The ceiling was blank, empty, meaningless, but with a nothingness that was so enticing to his little eyes, until the sound of the door cranking open snapped his attention away. His tiny heart hammered rigidly against his ribs. He knew danger when he heard it.
So he ran.
His legs, short and unsteady, carried him as fast as they could up the stairs. He stumbled on the last step, palms slapping the hardwood as he caught himself. No time to cry. No time to think; he was sure there was trouble. He scrambled up the last few steps, threw open his parents' bedroom door and froze. His soul left him at that instant.
Their bodies were sprawled on the floor, limbs twisted in unnatural angles. Their eyes wide, lifeless, staring at nothing. Two bullet holes, perfectly centered on their foreheads. Blood pooled beneath them, dark and thick.
His breath hitched. His mind, sharp beyond his years, reeled.
Move. Now.
Logic screamed at him to flee as the approaching thump of footsteps grew louder, but his feet were rooted to the spot, pressing so hard into the wooden floor he might have left imprints.
He was only two years old.
And yet, he understood perfectly the cold still hands of death.
***--***
A Child Unlike Any Other; those were the exact words that described him.
From the moment he was born, Matthew McConaughey was different.
He opened his eyes and truly saw minutes after birth. Rejected his cradle at two months, crawling out every time his parents turned their backs. He didn't babble like other infants. He observed. Silently. Calculating. Dark eyes tracking every movement in the room, planning his next action; when to eat, when to sleep, when to offer that small calculated giggle that made his mother's face light up like sunrise.
By four months he could walk; he simply chose to reveal it at six months, that day his mother cried happy tears and pressed him so tightly to her heart he could feel it beating for him. By one year he spoke in full, perfect sentences.
His parents had been proud at first; especially his mother, who was the oblivious party. "A genius," she would whisper, a prodigy. Any time out with her friends, he was the topic of pride.
But then the questions started. Only his father remained unphased.
The doctor; bald, scalp gleaming like polished bone under fluorescent lights; had stared at Matthew with disgust, as though the child were a failed experiment wearing human skin.
"Are you… certain… this boy is yours?" the doctor asked.
Matthew's father stiffened. "What exactly are you implying?"
The doctor hesitated. "His brain development… it's not human. Not fully. The density of his mini-columns; it's something we only see in other races. Vampires. Werewolves."
A cold silence filled the room.
Matthew, barely three months old, sat on the examination table, pretending to be fascinated by his toy while every word that hung in the room burned itself into his memory.
His father laughed, but the sound was tight. "He's human. You ran every test. Even dragged him out under a full moon; no reaction. He's just… brilliant. Like me."
The doctor didn't look convinced.
Neither did the others.
There were Prophecies; originals and forgeries alike.
Whispers followed Matthew wherever he went.
The elders of the Lunar Clan, ancient vampires who measured time in centuries, watched him with narrowed crimson eyes. They spoke of a time called the Dark Ages, when two beings of unimaginable power would unite and bring ruin to the world.
One of those beings was said to come from the lost tribe of Harkma.
And Matthew fit the description too well.
"Young one," an elder had once hissed, leaning so close Matthew smelled grave-dust and old blood on his breath, he had wondered consciously towards the an attic when his parents' eyes left him for a second , "you should not exist. I know what you are."
Matthew hadn't flinched. He had simply stared back with those too-old eyes till his father came and took him away.
That same night, his parents received their first death threat.
"I don't like this... I really do not like it... Honey if our lives are in danger, I think it's best we move"
"Moving is no solution... And the Vampires are under a strict law when it comes to their with us humans... So we're practically invisible".
---
Then came the night that changed everything.
Winter clawed its way through the cracks of the house, snuffing the last embers in the fireplace.
Matthew sat alone in the living room, legs dangling off the couch that was too big for him. Most two-year-olds would be asleep at 2 a.m.
Not him.
Then the stifled bang upstairs.
Minutes later the front door flung open
He didn't hesitate. He ran.
But it was already too late.
His parents were gone.
The footsteps that had matched his heartbeat stopped directly behind him.
A hand; large, warm, impossibly gentle; wrapped around his torso and lifted him clean off the ground. Matthew thrashed once, instinctively , then stilled. The grip was iron, yes, but it did not hurt. It felt… safe. A word he had never associated with any touch except his mother's.
"Hey, boy."
The voice was deep, calm, a low rumble that somehow drowned out the terror in his chest.
Matthew twisted. The man was tall; impossibly so; with hair the color of dark cocoa and eyes blacker than the midnight outside. Something beautiful and steady lived in those eyes, something that looked at Matthew and did not flinch from what it saw.
"You shouldn't be here," the man murmured, voice soft enough that it felt like a secret meant only for him. "You're too young to see death."
Matthew's breath came in short, frantic gasps. Tears burned, but his voice; when it came; was steady. "They didn't deserve it. Someone… shot… them."
The man's brows lifted, just slightly. Surprise. Maybe wonder.
"What's your name, kid?"
"Matthew McConaughey. I turned two last week."
A pause. Then the slowest, warmest smile Matthew had ever seen; not the proud, brittle smiles of adults showing off a clever pet, but something real. Something that reached his eyes and made the darkness feel smaller.
"Stanley Garrett," the man said. "And you, Matthew, don't sound two at all."
He shifted Matthew higher against his chest, one arm cradling him as easily as if he weighed nothing. The warmth of his coat smelled like pine and gun-oil and something faintly like coming snow. Matthew's fingers curled, unbidden, into the fabric. He didn't understand why he wasn't afraid anymore.
"You're coming with me," Stanley said, already moving toward the door. "This place isn't safe."
Matthew didn't argue.
But as they stepped over the threshold into the freezing night, he glanced back one last time.
And there it was; in the shadows of his parents' room; a figure.
Dark. Smiling.
Nothing but teeth visible in the gloom.
Then it was gone.
A violent shiver tore through Matthew's small body.
Stanley's arm tightened, almost imperceptibly. "I've got you," he said, so quietly Matthew felt the words more than heard them. "No one's touching you again. Not while I'm breathing."
Matthew closed his eyes and, for the first time in his entire short life, let someone else carry the weight.
Stanley's safe house was warm. Quiet.
But Matthew didn't sleep.
He sat on the edge of the too-big bed, knees drawn to his chest, replaying the night in relentless loops. The gunshots. The blood. The thing with too many teeth.
And beneath it all, a new loop he could not silence:
The steady heartbeat under his ear when Stanley had carried him.
The warmth that had stayed on his skin even after Stanley set him down.
The promise spoken like a vow: Not while I'm breathing.
Matthew pressed his small hands to his own chest, as if he could trap that warmth there forever.
They'll come for me next, he thought.
But for the first time, the thought did not feel like the end of the world.
It felt like the beginning of a war.
And Stanley Garrett; whoever, whatever; he was; had just chosen a side.
Matthew rested his cheek against his knees and waited for morning.
He was something more than human.
And now, for the first time, he was not alone.