I spent most of my childhood in Benton, Maryland. It was a peaceful enough place to grow up in, all things considered--not as developed back then, but then again, nowhere was.

I enjoyed freedom and solitude. I didn't enjoy much more than that. We were outsiders from the get-go. My parents were reluctant immigrants; from the moment they set hoof on American soil to the day they died, they merely tolerated America and Americans.

Their hearts resided across the Atlantic, one of the few things they spoke of fondly, and often. But I had no history with this purported homeland. Whatever fondness I held for it was inherited, not earned; it was simply the only thing I knew, unquestioned, taken for granted.

I think I even resented my blood, felt that it was holding me back. Until my sister was born, I had no friends, and mere months after, Mother returned home, and my bubble became a prison.

It was just the three of us, now.

We lived alone just beyond the town's limits. We grew some of our food, foraged for most of it. We were independent, but very little else.

As a kid, I never wanted anything more than to see what lay beyond the frontier. From the distance, I could see rooftops; any goat worth its salt wants to browse, and I was no exception. But they treated the matter with immense seriousness and told me that the city was dangerous and its people hateful. No; I was supposed to sit and wait for the Issue to be solved so we could travel back to a home I didn't know, to a city full of people like us. But the Issue was never resolved or elaborated on, and our only updates about it were increasingly defeated letters from Mother and an eventual unexplained silence. Whatever the matter was, I suppose it died with them.

Father's favorite deterrents were the dogs. 'If the humans see you, they'll send their dogs at you.' I always thought that was so strange, but as a kid, you don't question. It wasn't that I thought dogs were strange, mind you, we had plenty of strays and feral dogs in the area. But the idea of an animal taking orders? That sounded like make-believe to me. Animals were pests, competitors, annoyances--never allies.

I was about fifteen when curiosity won over at last and I got into the habit of sneaking out at night and visiting the city. There was a house near the outskirts, a big, blocky one with large windows and a strange orange light glowing inside, and it felt so alien and warm compared to our little shack, like a treasure chest full of juicy secrets and riches.

On my first night, I hopped the fence without a second thought. I remember noticing how white it was, and how useless it must have been to keep the animals out.

Turns out it was there to keep them in.

The moment I set hoof on the lawn, a dog jumped out of the shadow at me, barking and biting, and I immediately panicked. Now I know it was a German Shepherd, but back then it looked like a messed-up wolf to me! I ran home and didn't look back.

I tried other houses and found them all guarded as well. But I wanted to see, I wanted to see so badly! So I stole Father's ax and tried again.

Now, you have to understand that the house I grew up in presented dogs as monsters, boogeymen, unthinking beasts only there to tear us apart. They succeeded in scaring me a bit too well; I learned to see dogs as obstacles. How does one handle obstacles? By removing them. In retrospect, all of it seems so mindlessly cruel. I was a stupid kid, a kid led astray, but still, you know? People's loving companions found dead on the porch, tapping on people's windows as they slept, dents on cars because they'd startled me with their alarms. And at the end of each night, an increasingly brazen kid ran back home, thinking nobody would ever be the wiser.

The letter came a few weeks after I started going out at night. My father was livid. He handed it to me without a word, as if the paper burned his fingers. It was the bigwigs, and they were pissed. They gave meI had two options: prison, or reeducation, and because I could barely conceptualize either of them, so I picked the one that sounded like 'education'.

They came for me in the middle of the night, in a black van. People like us, but not like us--people of species that left as big a mark in American folklore as my people did in the old legends back home. I was so confused, so fascinated. They were nice; they were the first people I knew who didn't treat questions as personal attacks. Rather, they spoke with me all night long, asked a bunch of things about my life, and even tried explaining what their organization was, all while Father fumed and swore in the mother tongue. To be fair, I didn't understand much of what they told me. I had no framework to understand any hierarchy not based on the family unit.

But it all sounded incredible.

I think they saw the situation I was in and chose to humor me. Certainly, most agents I've met since haven't been so forthcoming, even when we're on the same team.

In the end, they brought my sister too. The last thing Father told me as I left were, "I knew they'd eventually take you, too." I didn't understand it back then. Still don't.

I had to serve time in the Houston facility, then community service in Lake Worth. Ranger's assistant. Strictly grunt work, of course, but the kind that sends you out to the world, to interact with different Hidden communities, to stay with them, to learn from them. After nearly two decades in solitude, this 'punishment' felt like a reward. I had classes, I had access to TV and newspapers, and most importantly, I had time to think.

When my time was up, they offered me a job. I took them up on it without a second thought and was shipped off to training within the month. That was in '72, the best year of my life.

I wasn't really trying to become a legend in three different places, but I guess I'm just that bad at staying hidden. Either way, this is all prelude. The real story starts two years later, on a train track.