Story Title: My Tender Hope

Chapter 1 Title: Caught in the Midst of Oblivion

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Disclaimer: I do not own Vampire Knight. If I did, I would be Yuuki and every page would be filled with lots and lots of…inappropriate stuff XD

Author: Icarus Redemption

Pairing: KanameXZero

Rating: T

Summary: AU KZ After escaping from an unknown vampire, Zero is struggling in the wilderness with only a few memories left with him. Can his quest to find Kaname, the only person he remembers, be fulfilled or will someone kill Zero first?

Story Warnings: It is an AU! If you don't like yaoi, then please, for your own sake, go back. If you don't like a very angsty Zero and Kaname, then this is not the story for you either. Some violence as well. Maybe the odd swear word or two, who knows? This is also un-betaed. This is all not in the first chapter, excluding a bit of violence and some blood.

Chapter Warnings: A speck of violence, an injured Zerorin and some blood. Nothing to worry about, really.


The colours of sweet lilies were trapped in desolate flakes that drifted rhythmically to the icy ground. It layered the landscape in a blanket of bitter cold, his fingers numb from the pure snow. That was all he could see, white.

Zero continued to heave through the snow as the howling wind whipped stinging burns of sharp scarlet across his ghostly cheeks. His hand curled to pull his tattered coat around himself tighter, his only protection from the storm. He fought with himself to stay awake, although he would welcome sleep with welcome arms on any other occasion. Zero was on the brink of falling into the beckoning world where he would feel peace, but deep inside Zero knew that he could not lose himself to this weather, he just couldn't – not if he wanted to escape that vampire, the one with the greying hair and sunken cheeks. A cynical sneer always twisting itself upon his shrewd features. His name, he could not recall. And why he was with him, he could not remember either. But he new he was evil; why else would he be running from him?

He could taste the tears in his dry mouth, feel the crimson blood run sluggishly down his torn and abused leg, and he could hear his once pulsating heart-beat gradually start to waver and wane with every treacherous second that literally crawled by, as if mocking him.

Why was he here?

His mind struggled to grasp the faint memory that kept slipping from his dainty fingers. Zero's breathing became harsh and raspy as realisation set in. All he could remember were irrelevant scraps of a memory soaked in blood and terror.

A man with mahogany brown hair and blood-red eyes, a vampire's eyes. Alabaster skin. Sharp, defined fangs hidden beneath petal-pink lips. A soft smile, yet dripping with blood – his blood. Kaname.

Zero groaned as a wave of throbbing pain coursed through his body, rendering him to collapse in a defeated heap in the snow. Zero clutched his injured pant-clad leg, hugging it to him as yet another mind chilling gust swept across. His head spun as he bled profusely from an injury near his temple. Zero did not understand a thing going on; everything seemed to be too confusing, happening at once. He could not remember anything, who was this Kaname, this vampire?

Zero grimaced, he felt another wave of sickness wreak havoc to his body, so intense he felt that he could black out any minute. He clenched his teeth tightly together as he emptied his contents onto the snow, the stark stench contrasting with the fresh but metallic smell of blood. Zero choked for a bit, getting rid of remnants still stuck in his throat as he slowly slipped a little bit deeper into unconsciousness. He did not hear the soft crunching of snow behind him, did not notice the shadow looming over him like a black talon, ready to come down and strike. He did not feel the blunt object strike against his head; he did not take heed to how the blood seeped through the frosty snow.

Black, all he could see was black. The somber veil cloaked everything around him. Unconscious, but not dead. He personally wished for the latter though, if it were to escape this confusion, this misery. He just wanted to be with Kaname, the only person he could really remember.


A/N: So basically Zero has no memory, only of being captured/ tortured by an evil vampire (can you guess who he is? It is not that hard XD) and Kaname, although he can only remember how he looks like I guess. And yes, I know, it is pure crap *sobs*