Alex towered over the kid, pondering what to do as the inky and shadowy wolf stood over the boy in a defensive stance. Honestly, he wasn't sure what he was going to do because he hadn't expected any of this. Alex stood and thought for a moment. What should he do?

He squatted down, making his frame appear smaller to the kid, and stretched out his hands. He was fairly sure he could handle the wolf if need be, but he just wanted to talk. He did his best to smile, but how the kid looked up at him made him doubt he was succeeding.

"Hey," Alex said as he looked down at the kid. "I'm not here to hurt you. I just want to ask some questions. I saw you staring back there, and I think you know something."

The kid backed away further up the wall with a soft cry, and the wolf advanced closer.

"I really, really don't want to do this." Alex sighed, holding up his hands but not backing away. "This town is giving me the creeps, and you're one of the few people I've seen without a mask. I just want to know what's going on here."

"No mask," the boy whispered as if he was seeing Alex for the first time. "Never put on the mask."

"Why's that?"

The wolf was edging closer, but Alex didn't move. He reflexively tightened his hands into fists, but he knew if he broke the wolf, the kid definitely wouldn't talk. Things like torture or harming people were always more effective in movies than in reality, not that he had seen a movie in half a decade. Honey worked better than blood.

"Hey, shadow-thing." Alex looked at the wolf and cracked his fingers across his neck. "I'm not going to harm the kid, but you need to back off. I can't hold a conversation while you're threatening me."

"Don't hurt him!" The kid jumped forward, wrapping his hands around the wolf's neck. "He's my brother!"

Alex raised an eyebrow at that. To his eyes, it was a curse of some kind. He may not know the actual ability or precisely what it did, but anything strange, like a goo-formed wolf, would be a curse. Like the spaghetti guy from Landry's manor, curses came in all shapes and forms. However, there was no way that this wolf creature was actually the kid's brother.

"We need to slow this down," Alex said, holding up his hands in defeat. "Look. I'm Alex. I came with my friends to this town to investigate something. When we got here, we got thrown into this mess. I just want to know what is going on here."

The kid looked up at Alex from where he had hugged the wolf. The kid held tight to that inky and shadowy substance, and Alex had to wonder what he was thinking. Was he debating whether he could trust the strange man who had chased him down the alley? In the kid's shoes, Alex wouldn't.

"The masks change people," the kid whispered. "The masks eat away at them. They change them from the inside."

"What do you mean?" Alex moved from his squatting position to sit down on the cobblestones.

"Back when my...my parents first took us here," the kid whimpered into the wolf's side. "They didn't have masks, but the townspeople came one night and forced one on them. My brother hid me beneath the bed. He told me to stay quiet."

Alex clenched his jaw tight. He thought back to all those people in the square, playing music and dancing. They had come down on a family and forced them to wear the same masks. This town had something wrong, and he needed to know what.

"They didn't find you?" Alex asked, keeping his voice to a whisper.

The kid shook his head and buried it into the wolf. Alex wanted to press the kid on that, but he had to be careful. He was about to lose the kid, and he didn't know if he would step on an emotional landmine with his questions. He wasn't a psychologist or anything.

"They fought the people with masks, and the people with masks didn't like it." The kid coughed. "They didn't stop."

Alex was getting a better picture. The kid's family had fought back, so the townspeople had given up on putting the masks on them. He didn't know precisely what the masks did, but it was like he had walked into a horror movie.

"They better not start chanting 'For the greater good,'" Alex whispered.

Clickety-clack.

Alex spun to look down the alley. A figure stood at the end of it, staring directly at him and the kid. Alex could see the mask on the figure's face in the light of a nearby lamp. The porcelain mask was smiling widely before the figure ducked out of sight and ran away.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Kid," Alex said, reaching out past the wolf and grabbing onto the kid's arm. "We're getting out of here. We'll figure out everything else later."

The wolf lunged for him, and sharp teeth bit down into Alex's arm. Alex grunted but stood up, tossing the kid into his arms as the kid struggled against him. The wolf continued to bite him as he took a running jump onto a nearby crate and a second leap onto a rooftop. From the alley below, he could hear the sounds of people yelling and the alarm being raised.

"Alright, kid, wolf. I'm going to run." Alex warned them as he sprinted across the slanted rooftops.

He was fast, both in terms of normal human speed and in terms of his technique. He didn't need to use his Path of Step to outrun a normal person, even when the increased ability of the people on the nightsea was considered. Given the distance between him and the ground, he didn't need to use 'step' to get ahead.

He focused his path away from the docks and out into the greater town. Fog clouds clung around him, limiting his vision, but his open gate mitigated that disadvantage.

He dropped down at the end of the rooftops, following along the rising hills toward the edge of the cove. He saw a hill that jutted out in the fog ahead of him, and Alex set that as his goal. The kid stopped struggling in his arms, but the wolf wouldn't let go of its grip.

Alex jumped down from the rooftops and into the fog again as he approached the hilltop. He made his way up to the top and out of the fog cloud before he set the kid down. The wolf still bit into his arm, and Alex held it out and looked at it. As near as he could tell, it was a construct made of the black goo the boy could generate. However, it also seemed outside the kid's control, which was unusual.

"Brother," the kid whispered up to the wolf. "You can let him go now."

The wolf opened its yellow eyes and looked around. Finally, it dropped down to the ground and returned to its owner, running circles around him before standing protectively at his side again. Alex shook his head as he took a seat on the grass.

"Alright, kid," Alex said, holding his hands open and wide. "We should be safe from those masked guys. Let's get it all settled right now."

The kid looked between Alex and the bite marks on his arm. While they had been bleeding during the trip while the wolf hung on and itched something fierce, they were already scabbing over and healing. In a little while, the bite marks would be gone entirely.

"It's fine, kid," Alex said, waving off the look. "Start with your name. I'm getting tired of calling you kid."

"Klaus," the boy stuttered as he wrapped his arms around the wolf. "My name is Klaus."

"Alright, Klaus." Alex cracked a smile. "Your family was killed by those people with masks; that much is easy."

He stopped and rethought his words before he made a kid cry.

"That part I understand." He raised up a finger. "The second thing I want to know is what your curse is."

"My curse?" the kid asked.

"The wolf," Alex said. "More accurately, the goo that goes with the wolf. What is that?"

"I don't know." Klaus sniffled, wrapping his arms around the wolf's neck. "I've had him since the people came with the masks. My brother said he would protect me, so he's my brother protecting me."

"Huh?" Alex raised an eyebrow. "Does it feel like there's an open gate inside of you? Something that's causing power to flow through your body?"

Klaus shook his head.

"Weird," Alex said, looking down at the wolf.

Maybe it wasn't a curse. Maybe it was something new and different in the nightsea. Alex had no clue. He shook his head to clear out those thoughts. Exploring the mysteries of Erth could take a backseat until he figured out everything else.

"Okay, what about those masks? Do you know anything about how people get those?"

The kid began to shake, and Alex immediately regretted asking the question. Again, he was just too blunt to deal with people in emotional distress. This time, however, the wolf came to his rescue, curling around the boy and nuzzling into him.

Eventually, the crying stopped, and Klaus looked up through tear-filled eyes. "The doctor. The doctor is the one who puts masks on people. When the mask is on them, they change."

Alex took in a deep breath. Now, he was getting somewhere.

"Do you know where people get the mask put on them?" Alex asked.

"There's a place down by the docks," Klaus said as he looked back toward the town. "The doctor works there. When people are taken in, they come out with the masks."

Alex looked down at the town below the hill. If he squinted, he could make out the glowing area of lights around the docks. Already, the light was dimming. Maybe the call to alarm had driven people away from their festivities. Maybe they were going to bed.

Alex grimaced. His answers now would either be down by the docks or in capturing a masked townsperson to find out what they knew. He looked back at Klaus. There was no way he would carry the kid with him, of that much he was sure.

"Do you have a safe place to stay?" Alex asked. "I assume you have something if you've been out on the streets as long as it looks like, but will you be okay while we figure this out?"

Again, he had to kick himself a little for how he phased it. He wasn't the best at dealing with people, let alone kids. However, to his credit, Klaus didn't cry or blanch at the words.

The kid looked up to him with very dark eyes. Klaus looked like he had spent a lifetime out in the streets, running from masked people every day and night. Had he had a single night of peace since his parents and brother were taken from him?

"I do," he said. "My brother keeps me safe."

"Okay," Alex said. "Then go there and hide. My friends and I will see about this doctor. He might have the answers we need anyway."

Klaus nodded to him and began to walk away, back down into the fog with his wolf following behind him. He turned and waved before he was out of sight in the mist. Alex waved back before Klaus disappeared in the fog.

"I've got a bad feeling about this," he said to himself as he looked down over the town once again.

Everything about Cragg Hollow had rubbed him the wrong way the second he came to town. The job he had taken rubbed him the wrong way as well. The secrets he knew Erin was hiding rubbed him the wrong way. Now, he stood on a hill, fussing over what to do about everything that rubbed him the wrong way. With a nod, he started down the hill and toward the rooftops.

It was about time he started rubbing his problems the wrong way.