The bus came to a halt with a screech at a desolate bus stop on the edge of town. The door opened, the cold December air instantly rushing in, bringing freshness to the stale interior. From one of the seats at the back, a young man in a dirty hoodie stood up, and scrambled past the rows of dusty seats, fixing the straps of his backpack. He nodded at the driver, and jumped off, his worn-out trainers landing on the cold pavement.
A moment later, the bus' door closed again, and it resumed its journey with loud noise, leaving the young man behind.
Felix fixed his backpack straps again - they were bothering him a lot, ever since one of them broke and he tried to fix it, with hardly a satisfying result - and glanced at the old, weathered sign board.
Silverfall. After his long journey, he finally arrived at a place he intended to make his new home. At least for a while. He pulled the sleeves of his hoodie over his hands for warmth (he really needed to get some winter clothes!) and not wasting any time, headed into the town.
He might have arrived at his destination, but the hardest - or, most difficult, to be precise - part was only about to start.
The truth was, he didn't actually know what to do next. Well, in theory, he knew - find a place to stay, and then a job. But how exactly did a person go about house-hunting? Felix had spent his whole life in the pack, so he was quite ignorant about the ways of the outside world. If he at least had a laptop or a phone… But, running away from the pack, he didn't take any electronics with him, as they could be tracked, and he had yet to buy himself some new ones. Perhaps if there was a bulletin board somewhere, or a 'For Rent' sign in front of any of the houses…
He circled around the town, walking at a brisk pace to fight the cold seeping in through his clothes, too thin for the winter weather. It was still early in the day, the sky hadn't even turned bright yet, so the streets were all empty and quiet. With the mist spreading above the ground, Silverfall resembled a ghost town.
Not that Felix complained. The fewer people he ran into, the better. While he would have to interact with others as he went on about his (future) daily life, it wouldn't do him any good to get too chummy with them. Who knows when someone might realize who he was, and rat him out to the Moonhill Pack for some quick cash…?
Rubbing his arms for warmth, Felix stifled a yawn. All this coldness, when combined with the fact that he hadn't been getting much sleep for weeks now, was making him incredibly tired. He truly wanted nothing more than to curl up somewhere and take a nap… A very long nap…
With the sleepiness taking over both his body and mind, he would almost have missed it. He had already walked past two more houses, before the realization hit him, and he turned back.
There it was, a house with a scribbled out 'For Rent' sign plastered on the half-broken gate, hanging on only one of the two hinges.
The house was… Well, a house. A one-floor building, quite tiny at that. With its front windows boarded up. Surrounded by bushes with a serious need of pruning. And with plenty of rusty cans and other trash rolling around in the high grass.
To put it simply, quite a wreck.
But the location was good. On the outskirts of town, with a lot of privacy. The rent was probably also cheap, considering the house's… less than appealing state. And, while it looked terrible, at least it didn't seem to be falling apart… Perhaps the inside wouldn't be that bad?
Felix couldn't afford to be picky anyway, so he scribbled down the number written on the sign, and went to look for a payphone.
And a few hours later, he had a viewing arranged.
The owner, a bum in his fifties and an ordinary human (thank Goddess! Felix couldn't exactly trust another shifter right now!) opened the front door and let Felix in.
"So, whaddya say? Taking it?" he asked in a harsh, unpleasant tone mere minutes after Felix stepped in. "I don't have for ya to look at every inch!"
Felix bit his lip. Truth be told, he didn't like the place. It was dirty and moldy, dusty and smelly, all the furniture was old - the bad kind of old, on the verge of breaking - and it probably had a lot of other issues his inexperienced eye couldn't pick up on… But what choice did he have? He didn't know when he'd be able to find a different place, and it wasn't like he could sleep on the street, not in this weather, not with his baby on the way…
And he couldn't return to the pack either. Sure, Jared would have welcomed him (although not necessarily pleasantly), especially once he found out Felix was pregnant with his baby. But…
Shaking his head, Felix dismissed the thoughts. No, a nice house wasn't important. What a baby truly needed was a peaceful, warm environment, with plenty of love and care. Money and comfort couldn't replace that, he knew it very well, with his own experience growing up. He was confident he could raise his pup better alone, without the interference of his former pack.
Besides, while the place was in ruin, and a huge downgrade from the en-suite he used to live in, at least he would have a roof over his head… Once he cleaned it up a bit, it should be livable. And most importantly, he'd be safe here.
Or so he thought, until he was woken up in the middle of the night by a strange noise coming from within the house a few days later.