Murky, heavy clouds roamed the skies above London. Large raindrops coated the ground in near bullet-like fashion, pelting the asphalt over and over again. The rumbling of thunder could be heard so repeatedly that Londoners were right to worry that lightning might strike them down at any moment.
The weather was so bad that it caused humans as well as animals to stay indoors all day, spending time in good company with one another, eating good food, downing drinks and laughing about all of life's matters in attempts to make the otherwise gloomy day brighter.
But what to do when you are neither human nor animal?
The streets of London were all unoccupied this evening, save for one individual.
People looking out their windows from within their safe, warm havens, be it villa or flat, found themselves goggling wide-eyed at the person walking down the streets.
The lack of an umbrella in weather such as this was the first thing to surprise them. Be it man or woman, (although why would a woman wear such an overly large, red duster?) they did not seem to be in a hurry to get where they wanted to go.
Rather, they walked at a very slow pace with their head hanging low, as if in deep contemplation or sadness. Their hands were in their coat pockets. Heavy boots stepped in large pools of water, sending tiny droplets flying. Flattened, matted hair covered the person's face.
All of these factors naturally caused people indoors to look at the person with mixed admiration and confusion, at how someone could be outside in a storm like this.
But rain had never bothered the vampire named Alucard.
Not even once in his 650 years of living. On the contrary, he appreciated this weather much more than hot, blazing sun. Either way, the weather didn't affect him. How could it possibly? Nothing seemed to be enough to change his state of mind anymore.
Everything had gone dull and monotone ever since that day.
Not even Seras' valiant attempts to cheer him up by imitating his Master, or making him take care of the most powerful vampires that roamed the country, seemed to do anything.
Alucard's shoulders sank as he gave a deep sigh.
That task wasn't his any longer. Seras Victoria was the one who would continue serving the Queen and the British Empire. His business with that was done. His business with all of this… Finished. He could sense the hundreds of gazes humans gave him from frankly every window he walked past, be it right next to his face or from the top of a flat house high up in the air.
He didn't bother staring back, didn't bother to scare those witless humans with the fact that his eyes were dyed the unnatural shade of crimson.
The relentless rain weighed his clothes down, made the duster weigh like a rock on his shoulders, but he couldn't work up the strength to care. On and on, he walked, until he finally reached his destination.
Despite the sound of raindrops thrashing the ground, despite thunder rolling in his ears as loudly as if it had struck next to him, Alucard found the graveyard as quiet as ever.
Bushes and flowers being spread out at numerous resting places had been flattened by the heavy rain, the drone of it almost cancelling out the sound of the vampire's footsteps.
It wasn't the slightest bit surprising to him that he was alone out here.
As he walked past the numerous minor paths leading to multiple rows filled with graves, Alucard soon found himself facing an epitaph, white as snow. At the bottom of it, there was an inscription in Latin.
Alucard was only able to make out the word 'Deus.' God.
Alucard stared at the epitaph, sizing it up. The expression on his face was unreadable. He spared one last glance for the marble creation before he turned, and continued walking onward.
After a while, Alucard finally reached the graves he had been searching for.
Glancing at the tombstone which said 'Arthur Hellsing', Alucard knelt before the grave to its left.
It had been five years since, and he still couldn't escape that hurting feeling in his stomach that never again would he meet a woman, a human, quite like Sir Integra Hellsing.
"Hello, my Master." he solemnly greeted the rock.
Alucard inspected her tombstone. No white marble dove or flowers rested next to it, as was the case with many other graves. Instead, upon the descended one's request, a simple cross had been engraved into the rock, underneath her full name: Sir Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing.
"You better be enjoying yourself, wherever you are, Master," Alucard said from where he was bowing before her grave. "If I could have followed you, I would have... You truly were a spectacular human. Always will be."
Alucard rose onto his feet, turning away from his Master's grave. "Alas, Integra, you are not the main reason as to why I am here today." Alucard took a few steps to the right of Integra's grave, past her father's until he ended up in front of the reason for his visit.
There had been no body left to bury after Abraham's death. So many years had passed since then that the reason for his death had been all but lost to time. Some liked to believe he had gone down in battle, but Integra had always refused to believe that.
Such a great man as he would not lose a fight so easily. Rather, she suspected that passed away from old age, in bed.
Just like she had.
The Hellsings' had wanted to raise him a grave, despite the lack of a body to bury. Arthur had inquired for someone to raise Abraham a memory, as a reminder of Dracula's defeat at the hands of man.
Alucard didn't kneel before his grave like he'd done to Integra's.
He stared down at her ancestor's grave - a thousand thoughts assaulting his mind at once. Some thoughts had already visited him for months after Integra's death, some thoughts rushed to him at that very moment.
A familiar, hot feeling started building inside him. Alucard could feel the powers inside him react to it - they swirled and built up like a tempest preparing to burst.
One boot moved forward and stepped on the wet soil.
Fists clenched, face covered by drenched black hair, Alucard's jaw tensed. At first he only muttered something inaudible, but then he spoke.
"Despite all the wrong choices I've made, all the misfortunes I have been through…"
His teeth gritted.
"You are the one I look back on and loathe the most, apart from myself, despite what respect I hold for you and your descendants. After so many years have passed, and the final heir of-"
Alucard broke off, glancing over at his Master's grave.
"- and the final heir of Hellsing has died, I see it now. I was foolish to believe that you had, for even one second, considered sparing me; bringing some, any form of relief, of ease to my miserable existence."
Centuries ago, he had me lying on the ground. Broken, tarnished and defeated. I was struggling enough just to speak, such was the power of the stake he had driven through me. I asked him to kill me.
Alucard's jaw tensed even further, his teeth pressing together so hard that it made the lower part of his face go numb.
"Why didn't you..."
He heard my request, alright. Our faces were inches from one another. His eyes were glaring into mine with strength I had never seen in any living creature before. He merely stood there, looking down at me with that look of contempt that I know all too well that his descendants inherited from him, and he looked at me like a bug. And he said, 'A person like you, Vlad, no Dracula, isn't deserving of death.'
Drops of water poured into his eyes, but the stinging didn't bother Alucard. His boot ground against the earth in front of Abraham's grave. His face felt numb.
"Why didn't you kill me... Why didn't you finish me off…"
"Death would be an all too mild punishment for you and your numerable sins. Even the afterlife, even the Devil, would not be cruel enough toward you. No… You are the Devil. Dracula."
"You doomed me forever to living this cursed, immortal life, because where, if not in the family of Hellsing, will there ever be a human strong enough to kill me? You made me too strong. I can feel it. Your seals are fading, Abraham. There's no living Hellsing left to keep me in check. But I will not simply lie down like a dog and ask for death by the hands of man. No, that isn't enough. How could that ever be enough? We both have to fight until we stand there, bruised and panting, the toll of battle affecting us both."
The brief mental image of a tall, blonde, rugged man nudged Alucard's mind.
A man piercing himself through the chest with a Holy Artefact. Choosing to become like him.
What an idiot. Such an honourable, humane idiot.
Alucard felt his knees slam onto the soil. The thud reverberated through his body.
"Why didn't you?!" "Why didn't you kill me?!" he screamed at the headstone, as if expecting a reply.
"I was sick of being a monster even when you defeated me. We are both monsters! You will never know what chaos you created simply because you left me alive… That war in London… Millions dead, thousands of innocents slaughtered and turned into rotten, corpses simply because of one Nazi officer's scorn toward myself! In letting me live, you allowed Anderson to become what I am! You let an innocent human being turn into a monster!"
Unaware of his mouth hanging open in a soundless scream, unaware of drops of blood pouring down his cheeks, soon to be followed by many more, Alucard wrapped his arms around himself. Try as he might to control his rage, he could feel shadows, tendrils in their deepest, darkest form emanate from him, out of his back, almost giving him the appearance of a black-and-red porcupine. His body shook beyond his control.
Fangs grew large despite the absence of blood in his vicinity, but he knew his body was only responding to the growing, uncontrollable wrath he was flying into. Voices were now in his head. Deep, dark voices, feeding the state he was going into and he did not want to stop it.
"You... Y-you... You'll pay. You ruined me, human, you made me a thousand times worse by experimenting on me. Only you..."
Shadows began dancing around Alucard, dark choirs were now humming in his head. Egging him on, provoking him. With Integra around, she had kept it at bay.
She had managed to call out to the human side of him. She had kept him from unleashing all that pent-up anger onto the man who had made him even more revolting than he already was. But now... with her dead...
Alucard removed the glove on his right hand. The Hellsing symbol, burnt onto his flesh, shone in sharp contrast to his skin.
Alucard glared at it. Vermillion eyes housed anger hardly known to man. The seals, that God forsaken pentagram symbol, he felt sick of seeing it...
Alucard clenched his fist. Shadows swarmed around his hand, caressing it lovingly.
"There is no going back. Not after having met someone like Integra, and having lost her to God. Not after having been turned to this."
And now that the entire Hellsing heirloom had passed away…
Alucard stared at the seal so intently that, had anyone been present, they would have seen a man presumably having a staring contest with the back of his hand. Raindrops poured into his eyes; even then did Alucard not blink.
Focusing all of his being, his essence, into the seal, Alucard gritted his fangs. His body gave a massive shudder. His eyes glowed a sharp crimson.
Memories came to him in a flash.
All those experiments that Abraham had executed on him… Pouring melted silver into his eyes, only to make him more resilient. Driving stake upon stake through him, creating more and more orifices in his skin…
Abraham forcing him to heal lost limbs, regrowing bleeding stumps while in glaring sunlight. How Abraham had kept him in that cell, taming him like an animal.
The first time he had sliced his neck clean off, Alucard had lost all consciousness for several hours. The fear and confusion the human side of him had felt, damn the fact that it was still so palpable, even after all these years… And even after all that, Abraham had only given him a few drops of blood every third day.
The shadows responded to him, burrowing into the burnt mark on his hand.
The seal cracked.
A large split appeared in it from top to bottom, splitting it in half on his skin. Blood seeped forth.
The bones in his hand quaked, protested. He would break them too if it proved necessary.
Alucard felt a senseless amount of satisfaction, of freedom, like a dog bounding away from its master, when another crack appeared in the seal. He squeezed his fist even further, until his muscles started shaking from the pressure.
More and more cracks appeared in the symbol, ricocheting through it like cracking glass. Alucard was now breathing heavily through his nostrils.
Voices were sounding in his head, dark dissonances singing of darkness and destruction.
Like porcelain, the seal of Hellsing broke, shattering into many small pieces and vanishing from his skin.
Alucard threw his head back, a sound in-between a moan and a shout being drawn from his lips. He felt... free. Released. As if this was something he had wished for, for a very long time, only he hadn't realised it until now.
The voices inside him increased in strength, a dark humming echoing in his eardrums. Eyes shining cerise, Alucard fisted his hand.
Muscles and veins bulging through his skin, the King of the Undead brought his fist through Abraham Van Hellsing's tombstone. Not one single shred of regret existed within him. The rock shattered into hundreds of minor pebbles, landing all around him and on the dirt he was kneeling in. Now, there was nothing but discord in Alucard's mind. Tendrils whipped and snapped around him, creating holes in the ground where Abraham's tombstone had stood - and the sight created a near-orgasmic feeling in the No-Life King.
If this was as close to revenge as he could get… Then he was perfectly satisfied with crushing whatever small part, fragment or piece that symbolised Abraham Van Hellsing that he could get.
He got back up onto his feet, crushing a pile of leftover rocks underneath his boot. Alucard allowed the tendrils and the shadows to continue tearing and slashing at the earth around him. He hadn't felt like this in centuries.
He tore off the glove on his left hand, eager to see what his hands looked like without the damned garments, without the cursed symbol. The fabric, devoid of the seal once resting on it, immediately got slashed in pieces by a shadow.
Alucard's wrath was reaching its climax. Leaning his head back, he let out a roar.
What caught his attention, however, was that somewhere deep within that roar, was the scream of a man.
It was minuscule, hardly noticeable. At the same time, it gave Alucard the feeling of getting punched in the chest, straight through the heart, robbing him of breath he didn't need. It was a voice he had not heard in centuries, and yet it sounded oh, so very familiar. Once more, he fell to his knees, and the shadows, the darkness looming around him, no longer felt like an ally, a subordinate to do his bidding, but more like something strange and foreign.
"Is this really what we've become?" the same voice spoke inside his head. The sound of it had Alucard at the mercy of his human memories. He clutched his head in his naked hands, his breathing now shallow and unstable.
"What… No… I-"
"What is it we're trying to achieve, Vlad? What is it we're trying to do?"
At the sound of his own voice, hundreds of years ago, back when he had still been human, Alucard broke down. A part of him was longing to lash out, tear at the world, to seek somebody, anybody, who would be human enough to end his miserable existence.
The other, whatever little part was still human inside him – told him to cease this madness, to regress into what he had been while with the Hellsing's, but what was there to gain from doing so? Especially now, after having ruined his maker's grave, after having discharged himself from the seals? What point was there in continuing this eternal death-dance? It had never been about 'not giving up, because giving up kills people,' it had been the point of finding someone who could, even if he could never be saved, at least put him out of his misery.
Alucard sat on his knees in the mud with rain lashing down on him, as forcefully as the shadows swarmed around him. The vampire's naked hands covered his face and whining escaped his lips. The human side of him was terrified of what he had become, had been for centuries, what he was still turning into.
Had anyone else been at the graveyard to witness this macabre sight, they would not have seen the face of a deranged monster, but the face of a human man, shattered and broken beyond his years, sobbing and wailing, bent over himself while emitting cries sounding like something in-between hiccups and growls.
"Integra… H-help me…"
Alucard turned his face to look at Integra Hellsing's grave. His gaze had become muddled with red, thanks to the blood seeping out of his eyes. The powers within him, manifested and amplified by Abraham Van Hellsing, kept wreaking havoc.
Terrible shadows plunged into the earth with the power of swords, slashing deep gashes into the ground, causing gravel and wet soil to burst free like fountains. He was trapped in the midst of it – locked inside a hurricane of terror. In one heart-shattering moment, Alucard saw one thick tendril writhe like a whip, heading toward Integra's grave, about to clean it in half.
"NO!"
The No-Life King threw himself forward, clinging to the last remains of his Master that he would ever have, protecting the tombstone with his frame. The tendril touched his left arm, but instead of slashing through it, it broke like glass upon touching Alucard.
"Integra… vă rog să mă ajutați…"
Alucard clung to Integra's grave, unaware that he was slipping back into his mother tongue. He knew that he had to be careful, because at one incontrollable touch, at one frenzied nudge, he would risk breaking Integra's grave as easily as if it had been made of paper. As easily as he had broken Abraham's.
While hugging the cold stone, Alucard glanced down at it. He saw the name engraved into the rock. Somewhere beneath him lay her remains. She was nothing more than ashes and dust now.
The truth hit him, stung in him stronger than a thousand crucifixes. Integra was dead.
The most beautiful human he had ever met, the woman with a will of steel that had never been scared of death, she who had so beautifully declined any offer to be turned into a vampire… Death had extended its cold talons and ripped her from the world. He had never deserved to have a Master like her. He didn't deserve to have known her.
Alucard's hands released the grip on the stone and fell weakly into the mud. The shadows fell down on the ground, as softly as a piece of fabric falling through the air, as if they had used up all their energy on storming the closest proximity. His hair now being as long as it had been when he had been human, Alucard looked around. The closest area around him, save from all the graves, was a mess.
Dirt and mud had been unravelled from the ground, gravel was lying everywhere and the once beautiful flowers had all been torn, separated from their stems. Shattered petals of varying colour lay spread across the ground. The rain never ceased.
Like a child grieving the loss of a parent, or a dog mourning its deceased master, Alucard lifted his head to the skies and cried. Crimson tears falling, vocal chords straining from his broken screams, none of it bothered him. All the anger, exasperation, the hope he had actually allowed himself to feel about someone saving him… Now, he was overcome by grief.
Why him? Why him, out of all the billion people in the world? What had he done?
Alucard, by some ungodly strength, managed to raise his arms, wrap them around the last piece of Integra he had left and lean against the grave, reduced to broken, growling sobs over himself.
xx
Peter and his crew hadn't known what to believe when the initial phone calls came.
The first three calls they found easy to blame on confused, elderly people who were clearly hallucinating or seeing false things in this horrid weather. But when the seventh call came from a young couple living near the graveyard, being the sixth in a row claiming to hear screaming and shouting, the police squad had started growing suspicious. When the eleventh man had called, even sending a picture from his phone that showed a surreal, black and red mass rising at level with the surrounding treetops, they found it crucial to investigate.
Sitting in a jammed police car with the windscreen wipers going back and forth on the windshield at a crazy speed, the police men didn't find themselves too talkative or cheery while heading to the graveyard.
Peter knew that, even though none of his colleagues disliked their profession, anyone would love to spend a day such as this one at home with their family rather than sitting inside a sweaty, crammed office with bleached, peach-coloured walls around them, waiting for society to call for their aid. Especially in weather such as this.
Alas, a job was a job – and he needed the money to support Jolene and their daughter.
Upon reaching the graveyard, Peter parked the car and the six policemen got out.
"Got your bullet-proof vests? Your guns? Your electroshockers?"
The crew was experienced enough to know to bring all their gear by now, but the question had been repeated so many times during each one of their missions, they thought it bad luck not to phrase it before heading out.
The crew nodded, and Craig, the sarcastic bastard that he was, said, "Good thing it's raining this heavy, ain't it lads? If we bleed, it'll wash away quicker."
"Damn it Craig, I've told you to focus during missions," Peter replied. "Don't go and-"
"Hey, guys." Dave interrupted, pointing into the graveyard, past the trees.
They all looked in the direction where the youngest member was pointing. The southern entrance to the graveyard, where they were standing, was outlined with spruce trees. However, they weren't thick enough to shield the graveyard from the eyes of outsiders.
Looking toward the furthermost graves, Peter squinted. There was… a person? In front of a grave, it looked like. He silently nodded to his colleagues and they all proceeded forward, through the trees and into the graveyard.
It felt like they were part of a classic horror movie. Stormy weather while at a graveyard in the evening… It wasn't difficult to imagine the already dull, gloomy scenery turning into complete shades of black and white.
Getting closer to the man and his tombstone, Peter decided that, as soon as they were back at the station, they would block the public phone line, unless they could assure that the person calling wasn't either insane or in it for a prank.
His first impression was that this was yet to become another prank mission, wasting their time by heeding a phone call that turned out to be some idiot pulling their legs.
The weather was, of course, abnormally bad. Other than that, there was nothing abnormal to be found about this graveyard. He couldn't blame the one person who seemed to be present for having braved this weather as they must have had a good reason to come here.
There were no screams, no mist. He was starting to expect the guy who had sent them the picture had simply been very skilled with Photoshop.
The only person present at the graveyard apart from the police crew was that one single man, bent over a grave. He seemed to be in a lot of grief. His back was toward them and the body was shaking violently.
Dave sneaked closer, and when the rest followed, they could hear some very odd sounds coming from the individual. A snorting, snarling type of sound. It sounded like sobs, only… distorted.
Craig leaned close to Peter. "Think he might be on drugs? I vote yes to that."
But Peter mentally dismissed Craig's snarky remark. Only now had he noticed what a mess the graveyard was in. That was, the area surrounding the lone individual.
There was mud all over the ground, flowers and bushes had been snapped, cut clean. Peter realised, with his stomach turning to ice, next to the man there were pebbles and rocks lying on the ground… And a tombstone was missing from the usually neat, symmetrical row.
Experience told him that, whenever in an uncertain situation, a readied gun was better than a non-readied one. So he cocked his weapon.
At that sound, the man over at the grave froze.
In the middle of a sobbing, shaking motion, his body froze.
As if he was part of a screen that someone had paused.
He had noticed them.
For one second, Peter's heart flew up in his throat, and a cold shiver ran down his spine that had nothing to do with the rain drenching his clothes. "What the hell? What... What is this feeling? As if we're about to get royally fucked up?"
At his standstill, Peter didn't notice that Craig, his short temper probably being messed with, was walking toward the man, breaking the tension.
"Oi, Mister."
"Oh god, not again..."
That was the tone of voice Craig used whenever he got impatient, whenever his short fuse got to him.
Sometimes Peter wondered how Craig had gotten accepted into the task force in the first place; he knew how impulsive the man could be.
"We've had calls from civilians saying they heard screams coming from here - coupled with weird-ass looking mist. You know anything about that?"
The person, individual, creature, whatever it was that leaned over the grave, made no sign to have heard Peter's colleague. It was still frozen, only now… there were those snarling, hiccupping sounds again.
Peter found himself frozen to the spot.
"Hey, Craig..." he prompted.
"You're the only one present." Craig continued, moving ever closer to the man. The left hand holding his gun lifted ever so slightly. "I want you to spill every piece of information that you have about this, or I'll blow your skull through."
"Craig, are you sure that-"
"Not now, Peter." Craig interrupted him. The figure by the tomb still hadn't made the slightest movement. The howling, miserable noises were starting to become unsettling. All other men apart from Craig seemed to be experiencing the same sensation Peter felt. Craig nodded toward the messed-up spot on the ground to the man's right.
"You did that, didn't you? Those holes and tears in the ground look very fresh."
No response. Just blubbering noises, as if the individual was close to throwing up.
"I'll give you three seconds to speak." Craig said, voice heavy with decisiveness as he pointed his gun at the man's head. There was no sound apart from the heavy rain.
"One." "Two." "Three."
The graveyard was silent, as if in expectation of something. For a second, Peter got the eeriest feeling that the man on the ground was going to jump up and defend himself. He didn't. Peter wouldn't have thought that Craig would actually have pulled the trigger. Craig was usually quite good at making empty threats.
Nevertheless, Peter found himself sympathising with the man on the ground as the bullet pierced the head on the left side. The head recoiled with the hit, bumping onto the shoulder. A sure stream of blood trailed down the black hair. It was an unnerving sight; a dead corpse clinging onto a grave stone, the head leaning onto one side.
Everyone were quiet. The rain was as loud as ever.
"... Craig, you're aware that you just shot a potentially innocent man here, right?" Peter asked cautiously. Craig's breaths came in heavy bursts. "If he was innocent, he would've said so," he spat, his eyes not leaving the corpse.
Peter took one step forward. "Craig... I know what you're going through, mate, but just because your wife divorced you three days ago doesn't mean-"
Craig's face contorted as he had meant to shout something at Peter - but his expression froze. It would have looked comical – that wide-open mouth coupled with that frown - had it not been for the object which had pierced through his chest.
"Object? Is that even an object?"
It didn't look… real. Peter had never thought he would have used the words 'shadows' and 'tangible' in the same sentence… But what else could he be looking at? What else was it that had pierced Craig clean through the chest?
The shadow tentacle hoisted Craig into the air, and amidst Craig's splutters and coughs, there was another disturbing sound. Peter's eyes followed the black tendril and saw that it had moulded out of the corpse's ribcage. The sound was that of cracking bones. The man's neck was moving, raising the head upright. The shoulders rolled once, muscles working to get things moving. His back still toward them, the man rose onto his feet. Only now did they see how tall the individual was. Peter and the rest found themselves staring in horror, unable to do anything else. A retching sound told Peter that one of his colleagues was throwing up.
Without warning, the tendril slammed Craig onto the ground. He let out a breathless, wheezy cry.
"Shooting at innocents, are we?" The voice was slow, deep and sounded like it was coming from the bottom of a chasm. A dark, bottomless chasm that, if you were to fall into it, you would never find your way back up again.
"Well, I guess I can't say that I'm fully innocent, but then again…" the thing turned its head toward the police crew. Every fang looked like that of a predator's. Coupled with the drenched, black hair outlining the cadaverous face and the eyes, Peter found himself raising his gun without thinking.
"… Can you say that you are?" the demon asked them. The eyes were shining red and if Peter looked into them for too long, he felt dissociated from his body, and he thought he could hear frantic voices in his head. "Fuck!" Michael screamed from his left, raising his gun and firing at the creature dressed in red. It took multiple shots to the chest, soon to be followed by any more. The body staggered with recoil but as the police crew reloaded their weaponry, it became evident to them that the monster hadn't suffered lasting damage.
The thing were then on top of Craig in the blink of an eye and buried its face in Craig's throat. Peter didn't think. He fired at the creature feeding from his now dead colleague. The bullets seemed to embed themselves into the being, but they didn't seem to harm it. The monster reared its ugly head from the corpse – and turned toward them. Peter blinked, and the creature was gone.
Before he had enough time to turn his head, a tearing sound to his right told him one of his colleagues was being torn to pieces. Peter looked over at Craig. He could see things crawling in the man's gut – so he quickly looked away from the horrifying sight, back to the monster. But that thing was currently dismembering one of his colleagues. Innards sprung forth and the sound of bones breaking mixed with frantic cries. The crew leader spun around.
Everywhere he looked was chaos, uncontrollable bloodshed. Everything was spinning, he could feel the blood draining from his face. Should he run? Should he fight back? What the fuck should he do? He turned to the monster, praying that he did the right thing as an officer, and fired shots at the neck. His mind then shut off entirely, adrenaline took over, and the lone police officer turned and ran.
xx
The gunshot he took to the head had awoken all of Alucard's most primal senses.
He was beyond salvation. He couldn't be rescued. And he was an idiot for thinking he even stood a chance against the demons inside him. He couldn't depend on his human senses, his human consciousness anymore. If he did, he would never be able to break away from this cursed existence. His only choice was to search until he would find a human strong enough to kill him. Even if he had to scour the entire goddamn planet. But first… These humans were in the way. They had attacked him first, after all.
After having torn a man in half as easily as if he had been made of paper, Alucard looked down at his hands. Having worn those gloves for so long, he had forgotten the physical sensation of touching human skin as it was ripped apart, or the feeling of another's blood on his skin. How warm and sultry it was…
Alucard sidestepped once, ending up in front of another human. Its eyes held that petrified, scared gaze Alucard had seen too many times to count. Lazily to him, but knowing he was far past human speed, he plunged his hand through the man's abdomen. When he pulled out, organs and viscera followed his way; leaving the man gasping and spluttering for breath. Alucard rejoiced at seeing the blood on his hands; how it clung to his skin, leaving small strands hanging like spider web as he bent his fingers. He simply couldn't help but laugh. This was what he had been created for. To tear asunder and destroy. To break and ruin.
The vampire lifted one blood-soaked hand. With closed eyes, he pressed it to his face. Inhaling the scent of death, it was a drug to him. Nearly losing his senses, the No-Life King lunged yet again, piercing his fangs through the throat of a man. The bullets that pelted him might as well have been the touch of feathers. Exhilaration kept driving him forward, eager to see bodies breaking and limbs shattering under his hands, under his control, under his will.
The man screamed something; it was near incoherent, but it sounded similar to "Peter, run!" Alucard couldn't care less about their names, or who they were, if they were decent men or not; if they had souls or not.
The singing within him had risen to a constant crescendo; dark, singsong voices telling him, begging him, commanding him to slaughter and mutilate. He didn't want to stop, was the one thought that kept ringing in his head as he drunk the man clean of blood. He widened his jaws, letting go of his predatory grip around the man's neck and the human fell to a heap on the ground, joining the rest. Alucard was breathing heavily.
After the massacre, the graveyard had fallen quiet. A sound broke him out of his trance. Movement on gravel.
One last man was standing up. He had his gun readied, pointing it straight at his face.
Alucard cocked his head in curiosity; wondering what the man was possibly going to do against him.
A second passed.
Alucard then took a bullet to his eye. His head recoiled backward from the hit.
He could feel the bullet having lodged itself somewhere behind his eye lobe. Blood, along with another sticky substance, was pouring down his cheek. There was another shot, striking him in the larynx. It was followed by many more, one of which grazed the top of his spine. Although his body still functioned, Alucard dropped to the ground of his own accord.
Unblinking, he let his body lie still; he wanted to test the human to see what it would do. He allowed the darkness inside him to spread, crushing the bullets lodged inside him and healing the wounds as if they had been nothing. The human's eyes were wide open in terror and he had thrown away the gun. It must have been out of bullets.
The human male turned head over heels and ran, as fast as he could down the gravelled path, previously covered in beautiful flowers and rocks. Now… covered in soil, blood and scattered parts of human bodies. Alucard could feel shadows mending his face and neck. For one second, he considered letting the man run away. No ordinary humans could stop him now, anyway. When his body was entirely mended, Alucard stood up and phased into the shadows. When he stepped out of them, he was standing in front of the lone officer, blocking his tracks.
"You are aware that you shot a potentially innocent man just now, right?" the No-Life King glared at the human. The only answer he got was an incomprehensible whine. Then, something shifted in the officer's eyes, and he spoke up to the monster, albeit with his voice clouded by fear.
"Y-you're… You're not innocent!"
"And what would you know about that?" Alucard mused. "How do you know I'm not just an innocent person whom bad things have happened to?"
The human never got an opportunity to answer him – Alucard plunged his arm through the man's chest before he could blink.
The graveyard has once again gone quiet. The raining has finally stopped. The air has shifted. Out of the graveyard walks a single vampire, a monster, an abomination sired by Darkness itself and with all of its powers at its disposal, bent on finding the human destined to kill it and end its miserable existence. Even if it has to scour the entire goddamn planet.
The creature leaves nothing but silence behind it, walking out of the site. Everything is still. Not even birds or squirrels rummage on the ground or in the trees. Nothing moves, until a gentle breeze sweeps over the area.
Flower petals in a multitude of colours are caught up in it and dance in the wind before landing around the tombstone that the monster has left standing. It will take days before another individual will dare to enter the area.
A blonde, young woman dressed in red will walk up to one of the graves; the one surrounded with flower petals. She will kneel in front of it, and she will cry. She will apologise to the deceased woman. And she will, after a long while, try to get up and gather herself before heading out to look for the other vampire. What she will do when she finds him… she does not know.
I know that this story takes a different approach on Alucard and his view on humanity and his powers than what might be canon or in character for him. But I wanted to experiment with the thought and idea of Abraham, in enhancing Alucard as a vampire, made Alucard's powers stronger beyond the vampire's control. I wanted to experiment with the thought of Alucard actually being a victim to his own powers, and how whatever humanity left in him would react or cope with that. To have these powers actually turn against him, as a third party, almost like a parasite, and make him break free of the Hellsing's control over him; in order to seek death. I played with the idea that all these shadows and all this darkness that Alucard controls, might be seen as an entity of its own and that it could empower the destructive, vampiric side of him, in wanting bloodshed and ruin as evil does. As only humans can kill monsters, he sets out to find the one who can kill him. How he does that, and whether he kills myriads of humans or leaves us standing, I wanted to leave up to personal thought or debate. I have a preference for writing open-ended stories. However, I still do believe that Alucard held enough respect for humans not to kill them unless they make the first move. He would always revere Integra, at least. I'll say that much.
Please let me know your thoughts and feedback, and thank you for reading. Have a lovely day!