Jane's POV:
Shut up! Shut Up! SHUT UP!
Oh how I wished I could yell those words, let them break through my lips. How I wanted to spin and scream these words at my dear brother, Alec and the annoying child, Chelsea who both sat, talking quietly at the table to the side of our thrones. Despite their quiet voices, each word they spoke bounced off the inside of my skull and was amplified to me, as if they were screaming in my ear. Why? I didn't know.
I rested my head in my hands, being careful not to scream myself. My head: there is something wrong. So incredibly wrong. There was a strain on the inside of my head, as if my skull was decreasing in size and squashing down on my brain. I knew this wasn't the case, I imagined that actually happening wouldn't be as painful as this. What is wrong with me? It was...like a headache.
A headache! Impossible for us! We don't experience such silly human things as headaches. We don't have them! We don't! Then why was I feeling this...this feeling! I shot to my feet and begun to pace back and forth around the grand marble room. What could this be? My mind felt as if it were stretching! Expanding like an elastic band but every so often it would recoil and sting me.
I cared not that my brother and Chelsea watched me as I paced. I could easily hide the pain from then but it was getting more difficult as the seconds ticked by.
"Are you worried, sister?" Alec asked me, I felt like I could tear out his tongue for torturing me with his words though I knew it was not his fault, and he knew nothing of my physical pain. I looked at him and gave a nod, fearing it would harm me further.
"Do not worry." he told me. "The child is on her way, soon they will be here."
"I know this." I told him, turning away. The pain! I couldn't allow them to see me like this. I headed for the door. "Excuse me, brother, Chelsea." I addressed them but didn't listen to their reply as I walked out of the door.
"Leave." I told the two guards who protected the entrance to the grand hall. They obeyed and flew off in the distance. I walked, at a human pace until I was positive there was no one around and I ran. The pain didn't increase as expected, but didn't stop. It carried on. I hurried down the halls, my feet hitting the ground so quickly I was sure that soon I'd leave a dent in the marble. I had to be more careful. I ran through the maze that was our home, down tunnels, up spiralling staircase's until I came to the staircase that leads to my tower.
Before my reign, the tower belonged to the brides of Voltura, but now each of them were dead and their grand chambers had become my own. I ran up them, flying past long rectangular windows that illuminated the halls with sunlight. I ran by so quick the sun didn't have time to reflect my crystal like skin. I approached the top of the staircase but just before I reached the hall someone grabbed my ankle, pulling it backwards and I was thrown to the floor by gravity. I hit the ground harshly, my head banging off the marble. No damage done to me physically but it was as if someone had dug their fingers inside of my head and were crunching the bone away; scraping it out of my head. I bit my lip, stopping a gasp of pain to escape but I had more important matters than the pain.
I had been attacked. I spun on the spot, pulled myself to my feet and let out a long and feral snarl, I spun, my hands bent into claws and I swung...but clawed at the air. I spun again, no one there. I pushed myself until my back was against the wall and looked up expecting my attacker to drop down. But there was no one hiding on the ceiling. I looked in the rooms closest but I had not heard footsteps or a door open. I peered out of the windows which had not been opened also. Where has the attacker gone? How could they escape me? How could this be?
Then I looked at the place I had fallen. At the step just above the one I was to walk on and saw it. I flew down and crouched on the steps and I gasped. A mark, where my foot had hit the step.
"I-I tripped?" I muttered to myself. I tripped? No.
It was an impossibility. I cannot trip! No! I shot down the hall and into my chambers, slamming the door shut behind me, a part of me still expecting to be attacked. My chambers were the same. Enormous and circular. Three Stories high roof, platform in which my grand four poster bed was made neatly. My furniture all pointing towards a grand fireplace in the corner of the room. The double doors leading to my closet and another door to my bathroom. The giant floor to ceiling windows let sunlight in and I reflected it, leaving no corner of the room unlit by my light. I shot forward and pulled the scarlet curtain across, leaving candles as the only source of light.
This couldn't be happening, why was I so warm? I pulled my cloak off and dropped it to the floor, leaving me in my skin-tight, soft fabricated body suit. I kicked off the shoes I wore and pulled the band from my hair, letting my tumble of golden locks fall down my back. I was so warm. I knew I would be sweating litres if I could.
What is this? I paced with my hands running through my hair. I'm dirty. Why do I feel dirty, and stuffy? Why! I pushed the door to my bathroom open and walked inside, and stared into the mirror framed by solid golden flowers. The reflection startled me so that I took a step back in horror.
I looked dead. Physically dead.
My skin, usually so bright and flawless looked darker, paler but not in a luminous moonlit way, more as if I were a sick human, losing the colour they usually had. My skin was dark but the dark circles around my eyes were so large they looked fake, put on with make-up; as if I were trying to be a clown for Halloween! My hair was tangled and messy; it even looked darker and dirtier than usual. My eyes also. They were black. Blacker than the night sky, darker than they had been in a long time. They looked as if I hadn't fed in months. This was unacceptable. Impossible. I had fed not a week ago.
This can't be happening!
The anger was bubbling inside me, fighting with the pain. Was I angry or hurting, it didn't matter. Either one complimented the other. I clenched the skin below it, my fingers leaving clear marks as I glared at myself. She was not me. This woman was not I. That was not who I am. She is not me! I went to move but that's when I saw it. I had to second-glance at myself just to make sure before I lifted my shirt and got a better look. On my god...
There on my neck...the skin was cracking, breaking away in little flakes. No. This...this cannot be!
I growled and I felt my mind move then, as if the barrier that was my physical mind expanded and move. I flexed it outwards unknowingly and it hit the mirror before me, the mirror was consumed by my anger and it smashed, the shards of glass fell down into the sink and the floor. My mind felt shaky as it came back into its original place; powers were weakening. Not just my new powers but my old, original power was weaker also. There is something wrong with me as a whole; I am weak...and weakening. Why?
I heard a knock at the door and I walked back into my chambers.
"My Queen?" A female guard asked through the door. No. No one must see me like this. I pulled my cloak around me, slid my shoes on and grabbed a hairbrush and put my hair back up. I wiped away the dirt on my clothes and opened the door. She even seemed shock to see me like this.
"What!" I snapped. She dropped down to her knee.
"My Queen." she addressed me formally. "You asked to be told if there was word, we have word."
"Arise." I told her and she did so. "What word?"
"They are two hours away." she replied and I couldn't help but smile. This was better, perfect. I nodded to her and noticed how she looked me up and down, judging me. She dared to judge the way I appear? How dare her.
"Y-Your majesty?" She asked, "May I be open about something?" she asked and I nodded. "Well...the way you look-"
"Choose your next words wisely or the next thing that will pass through those pretty little lips of yours will be your teeth." I Growled and she bowed her head, showing she was below me.
"No, no I apologize. My Queen. You just...you look as if you need to hunt, regain your strength. I was about to ask if you needed a human brought up?" She bowed again, fearing the consequences of her words. I wanted to kill her, take her head in my hands as she bowed to me and tear it off, but maybe she was right. Maybe a result of having these new found abilities meant I had to hunt more often than usual to keep myself strong, the idea wasn't completely ridiculous. Plus, I would prefer the guards think I looked this way out of hunger rather than a result of my new gifts. I nodded.
"I am thirsty, I haven't fed in a while." I lied, how weak was I? Would one human fill my new needs? Did my powers still work? I then reached out and took her shoulder and pinpointed my anger, felt it burn through my body like a furnace and I projected it down through me. She stared at her shoulder in worry but nothing happened. I had been practicing the ability to turn the people I touched to ash ever since I was first given these abilities, I could control the anger but not project it out properly. She looked shocked but I let her go, she looked down the hall as if asking for permission to leave.
"Go." I told her, "Fetch me several humans. I am very thirsty." In other words I am very weak. She nodded and shot off into the distance. I slammed the door and walked into my room. Was I right in thinking that I was this way because my new powers meant I needed to feed more but not realized it, I mean I didn't burn in my throat as I usually did when I thirsted for blood, but who knew how my body worked with all of these new aspects to it. Did I have control over these new powers when I was this weak? I turned to the candle holder across the room, and flexed my mind, opening it up I moved my hand, as if to guide myself and the candle blew out.
I turned to the bed and then focussed upon it. I could do this. I stared at the sheets, my body as still as a statue. Then I opened my hand and felt the anger burn through me, I remembered the burning I felt when thirsty, the fire that others felt when I used my own power, I remembered the fire of the transformation and altogether I pushed my hand towards the bed just as a small spark of real, physical fire grew in my palm and shot to the bed, burning the sheets. I could do this. I could gain control.
The guard returned with humans not long later, she opened the door and threw them in as if they were rag dolls and they fell to the floor, crying, sobbing, and holding their dirty, sweaty bodies together as they stared at me. I smiled at them all. Brought up from the dungeons where the humans of Voltura were now kept.
"Please!" One woman cried as she held a younger looking girl behind her. Please don't hurt her, let my baby go!" she cried.
She was the first to die.
I lay so peacefully in the bathtub. The water was hot but soothing against my skin. The steam in the enclosed room seemed to calm me. The headache had stopped, well, not stopped but subsided to the back of my mind. Wasn't as painful as before but still a part of me ached. I opened my eyes and looked down at my naked body in the water, well, what I could see of my body. The water ran red with the blood I had washed off myself. Not one of the humans brought to my room died quickly or painlessly. I still had fun with the hunt, no matter the circumstances.
I am the Queen of Voltura, of all Vampires actually. I rule and I will always rule. I cannot allow any of my guards, actually anyone, know that I grow weak so easily. They cannot know of this strange occurrence. I won't allow them to think I am anything but the almighty. I reached down from the bathtub and took a small shard of glass that had fallen and lifted it up so I could look at my eyes in the reflection.
My eyes were a brilliant red, the circles below my eyes were still there but not as prominent. My hair was washed and covered in shampoo. I looked carefully at each eye, brilliant red but there was no hiding it. The edge of my Iris was darkening. Already the black colour thirst brought, was leaking into my health. I knew that I was wrong before. These powers didn't make me need to hunt more, yes hunting helped hide the symptoms but I had to confess the truth to myself.
No matter how much I hunt, these powers are killing me.
I slid down until I was totally covered by water and I stared up, through the bloody water at the bright light on the ceiling.
Was I dying?
FanWriter's Note: I wasn't going to upload this chapter just yet but I know that when I am reading a story, I want to know what happens straight away so I've put it up now. Here you go, those who are still reading. I know it's confusing this chapter, but in short Jane has all of these amazing new abilities but she is growing weaker, she thought that it might be normal and she needs to hunt more, but that's not the case. Hunting hides it but she can't avoid the inevitable. These powers are destroying her body and she needs to find a way to survive.
Question for Chapter 25 is...
Why do you think this is happening to Jane?
~FanWriter~