See Red Again
HylianBard
Horror

Chapter One

Some people think it is a blessing to be immortal. A sheer gift from whatever god they believe in. To never die. To be invulnerable. To see all the ages of the world, explore what time brings, experience new sensations, see new sites. Being immortal… isn't all it's cracked up to be.

I've been among the living dead for about a half a year and already I wish I were dead. I feel nothing. I feel no sun, I feel no ocean sea breeze, I can't feel the wind against my cheeks, nor can I feel the warmth of the living I once took in vain. I am dead inside. I have no pulse, no heart beat, I need not breathe. But I move and think like those who are blessed with the ability to draw air deep into their lungs. I am cursed. Cursed to live among the fortunate…but it serves me just.

I was the best of the best. Top notch. Unbeatable, feared by all! I used to kill for pleasure, the love of the warm blood on my hands, the terror in my victim's eyes; the joy of another victory to knock in my blade. But one day I picked the wrong person to mess with…

It was night, an unusually cold night for the early summer. Sake made up most of my blood. Another victory and we were celebrating a local bar. Maybe… I shouldn't have had so much to drink…

As I stumbled down the windy street, nearly falling on my face five times, once actually succeeding, I ran into the back of a tall man. He wasn't a big guy. He was scrawny, weak, his arms limp twigs. I could snap him in half with two fingers. My blood alcohol way beyond that of a stable level, the idea of he running into me settled as reality.

"Hey… watch it… thwerp…" I slurred. I kept swaying, my legs threatening to give beneath me.

"Excuse me," he said in a polite, deep tone that didn't match his frame in the least. "Are you alright?"

Now, to a drunken slosh, it sure as hell didn't sound like "Excuse me, are you alright?" Oh no, not in my ringing and drowning ears. It came out more of a: "Excuse me, are you up for a fight?" Never drink sake.

I stumbled to my left and nearly fell but the scrawny man grabbed my arm and settled me sturdily on the ground. "Easy," he instructed softly. Nice guy. To bad I was intoxicated.

"Oy, get yer grimy hands…off me," I sloshed again and took a swing at him. I twirled on my toes like one of those English ballerinas. It was probably an amusing site to see. I missed him by a long shot.

"Settle down," he said firmly. "I'm trying to help."

The next few minutes ran in a blur, or vanished from my like water does to ink. The last thing I could remember was lying on the ground in the most pain of my life. There were several broken barrels and support beams and a broken window. Blood dripped down my forehead and I think my legs were broken. Well, that all explained the damaged surroundings.

Then a tall, masculine but lean man stood before me. His gi ripped exposing a tanned torso and a peculiar tattoo on his chest: some tribal art from a foreign land. Beneath it was I assume a stanza in some weird language. Latin perhaps? I dunno.

I looked around. Where was that little shrimp?

The Tribal Man hoisted me up by the front of my gi to look into those terrifying, gray eyes with bursts of orange around his pupil and the outer rim of his iris. His pupils contracted to little black dots, probably no bigger than a grain of sand.

"You think you're the best?" He sneered and slammed me into a brick fence. I heard a few cracks, most likely my bones… "You think you can tell anyone and everyone what to do?"

He smashed me into the fence again.

"Do you think you can do anything you want?"

Smash.

"Underestimate your opponent?"

Smash.

"Without the slightest idea on whom or what they are?"

Smash.

My head was spinning now. My back hurt like hell. And I tasted thick blood in my mouth. "What do you mean 'what they are'?" I dared to ask. He smirked and released my gi, allowing me to topple to the dirt in a painful hunch.

"Tell me, Battousai, do you believe in vampires?" His demented gray and orange eyes shot right through me, daring me, just daring me, to say no.

The fact is, I didn't. I heard about them from a bunch of English traders on the harbor one day. One said that a woman in their village went mad. She was infected with some disease I've never heard of, ran out of her cottage, and attack a chicken coop and devoured them alive. She died before they could burn her. The other man disagreed, said she was a bloodsucking agent from the Devil himself. She crept out of her house at night and drank the blood of her victims. Her husband found out, but being so much in love with her, instead of turning her in, he locked her in the cellar and fed her vegetables, hoping to silence the bloodlust that haunted her. It didn't work. He said that she clawed at the wooden doors until she should break through it, then drank the blood of cows and goats to satisfy her hunger. Some boys saw her eating their livestock and plunged a wooden stake through her heart, causing her to die.

What a load of bullshit.

But right now, I wasn't so sure.

"Do you?" He repeated.

I did my best to think logically in my drunken state but, alas, it failed. "Ha," I hiccupped, "Those blood sucking…hic…leeches? Hardly!" I gave a harsh, laugh which quickly turned into pain and coughing.

This angered him. He picked me up again, smashing me against the fence, and got an inch from my face. "I will prove you wrong…"

Everything went black after that.

When I woke up, I was sober and numb, well just about. There was a god awful pain in my neck. Hot and cold at the same time, like icy fire. I slapped my hand to my neck to meet something runny and warm. I put my hand in front of my face. It was bloody. I returned my hand to my neck and stumbled to a near coy fountain and stared at my reflection. I nearly fell back with what I saw…

My skin lost its tan complexion and turned icy and dead. Dark circles surrounded my eyes, making me look sick with some rare and fatal African disease. I felt sick. That's all. Just sick. My skin felt like paper, every time when my clothes brushed against my arm with was like being struck with ten thousand horses at once.

I looked around and was shocked at how well I could see in the dark. It was as if it was the middle of the day. Everything was so sharp, so clear, so, so, vivid…

There was something nagging in the back of my mind. I couldn't tell what it was but I was willing to bet my sword that it was related to the dreadful thirst famishing my mouth. I dipped my hand in the fountain and took a long drink of water. It didn't work. So I took another drink, and another, and another…

Nothing was working. With each sip of water my thirst grew worse! My mind scanned over all possible drinks that could quench my thirst but nothing seemed appealing. My throat burned and my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.

What was going on?


A/N: OO Kenshin has a vampire! ZOMG (zombie! ohmigod!)! Or should I say: VOMG! (vampire! omigod!) I was bored and in a dark mood and wrote it...but anyway
So this was the first chapter. More on the way! I warn you, future chapters are quite graphic. So if you are squeamish you might want to skip the chapters with the warning (which will be clearly labeled).
R&R!