All in all, i really expected that to go worse. It was just me, Roy, and the stillness of the open lake. As well as a dead fish. That meal was good.

Real good.

I am now cancer free, if you couldn't believe it. Now i only have the monster to worry about. Something happened to me, while i slept.

Wick Candern is no more, only a beast wearing his clothes. I was never one for prose and fancy words, i'm a southerner, for fuck's sake. What Oklahoma sticks kid talks like this?

Long story short, i was playing around in the woods and made a deal with a demon. Motherfucker monkey's pawed me, and now...I'm this. If my drinking was a problem before, it's a federal fucking matter now.

I met up with Roy, friend of mine (wow it is something to say that.) and miracle-making old soul. We texted a little bit and met up at a little lake somewhere in Arnotkansas, Middlanowere. Guy's good, real good. Wise, teacherly, one-eyed understanding. Was shaking in my brand new hooves when i showed up to meet him, paranoia ran high as i saw him, and this is where i learned i could make the Mew of an Elk...Bugle? My sources are sparse. Fuck it, Elk noise. I can make those. When i actually showed up and spoke to the guy, my voice had changed, and to be honest, it scared the utter shit out of me. Took me a second to get used to.

Okay, i'm here to write, document my experiences. When i walked up to him, i asked him to if he had something to drink, after confirming it was still me. He didn't actually give me a response, just looked through me. Not at me, though me. Naturally, figured i had something behind me, so i up and turned around and...Nothing. Not exactly a shocker he'd never seen something like me before, for fuck's sakes every time i look in the mirror i

moving on. I explained to him why we had to meet up here, and not the city, or anywhere else. I just can't bring myself to leave house anymore, i haven't gone into town in a good little while. I'm always scared, never calm, not even when i know i'm alone. Paranoia's making me skittish, ''Like a prey creature in a predator's body.'' Is how i put it, and it's a pretty good analogy. Roy told me something which i probably won\t forget for a good long while.-

"You're still you though..." He put his hand up in the air, running his fingers through something, sorta. ''You may have changed, but at your core you're still the same. There are some ways in which we will always be the same. Some parts of us that, though all the horrible things life will throw at us, they remain a core part of who we are." Put his hand down after that, kept going along. "I can see that that part of hasn't changed, the part of you that got all of us out of those mines. That part of you is something you can never lose." And i...Really didn't expect that, to be honest. Had to sit, take a breather. Calmed me down like an anxious show horse, or an overprotective dog in the woods. After that we talked about eachother's dads. Poor son of a bitch didn't even have one, ran out before he was born. Bless his mother's heart. 

Told him some things about the Candern family handgun, the M1911 i still carry around with me all these years later, it's family tradition to respect that gun with your life, to pass it down to your wife, then your kid. Kind of a shame it happened to me so abruptly, but if i somehow ever, and i mean ever, have children, i hope the next Candern will treat it like i have, like my father has, and his father's father before him. Poppop died when i was only 17, ma followed him soon after at 19. Hard to believe it's only been a few years... It's why i moved up here, i followed in my dad's footsteps and bought this piece of shit cabin and

sorry, got sidetracked. You can tell i'm a little wistful about the ol' family history. Tensions were running high, so i just lit myself a smoke and let the guy talk. He told me something about his dreams, how they clear up his head a bit, let him scope in a little easier, that sort of thing. I listened along with the occasional drag, but i eventually told him about my dreams. They're nothing special, just your run of the mill hermit thoughts, so not too important to note here. He told me this- "I wouldn't call it magical necessarily... Mine are too logical for that. All I know is that at the end of every one is a word. Every time there is one, without fail. I had one of those dreams before coming here... But, it never gave me a word... and..." He paused for a second, lookin for a few words. "I think it's because of you..."

And of course upon hearing this i had to hold myself back from letting out a good-old-fashioned ''Ex-Fucking-Scuse me?'' Because you don't just drop that like, hells-on-earth man. Side tangent over, he continued on. "I can't quite explain it. But ever since I came here it's like there's something off about you. It's not your new body or anything like that... It's..." Again, guy was really struggling here, i understood his plight. Talking to people is hard, hey? i'm better with dogs. "It's like you're reading a comic, and in every panel, one of the characters is just... tilted let's say. Or like seeing a book placed on a shelf upside down. nothing is wrong with it but it just feels off.'' I had a bit of trouble understanding what he meant, i was never a comic kid. I just played fetch with Sif a lot of the time, hit trees with sticks, that sort of thing. Anyways...

I stood up, accidentally bit my cigarette in half and damn near swallowed the filter end. I gave him some pretty good reasons as for the source of his confusion, at least in my eyes.  ''Could be the fact i'm a modern day forest druid with a kick for the occult and a drinking problem. That's not something you see every day. Even on my own, without all these gifts, i'm a pretty wild case. Lived in the sticks all my days with a gun in my hand and alcohol in my system, dirt poor game hunter.'' I will admit, i rambled a little bit here, honestly surprised it took me this long to start losing it, but i ended it with this.

''To put it in simple words; i'm practically a wild fuckin' animal.''

And somehow, with all that, i still missed the mark, makes sense why too. I'm a better shot when i'm drunk, and i was about as sober as a taxi driver then. ''Although that is definitely unique it's still not quite it." Again, he started staring through me, freaked me out. A stare that powerful with only one eye? Thank lords he doesn't have two, probably stop my heart on the spot just looking at me.  "It's like there's something... linked to you that isn't supposed to be there... it's almost like I could..." It was at this point he actually managed to get close enough to touch me. Man must be one hell of a therapist, because i didn't even flinch, hell, i didn't move at all. When he touched me, some kinda radiation colored blue light came out of his hands, at this point, i was so freaked out i just couldn't move. He looked about the same too, because he had no clue what he was doing in the first place. The light entangled me as we exchanged confused statements, the general consensus was ''What's going on?'' 

Once the light stopped moving around me, he stepped back, and then it converged in on me and...I can't even begin to describe what happened. It felt like i just stopped existing, fried my brain for a good twenty-odd seconds. Suddenly, he looked like a kid on christmas as he'd asked me if i saw ''The Cube'' and i, fresh out of that, was confused. very very confused. Then he started to ramble and ramble and it all just started blurring into a drone as my tinnitus flared up again.

My brain kicked into autopilot then, like i was watching my body go forth and enact some plan. He just talked and talked and then i dove antlers first into the river, i must've been hungry because the next thing i remember is him looking mighty dissapointed, i was soaked and i'd just killed a fish with my teeth. We must've exchanged a few words in that time, he finally was speaking a language i understood. Also known as English.  "Sorry, yes, um... How do I explain this...Well. it's hard to describe, but it's like I... turned you, like you were at an angle and I put you back facing the right way... It's hard to explain if you can't actually see what I'm talking about." I felt for him, talking about something nobody understood was a pretty common experience. Karen at the Wal-Mart always gave me the worst looks when i told her about what i did for a living. Then there was that guy at the McDonalds who just kept staring at me as i went on about that time i picked up a gun off the hands of a dead cultist. Anyways, point is, we were kindred spirits in that moment, i feel. ''No, no, it makes sense. You sent me rightways and now i'm good again. Fixed whatever was metaphorically wrong with me, also physically...Cancer and all. You think that works for hangovers?''

I was there again, the old Wick. Laughing and joking about his problems, brushing them off with friendly chatter, stead of the horrified monster that stood infront of Roy. Now that i'm completely cancer free, i wagered the guy a lifedebt, told him i'd always keep an eye on him. I almost felt a little sad when he declined. Having a friend to stick your neck out for...Wasn't really something i had growing up. When we both went our seperate ways, the guy actually called me his friend. All in all, i went home that day happy, fed, and clean.

Today was a good day for Wick Candern.