Epilogue
HENLEY
Might as well do it now since I was trapped for all eternity.
BigTraveler: Hey remember that friend of a friend who was moving to NC?
My wonderful mate was currently wading through the last seventy years of comics at the biggest store I’d ever seen and we weren’t leaving anytime soon.
Especially because he hadn’t even gotten to the anime section and he thought those were strange but fascinating.
Howl4U: Yeah. The one who was worried about that beast thing.
It was time to set the story in motion so they’d hear the right version of events.
BigTraveler: Yep. It turns out it was real. Not a Legend though. It was a shifter that was put under a spell. How crazy is that?
Honestly, now that we’d gotten a bit of distance from everything over the past couple of weeks it was hard to believe it wasn’t some idiotic idea humans had concocted for marketing.
Howl4U: It was real?
Howl4U: What kind of shifter?
An amazing one, but I’d leave that part out…I also wouldn’t tell how big of a nerd my sexy mate was.
We really were going to need a bigger trailer at the rate he was going.
BigTraveler: Evidently it was a black panther shifter and was under a spell since the fifties. He was found by a hiker. So while he won’t be going to the Solstice Festival, he is not fictional.
This persona was fictional, though, so I’d have to figure out a good reason why I couldn’t go next year either. So far they’d taken my excuse of wanting to visit friends in Montana and Idaho while the weather was nice as perfectly reasonable, but eventually they were going to ask harder questions.
Blaine had pointed out that it might be a bit dishonest by staying on the server, but it was really the only way to keep everyone safe and get the right information.
Someone had to point out that The Beast of Bladenboro wasn’t actually a monster, so it was clear they needed me even if they didn’t know it.
Besides, I was going to be much better at spotting the wrong people getting into the group if it ever came down to it. Sure, they could handle the in-person stuff next week but online was the real jungle and I wasn’t going to leave them unprotected.
Howl4U: Ha. We’re going to have to give Akai shit about that tabloid comment he made. I guess they can be believed.
BigTraveler: LOL I wouldn’t go that far but it seems like we can’t discount the crazy stuff they come up with.
If The Beast of Bladenboro was real, there had to be other dangerous creatures to save people from and trapped monsters to actually save.
Howl4U: Hey Akai. Looks like you were wrong.
He was never going to let Akai forget it either.
MothAkai: I’m still going to say tabloid rumor because that story sounds insane.
Oh, I agreed completely…even if I’d been the one to live it.
Just like the Legends, sometimes stories were fantastical, bizarre, and more real than we wanted to believe.