Chapter 3
6 months earlier. Sort of.
Ashley Magnus regained consciousness atop of a pile of rubble. She couldn't move, she didn't want to move. Her body wouldn't respond to her poor attempts to command it. She opened one eye and looked up, and up, into the blue sky. Without moving her head she could see she was still in the main laboratory of the Sanctuary. She was looking up though the collapsed roof at creeping vines growing up the walls and out through the hole in the roof.
That was weird, she thought to herself. There weren't ever plants there before.
Something warm snuffled at her leg. She heard it more than felt it which wasn't a good sign. Ashley tilted her head to try and see what was moving around halting when pain exploded in her skull and neck so badly she was temporarily blinded by it.
Just breathe, she told herself. Take it slowly.
She opened her eyes again, her head now at such an angle she could see over to her right. A most definitely dead body lay at the bottom of the pile of rubble and judging from the clothing that remained intact, it was the super abnormal she had teleported with. Two enormous, ravenous wolves were feasting on it.
Oh, crap.
Wolves, super abnormal, Sanctuary, …Mom? The events came flooding back.
Still paralyzed, she began to panic. Ashley's breathing got faster and more agitated as pain crushed her every attempt to move. A tear trickled down her face and she gritted her teeth as she tried not to sob aloud.
They are going to eat me and I can't bloody move, she swore to herself.
From the corner of her eye Ashley watched as the wolves snapped their heads up from their meal and looked over to the side of the room she couldn't see. A somehow familiar unsettling growling noise came from the unseen threat and echoed around the room. The wolves raised their hackles in response. They bared their teeth and crouched down preparing to defend their dinner from the unseen enemy.
I wonder how much worse this can get, Ashley asked herself.
The wolves took initiative and pounced out of Ashley's line of sight. There was a blood curdling yelping and snarling followed by a terrible wet snapping noise. Ashley's eyes were now firmly shut as she thought frantically.
Why can't I move? What happened to my powers? Why can't I move?
There was a dreadful silence in the room. Then, what sounded like footsteps climbing over the rubble.
Ashley opened her eyes and looked up into the malevolent stare of a fully turned vampire, his face dripping with blood.
Help! Her soul screamed at the horror of facing what she had once been. Her body was unable to recoil from the nightmare grinning maliciously down at her, so she did the next best thing. Her mind shut down into dark, unconscious thought. Although, not before she heard a voice answer her request in a polite English accent.
Allow me.
A voice which came from inside her head.
Ashley regained consciousness for the second time that day, this time curled up in a ball on the rooftop of the Sanctuary tower. The sky was no longer blue but turning a dusky pink as the sun began to set. She sat up slowly, taking in her surroundings and situation.
The first thing she noticed was that she was alone. Next, the door to the stairwell had been bolted shut from the outside meaning the only exit strategy was to climb down the tower walls.
She stood and looked over the parapet. There were no lights shining from the new or old city. In fact there was no new city, the buildings were ruined. The once tall towers had fallen into rubble and ruin lying on the land over the river. Mind you, the old city didn't look much better.
A glimpse of red caught Ashley's eye, she looked down at her hands. They were red and wet. She stared at them in bemusement, any initial clarity of mind disappeared in a puff of smoke.
What the hell was going on?
She frantically wiped her hands on her clothes and tried to back away from them until she reached the wall but they remained red.
There was only one thought she could focus on. She had seen red hands before somewhere.
Ashley slid down the wall of the parapet and sat with her back in the corner, her arms wrapped around herself in a hug.
Red hands.
Her father.
Her right hand shook uncontrollably as she held it out in front of her, stained dark with blood. It was blood.
She rocked back and forth as tears poured down her face and her body trembled with despair.