As A-Three dissolved into the encroaching darkness, he lost the tangible feel of his companions' fingers between his own, the sensation of being totally, and indisputably alone coming to weigh heavy upon him, sliding about his shoulders like the half-forgotten comfort of an old friend. Somewhere in the back of his mind, instinct had told him that this was the truth of matters, ever and always had it come to bring harsh reality back into a nightmarish world caught between tragedy and a happy ending. And ah, but he'd been right to stand in his convictions, the way that his very gut had warned him to separate from others, as if this was an inevitability woven into the very fabric of his existence. As the memories came back, he accepted them with no real surprise or amaze, merely letting them flood him, re-emerging back into the self that he'd been forced to forget.

He was Virgil Addison Montgomery. A pretentious name, the latest in a long line of Montgomerys, blue-blooded by nature, possessed of high collars and cultural standings, attendees and graduates of Ivy League schools, names in society...a family that pre-equipped their sons and daughters with high expectations. His father was, of course, a jovial fellow, all too delighted to play devil-may-care in front of other members of the family, or strangers, the sort of outward personality that gave the family the reputation that they had earned and slaved for over the decades. With his only son (naturally Virgil would be an only son, he mused, an only child, in fact), Stephen Montgomery was rather harsh, in towering disapproval of the boy's almost hermitish ways, pleased that the youth had taken an interest in books and the classic arts, but not at all giddy o'er the fact that he was not likely to share them with anyone, much less increase the crucial societal ties necessary for the Montgomery clan to flourish. They already owned half a dozen businesses, and had a stable of young lawyers, doctors, and other such esteemed careers present in the newest generation. Though his mother had been responsible for giving him such a mouthful of a name, Virgil's sire was always intent that he become the sort of man who could live up to it. Stephen was dead-set on his supposed 'lil chip off the ol' block' joining those ranks and doing the family proud, whilst all that Virgil wanted in the world at that point was to be left alone.

He always saw them, after all, the things that hung around, lurking creatures that the boy could only describe as night terrors, the things that darted through the bushes at night, or who extended claws towards the unsuspecting, those who couldn't even see as things vicious and grotesque were spawned from the starless darkness. Just flickers on the edges of his vision most-times, but he knew...that he saw more than that on the evening that his mother had died. One of the sinister forms had made its way through the hallway, the creak of ancient, polished floorboards causing the young man to stir from where he'd dozed, his cascade of books about him, the cassette tape on his bedside that had been soothingly playing strains of Vivaldi and Mozart long run out. Moving, he had seen it, just the thing's back, but a whisper of movement in the growing dark.

Terrified, as any youngster ought to be when confronted with the reality of such a thing, he had but taken a step outside the well-lit confines of his room before he fled back within, shutting the door tight and curling up on his bed, a pillow clutched to his chest as he watched...and he knew not the span of time, but it was perhaps an hour later, that the deeper darkness passed outside his door, that whispering squeak of the oaken floor outside echoing the panic that rose up to choke him as he watched, horrified. It was no person, that gut feeling, the way the hairs on the back of his neck rose...and the rather unshakable fact that no person was shaped like that, hunched and clawed, the sort of goblin that the Grimm Brothers, Mary Shelley, or Bram Stoker might have dreamt up. And yet, he could never quite get it to focus in his gaze...just another shadow.

It was only the next morning, that the implications of the visit came to light. His father awoke to find his mother dead - heart failure, the doctors said, strange in a woman so filled with vitality as Victoria Montgomery had been, but there the facts stood nonetheless. There were whispers, however, of foul play, though most wondered who could have hated dear, sweet Victoria.

And all the while Virgil remained silent, knowing the truth of things, and daring not to speak a word.

For Victoria Pence Montgomery, was the sole reason that the boy was willing to dismiss the sinister creatures of nightmare...for his mother, a good Christian woman, had consoled him growing up, when he fled to his parents' bedroom for fear of the shadows, had reminded him that nothing could get to them, that such things didn't exist. Monsters? What a ridiculous notion. It stood against the nature of their sovereign Lord, surely, that such a thing could come about, most notably in their house. 'Just believe, Virgil...' she'd admonished, 'and there won't be a thing that can get you.' And whilst he had tried very hard to believe her words, all thoughts of any sort of piety and deep faith were utterly erased in the face of reality. If they could steal away his mother, then no one...no one was immune to such things. Neither faith, nor race, or creed were a thing distinguishable to the night fiends, the demons that his mother had proclaimed the 'dear sweet Lord' would save them from. Pah. Virgil would embrace the reality of them, and then do his best to scorn the very memory, lock the lot of it away in the back of his mind, lest dwelling upon them bring them closer.

Things were turned upside-down, after the funeral, an event that the boy had to be dragged to, as at eleven years of age, he had no wish to see his mother's body, much less reconcile himself with the notion of burying her in the ground. Whilst she too had wanted him to make something of himself, she had nourished him quietly, homeschooled the child so that she could keep him from the 'evils of the world', instilling in him his love of the classics, of art and nature, allowing him the chance to discover the things that he would come to adore in a secure environment, free of peer pressure or the rush of society. Whilst her husband looked down on the idea, she'd always told him, "Hush, Stephen, I didn't name the boy Augustus at your behest, the least you could do is allow me to groom him for high school..." After all, she knew full well that Virgil would be shipped off to an illustrious private school at that age, as all Montgomery children were. She had already broken tradition, in keeping the youth close to her skirts, she would not be allowed to do it twice.

But being nudged out into the world had come a year early, for Virgil, as Stephen had neither the time nor desire, once Victoria died, to train the boy as she had, and though it was never mentioned, Virgil could see in his father's eyes that he reminded the man of the dear wife that he'd lost. He'd always been more like her, in those ways, despite the extensive efforts on Stephen's part to train him to 'be a man'. Thrust into the distinctly uncomfortable environment of boarding school, the youth rather stubbornly ostracized himself from the rest of his peers, preferring to remain aloof and apart from the popular crowd and their boorish ways...their talk of girls and sports. There were times when he joined them, merely out of that rather obnoxious sense of duty that his father had instilled in him, and he was accepted by the others for his breeding alone, and the fact that all the flak hurled his way was met with an intelligent, well-thought out retort, words that only became more educated as the years passed, and he crept his way towards graduation.

An enigma, they called him, and he was more romantically dubbed mysterious by a girl or two, but even if they did have the courage to come forth, asking for a date or merely making a blushing confession of supposed love, he usually shot them down without flinching. Girls were obnoxious, emotional creatures, and boys almost as much so, in their own fashion. Caught betwixt the pulls of society, Virgil did not usually struggle for his own place amidst them, he simply made his own haven apart. He found out rather quickly that he loved libraries...their silence called to him, and their contents even moreso...coffee shops, the usual 'hang' of the higher-class crowd, were at best a low second to the seclusion of a library or his own well-stocked room. The idea of entertaining a roommate had instantaneously nauseated him, and he had cajoled his father into paying for a single. They had the money, and Virgil could think of a thousand decent uses to put it to.

High school graduation came with all the usual fanfare, Virgil rather effortlessly graduating with honors, the studious child, and now his father, choosing to linger only momentarily on the glory of that passing, began the interrogation as to what his son planned to do with the rest of his life.

The trouble was, Virgil did not know, and neither did he care. Whilst he was ambitious by nature, he had already been birthed with both power and money at his disposal, more than one business to be inherited upon his father's passing, and whilst he could easily have settled for a degree that would teach him how to run those companies in a superb fashion a 'mere' business degree was certainly not enough for the latest scion of the Montgomery family, or at least, that was what the craven matriarch of the family, a tiny, withered crone of a woman, told him as he came to sit beside her wheelchair, the tapping of her clawlike, cracked fingernails against the wood of the tea-table between them an abrasive sound that would forever be carved into memory. And after hours of her droning on, he politely told her that he would pursue the field of medicine, and excused himself, selecting the easy out of the moment, merely so that he would no longer have to stare into those beady eyes, as they seemed to reach into him, searching him and finding him wanting when tossed upon the refining fire of her ancient intellect.

Quickly tossing together a list of schools in which he could obtain, at the very least, a basic college education and the prerequisites for the career that he'd taken upon himself, one that he really had little inclination towards but...hell, he was young yet, and if it removed the prying questions and the silent looks of disapproval from his life altogether, Virgil no longer cared. Six years? Eight years? It was merely studying, that and no more, that, at least he felt a certain fondness for, and the smell of books and the continuing dances of classical arias should soothe his own desires enough to take those of his family upon himself...and survive with his own personality intact. And whilst that personality might be cold, intellectual and uncaring...he cared not a whit. It gave Virgil some semblance of happiness. He had no angel or devil on his shoulder, merely the irritating grate of duty and malformed conscience. And such was sated when he chose the first school on the list that his father rather snobbishly confirmed 'would do, at least until you find something better', and packed his bags and departed the family estate, all too delighted to be once more free of its shadows and nightmares, the chill of the young male's icy stare nothing in comparison to the ice that touched his very blood when roaming those halls at night.

Accepted into the college he'd selected, he found a most effusive welcome awaiting him, as naturally, the faculty was well aware of just who and what he was, a fact that Virgil was trying very hard to ignore. Finding that there was no real, societal pull for him within all the societies, and that all that was truly required of him was to show up for classes and do the work assigned, Virgil quickly became a creature of habit and contemplation, tucking himself away with his books and music whenever possible, avoiding all rallies and other festivities unless they were absolutely required, and to any well-meaning peer that attempted to get him to do otherwise, he scoffed. Interaction was kept at a minimal, and once more, he'd acquired a room to himself after the first night, lest he kill a more obnoxious roommate.

A semester passed, then two, then three, and more yet...and Virgil toyed with his major during each, fussing with the idea of a law degree at first, and then psychology, and finally, he settled into history. This was met with something of a lecture from his father, but Virgil silently ignored it, answering 'Yes, Sir' and 'No, Sir' until Stephen Montgomery wrote it all off as just another one of his silly whims, lamenting that his son was to be a career student and not truly measure up to the family lineage....and to console himself that perhaps next semester he'd actually pick something respectable and stick with it.

But next semester came, and Virgil was still all too content with his major, taking a minor in Literature in addition to it. With this, he was assigned homework that felt more a pleasure than a pile of tedium, and he was...happy. His skills at acquiring friends were still abysmal, but at least some of his colleagues he could speak with, without feeling an excessive need to lay open their windpipe in the hopes they would ne'er be able to talk again. However, such luck, naturally, would not hold, and soon came another history class...one of the ones required, and that Virgil had simply put off, possessed of a desire to save the best for last, and thus enjoy more fully the latter half of his semesters, and in this one, not all of the participants were, well, of an acceptable caliber. Many of them were mere frat boys stumbling through it, who saw only the approaching end of each class session and the hope for a continuation of the partying which seemed to encompass the whole of their being, consuming their intellect until they dwindled down to wobbling dimwits, enfeebled by hangovers and enslaved to their desire for beer and sorority girls.

Tedan was clearly one of these, though on the incoming wave, still, perhaps, salvageable should some miracle come and blindside him, nudging him away from the slippery slope which he was gleefully traipsing towards. Though Virgil rather doubted it. He had plunked himself down next to Virgil on the very first day, and after a couple of attempts to talk to him, it was clear that he'd given up on Virgil the way everyone else had. Simply a frigid b***h of a man, not inclined towards 'chatter' or any other sort of real, entertaining conversation, at least by college society's standards. Virgil was not the life of the party, and thus, an outcast, but most assuredly not the sort that anyone would want to ridicule, and if they did, they most certainly had more clout to them than most.

And then, the teacher made them partners. It wasn't anything much just the term paper that made up nearly half the grade for the class itself, and the blue-blood from the East Coast rather instantly despaired. He saw how this would go, with him doing the brunt of the work and both of their names going on the final product. It was infuriating, but such was the system. Also, it assured that the two of them, as Tedan put it, would have to 'hang out', since they were study partners and all, and despite his best efforts, Virgil couldn't get Tedan to attempt any actual work during these times, the outgoing, absolutely overwhelming individual that was Tedan insisting that Virgil 'have some fun', since it was clear that he never did. It came to the point that if Virgil heard the words 'just loosen up, Virge' just one more time, he was likely going to strangle his partner and merely take the hit on that bedamned history grade.

It was by some miracle that the elder of the two managed to wrangle his more irresponsible counterpart into the library one cloudy Sunday afternoon, and the two picked up some books on their topic to leaf through, mostly Tedan doing the reading under Virgil's supervision, as otherwise, he would have continued to press the girl two tables over for her number. It was a tragedy enough that they had been shushed by one of the volunteers, an occurrence that the bookish student had never experienced in all of his twenty or so odd years, but Tedan seemed to have a certain, and almost allergic disdain for any actual studying. All in all, it left Virgil in a state of frustration...until finally, they reached a topic that they could both agree on. It was a superfluous fact in light of the situation, but one that struck Virgil as interesting nonetheless.

The cemetery.

It was a part of the campus, to an extent, and a historical marker, but it had sent those familiar chills of terror down Virgil's spine when he'd had to skirt its edges late one night, the shadows lingering in the corners of his eyes where they ought not to be, and he'd upped his pace, almost running his way back to proper civilization. Until then, he'd done his best to forget about the beast in the hallway those ten years ago, but sensations like these....ah gods, he'd much rather be rid of them. When Tedan recounted his own, similar feelings, it, at least, though the conversation was in passing, was enough to soothe Virgil's mental processes. He was not going mad, surely, if he was not the only one to experience that inescapable surge of dread, the notion that things were not as they ought to be.

It was there. That he'd first seen the dark figure...truly seen him. It was a being that he'd been snatching glimpses of for weeks now, the creature certainly not avoiding him, but merely loitering about the corner of Virgil's eyes, as though begging an audience with him. But stubbornly Virgil had paid it no heed, once more in denial of the devils in the dark...even if this one walked like a man, it was not friend to him. Even as he conversed with his prattling peers in the confines of the library, he could see him there, amidst the furthest corners, calmly lounging against the nonfiction as though expecting his quarry to come blithely running to whatever dire fate would await him.

Virgil would not be so meek a lamb.

And even one of the library volunteers piped up on the subject, overhearing them. And as Virgil gave the evening up as a loss, and went to check out the books that they'd hardly even nicked the contents of, the youth behind the counter flushed faintly and checked them out. A rather diminutive boy, but intensely well-meaning as he asked them the nature of their project, and their names, and then sent them on their way.

Tedan elbowed Virgil teasingly out the door, making some jab as to the fact that 'you must have been the kid's type', and sauntering off into the night, back to their own respective dorms.

Allowing those moments for contemplation, as they separated to go down branching paths, Virgil recounted the tedium that was the majority of his existence, the way that his life was currently playing out. An acquaintance had once called him 'an ancient soul in a young body', and he wondered at the truth of that. All those of his own age seemed frightfully immature, annoying, and even Tedan, who was starting to become tolerable, was one of the mingling throng of peons that Virgil himself had scorned for years now. Though whilst he knew much about the world, and could examine others at the drop of a hat, he had never allowed himself a probing sort of introspection, beyond the fact that he was selfish, striving for his own gains, what served him best, he had never sought to fathom more...what was his 'type' anyway? Sexuality had always seemed an unnecessary facet to life, though his father had gone on and on about him dating 'some nice girl', he'd tried and found the entire experience less than fulfilling. Mayhap he was destined just to be some knowledgeable hermit away on some mountaintop, a bastion of knowledge amidst the seething ignorance sweeping over their nation.

Hah. His goals surely were not half so lofty. His father would likely have been more pleased yet, likely as not, if he'd wound up like Tedan. At least then he would have been normal, and likely lazily traipsed through a degree and on into a career that his family could be proud of, provided them with a darling wife, an addition to the family, future Montgomery children and all that bollox.

As they had parted, Tedan had invited him to a party, and Virgil had politely declined, but now...he was reconsidering the offer. Having to wonder why, he asked himself that question, and waited for the inevitable drone of duty, the ballad of the 'good son' to start playing in his ears. But there was but a momentary silence, and a familiar voice rang through his thoughts instead. 'You know you wanna go...even if it's just to get to know me, huh? Figure out why I'm so interesting? C'moooon...'

Wondrous. He didn't get a little devil, instead, it seemed, he had a Tedan on his shoulder, a replacement for the inner struggle that he'd never been given the chance to develop as a youngling. Shaking his head in vague annoyance, he leaned back into his chair, the recliner catty-cornered into the far right of the room, eyes lidding. "I don't see why I'd want to go anywhere with you."

'It's because you're an easy drunk, isn't it? You're afraid something's gonna happen. Don't lie, you know you'd do me. Hell, I'd do me.' It was spoken with all the usual cockiness, that air of grinning careless attitude that always seemed to characterize the other...and it caused Virgil's eyes to open quite suddenly, staring before him as though he expected his flippant classmate to be standing before him. Bah. Though it was a decent enough doppelganger that his mind had concocted, he was well aware that his study partner still predominantly saw him as a pompous annoyance, something he'd been saddled with, and would shed gladly by semester's end.

The problem was that he could not recant the truth of that statement...no matter that it had come in Tedan's voice, his own mind had provided him with that fact from the dredges of his own consciousness. Somewhere, in all of that boisterous, obnoxious chatter that seemed to be all that Virgil's study partner was compiled of....he'd managed to find something attractive. Mayhap it was the way that when he walked- Gods, no. He could not allow himself these childish, ridiculous notions, as they would never get him anywhere, and even if he did allow his more base emotions to get the better of him, the playboy would certainly never go for such things, he was far too enamored of curves in all the right places, curves that the male frame rather noticeably tended to lack.

All right, so mayhap Virgil 'batted for the same team', he could accept that. If he were to look back on the scheme of his life honestly, the man would find that he had always found the male sex more appealing... He had come to the conclusion through a chain of thought that predominantly included logic, and even though his family would never accept such a heinous scandal, Virgil had long ago ceased to care where he rested in their estimation. Unlike most children, he merely integrated the realization into his consciousness, not waffling as to how he was going to break it to the folks or any of that juvenile nonsense, it was a fact of his life, and thus it would merely come out when he saw fit.

That moment came sooner rather than later.

The phone rang vigorously next to his hand (ah, it was Sunday...father always called Sundays), the cell nearly vibrating its way off the coffee table, and Virgil leaned forward to answer it, hearing the familiar voice of his father on the other end, expecting a recount of grades and the things that had gone on during the week. The line of questions and meaningless information as his father explained how business was going soon came to rub against an already annoyed sentience. "Ah yes, well..." Virgil began cordially, "There's something that I have to tell you. You see, I've been considering things, mostly myself in the last few weeks, and I've come to a rather pressing conclusion. I would have called you earlier, but it is a rather recent declaration of self." He took a deep breath, the quiet heavy on the other end of the receiver. If his father was hoping for good news, he would be sorely disappointed. "I'm never going to be what you have pressingly desired for twenty-one years now. I am neither a lawyer, or a doctor, and I do not want to run your business. I am never going to become engaged to some well-bred strumpet and bear you a plethora of grandchildren, I am, in fact, of a homosexual persuasion. I enjoy books, a fine wine, and Beethoven, and abhor both football and baseball, and you can take your PhD in Administrative Sciences and shove it up your a**."

"..." There was a long silence, and finally, the wrath that was held back, shaking under strained tethers of good breeding and an Ivy league education, Stephen Montgomery spoke, "I always knew your mother was going to keep you from being a proper man."

Virgil smiled coldly, "I have seen myself nude in the mirror a good many times, Father, and I can assure you that I am indeed a proper man." With a bite of frigidity in the words, he then hung up the phone without a second thought, rather missing the emphatic sound that an older model of phone might have provided him, a certain satisfaction, when so flippantly severing a long-held tie. Closing his eyes, he allowed himself a slow, calming breath as he set the cell aside. His conviction would not wane now...likely as not he would receive an exquisitely worded, but to the point letter, giving him notice that he was no longer one of theirs, and that he would ne'er be supported by them again, lest he dropped this silly notion and came grovelling back. Peh. If it came, he'd not so much as open it...he'd allow the edict to sit there and rot away, before he gave them the satisfaction of breaking that pretentious wax seal.

In fact, he was going to go tell his study partner...that he would attend that party. He'd already uprooted the deepest foundations of his life, why not upturn the rest of it. He had been an austere, heartless sort of being for most of his life, and even when rejection came, and he predictably wound up alone, the illusion of camaraderie dispelled, it would have at least been a fleeting dream, one of rebellion and upheaval.

And he'd tell no one...of the sinister way that he looked into the dark...and the dark had the audacity to stare back at him.

Taking the steps up to Tedan's dorm two at a time, he paused before the glass doors, the shadows longer and more numerous tonight than on any other, and then...he was simply there, coalescing out of the deep gloom as though he had been wrought from it. He was more prominent than before, the figure in shade and ebon, and Virgil, frozen at the doors, slowly turned his head, to see if this one would fade, skitter into nothingness like those that the youth had always classified as the kin of this foreboding stranger.

"He's not there anymore, you know." Came the cordial voice, "He's already gone."

Instantaneous, was understanding, and Virgil's eyes narrowed, "What have you done?" Demanding, ice ringing clear in the words, as eyes narrowed dangerously, rounding on the being who had been so patiently waiting, ever-curious, before finally demanding an audience.

"I have given him a chance to fight." The reply was simple, "To fight the dark. If he believed, surely I can convince you as well...and then you could join him, you know....to fight the shadows you both find so terrifying."

"Tch." Skepticism, wisdom and logic all strode valiantly to the forefront of this mind, insisting that the young man dispel this one as he had so many nightmares...but a strange, nagging and entirely unfamiliar feeling, concern for another, reared its head, even as the child within him, the small boy huddled in the sheets of his bed, watching as the monsters rode past, demanded the opportunity to know.

"Fine. Convince me..."

----------------------

And it was not an hour hence, that Virgil allowed himself to plunge into that which he had once feared he would never be able to ascertain, the denizens of that other world forever the predators, with mankind standing helpless in their wake. For a chance to become a hunter, he would have sold his soul.

And half of him already wondered if he had.

Luckily, the awakened A-Three had no such qualms.