The Coming Storm by Flynn Eire

he had several hot breakfast burritos ready for me and anyone else who wanted them even though it was lunch time, knowing we’d stayed up late. The man knew how to spoil someone that was for sure.
    And then it was time to leave. I waved goodbye to Max and Eric as everyone else got in their designated vehicles before I approached Daniel.
    “I pray your journey be safe and we meet again, dear Chicago,” he said as he trailed his fingertips down the side of my face before slowly lowering his lips to mine. I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him with all I had, telling him I hoped the same. When we pulled apart, I saw fear in his eyes that I knew was reflected in mine.
    It wasn’t anything mushy like we were afraid this would be our last kiss, though that would suck. We were facing end of the world shit going on. Only an idiot wouldn’t be scared. And neither of us were that.
    I hopped into the Hummer’s backseat, next to Aurelo, and glanced back at Daniel and the castle when we started to pull away.
    “You okay?” he asked me under his breath, trying not bring my obvious anxiety into focus.
    “Just trying to commit the image and moment to memory,” I answered as I kept staring, taking in every detail. “Even if we make it back here, it won’t be like this, and we all know it. He won’t be the same and neither will we, not with what’s coming. I just want to remember this moment and things like this.”
    “Things could turn out for the better. Maybe our kinds coming into the open could be a good thing.”
    I turned and looked at him then, accepting the breakfast he held out to me. “You don’t believe that for a moment, Aurelo. Please don’t give me any bullshit lines.”
    “No, no, I don’t believe that,” he sighed as his head thumped back against the seat. “I’ve seen too much. In a world full of humans that hate each other for the stupidest reasons and themselves most times, they won’t accept us.”
    “What do you mean?” Boston asked from the driver’s seat.
    “In the past hundred years alone there has been so much hate. Whites hated blacks because they saw them as not equal. Blacks hated whites because they were oppressive, and some of that has changed, and most of the reasons, but there’s still lingering hate. Any religion can hate the rest and kill in the name of it when none of them really know the answer because they’re not god and to say they know as much as him is the true blasphemous sin.
    “Even if any group doesn’t say they outrightly say they hate the other, there’s hate in their words and actions when they disagree or fight them saying they’re wrong. Democrats say Republicans are wrong. Some hate minorities. Women are still oppressed. Gays are hated by some and beaten for who they love, not allowed to marry who they love. Southerners sneer at those from the North at times over a war that has been over for how long now?
    “So yeah, anyone who thinks that if vampires, shifters, fairies, and any other magical or mythical creature came out as real in this world they would be accepted is high or delusional. There would be no sunshine or rainbows, no teenage girls swooning to date the misunderstood vampire who hunts Bambi.”
    “Because you guys don’t drink animal blood,” Orlando chuckled.
    “Because we’re not fucking misunderstood,” Aurelo clarified. “And the reality is always harsher than the fantasy. I’ve always said that it’s not that there’s not intelligent life on other planets. On the contrary, in a vast star system and infinite planets out there, I think there is. They just won’t ever come here.”
    “They don’t have the technology to?” I wasn’t sure where he was going with this.
    He glanced at me with a raised brow. “No. They’re smart enough not to go to the one planet that would instantly blow their heads off just for showing up and not being human.”
    “That is a very scary, very logical, and very valid point,” Orlando