Dedication to @ignite- for this amazing picspam. In case you're wondering, it's about Cassie Reyes. The guy is Damon. 

________________________________

ChapterEighteen: Realization

Halloween. October 2155

At the same time, Liam was in, presumably, Kylie's room still. He kept stroking her hair gently while his mind was racing through many questions. He didn't notice Kylie was waking up slowly. He felt her moving, so he looked down at her. Her eyes were back to their normal white surrounding the hazel pupils.

She looked up at him, and then she looked around the room. She looked back at him with disbelief written on her face. She asked, "You took me into my little sister's room?"

Liam stammered, "I...I didn't...I thought this was your room!"

Kylie sighed as she sat up. Liam looked at her intently as he asked, "What...what are you?"

In the meantime, Mason was driving into a questionable part of town. Hannah had been kicking his seat in front of her. She screamed, "You fucking monsters!! No, you're demons! And vampires!"

Mason chuckled, and said to her in a strange accent, "Only my buddy is a monster. I'm just what you Earth People call me and my people 'humanoids.'"

Hannah groaned, "I know you alien monsters are Natives here! Wait, 'buddy'? What "buddy'?"

He changed the subject by asking, "So we're going to my part of town. I must drive slowly. Others like me are hunting for everything, from food to mates."

She also went back to the original subject by asking, "So are you guys lizards or something?"

Mason made a disgusted face as he replied, "Lizards? Seriously? Has anyone ever thought that maybe all aliens, including you Earth People, all look alike?

Hannah sighed, "I guess so, but still!"

Soon, they both arrived at a house that looked run-down for some reason. Hannah asked, "Okay, this has to be a fairly new city. Why does your neighborhood look so...slummy?"

Mason sighed, "It's the so-called 'bad' part of town. It's also were some of my people live here."

He then parked his car onto the patch of grass in front of his house. He got of the car, and carried Hannah over his shoulders. He entered his house, and saw his parents in front of a TV. Mason cleared his throat, and announced, "Mom! Dad! I got me a mate!"

This angered Hannah, as she was still with James. She began kicking him and screaming, "I have a boyfriend! And he's not you!"

Mason finally put Hannah down. Just as she was about to bolt out of the door, Mason grabbed her wrist. Hannah grunted, "Let me go! I'm not your mate!"

Mason said, "You can't go out there. There's a hunt going on right now. My people will bite you if you take one step out of my house."

Hannah turned to face Mason. His eyes were now normal, with white surrounding his brown pupils. Suddenly, Mason grabbed the croak of her neck with his mouth, and marked her. Hannah winced in pain as she felt his sharp fangs on her skin. She tried to push him off, but instead he pulled away, and carried her into his room.

They went inside his plain yet messy bedroom. He laid her down somewhat gently. Hannah sat up, and told him sternly, "I, Hannah Smith, reject you, Mason Jameson, as my mate!"

Suddenly, the mark was gone. Hannah stared at him for a good minute, waiting to see what would happen to Mason. Mason also stared back at her, but then he broke the stare by laughing. Hannah raised an eyebrow, and asked, 'What's so funny? Why aren't you dropping dead yet?"

Mason scoffed, "Seriously? I'm not a fucking Mutant! My people and I don't 'die' if we get rejected by our mates! We just live and move on!"

Hannah groaned and face-palmed. Then she demanded, "Okay, what the hell is going on here? Aren't you Native aliens supposed to live in your cities?"

He sighed as he sat on a swivel chair by his desk. He explained, "What to know what's going on? First off, this isn't the only Six-City-State to have some of my people live in. All the other cities set up by those Mutants have us living in them. We just try to blend in as much as possible. We're as 'pretty' as the Mutants, so it was easy. But yes, most of my people live in their own, unfenced cities. Oh yeah, here's something to scare you: A few of the Forest Natives live in your precious Mutant-Zombie cities."

She corrected him, "We're not 'Zombies.' We're what the Gen-Mods call us "Normals. Wait, did you say 'Forest Natives'?"

Mason said with annoyance in his voice, "First off, don't interrupt me. Second, you supposed "Normals" look like zombies. I mean, come on! You and your people look like corpses!"

Hannah rolled her eyes, and said, "Look, my people lived in underground cities for almost a century. That's why we look like 'corpses.'"

"Whatever. Anyway, as to how my people got into your cities, we had to walk through the forests. Of course we ran into the Forest Natives, which...let's just say they're more, well, vicious than we City Natives are. And we brought them along! We walk up to a super high commuter train station in the middle of the forests. It connects the trains to any of the Six-City-States. We all climb up onto the ladders that are on the poles. We make sure we climb in the dead of night so we would have time to disguise ourselves as Mutants, or 'Gen-Mods' as you Earth People call them. Then we all get on the trains to move into the cities. My parents? My mother is from a Native city, and my father is a Forest Native. They both came here when they were kids."

Hannah's eyes widen when she heard that. She never heard about the Forest Natives until now. She was scared, so she asked, "Is...is your father..."

Mason replied, "No. He told me he was quite calm and tame when he was a kid. As he got older, he did his best to suppress his inner monster. We call that thing a Hunter. And don't show fear."

Hannah stammered, "Why? What's a Hunter?"

He explained, "We Natives can sense your fear of us. Don't worry. We won't do anything to you if we're as ourselves. But if our Hunters take over, oh boy. As for what a Hunter is...nah, I'm not gonna tell you."

"What? Why not?"

All Mason did was smirk as he said, "There's food in fridge. The couch is a futon. Make yourself at home until tomorrow morning."

With that, he walked out of his room. Hannah got out her phone, and called James. She was sent straight to voicemail, so she tried texting him. She walked out of his room as she waited for her boyfriend to text her back.

Back at Kylie's house, Cassie and Damon were still in the kitchen. Cassie heard how quiet it gotten. With that, she grabbed the passed-out Damon, and carried him effortlessly over her shoulder. She took him outside, and laid him down on the grass.

As soon as he was laid down, Damon began to move as he was waking up. He opened his eyes, revealing his natural dull-blue eyes. He looked up at Cassie, who was holding a branch that was on the ground. She held it to his face, and demanded, "What are you?"

Damon, feeling scared, stammered, "I-I don't know..."

Cassie raised an eyebrow as she asked, "You don't know what you are? Where are you from?"

"I told you! I'm from the German State of Europe!"

Cassie's voice cracked with emotion as she shouted, "Don't lie to me! You're a Native!"

Damon tried to sit up, but she wouldn't let him. He said, "I'm not a Native! I never even grew up on this planet! I mean, look at me! I look like a dead person!"

"Prove to me you're from Earth!"

"Let me stand up, and then I'll tell you!"

Cassie cautiously moved the branch away from Damon. He stood up slowly, and began to speak: "I was born in 2138 in Unterkatz underneath Munich. My parents were born and raised in the German State of the EU. And so were my grandparents, and so forth. I lived in a underground city that was decaying all over the place due to the pressures of Munich above us; the moisture all around; and continental shifting. There were many of us that were sick due to mold, including myself. Although, I did heal quite quickly, much faster than everyone else. But still. Oh, my first language is German, but I was required to learn both English and Russian."

With that, Damon took a deep breath to calm down. Then he added, "I don't know what I am. I don't know anything about the Natives. I just know they supposedly look like us, but have fangs and sharp nails...which is what I have. There are others like me from Earth. Lots of them. And we don't know what we are. We hate it. We just want to be treated as Normals, not some alien vampires who look like zombies."

Cassie began to relax, and put the branch down on the ground. She looked at him with a mixture of emotions running inside of her. She asked, "Did...did you know what you just did in the kitchen a while ago? Do you remember what happened?"

Damon sighed as he explained, "I saw everything I did...but that wasn't me. It...I don't know what to call it. It's like there are two persons inside of one body. There's me, the person that's talking to you, then...then there's this demon. I try my best to suppress the monster living inside of me, and I hate him so much. I hate that he can come out when he wants to. I do have control over him. I can summon him at will, but it's something I don't ever want to do. But yes...you are my mate. I never wanted him to come out...but I had to let him out. I needed you to know what I am, and who he is. I guess the Natives have the same thing, but I never met a Native. I don't know what I am. I'm...I'm just a monster. If you reject me, I'll be okay with it."

Cassie looked down at the grass. She didn't want to lose her mate. She had always wanted an Undergrounder to love for life. But this? Her mate was a monster. A physical definition of a case of Jekyll and Hyde. Yet he was beautifully handsome. His muscular. His face was perfectly flawed with asymmetry, yet there was no acne. His hair was a shiny brown that shone underneath the two moons in the night sky. Still, he was a Native, or something like that. Something both her parents and her brother told her to stay away from.

She sighed as she looked up at him. She told him, "I'm...I'm not rejecting you. You'll still be my mate. I...I just need to let all of this sink in."

Damon nodded, and asked, "Can I have a ride home? Please?"

Cassie also nodded as she led him to her car. She had to drive slow as she saw Natives that seem to be scourging around the neighborhood. Damon said, "They're hunting for something. I've seen this back in Unterkatz. But they would only let them do this for one time, and that was it."

She asked him, "Did you do something like this?"

"I did, but that was when my whatever-it-is first came out...a week before I left Earth."

Before they knew it, they were at Damon's house. He looked at her sadly, and said, "I'm sorry. Goodnight."

With that, Damon walked out of the car, and walked into his house. Cassie kept her eyes on the street. She had a lot running through her mind, but most of all, she was afraid of what Breyden would say. She does love Damon, but she doesn't want to be sent back to the cold, burning hell called Earth. She doesn't want to be forced to reject her mate, the one true love she always wanted.

After about an hour, she arrived back on the military base. She drove up to her house. She walked inside, trying her best to block her vibes from being deduced. She saw Breyden playing with his twin daughters. He looked up as soon as she walked in. He noticed her face looked distracted, so he asked, "Cassie? Is everything okay?"

She looked Breyden. She gulped as she knew her older brother would find out the truth eventually. There's no point in lying to a Gen-Mod when they already know the truth. So she said to him nervously, "My mate is a Native, and I didn't even know it. I couldn't deduce it one bit. And yet he's from Earth."

With that, Breyden froze as he stared at her. He then placed his girls onto the couch, and walked up his little sister. He told her, "There were reports that those people existed on Earth. We called them 'Hunters' because they hunt. They hunt for food, for material things, for mates. But not much else was known about them. But you're saying they look exactly like the Natives, and they hunt?"

Cassie nodded, and then she pleaded, "Please don't make me reject Damon, and please don't send me back to Earth! I love him, and I don't ever want to step foot onto that hellhole!"

Breyden sighed, "Fine, you can keep him, and stay here. But be careful of these people. Make sure he doesn't bite you."

"Why would he bite me? What would happen if he did so?"

He looked at her gravely as he replied, "If he bites you, he'll die of radiation poisoning."