Blackfield
ooo
Her eyes were empty as if they were here and simultaneously not.
Shocked and worried, Naomi clenches her jaw, her molars squeaking as she grinds her teeth. Her nails scratch violent crescents on the carpet near Yui's limp hair until the threads come undone beneath her fingertips.
Yui inhales a lungful of air, so much, Naomi thinks breathing is acidic —her brow, beaded with sweat, twitches at the very thought. She heaves, her ribcage contracting painfully and her dead, bone-caged heart pumps a dull beat.
She calls for someone, spouting names hastily, carelessly, hoping that someone hears. That someone understands.
Yui coughs, her neck thrown back until her forehead clashes with the hard floor and her bones creak, her spine arching.
Someone is here, she smells their odour. Naomi spins her gaze from the girl struggling to breathe to the set of vampires observing them from their corner and the vampires gawking at the scene from the top of the staircase.
The filth, Laito, even smirks; he's shameless, looking down at them from the brightness and not the shade of his hat as if he enjoys the spectacle.
Yui lets out strangled moans, her hands snapping to her chest, clutching her clothes between her bone-white knuckles. She knocks her head upon her knees like an embryo in mourning, her ankles around each other and her chin cowered. The tendons tense, protruding and discernible in her pasty skin and Naomi might have smelt blood then —thick blood, bountiful in flavour, flowing along veins and arteries beneath translucent, sick flesh.
How long has it been since she had a taste? The blood of a human, so far deadlier delicious than a meek animal's. Rich and crimson-red and never-ending; the perfect meal to fill her meagre, malnourished belly —Eva, she's growling for a hunt right now.
Faces appear before her, blurry and unnecessary —she has other needs to satisfy and the girl, this girl, the little, writhing blonde, looks so pleasant.
The girl's neck is so long, her muscles sticking out thinly, begging to be consumed. But her heart; her heart is loud, too loud for her to concentrate where her jaws shall rip the meat.
The girl is as stiff as a corpse and just as immovable. Still without the serenity of death or the impurity of decay. Her breaths are even.
A halo of flames erupts around her head, a crown of dancing red and orange fire that seems to suckle on all the golden light of the vast space, casting her in complete darkness.
A lash searing her back. Garlands of rose-thorns wrapped around her wrists. Bleeding veins.
Where is she? Who is she? Who is singing?
When she opens her eyes, Naomi realises she doesn't remember closing them so tightly to see spots blotching her vision; she recalls Laito and his filthy smirk and Yuma's barks and that Yui was lying on the floor, senseless and suffocating.
She is in her room, the corners of her eyes stinging and her cheeks bearing dried streams of salty tears. Her throat is coarse as if she had spent a lifetime screaming; she is thirsty.
She remembers the thirst; how irritating it begins, like a little itch on your skin and how dreadfully slowly it spirals into madness, an inescapable state where you're stuck between choosing to be buried underneath the clinging mud or to become a night terror, the fluorescent eyes that accompany the moonlight and its shadows.
The thirst is as inexhaustible as the blood vessel yet here she is: little, naive Naomi who should have received the treatment of a true Royal, to have her line of human grooms and emerald labyrinths to chase them and instead she was given moth-eaten robes and told to be quiet and kind and patient.
She has a cousin whom she calls sister, whom she almost drank from tonight when she was trapped in a trance; could it be a test? From her mother? From her aunt?
From Eva herself?
Or, perhaps it was Karlheinz; be a good girl, be a quiet girl, be patient —and you shall receive . . . what exactly? Magnificent Karlheinz who makes promises and promises to children, to Purebloods, to The Last of Their Kind.
The corridors in the Manor are long and twisting and dim-lit. Her feet echo as she runs, the portraits of gloomy forefathers scrutinising her.
Yui is resting and the lot of vampires are nowhere near her.
She catches her own eyes on the mirror, watching numbly as amethyst cracks into pure gold, shimmering like a golden dagger in the light. The tattoos faintly ache. Her senses are alert, recognising the whiff of chemicals and coffee and strawberry and hearing the turning of a page and the rustle of wings and the honking of cars from the nearby city.
Whimpers. She hears whimpers and in an instant, she is frozen by Yui's bed, a lump within her throat and she is gasping unsurely, the girl crying in her sleep, mumbling sobs.
". . . Don't . . . Don't . . . "
She feels like crying herself but she has spent too many tears.
She is the eldest; she will inherit the throne of The Fallen Founders and she needs to prepare —she must be strong and conniving and kind and benevolent. Like her mother and her aunt and all the generations of women before them—of the witches before them.
First, she must drink.
A/N: Hey, sorry, the hibernation lasted, like, two winters. If the lockdown continues chances are you'll see more of these weakling chapters of mine!
Looking back on the story, I realised that my writing has progressed lovely? Like? The first few chapters are good but a little cringey compared to my latest stuff! I feel proud of myself!
Please review and in case you're an author then keeping writing!
Good luck during these trying times and I wish you all great health!
