Chapter 2: Monster Origins and Old Promises

When I awoke, it was midnight. I curled up in a cave, the sound of dripping water outside sharp and clear. The pain from my dream overlapped with reality; I clutched my chest, old wounds and new. Derek was hunting me across heaven and earth, wanting to use my blood to bring back his little phoenix. I doubted I had much longer to live.

The cave was cold and damp, hidden deep in the Appalachian foothills. The darkness pressed in, the air thick with the scent of moss and stone, the distant wind howling like a lost soul. My breath came in short, ragged bursts, every inhale a reminder of what I’d lost—and what I still owed.

I had no choice but to revert to my original form to heal.

It was the only way to survive. My human skin felt too thin, too fragile. I let it slough away, let the monster beneath emerge, ugly and raw, hidden from the world.

My original form is hideous; honestly, I don’t even know what I am. Derek saved me a thousand years ago on a haunted Appalachian mountain. At that time, many monsters had vanished in that area. He followed the clues and found me. I... I am an experiment created by a deranged occultist, who fused countless creatures into me: snake, fox, spider, wolf, rabbit, and other unknown bloodlines. The ability to endlessly grow new hearts probably comes from the earthworm.

I remember the mountain—old trees draped in Spanish moss, the air thick with fog and the smell of wet earth, somewhere deep in the Louisiana bayou. The occultist’s cave was a nightmare of bones and candles, runes scrawled on the walls in blood, like something out of the Blair Witch legend. I was nothing but a heap of fur, scales, and fear, a living patchwork stitched together for someone else’s ambition.

So my original form is truly, truly terrifying.

It’s the kind of thing you see in a nightmare after too much Kentucky bourbon—the sort of monster that would make a grown man clutch his cross and run for the hills. I learned to keep it hidden, never letting anyone see the real me.

From the moment I gained consciousness, I was trapped in that cramped cave. The crazed occultist looked at me like I was the Jersey Devil, forcing me to consume the cores of lesser monsters. I don’t know which creature gave me my brain, nor which gave me my heart, lungs, or limbs. In my haze, I guessed he wanted to refine me into an immortal body. I spent day after day, year after year, in pain and filth.

The days blurred together—endless hunger, endless pain. Sometimes I’d dream of running, but I never got far. I learned to hate the taste of monster cores, the feeling of power burning through veins that weren’t really mine.

Until one day, the cave door was kicked open and light flooded in. Derek stood against the light, one hand waving a silver pocketknife, the other raised slightly, a flame flickering at his fingertip, halos rippling outward. I instinctively followed the light, raising my head from the corner, gazing at the flame with longing. His sharp face was astonished as he looked at me, asking, "What are you?"

He looked like a hero out of an American tall tale—part cowboy, part outlaw, standing in the doorway with a smirk and a dare in his eyes. The light behind him was so bright it hurt my eyes, but I couldn’t look away. For the first time, I felt hope.

At that time, I couldn’t speak yet. Seeing people, I would shrink fearfully into the deepest darkness of the cave, until there was nowhere left to hide.

My voice was a rough rasp in my throat, my limbs trembling. I wanted to answer, but all I could do was cower, heart pounding, waiting for pain.

He forced me into the farthest corner, scrutinizing me: "Did you kill those monsters? Did you eat their cores?"

His voice was sharp, suspicious, but there was a flicker of curiosity there too—like he wasn’t sure whether to pity me or finish what the occultist started.

Just then, the occultist returned, standing at the entrance and roaring, "Who dares touch my immortal experiment!"

The air crackled with tension, like the moment before a bar fight in a backwoods saloon. I shrank into the shadows, watching as Derek squared off with the madman who made me. In that moment, I knew something was about to change forever.

It was only much later, when I used my freshest blood every day to nourish Derek’s essence, that I understood: back then, the occultist, frustrated by the difficulty of gaining immortality, wanted to use me to nurture an immortal body. The best blood is, of course, the most refined drop at the heart’s core—one drop per heart. But it didn’t matter; I am a monster who grows new hearts endlessly.

I spent years trying to understand why I was made, why I survived. In the end, it all came down to blood—who had it, who wanted it, who would bleed for power. I was just another cog in the supernatural machine, a means to an end.

What I lack least is blood.

It’s the one thing I can always give, the one thing I can never seem to keep.

But before he could enjoy his creation, Derek saved me.

He didn’t have to. Maybe he just wanted to spite the occultist, or maybe he saw something in me worth saving. In a moment that felt like pure American rebellion—freedom for the sake of freedom—he cut me loose and took me out into the world.

I am ugly, or rather, terrifying. After Derek saved me and brought me to the underworld, even the fiercest monsters found me disgusting and frightening. Only Derek, perhaps out of pity or curiosity, was always kind to me. He named me Morgan, after Morgan le Fay and the hardships I’d suffered, a nod to both folklore and the promise that my pain would someday be overcome.

He said it with a smile, but I could hear the awkwardness in his voice. Morgan—like the river crossing, like the old legends, maybe even Morgan’s Raid. Maybe he thought it was hopeful. Maybe he just didn’t want to call me "hey, you" anymore.

He’s really not good at naming.

Sometimes I wondered if he just picked the first thing that came to mind. But the way he said it, gentle and deliberate, made it feel like a gift.

Morgan, Morgan—only with hardship can there be crossing. The more you say it, the harder it feels.

The name stuck in my throat like a lump of cornbread. It was a promise and a curse, both at once.

Later, I spent thousands of years proving that my painful monster life had endless hardships to cross.

Every day was a new trial, a new mountain to climb. But I kept going, because he was there, because I wanted to believe the name meant something.