Chapter Twenty Five: War Prep

We walked through several corridors, my arm wrapped around his, and creatures bowed their heads as we continued, at first I didn't think a thing of it. It's what they did when we arrived! However, the corridors drew longer and longer, the bowing began to bug me—it seemed as if I was being taken on some death march of grandeur. I tapped the Vampire's arm and he leaned his head down, so he could hear me whisper to him. "What in god's name are they all doing? Why are they bowing their heads?"

"Because they know" He replied simply. "It's easy to know when someone has been turned—and you, being royalty and just being turned, well, that's what you people would call a 'double whammy'." He explained, and I paused, nodding slightly.

"How do they know?"

"For one, my dear, your eyes are quite red and secondly—" he lifted up my arm, showing my wrist. The crown tattoo which had been blurry when I was only a half, was now clear and pulsing with a white glow. "—That's very much of a dead giveaway." He grinned and my eyes rolled while his laughter continued.

"Where are we even going?" Asked I, quieting his laughter; he cleared his throat, and his tone became a deadly serious one—the smile that once took up a home on his lips, vanished into thin air.

"Since you've been turned and you have already been given your first feeding, you now need to complete a series of tests to be sure that you are war ready." Said he—I guessed that made good enough sense; I had to be ready if I was going into war, but, why would I be given tests if I had never fought before? I opened my mouth to bring this up to the Vampire, but he hushed me, and closed my mouth with one finger. "No more questions now; you think awfully too technically, just let it happen."

*** And let it happen, I did (reluctantly, at least) . We arrived to a large room where the lights were all dimmed to black, save a few singular candles around a ring used for wrestling and fighting. Inside the ring were two pairs of boxing gloves laying in the middle of the ring, a green water bottle in one corner, a yellow water bottle in the adjacent corner, and a tall, silhouetted woman leaning on the far ropes of the ring; her back was illuminated, and I easily spotted a black sports bra with black yoga pants, which wrapped fitted around her ebony skinned body, however, the front of her was completely darkened, since that bit of her was turned away from the candles. She appeared comfortable, but I sensed something deeply troubling about her stance, as if on her face she were smirking, for she knew, if I stepped in that ring, she would pummel me. I looked over to the Vampire, tightening my grip of him, almost pleadingly, as if to ask him to not let me go in.

A sigh slipped between his closed teeth and he gave my hand a pat before leading me to the corner of the ring with the green water bottle, and the woman stepped to the corner with the yellow one. "What's going on?" I asked quietly as he began to unravel himself from my grasp, but he said nothing. However, when he looked to me, his eyes seemed to burn with words that crawled up his throat, and he had to several times, swallow them back down.

He didn't smile, he didn't hug me, he didn't even breathe-he just stared at me, for a while. Then, he gave a laborious breath and turned on his heel, pulling his cloak around him as he disappeared into the darkness. "Vampire!" I called, running after him, but finding myself incapable of entering the pitch blackness with which he vanished. I could only blink for a moment before turning back to the ring, to find the silhouetted woman who so intimidated me when we first entered, had also vanished!

Now, I felt...something, something in my chest...it wasn't my heart, because, well, I was dead now, my heart would never beat again! But it was a strange knocking against my rib cage, and as the knocking continued, the more terrified I became. I trembled slightly, my legs jiggling ever so slightly as I made my way around the base of the ring, peeking around the corners until I was sure the woman was not there. I swallowed hard and felt a cold sweat begin, what if she was underneath the ring? There was a skirt around the ring, to...to do something...I wasn't sure!

I wasn't sure of anything then. With a few breaths I'd pulled myself up, and into the ring, between the ropes and then...everything was silent.

It was the eerie silence after you know you've done something wrong, the silence where all of the little, cautionary voices in your head hush-the silence after an explosion of nuclear size-the silence in a cemetery at midnight.

Dead silence.

Pitch black silence.

Even my breathing hushed and I froze where I stood, fear overcoming everything else in my body...until there was a slight noise beneath the ring. A slight tearing sound, like you would rip paper in half; and then that slight noise grew louder, and louder, and louder...and then stopped once more.

Pitch silence again.

My legs of jelly shuffled me over, into a corner behind a pole, and I stared at the middle of the mat-that's where she would come out! She would tear through the mat and come get me, I knew it! And just as I finished that thought, I was blindsided by a constricting pain to my neck and yanked backwards, making the back of my head slam into the pole behind me. I gasped and my hands instantly started grasping at the thing wrapped around my neck, trying to tear it away from my skin; my legs flailed and I was dizzied by the harsh slam. I thrashed back and forth, but only as I did so, did the thing 'round my neck tighten. Finally, something in my brain clicked, and I turned my body to the left, laying on my side and reached my arms out, digging my nails into the woman, and ripping at the flesh of her arms.

I'd never heard such a scream before in my life! It was an unearthly, howl from the pits of the bellies of hell hounds themselves! The thing around my neck (which I suspected to be a belt) instantly fell limp, into my lap, and the woman pulled away, ripping the skin beneath my nails which was once on her arms, away from her. I gasped and fell on all fours, holding the belt in my hand and three strips of hairy flesh beneath my nails, in the other. I jumped up and threw the flesh away from me, too terrified to scream, and I looked over to see the woman now stood in the ring.

She was truly a gruesome sight.

Her back was hunched over, and hair protruded from wherever there was visible skin on her body, her teeth were pearly and every single one was sharpened to a point, meanwhile, her eyes, which shone a bright, mustard-ish yellow, narrowed and glared right into my soul-if I still had one. On her right arm, veins of all colors, pink muscle, and white tissue freely hung out between her wrist and her elbow, and blood still came in gushes from her forearm, dripping all the way down her hand and long, black fingernails, to the mat-making an irresistible puddle of what I once thought was wine. I could actually see her bone, in the deepest trench where my fingernails dug in, and the muscle and skin which came from it, sat a few feet away from us, but she made no move towards it; instead, she lunged at me! Her great jaws opened, revealing strong, pink gums and those teeth of razors! I panicked and stumbled out of her way, so she bit down on one of the ropes and snapped it in half!

She whipped towards me, and ran at me again, so, I ran away! I ran until I slipped on one of the slices of skin from her arm, and landed on my back! She took this opportunity and jumped atop me-if I hadn't freed my arms so quickly, my head would've been between her jaws! However, I did free them quickly, and one hand held the top of her snout, while the other held the bottom-causing her jaws to stay completely open. But, she also had free hands, and with them, she wrapped around my neck, and began trying to choke me, when I remembered, vampires don't need to breathe!

That not working, she slit her fingernails into my throat, making me cry out in pain, and I, inadvertently, began ripping her jaws apart, the pain making me angry. I pulled her jaws so far apart, I forced her bottom jaw to dislocate, and I started yanking it off of her body! She rolled off of me, howling in agony, and ran to a corner, trying to put her jaw back into place.

I gasped and laid on the mat for a moment, just breathing again, with my hand pressed against my throat, stopping the bleeding. It wasn't like I needed to, I just...I tried to hold on to all of the blood I had. I guess it was because I wanted the last shred of my humanity intact; kinda melodramatic, right?

Sitting up slowly, I saw her wincing and shoving her jaw back towards her, and up, trying to get it back into socket. Her back was turned to me, evidently, she thought I was still dazed-which, she wouldn't be wrong, but she wouldn't be right either. It was clear this match wouldn't be over until one of us was knocked out or dead, and my god, I hoped for the former! I looked around for something, anything to aid me, and what I found was the belt; it was obvious she was a werewolf (or as others call them: Lycans) and werewolves need to breathe-they're not dead like vampires! But what if she tried the same thing on me that I did her?

I'm not as strong as her, but...she's down one arm. I stood slowly and walked to the corner with the green water bottle, and I got an idea. I picked up the water bottle and wrapped some of the belt around my hands, holding it a little taunt between my hands and I began to walk up behind her-sneaking would've alerted her hunting instincts and she would've caught on to me! She roared in pain at another vain attempt to snap her jaw back into socket, trembling at the torture.

I, however, was scared too; she could easily snap me in half!

I took a deep breath and passed my tongue between my lips before hunching down-bending my knees, and launching into the air, wrapping the belt around her neck and encasing my feet around her torso. She let out a gut wrenching shriek and fell backwards, slamming me into the mat. I cried out and she reached up her good arm to my shoulder, and dug in her nails; crushing my shoulder! I screamed, my entire body shaking, and without even thinking, I dug my fangs deep into her hand-causing a chorus of whines, cries, and screams from her choking throat. And then, after my fangs were deep into her hand, around all of her veins and near her knuckles, I used all of my strength, and ripped all of it out.

Veins, muscle, tendons, tissue, blood, skin, hair-it was all between my teeth.

Blood squirted out at me and covered my face and her veins hung down and covered my chin while the muscle and tissue were clenched between my teeth-it almost had the chewy consistency of gum. The bones of her knuckles were exposed and there were deep marks in them from my teeth-blood and a white substance oozed over them as the interior of her hand hit oxygen.

While she was stunned from the torment, I took the water bottle in one hand, and stuffed it down her throat; I didn't care that her top teeth dug into my arm, I didn't stop shoving that bottle down her esophagus until I heard it crinkle when I pulled the belt tighter around her throat.

She struggled and struggled, so much agony filling her body she couldn't even cry out! Or, perhaps, that was the water bottle. Whatever it was, she stayed silent while her body flailed and bucked, kicked and did pretty much anything to get away from me-the arm I had torn chunks of flesh out of thumping uselessly beside her, as the other, where I tore out the top of her hand, laid limp on my shoulder-she was unable to use both of them. And then, after she choked and gagged on the bottle, air keeping away from her lungs, her body began to turn to bliss, stilling gradually, until all of her was frozen in time.

Pulling tighter on the belt, crossing the ends, to make sure she was dead, I peeked over her head to see her eyes, the whites were blood red from the lack of oxygen, but her pupils...it was as if they were black voids leading to a different dimension-they were stone cold, and full of frozen anger, but they stared on, to the ceiling. My eyes traveled from her face, to her chest, which no longer rose and fell-she was dead, for sure. I let go of the belt and closed her eyes with one hand, whilst the other lifted her up, so I could escape from beneath her. My heels pressed hard against the mat, and with the help from my arm, I scrambled out from beneath her, falling onto my back and trying to catch my breath-I had just killed someone.

I killed someone.

I ended her life.

Istopped her from breathing.

I killed her.

I killed her.