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"If I cannot bring you comfort…at least I bring you hope…" a young girls voice sang out through the barren poor excuse for a room. A single candle cast its glow upon the peeling wallpaper and bullet holes riddling the mold infested walls.
Desiree sat in one squalid corner of the room, clutching a threadbare blanket to her dark and wiry frame in a desperate attempt to keep warm, even though the weather wasn't as seasonably cold as it should've been.
Skinny sat on the other side of the room, her head resting on her hands, which she kept in a steeple in front of her face as she stared at the flickering flame of the candle. Her hair was beginning to dry in messy waves around her face as she hugged her long legs to her form.
Desiree stopped singing abruptly and coughed.
"Are they really-" Skinny cut her off with a glare in the girl's direction.
"Gone. That's what happens when you get ripped apart by an inhuman son of a bitch. You die." She hissed in a sinister voice, her body tensing with anger.
Tyrell, Dante, Sarah, Ben…all the others.
They were gone, never to be heard or seen again in this realm of existence anyways. On Christmas Eve of all nights, the one night they should have been safe, together. Now Desiree was truly an orphan with Tyrell gone; and Skinny had promised them they would always be together.
Another promise broken, it seemed.
"Well its no use brooding over them now. We cant turn back time you know. It'll just be the same situation we've always been in."
Desiree's onyx orbs flashed with anger as she snarled viciously at her elder.
"NO! Things will never be the same without them don't you see? Now we're just two targets for anyone who feels bored here!" she shrieked, her voice racked with sobs.
Creak.
Went the floorboards outside the room.
Skinny panicked and motioned hastily for her friend to shut the hell up as she pinched her fingers over the candle flame, sending them into darkness.
"DON'T YOU SEE WHERE YOU'VE LED US SKINNY? YOU PROMISED US SALVATION BUT YOU ONLY BROUGHT US TERROR. AND NOW MY ONLY FAMILY IS GONE."
Moving quickly to the other side of the room, Skinny smacked her gloved hand over Desiree's mouth and held her roughly by the back of the head. She bent her head to the girls pierced ears and whispered harshly.
"Listen. Something's outside. Ill make you an offer: You stop your bitching and live to see another line at the soup kitchen. You don't…and we both end up dead. You got it?"
Desiree ceased her struggle and nodded, silent tears forming in her large eyes, catching themselves on her thick eyelashes.
Releasing her from her hold, Skinny crouched and moved deftly across the room to grab a leather bag. Surveying its contents and relying on the sense of touch to identify them, she tossed Desiree a stake and cross, taking a bottle of holy water, a stake and handgun out for herself. She tossed the handgun in her hoodie pocket and keeping a firm hand on the stake as she threw the other bottle of holy water to Desiree. She snapped her fingers once, hearing the girl rise from her slump and join her in a crouch on the floor as Skinny rose to slink to the door.
They resided in an old apartment building, on the third floor to be safe. However, there were several escape and entry routes that the undead could use to enter the building.
Skinny kept in mind the fire escape at the end of the hallway as she slowly opened the door, raising her stake so she could easily piece something's heart when she opened the door. Lightly tapping her feet twice, Desiree caught the signal and tossed a bottle of holy water to Skinny who slowly pushed the door open with her shoulder.
They're coming for us. To finish the job.
She pushed the panicked thoughts out of her mind and focused on the task at hand, protecting the last of her army. Violently throwing open the door, she was met with nothing but the pounding sound of her own heartbeat.
And very…very cold air.
She heard something's weight shift on the creaky floor and popped open her flask of holy water with her teeth, brandishing the deadly liquid, stolen from a church, at the darkness. She sprayed a bit into the air and heard no physical reaction of pain except for the smallest hiss, which meant she had hit something unholy. Skinny took a step back towards the doorway and bumped into Desiree's back.
"Desiree? Can you hand me the cross?" she whispered and nodded as Desiree moved to hand her the cross.
But something was dreadfully wrong.
Desiree's hand was burning. "Aw too bad, it was just starting to tickle." She giggled sinisterly and smacked Skinny across the side of the face with a too powerful lean arm.
"They got you? Desiree?"
"They didn't get me, they MADE me. I was nothing until tonight. I relied on my deadbeat brother for protection, and now all I have to do is rely on myself.
I've ascended, sister."
Skinny was appalled as Desiree's hand clutched around her neck and lifted her off the ground as if she weighed the mass of air.
"You're wrong. You've gone down. Abandoned the mission."
"What mission? The one you recruited us to, to help you redeem your 'scarred' past? The one where you got us all killed?"
"No…the one where we saved people. Helped them."
Desiree smiled in the darkness, the gleam of her white teeth almost seen to Skinny.
"You haven't saved one person. All you do is extend their pitiful lives instead of ending them."
Blinking back tears, Skinny kicked Desiree in the chest, flinging her backwards as she ran towards her and plunged her stake into the vampire's chest.
"I saved you." She said and made a dash towards the fire escape in a desperate attempt to get away from that cursed building. But she was caught by cold hands in the doorway, held fast by strength beyond human measurements.
"I think our master would very much like to meet with you." A deep voice said, the sneer in its tone obvious.
Then everything went dark.