Dylan Reese | Black Earth Brotherhood | ALIVE

    Dylan's upbringing showed the efforts his father put into keeping the promise he'd made when his wife, Dylan's mother, abandoned them. Money was never tight, so Tom spared nothing to allow his son to do anything he wanted. Dylan played every sport there was to try at school, only sticking with baseball in the long run. When the team needed to fundraise to get new uniforms, Dylan's dad was a huge backer for them. For each B the students on the team got, he donated $15. For each A, he donated $25. Needless to say, with a little extra attention to their homework, the team raised the money fairly quickly. 

    In the summers, Dylan and his father would frequently travel outside of Copperhead Creek to explore the rest of the country. From Texas they would travel to Arizona, New Mexico, California, even going as far as Montana for one of their road trips. When Dylan was nine, they visited Georgia and Dylan fell in love with the farm life. They had only gone for a trail ride, it was meant to be something to keep the boy occupied until their reservation for dinner, but they ended up missing it. After their ride, Dylan had run off into the barn, asking the farm hands dozens of questions. What did the horses eat? How long do they sleep? How come that one is so small? Do they like goats? What if one of them thinks your hair is hay? The questions were endless. Somewhere along the line, they turned into "Hey dad, can we get a horse?" and it was all horse treats and riding lessons from there.

    Soon, baseball was a thing of the past and Dylan got involved in 4H to learn more about animals. He learned how to ride, take care of farm animals, raise chickens, and get his dad up at the crack of dawn so he didn't miss the chance to go feed the cows and pigs with Rafael, his farvorite farm hand. Rafael didn't speak much English, and Dylan didn't speak much Spanish, but they got through with hand gestures and some creativity. 

High School, Jail, and Probation IEC

    Somewhere between twelve and fourteen, Dylan lost the sweet sense of adventure and wander he'd had as a child. He quit 4H and started skateboarding. His mom tried to show up to his fifteenth birthday party, and it churned up every emotion he'd never known he had when it came to her. Questions raced through his mind at a thousand miles an hour when he saw her. Suddenly, everything he'd ever wanted to know, anything he could have asked, all of it had a chance to get out to the open. He could have asked her anything, could have reassured his father that he was proud to be his son, even if they weren't related by DNA. All he could do, though, the only thing his body would allow, was to start sobbing. He saw her face, the lines showing that she'd started to age, and her hair that just might have a few gray strands, and Dylan turned and ran. 

    For two entire days after his birthday, Dylan hid out in the one place he'd felt safe no matter what - the farm. He'd stolen his neighbor's unlocked chevy, and driven there without stopping to think of the consequences. By the grace of God, he made it there unscathed. The neighbor didn't press any charges thanks to a generous offer from Dylan's dad to have the truck detailed and fully checked out at a mechanic of the owner's choice. The next car the Dylan stole, didn't make it out in such good shape. 

    It was the night of Junior prom and Aubrey was supposed to be there. He'd told her he'd pick her up in the limo with their friends at 630p, and then they would all go take pictures in front of Aubrey's ritzy McMansion just outside of Copperhead Creek. Aubrey never showed up, though. Dylan did the only thing he could think to do to escape his embarrasment and stole another car. He made his way toward her house in the stolen car, pushing 90, then 100 miles per hour. Around turns he could hear the tires slipping on the pavement, feel the car tugging a little to hard to the side, but he ignored it. It wasn't until he got onto the pothole filled dirt backroads that he slowed to about 60. Backroads don't often have streetlights, though, and this one was no exception. Dylan whipped the car around a sharp turn and had no time to jerk the wheel to avoid the large stone wall that the front gates of Illoria Equestrian Center were anchored in.

    Eva Pajari, the owner of Illoria Equestrian Center and head of a rehabilitation program for troubled youth (often parolees), was not impressed with Dylan's actions. Between the car theft and property damage, Dylan ended up in handcuffs. This time, his father refused to bail him out and forced his son to face the consequences of his reckless actions. The owner of the fancy little sports car he'd totalled nailed him with every charge he could think of. By his luck or lack there of, the woman who's property he'd destroyed was only working with one other parolee at the time and was willing to accept Dylan into her program one one term - he work off the damage to her wall while in the program.

       Dylan's first experience with passion had started with horses, and it was the opportunity to return to the horse life that reignited his passion for life. Outside of school and homework, Dylan was back to spending all of his time at the barn. His, now seventeen year old, self was a mirror image of his twelve year old self, but with a little more height and some muscle. Soon, Dylan developed a routine. Wake up, go to school, get home, do homework for an hour or so, go to the barn. On the weekends, he spent the entire day at the barn. From time to time he saw Aubrey in passing, but they had stopped speaking. He had let himself get hopeful when he found out she trained at IEC, but she still treated him like he didn't exist, unless she was giving him something to clean. 

    Over time, Eva began to assign Dylan less busy work and more work with the horses. It started with moving the horses around to their assigned fields for the day, then gradually evolved to excersize riding once she found out he had experience riding. Time passed and Dylan's probation period came and went. By the end of his 300 hours, he'd graduated from mucking out stalls and sweeping aisles to riding and training a young horse named Ichabod to prepare her for competition. The mare was a young off-track thoroughbred Eva was hoping to turn into an eventing horse, and she was the love of Dylan's life. Since he couldn't pay for lessons, Dylan started doing some of the jobs he'd done while on parole to pay for them. With the other parolee, Atticus, having returned to Juvie, there was more than enough work to go around and Dylan was able to work off two or three lessons per week. As long as he kept his nose clean and his grades up, Eva always seemed willing to work something out with him. 

First Encounter

      Ichabod was the one who saw it first. Some kind of lurching, groaning, disfigured humanesque form emerging from the morning fog. Her head had gone straight up in the air, ears perked and alert, nostrils flaring. Dylan hadn't seen it at first, but when he did, he knew it wasn't any normal person. When he tells the story, he says that he tried to go help the man, but in reality Dylan had wheeled Ichabod around and they had bolted for home. They galloped all the way to the barn, yelling as they crossed the main drive. Even though it was early, all he had to do was mention what he'd seen and it was all hands on deck to move the horses inside as quickly as humanly possible. When all of the horses were in the barn, all of the people inside, no exceptions, they closed up the doors and windows and prepared to wait. Even Dylan was sent to the loft lounge above the barn. When everyone was safely inside, Eva and Dawson, the co owner of the stable, had taken the two steadiest horses on the property, Smith and Wesson, and gone out to take care of the problem.

   Even through the safety of the barn's exterior, everyone heard the gunshot. After this, things grew increasingly strict at the stable. Eva only allowed horses out in the fields for a few hours at a time, and only in the ones visible from the main buildings. Riders going out on the trails were to be accompanied by Eva or Dawson, no exceptions. It was like being on lockdown. Even being as careful as they were, eventually IEC, too, would fall to the arrival of the end.

Black Earth Brotherhood