It was one of the many bleak winter nights to come, in a city that laid in chaos and ruin. There was mist and the smell of blood in the cold night's air. As he walked down the empty city streets, he paused for a brief moment, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath in. The smell of blood aroused his hunger, and he was on the hunt. In the distance, the sound of a gun fired, indicating that someone was there… and, if he was lucky, it would provide a chance for him to feed.
As the hunter began to walk towards the sound, a close-by muffled scream turned him around. He listened; the echoes of the night carried the sound of crude voices of men and the distressed whimpers of a woman. His interest now shifted from the gunshot to these new sounds.
He followed them to a dark and desolate corner of the city, into a narrow alleyway between two abandoned apartment buildings. There he saw three men, street thugs, who had found prey in a young woman. One of them held her tightly from behind, his arms hugging around her body, restraining her as she struggled, while another stood in front, his body pressed against hers, with one hand cupping her mouth and whispering indecipherable cruelties in her ear. The men were laughing and yelling out like a pack of wild dogs, and in the eyes of the hunter, they were just that – animals. No, less… vermin. As the men were clearly distracted, the hunter stalked silently in the shadows, moving in towards his prey.
The girl was trying to fight back, desperate and unrelenting, and the air reeked of her fear. Although she couldn't break free from her restraint, she frantically kicked her legs – the only limbs she could move. Her efforts made the man in front stumble back, and unknown to him, the hunter was lurking close behind. The thug backed into his reach like an insect landing upon a spider's web. The hunter's large claws gripped the man's head, and with an effortless twist, before he could utter a sound, he snapped his neck.
The second thug, reactive to the sudden intrusion, pulled a switchblade knife from his back and charged towards the shadowy figure. As he lunged forward with the knife, the hunter caught his arm and spun him around, throwing him hard against the concrete wall, instantly knocking him unconscious.
Now the third man, having witnessed the ordeal, was cautious and fearful of what he was up against. He saw that the shadowed killer was strong and fast, and possessed a sense of uncaring brutality; it was not the kind of man he wanted to challenge. He threw the girl to the ground and backed away slowly, holding a knife in front of him with a quivering hand. But for his every step backward, the hunter pressed forward, stepping out of the shadows and into the street light.
"What the fuck are you, man?" The man's voice trembled as he looked upon the face that unveiled from the darkness. And soon, he would find the answer to his question as the monster revealed its identity.
With a deep growl rumbling softly from his chest, the hunter opened his mouth and a snake-like organ emerge from the depth of his throat, its head opening like a blooming orchid to reveal the sharp teeth behind its petals of flesh. This grotesque tool was a "stinger", and every person in this dying world knew what it meant to be faced with one.
The man's eyes widened in terror as he realised what stood before him. And just as he turned around to run, with speed and precision, the stinger shot out and latched onto his neck, embedding its teeth deep into the flesh.
Within moments, the hunter was feeling a sense of euphoria from the warm blood gushing down his pipe-like organ, providing him his much needed sustenance. He reveled in the feeling of another's lifeforce transferring into his own body. And soon, the weakened man fell to the ground with the hunter crouched at his side, eager to take from him every bit of life he had left.
Entranced by the carnality of feeding again for the first time in weeks, the hunter failed to notice that the second man, who had been unconscious until now, had started to wake again. Coming out of his daze, the man saw the dark figure crouched at the body of his comrade, and he reached for the knife that he had dropped on the ground nearby. Then he struggled to his feet and moved cautiously towards the feeding predator, seizing the opportunity to attack while his back was turned.
Suddenly, a loud gunshot broke the hunter's trance and his stinger quickly retracted. Another shot followed, then two more in quick succession. The hunter turned around to see the man fall dead to the ground, clutching the knife that was meant for his demise. On the side of the alleyway, the girl sat on the ground with her back pressed against the cold brick wall. Her arms were outstretched in front of her… and in her trembling hands she held a gun. She had shot the man.
The hunter let out a grunt, angry at himself that he did not sense the man approaching, and also surprised that, in the turn of events, she would be the one to save him – well, "save" him if he had been at any real risk; a knife in the back would not have caused him serious injury, but none-the-less, he did not like the fact that he was almost caught off guard.
Until this moment, he had forgotten about the girl. But now, curious, his focus was entirely on her. She was trembling and breathing heavily; in an obvious amount of trauma from the incident that had occurred. Her long brown hair was a mess, roughed up by those animals, and it fell wildly yet somewhat beautifully down the sides of her face. Her every short and heavy breath was visible in the cold night's air.
The hunter stood up from where he was crouched, and his movement caused her to quickly point the gun towards him. He didn't flinch, even as she took aim with her finger on the trigger. He was used to finding himself at the end of a gun held by a frightened human. Moments ago, the girl would have suffered a cruel fate at the hands of monsters far more vile. But those monsters wore human skin; he did not. He knew the sight of him would make her pull the trigger; they always do.
He took a slow step towards her… and then another… waiting for the moment when the gun will go off. But then, much to his surprise, she lowered the gun.
"Thank you" she said in a soft and broken voice.
He did not expect this reaction. Perplexed, he tilted his head and studied her face, reading her same way he would whenever he wanted to understand something about the human species. But he noticed that she wasn't looking at him, but somehow looking through him as if he did not exist at all.
In his curiosity, his steps came to a stop. But his silence seemed to stir a reaction in her, making her sit up with heightened attention. She leaned forward, and her face emerged from the shadows and fell into the dim street light. She was beautiful at that moment, in a melancholic way, with tears on her soft cheeks and her face pale from her fear and the cold. She scanned her surroundings, not with her eyes but seemingly with all her other senses. At that moment, he realized she was blind. She could not see him, nor see the monster that he was, and for some reason, he felt relieved. He quickly took the opportunity to walk away.
"Wait!" she called after him, scrambling to her feet as she pulled herself up against the wall. Her fallen shoe lay several paces away, and the coldness of the frost-covered ground felt like needles on the sole of her foot. "Don't leave me here…"
She started to walk towards him, but her first step landed on broken glass that had fallen from a row of smashed windows above. She let out a soft whimper as the glass pierced her naked skin. Her pained reaction made the hunter twitch a little, in a brief moment of vicarious discomfort.
She was afraid to take another step now. But he could see her desperation in wanting to follow him.
"Please… I… I can't see. I have no way of getting home."
The same desperation was heard in her voice. But the hunter never intended on being a hero; he was merely hungry. He never wanted to be a hero because the world would never see him as one. He preferred to stay out of the commotions of humans. However, this girl stood in front of him, desperate and helpless, pleading to him. He knew if he left her, she would be dead before sunrise… or worse.
"It won't be much out of your way… Please…"
She feared that his silence meant refusal, so she started to walk towards him again, this time carefully tapping her feet on the ground before putting her weight down, and running one hand along the wall for spatial reference. He could see that in just a few steps she would encounter more broken glass. He could already smell the blood from her previous cut, though it didn't entice him as he had just fed.
"Don't move," he said, quietly but firmly, just before she placed her foot down on the glass beneath it. The deep bass of his voice rumbled softly through the air like it was a part of the night.
She stopped.
He walked over to where her fallen shoe lay and picked it up… and he placed it into her hand. The panic in her eyes faded into a fragile relief. From this one gesture, she sensed his compassion, regardless if he really had any. But at that moment, she had to believe that he did.
She placed the shoe back on her bleeding foot, then looked up towards him with her soft, round eyes full of fear and hope… and she reached out her hand to him. He looked down at her hand, knowing that she meant for him to take it… but he would not. Instead, reluctantly, he took a soft grip of her arm just behind the elbow and led her forward. "Let's go."
