Monster

The diner buzzed softly with the hum of early morning conversation, the occasional clink of plates and silverware breaking the steady rhythm of the place. It wasn’t crowded, but the few people seated at tables and the counter gave the place a crowd to blend in with. The smell of coffee and grease clung to the air, the warmth of it seeping into the cold draft from outside. It had been hours since we first sat down, just two brothers at a corner booth, but it felt like an entire lifetime had passed in the time it took to drink a few cups of coffee… and to catch up. It was a very emotional and confusing few hours. Hints of apprehension lingered in the first hour or so. But I saw it the moment he truly believed. He knew it was me… his brother.

Seth sat across from me, his hands cradling his mug, eyes fixed on some distant point beyond the walls of the diner. I watched him, his brow furrowed with the weight of everything I’d just laid on him. It was a lot. I knew that. Hell, even saying it out loud felt surreal. And yet, here we were… living in the moment I had feared for so long.

I had told him about the attack, about waking up in the woods so far from home, then the killings. I left out the transformation, Death, and the Primeval for the time being, just testing the waters as I told him more. I didn’t want to overload him all at once. I told him how Peter was a fucking psychopath, the Chasse family were good people who fought to kill the fucked up monsters of this world. I told Seth about how I’d fallen in with them. How they gave me a place to belong again… after so much time alone… thinking my life was over, bound to darkness alone. I was honest about Autumn, though I felt his eyes judging me, his long breaths and sighs as the information came made me think he was unsure how to feel about me getting so close to her while my wife sat at home with another man.

We got more into the weeds of my “curse” as I described it. I talked about my physical strength, speed, and the fact that silver and any other weapon were no real danger to me. That’s why his bullets and knife did nothing to keep me down… I was different. The fact that he knew very little of the supernatural world helped him accept this easier than the Chasse family. It was hard to explain while keeping so much information from him. I almost made myself out to be just some kind of dark superhuman, and not a monstrosity.

He was taking it better than I expected. No anger, no storming out, no calling me insane and leaving me to the ruins of whatever hope I thought I had. Peter Grimwood’s lies actually helped get the conversation started, in a way. It eased Seth into the supernatural world, making this easier. But he was still trying to wrap his head around it. How I had been around, doing things in this world the whole time since they thought I died. I could see it on his face; the last few years had been reset in his mind, and he was struggling to adjust to the fact that I was here. He could talk to me again.

"It’s just… a lot to process," Seth finally muttered, glancing up at me. His blue eyes, eyes that had once felt so familiar to me, now held a mixture of disbelief and deep concern. He was beyond happy to see me, to know I was still walking the world, but the information I gave him was… unsettling. We hadn’t even gotten to the good stuff yet.

"So much has happened back home. You’ve been out here.. all this time, in St. Louis?"

I shook my head, “No. Not the whole time. I bounced around a lot in the early days. Never staying in one place long enough. Usually, once I made a kill, I’d head somewhere new. When I found this city… it just felt right. There was so much… evil here. Things I could unleash it on. I didn’t have to keep moving around as long as I was careful.”

“You could have come back…” he said, sure that it would have worked out. “We could have figured something out. Helped you…”

I opened my mouth to answer, but the words caught in my throat. I didn’t know how to explain the reality of what my life had been… the battles, the transformations, the sheer hell of it. How could I tell him that I hadn’t wanted him or anyone else to see what I had become? That I didn’t want to drag my family into this nightmare? How could I explain that I hadn’t just been surviving? I had been fighting, every single day, just to keep myself together. Just to not fall apart under the weight of the monster that lived inside me.

"I wanted to… I tried too" I said eventually, my voice quieter than I intended. I was trying to keep it steady. "But it wasn’t that simple. I wasn’t… ready. I wasn’t safe to be around. When I tried to come to you guys… right after it happened, I could feel this thing clawing to get out. It felt like it would hurt you guys; I would hurt you guys. Then when I came back about a year later, I saw Vicky with Ben. Then I saw Caydee… it messed me up, man.” I had to stop talking. I remembered the book, the memories of her birth saved into the little photo album. I remembered the note Vicky had written herself for when Caydee got older. The emotions bubbled up, but I fought them away. “I can't tell you how hard it was to know she existed… while I existed, with this thing inside me. I felt like the best way to protect her, and all you guys, from me… and this fucked up world… was to stay away. None of you would ever have to know what was out there… what I’d become…"

Seth’s frown deepened, and he set his mug down, leaning forward, his voice lower, more insistent. "But then you had to be alone…” he shook his head, unable to accept that I had been out here like this for so long.

I knew what he was thinking. I reversed the roles in my head. If I was sitting in his spot, and he in mine… it would have hurt to know he had to endure all this. I wouldn’t understand.

“You’re my brother, Sam. You should have come to me. I would’ve helped you. I could’ve helped you."

I shook my head calmly. If only that were true. I sighed, running a hand through my hair. He didn’t understand, not fully. "It wasn’t just about needing help, Seth. I didn’t want to put you in danger. What I’ve become… it’s not something you can just fix. I couldn’t risk coming back until I knew I could control it." I breathed, “If I'm being honest… that time really hasn’t come yet. I’m only just now finding answers to the questions I’ve had for so long. Just now gaining more control.”

"Control what, though? You keep saying you’ve changed, you’ve told me about the strength, the toughness, and that you’ve killed... but… what the hell does that even mean? I can tell… you’re not telling me something." Seth’s eyes searched mine as if he were trying to find the answers buried somewhere in the silence between us. "I mean, you look like… well, you. But I know that’s not the whole truth."

I swallowed hard, my chest tightening with the weight of what I was keeping from him. I had told him some of the story, enough to give him a sense of what had happened. The attack. The transformation. The years I had spent learning how to live with this thing that lurked inside me, waiting for moments of weakness to take control. But I hadn’t told him the full extent of it… the dark, monstrous side of me that was still there, even now gripping the bars of its cage… staring at my brother from within my mind.

Seth leaned back in his seat, his eyes still on me. He took a breather, letting some of the stress of the specifics fall off for a moment. He shook his head slowly, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, though it didn’t reach his eyes. "I still can’t believe you’re sitting here, man. It’s just…" He paused, exhaling a sharp breath. "For so long, I thought you were gone. We all did. We buried you, we…" His voice wavered, and he stopped, pressing his lips together tightly. “We moved on.”

I felt a surge of guilt, hot and sharp, settle in my chest. I never meant to put them through that… the pain. But I had no choice. I could have killed them… at least, I thought I could have.

"I’m sorry," I murmured, my voice barely above a whisper, carrying the weight of everything I’d tried to bury for years. The apology felt like it cut deeper than I expected, dragging the dark truth with it. "I never wanted any of this. That night… I swear, I had every intention of running back into that house as soon as I found my way home. I was going to come home. But this thing…" My breath hitched slightly at the dark emotions tied to that night, my gaze falling to the worn surface of the table. "This thing inside me, it’s like an animal… caged, starved, and furious. And when it takes control… I’m not me anymore."

Seth’s eyes were wide, his face pale under the flickering light. He leaned in closer, his voice barely audible, as though afraid of what my next words might reveal. "What do you mean? What do you turn into?" This information was pivotal in his mind. This was it… the reason I, his twin brother, had stayed away for so long. He was beyond curious.

I hesitated, glancing out the window, toward the distant shape of his truck parked under the dim glow of a neon sign, washed out by the white snow that coated it. My reflection stared back at me, hollow-eyed and strained from what I felt. The monstrous presence beneath the surface began to stir. "I’m not human, Seth. Not fully… not anymore," I said, my voice grim, edged with something darker. "Not since I was taken that night in the woods. This thing… changes me, physically. It takes over and runs wild until it's satisfied."

Seth’s brow furrowed, confusion flickering across his face. "Changes you, how?"

I exhaled slowly, dragging my gaze back to him. "Those bestiaries you’ve got," I said, my tone low, almost conspiratorial.

"Bestiaries?" His face tightened in confusion.

"The books Peter gave you. You keep calling them encyclopedias." I watched his reaction carefully. "Have you read about werewolves in those books?"

Seth blinked, processing the sudden shift in conversation. Slowly, he nodded. "Yeah. I’ve read some of it."

"Then you know how they transform, right? The pain. The way their bodies snap and shift into something unnatural… something bigger."

He nodded again, his eyes locked onto mine, an unspoken question hanging between us. I saw the way his eyes moved, recalling something he had read. He knew what I meant.

I leaned back slightly, the weight of my next words pressing down on me. "What I go through… it’s similar but worse. My transformation isn’t tied to the moon, blood, or any of that shit the creatures of this world are bound to. It’s not that simple. At first, I thought it only happened when I lost control… when I couldn’t hold it back anymore. I’d start to feel a pressure, a burning. My bones move, my muscles shift and tighten. This thing inside expands, turns me into a monster that you’ll never read about. You’ll never hear about another… never see another. I’m the only one of my kind. I only feed on one thing. When it fades… and I become myself again, there are bodies… everywhere. Blood… death." I swallowed hard, feeling the heavy knot of truth lodged in my throat. "Now, I’ve learned to control it. I can shift whenever I want. I can let that thing out, use its strength, its hunger when I find those that need to be killed. I don’t feed on things like you think. It is the act of killing… of ending something that was… that’s when the monster is satisfied. That’s what it craves…" I sighed, lowering my voice as I glanced around our vicinity in the diner. I hoped I hadn’t gotten too loud and was heard. “It craves destruction… death. There’s a reason for that.”

Seth looked like he had just been flooded with information. His mouth barely moved to ask as his mind processed what had been said.

“Why?”

I trailed off, too caught up in the explanation and almost letting it get away from me. I stopped, letting the gravity of my words sink in, the silence that followed thick and suffocating. Seth just stared, his face ashen, his hands gripping the edge of the table so tightly that his knuckles had gone white. He wasn't scared of me, just scared of the reality of what I said. Something like this existed, and he could have gone his whole life without ever knowing. It was hard for him to understand how any of it was real.

Seth’s reaction was immediate, his disbelief palpable as he pulled back slightly in his seat, his eyes narrowing as if trying to decipher whether I was telling the truth or if this was some sick, twisted joke. His breathing quickened, his chest rising and falling with the strain of it, and his mouth opened and closed, searching for words that wouldn’t come.

"Sam…" he finally whispered, his voice trembling with uncertainty. "You can’t… be serious."

I nodded slowly, the tension between us thickening with each passing second. His eyes darted from me to the door, as though he might bolt at any moment, the reality of what I was telling him too much to process all at once. But then, something shifted in his expression. That protective, big-brother instinct took over, laced with fear. Not fear of me, but for me.

"You’ve been dealing with this… all by yourself? Fighting off something inside you that just wants to kill… trying to make you kill people?" He was starting to grasp the concept of why I had to stay away… to protect them from what I had inside.

His voice cracked at the end, a mix of disbelief and hurt, and for a moment, I thought he might cry. Instead, he gripped his coffee mug harder, as if trying to anchor himself to something tangible, something that made sense. The world he had known… the world we both had known was shattering around him, and I could see him struggling to pick up the pieces. To believe that the brother sitting across from him was still me.

Seth swallowed hard, his eyes full of questions, full of things he couldn’t say out loud in this diner. I could see the battle waging in his mind… the urge to help, to protect me like he always had, clashing with the terror of what I was telling him. Of what I had become. He wasn't prepared for any of it, no matter what he had read in those Grimwood bestiaries.

"How can I trust that you’re still… you?" he asked, his voice soft, barely above a whisper. "If this thing is always inside you, waiting to take over… how do I know that you won’t… turn into it right here? OR right in front of Caydee… Vicky? Mom or Dad?"

His words hit harder than I expected, and for a moment, I didn’t know how to answer. I wasn’t sure if I could give him the reassurance he needed, because deep down, I knew there was always a risk. Visions would come… names would be given, and the monster would move. Always the possibility that the thing inside me could slip its chains and take the wheel if I didn’t obey. Just like it had that one time… when it body snatched me and killed that man in that alley.

"I’m not asking you to trust the monster," I said finally, my voice rough and raw. "But trust me. Trust that I’m fighting it. Every second. For you. For all of you." I assured him, trying to impress how much I meant every single word. “There is also a lot more that I’ve learned… a lot more I still haven’t told you about the nature of this thing… what it's meant for. I will… just not now.” Everything I said next was to get him back to safety, back with our family.

There was no time for drawn-out discussions or unpacking the depth of what was about to unfold. I could see it in his eyes, the unspoken worry gnawing at the edge of his expression. He wanted to protect me, to fix something, but this wasn’t something he could fix. He was out of his depth in St. Louis. He needed to go back.

“I need you to do something,” I said, cutting through the silence with a deliberate calmness that didn’t match the chaos stirring inside me.

“What’s that?” Seth asked, startled by the sudden shift, the hint of apprehension clear in his voice.

“Go home, Seth," I said it like a command, not a suggestion. "Things are about to happen here, and they’re going to make this city unsafe for a lot of people.”

He looked at me, confused, trying to grasp the meaning behind my words, but I could see the recognition starting to sink in. The pieces were coming together in his mind, even if he didn’t want to believe them. I glanced up at him, my voice quiet but firm. "You’re walking around this town wearing my face? That’s not something you want right now. It’s not something I want."

“What is it?" His voice wavered slightly, fear edging into his tone despite the effort to hide it. "What’s about to happen?”

“There’s an ecosystem here, Seth. One that’s been hiding beneath the surface for longer than you’d believe. Vampires, werewolves, devourers... things you haven’t even read about in those bestiaries yet, and worse. It’s all real.” I pointed down at the ground beneath our table, my finger steady, deliberate. “They’re down there. Beneath the city. It’s like a sanctuary, a hideaway for creatures, and monsters. Some of the most powerful, the oldest, live in those tunnels." I paused, feeling the familiar surge of the beast stirring in my veins. "And I’m going down there. I’m going to kill all of them. When I do it… I can't have you here. It's not going to be safe for you… or anyone tied to me. I need you gone, so I can do what has to be done!”

He didn’t understand, his mind was racing. “What if something happens to you? Why do you have to do this?”

“Because, Seth…” I said. “Only I can. There’s a reason I'm the only one of my kind… why I'm tied to… things beyond this world.” I hinted at deeper, darker connections. “I’ll be fine. If you stay, you won't be!”

The words hung heavy in the air, charged with an ominous weight. My voice had darkened, laced with the cold certainty of what needed to be done, and for a moment, I felt my eyes shift… black, monstrous. I saw the flicker of fear in Seth’s eyes, brief but unmistakable. He tried to keep his composure, to stay calm, but I could sense his pulse quicken, feel the way his heart beat a little harder. My senses were sharp now; nothing escaped me.

He didn’t speak right away. There was a tension between us, thick, electric. He could feel it. I could feel it. The Primeval inside me leaked its presence into the space between us. He was rattled, though he did his best to hide it. That subtle, primal fear of the unknown, of what I had become.

We stood up from the table without another word. The silence was palpable as we paid the bill and stepped outside, the cool morning air washing over us as we walked to his truck. Every step was heavy with the unspoken truth. He understood now. He didn’t have to ask. I could sense it; the way his mind worked through the implications of what I was telling him, what it meant for him to be here, for me to be here. We were twins… we always could tell what the other was thinking.

When we reached his room at the Fleabag Motel, I helped him pack. The silence stretched between us, neither of us willing to break it. We moved methodically, cramming his belongings into a small suitcase and a couple of backpacks. He didn’t ask questions, he didn’t need to. There was nothing more to say, not now. Not with what I was about to do. The tension simmered beneath the surface, the unspoken understanding that he needed to leave, and I needed to stay.

We loaded up his truck, and Seth stood there for a moment, his hand resting on the door handle, staring at me with an intensity that felt heavy with meaning. He didn’t know what to say, and honestly, I wasn’t sure what he could say.

He opened his mouth, but no words came out. There was too much between us, too much weight in the silence, in the shared understanding of what had to happen next. He didn’t have to believe everything, not yet. But he knew enough. He knew that staying meant danger, and leaving was the only way I could keep him safe.

“When it's over… and that place is nothing but blood and ashes… I’ll come home,” I looked back up from my feet to my brother. I really meant what came next. “I need your help though. If I'm coming back... I need you to prepare the way. Figure out how to get them ready… to see me again… like this.” I started getting choked up, scared of what they’d think; what Mom and Dad would see when they looked at me again. What my sisters would think… if they’d even let me near their kids. When Vicky looked into my black eyes, would she turn away and take Caydee with her?”

Seth’s eyes locked onto mine, and in that moment, I saw the fear give way to something else. Something stronger. He didn’t have all the answers and didn’t fully understand what I had become, but somewhere in his expression, I saw a flicker of belief. Of trust. Not in the creature I had described, but in the brother he had known for years… before all of this. The brother; who had once sat beside him in school, in church, at cookouts and family dinners. The same brother who he thought would always be there, no matter how long we were apart, no matter the distance. Any time we saw each other, it was like no time had passed. And in that moment… we both felt it all again. Even through all this shit… nothing had changed, not really. At the heart of everything, we were still the same kids that had grown up together… through everything. This was all just one bump in the road.

“We’ll do it… together. You just make sure you come back…” he started tearing up. His eyes were watering as he spoke. He reached over and gripped my arm just above my elbow as he said the words.

I nodded, jaw clenched tight, holding back the flood of emotions that threatened to break loose. The humanity that still clung to me screamed for him to stay. I didn’t want him to leave, didn’t want to go down into those hellish depths. Part of me wanted to just get in his truck, to go with him, to leave this all behind. To go home together, like we always did when we were kids, figuring out the world side by side. But I knew better. I couldn’t. That was the part of me that had died… the part that had been stripped away, leaving this thing, this monster in its place.

I reached out and pulled him into a tight embrace, holding on longer than I should have, trying to bury the ache that gnawed at me. I squeezed him until it hurt, like holding on was the only way to stop him from slipping away. But I knew… it was time. It had to be done.

When Seth finally pulled back, his face was unreadable. He opened the door to his truck, and without a word, he got in. The engine rumbled to life, and he reversed out of the parking spot. I watched as he pulled onto the street, heading away from me, from this city, from the storm I was about to unleash. He didn’t wave, didn’t glance back, and I could see it in his posture… the way his shoulders were set. He was holding it all in, waiting until he was far enough away to let it out. He had to, or it would’ve swallowed him whole.

I stood there, staring at the empty parking space, my chest tight, the air feeling too thick. Seth was gone. Finally safe. Fleeing before the reckoning I was going to bring down on this city’s underworld. He’d be free from it all, untouched by the bloodshed, the destruction, the carnage I’d drag up from the pits below. He didn’t need to see what I’d become, what I was capable of. He wouldn’t need to carry that weight.

I lingered there, rooted to the spot, the silence pressing in around me. For just a moment, I let myself feel the loneliness, the coldness of it all. Alone again. The last thread that connected me to that old life, the life where I was just Sam, had driven away.

There was no turning back now. I had to let him go. And in doing so, I had to let go of the part of myself that wished for something else… something more human; until I finally went home again.

It was time to finish what I had started.