for either the man himself or the thing that he was, but Nasir was ready for something like them. Human in appearance, maybe with some physical warning signs, but generally beautiful as long as they were well fed.
That was one of their general tools, after all. Beauty, even if their eyes were most often fucked. Being beautiful helped you lead prey to secluded places. It helped you to blend in better. In general, it was helpful to be beautiful.
“How much further do we need to go? We’ve been walking for hours.” Nasir stopped for a moment to shake snow out of his boots.
Aliyna smiled and laughed, a soft and lilting sound. In an equally gentle and misleading voice, she answered him. “He should be nearby. Don’t worry. It’s not much further.”
Nasir sighed and continued to trudge along through the snow besides her. He had a feeling that this was going to be a long night, and already he was getting tired. Well, as tired as something that was technically dead could get.