LUST FOR BLOOD

PUNISHED

"You're trying to put the pieces together, aren't you?" Sarah inquired, a smile returning to her face. "Although this situation looks grim for you, there's a positive resolution gained by the Offering."

I stared at her, speechless, horrified, and confused.

She giggled like a small child. "In order for the Consumer to have access to the power flowing through your veins, the Offering must give consent." Sarah moved towards me, her arms twisted behind her back. "Do you understand?"

"Consent?" I whispered to myself. "This doesn't make sense."

"Of course it does!" Sarah squealed, clapping her hands to grab my attention. "Without consent, your blood with retract and the hidden agent will not relinquish itself, knowing that its host is under stress." With two small hands, Sarah conducted movements in an attempt for me to better understand. She squeezed her hand into a fist, showing my blood retracting, and then, with the other hand, trying to penetrate her fist, without success. "Your blood locks away, but if the Offering gives consent to the Consumer, the agent is released." Her fist opened.

"Why would Isaac bring me here, then, knowing I wouldn't consent to him?" I asked her cautiously, unsure if the truth should be unleashed. The door stood ten feet away, closed, potentially locked. Somehow, I would have to reach it quickly.

"Do you not see the advantages Isaac has within himself?" The doll child shook her head. "He's a perfect representation of a male human." Her smile grew wicked. "Did you not find him attractive when you two first met?"

I lowered my head, remembering the alleyway. The men. The blood. My head was still damp from the rain outside.

A cold hand touched my wrist. Sarah stood close to me, a sad smile barely distorting her lips. "He," she said quietly. "Has ways to make you acquiescent." Her dark eyes found mine and stared through them in deep thought. "Isaac is dangerous, but very persuasive. He's been around for a long time. This abduction isn't his first. The amount of knowledge he contains is more than any found in a book."

This was a dangerous subject I was about to touch. "Was Isaac your Consumer?" I watched her blank expression. My muscles tensed to the point of affliction.

"No, silly." She said, reaching up and touching the side of my face curiously. "I'm also a Consumer. Though, Isaac prefers girls, while I favour boys." She had to rise onto her tiptoes to reach my horror stricken face. Her hands were cold, identical to Isaac's unnaturally frigid skin.

"What are you people?" I whispered, terrified to keep wondering about the specific name given to inhuman figures such as Sarah. There was something unholy about her and the way she kept smiling emptily at me. It was as if she truly was a doll, where her soul was void, and her innocent clothes a cover-up for what honestly lived underneath her pale skin.

"Haven't you figured it out?" She bared her teeth, showing them off for a specific reason, other than to daunt me. "We're vampires." A gleam of light struck her canines and isolated their long, needle-point fangs that protruded significantly.

"They don't exist." I rejected, an exasperated gasp escaping me.

The door. I must reach the door.

A dark being of a fictional existence that thwarts the belief of reality with unimaginable circumstances. Myths stripped from an enigmatic world of temptation and heinousness; tossed into a salad of blood and attrition. Vampires- being blessed with immortality, but damned with eternal sorrow, live in the shadows. A lifetime of bloodshed stains their memory, carving a mask of melancholy into the flesh of beauty. Blood, distributed by all but its own, floods its veins with the weight of the world. Nothing can strip the lust it gains, through means of necessary starvation, for the power of desideratum reigns the lever of control.

"Sarah, you incompetent child." Someone snarled viciously behind me. With a toss of my head, I found Isaac posted in the doorway of Sarah's room, staring at the girl with a fatal glare. His pale hands were clenched into fists, with their knuckles turning white from stressful force.

I turned my attention back to Sarah, who was frozen in place, as if a mannequin in the window of a child's toy store. A look of horrification was etched finely on her face, distorting her childish features.

The expression outwardly shown on my face couldn't have differed from Sarah's, as the last sentence she said rang repetitively in my mind. Vampires. If what she said was true, then Isaac was also a vampire. Everything fit into place, now that I thought about the details. Both Isaac and Sarah, not to mention the rest of Isaac's crew, all shared the physical feature of abnormally pale skin. Nothing else explained the sharpened canines Sarah withheld in her mouth. Mesmeric beauty was another appearance Isaac and Sarah shared, as they had flawless facial features and seemingly faultless bodies. Although, since Sarah was merely a child, resplendence could not be credited for her infant qualities.

Immortal beings were present, in front and at my backside. People who never grew old and never having to experience the gift of aging. For all I knew, Isaac and Sarah could be centuries old.

Blood has touched their lips, lived have been lost in their arms, and darkness has stained their hearts.

He came, all of a sudden, faster than anything I've ever seen. Isaac jumped passed me, grabbed Sarah by the throat and flung her across the room so that she hit the back wall with a sickening thud. As she fell limply to the ground, a hole could be found in the wall, with bits of particles crumbling to the floor.

Miracles weren't often witnessed, but when Sarah managed to rise from the attack cast on her, I felt relieved. The small girl weakly stood on her feet, but as soon as Isaac reached her and pulled her upwards by the collar of her dress, she was, once again, levitated off the ground.

"You know better than to run your tongue." Isaac hissed venomously, baring his teeth in restraining anger. A growl thrusted outwards from the deepened compartment of his chest and warned everyone around that Isaac was an immediate threat.

Sarah shook her head frantically. "I told Evelyn nothing that she wouldn't have figured out on her own." She kicked her legs in protest as she felt the life being crushed from her.

"Liar." Isaac retorted, repetitively slamming her against the wall, generating dozens of holes in the flat surface.

"Stop hurting her!" I screamed, jolting over towards the two conflicting people. Isaac's arms remained stiffly secure as I tried to pry them away from Sarah, but I managed to grab his attention in the process of her liberation.

With one hand, Isaac kept a hold on Sarah, and with the other, he slapped it across my face with compelling force. I felt myself lose balance and tumble to the ground. One of my ears, on the side that was struck, rang loudly, deafening me slightly. A pain stricken groan marked the result of his attack against me, as I raised my hand to my throbbing cheek. A wet substance collected under my nose, and I wiped my hand to remove it, only to discover that it was blood coming from one of my nostrils. I was shocked at the unnecessary amount of force Isaac used to withdrawal me.

"How could you?" I shuttered, staring at the red liquid coagulating on my fingers.

Surprise washed over, both, Isaac and Sarah's face, as they peered down at me. All violent movements ceased, and Isaac dropped Sarah back onto her feet. She didn't seem concerned for her safety, but rather mine.

Isaac stood back, looking away shamefully, as Sarah tended to my bleeding nose. Although, if she was a vampire, having blood revealed into the open wasn't a beneficial idea. I constantly told her that I was fine, and I managed to get back onto my feet, despite the dizziness swarming my head.

Even though I found myself terribly angry for what Isaac had done to me, the feeling dissolved shortly after I looked at his face.