Circle One: Nightmares and Dreamscapes
Drew's eyes flicked open. He pressed a trembling hand to his cheek, touching the blood tinged tear stains that belayed his troubled dreams. His breath came in harsh little gasps as he gazed up at the satin lined lid of the coffin. The nightmare images that pranced viciously through his tormented mind refused to fade and seemed even more horrid and cruel as consciousness invaded his skull.
He moaned softly and pushed against the satiny surface of the coffin top, forcing it open. Moon light bathed the inside of the coffin, fingers of the gauzy illumination stroking his skin like a lover. A shadow passed over his face, brief as a ghost, he looked up to see Marty standing over him, grinning like the proverbial cat that swallowed the canary. In fact, forget proverbial, the boy had probably swallowed a canary or two in his time.
"Bugger off," Drew muttered as he sat up.
Marty raised an eyebrow, his grin widening to allow a pair of fangs to peer viciously from beneath his upper lip, "You were making a lot of noise in your sleep, were having a nightmare or something?"
"I don't want to talk about it," he replied, red blooming in the darkness of his eyes. He climbed free of his confinement to stand face to face with the other vampire, eyes still blazing dangerously as he turned to walk away.
"Yeah, neither do I, but Doc says I need to work on my social skills," he laughed as he spoke as though the prospect amused him to no end.
"Why he would think you are anything but a well adjusted glorified- mosquito is beyond me," Karl quipped, wiping the sleep from his eyes with balled fist like a drowsy child startled awake by a loud noise. He tossed a wary glance to Drew and then returned his gaze to Marty, "So what did you do to piss him off this time?"
Marty offered an innocent shrug, "I did nothing. I blame society...mostly you," he gestured absently to Karl.
'...Drew' the word came from nowhere and reverberated inside his head, drowning and corroding his coherent thoughts like a disease. Drew pressed his fists to his temples, his face twisting in sudden anguish as a low cry crept past his lips. 'Come and play,' called the infantile voice, twining through his cerebrum like hot strands of copper wire.
"Stop," Drew pleaded against the mental onslaught.
Essie slunk from her coffin with serpentine grace, her regal features touched with mild disconcertment and annoyance as she moved towards the others and rested her gaze on Drew. "What's wrong with him?" she questioned, raising a brow and looking oddly like a puzzled angel peering over the clouds to quell the concerns of the faithful.
"Maybe his cheese finally slid of the cracker," Marty suggested, looking with absurd amusement at the gibbering and pained vampire. "It's bound to happen when you're that insanely angsty."
The scene was broken with a shrill and striking cry from Merrill. She stood, much like Drew, her own mind battered by his anguish. She pressed her hands to her ears and moaned in pain, gasping in broken sentences, "It hurts ... oh god ... it hurts ..." her eyes clenched shut as though against a sudden bright light.
"This show is worthy of popcorn," Marty exclaimed, the ghost of a smile still on his lips.
"You can't eat popcorn," Karl remarked, his mouth remaining slightly ajar as he finished speaking. His eyes, which always sported a generally perplexed look, seemed even more puzzled by what he beheld before him.
'I'm gonna come find you, Drew,' the tiny and innocent voice taunted from within the confines of his brain, 'then we can play together.'
There was a little titter of laughter after the words, a piercingly sharp sound like glass breaking ... then there was only silence, utter and complete. Drew buckled under the weight of it, stumbling forward a step then plunging to the floor with the peculiar gracelessness of a hanged man cut free of the noose that had strangled him. He watched with dispassionate interest as the floor rushed up to meet his falling body.
It was the sudden whimper from Merrill which subdued his lethargy and Drew turned his head, angling it so that he could look in her direction. The girl had fallen to her knees and her head was bowed as if in prayer. Her hands rested on the floor with the palms turned oddly upwards as though she were a medium at some macabre seance. Her mouth moved but no words left her lips until she lifted her hazy and distant gaze, resting it firmly on Drew.
"What was that?" Merrill's tone was that of a frightened little girl, seeming almost accusing, though her next sentence came as barely more than a sigh. "It sounded like a child but the voice ... the voice was wrong."
Drew closed his eyes and shivered.
Circle Two: Facets of the Reaper
Drew stood in front of the monitors, his face taking on an even paler cast as the glow from the screen touched his skin and bleached away its color. He looked ill and almost ... old, even though those trivial human frailties could never truly infect him. Essie sighed weakly, finding herself feeling such a strange tenderness for the boy who seemed to be deteriorating more and more before her eyes.
The others had dwindled from his company slowly so that now she and Drew were alone; Marty, after the initial merciless mocking, had found other ways to amuse himself which would most likely result in some new form of E-bola being created. Similarly, Karl had drifted off to his own personal distraction ... his ever growing interest in the game of chess. He was, Essie mused, becoming quite the admirable opponent. Merrill and Dr. Murdoch had slipped away to discuss whatever horror it was Merrill had seen in the tormented tangle of Drew's psyche because, Murdoch had surmised, the boy was really too fragile at the moment not to be damaged by further interrogation.
Drew's voice broke the stillness like a violent cough, "Essie ... Did you know that the lightening bolt is a symbol for death?"
She was taken aback by his tone; he spoke with the lukewarm dispassion of someone who had pointed out that it was raining rather than having just expressed something that was so simply morbid. She wasn't sure just what he meant until she turned her attention from him to the monitor and she saw the image that had brought about his epiphany. Drifting on the screen with teenage disarray was a vague representation of a dark haired girl wearing a pair of new-looking jeans and a dark t-shirt with a vivid bolt of lightening adorning the chest. When the girl's movements stilled Drew's finger followed the line of electricity down her shirt the way a boy might trace the curves of his lover's face in a photograph.
"It's odd ... to wear something like that, don't you think?" he posed the question, not shifting his attention from the two dimensional figure that swayed and moved in the world of black and white.
"Drew, are you alright?" she'd moved nearer to him without conscious effort.
"No, I don't think I am ... not at all," he said softly, lifting his head to look at her. His eyes, she saw, still wore the wounds of the night's previous tears and his face, which she'd mistaken for old and exhausted, seemed suddenly so young and so lost. "I don't know what's wrong with me ... I heard ... it's like," he stammered a little but she continued to listen with benign patience. "It was like I was hearing a ghost."
Essie extended her hand instinctively, gently touching his face, and just as instinctively he tilted his head a little to take full advantage of the caress. "Well if there is any truth in old wives' tales ..." she said comfortingly, "... then ghosts can't hurt you."
"I've never put much stock in 'old wive's tales'," he muttered, unconvinced by her attempt to placate his fears.
"Then I suppose I'll just have to protect you myself," she kidded, coaxing a sad half-smile from him. "What exactly did you hear Drew? Why did it scare you so badly?" she hardly recognized her own voice as she spoke; the self-serving vanity which had always laced her words, giving them an almost noble sound, was replaced with an unabashed concern.
Drew turned his face away from her as if his attention were captured by some faraway noise. "I heard my dead brother's voice," he laughed harshly through clenched teeth. "It sounds so insane when you say it out loud doesn't it?" he pressed on, not waiting for Essie to reply or show any signs of comprehension. "I killed him the night I was 'turned'," his tone was flat and dull, the sound a person might expect to leave the lips of a corpse should one ever decide to speak. "I didn't mean to ... it was ... it was like it wasn't me at all ... like I was some horrible monster ... I ..."
The words died on his lips as Essie enfolded him in her arms. His body felt strangely rigid against her own, as if she were hugging a mannequin rather than a flesh and blood creature. Yet, just as she considered ending the embrace his stance softened and he wrapped his arms around her.
"Shush," she cooed softly, stroking his back the way a mother may to persuade an infant back to sleep. "It wasn't your fault," she soothed, doubting her words were any real solace. She understood all too well the sharp feeling of guilt that came with the sweetness of that first kill ... it was like a razorblade hidden in a ripe apple that corrupts you with a bite and tears at you even more with each cursed swallow.
"I'm so scared," his voice seemed tight with grief.
"It's alright," she consoled him gently.
"Essie," he spoke softly, turning his head so that his lips were a mere breath away from her ear. "Thank you."
He slipped from her arms then, breaking the strange intimacy between them. He turned to the monitor, looking perhaps for the dark haired girl with death drawn in lightening on her shirt ... or maybe just lost again in the turmoil of his guilty thoughts.
Author's note: Relationship between Essie and Drew? Heh, I could see it ... of course I'm a sick and twisted individual :)
Drew's eyes flicked open. He pressed a trembling hand to his cheek, touching the blood tinged tear stains that belayed his troubled dreams. His breath came in harsh little gasps as he gazed up at the satin lined lid of the coffin. The nightmare images that pranced viciously through his tormented mind refused to fade and seemed even more horrid and cruel as consciousness invaded his skull.
He moaned softly and pushed against the satiny surface of the coffin top, forcing it open. Moon light bathed the inside of the coffin, fingers of the gauzy illumination stroking his skin like a lover. A shadow passed over his face, brief as a ghost, he looked up to see Marty standing over him, grinning like the proverbial cat that swallowed the canary. In fact, forget proverbial, the boy had probably swallowed a canary or two in his time.
"Bugger off," Drew muttered as he sat up.
Marty raised an eyebrow, his grin widening to allow a pair of fangs to peer viciously from beneath his upper lip, "You were making a lot of noise in your sleep, were having a nightmare or something?"
"I don't want to talk about it," he replied, red blooming in the darkness of his eyes. He climbed free of his confinement to stand face to face with the other vampire, eyes still blazing dangerously as he turned to walk away.
"Yeah, neither do I, but Doc says I need to work on my social skills," he laughed as he spoke as though the prospect amused him to no end.
"Why he would think you are anything but a well adjusted glorified- mosquito is beyond me," Karl quipped, wiping the sleep from his eyes with balled fist like a drowsy child startled awake by a loud noise. He tossed a wary glance to Drew and then returned his gaze to Marty, "So what did you do to piss him off this time?"
Marty offered an innocent shrug, "I did nothing. I blame society...mostly you," he gestured absently to Karl.
'...Drew' the word came from nowhere and reverberated inside his head, drowning and corroding his coherent thoughts like a disease. Drew pressed his fists to his temples, his face twisting in sudden anguish as a low cry crept past his lips. 'Come and play,' called the infantile voice, twining through his cerebrum like hot strands of copper wire.
"Stop," Drew pleaded against the mental onslaught.
Essie slunk from her coffin with serpentine grace, her regal features touched with mild disconcertment and annoyance as she moved towards the others and rested her gaze on Drew. "What's wrong with him?" she questioned, raising a brow and looking oddly like a puzzled angel peering over the clouds to quell the concerns of the faithful.
"Maybe his cheese finally slid of the cracker," Marty suggested, looking with absurd amusement at the gibbering and pained vampire. "It's bound to happen when you're that insanely angsty."
The scene was broken with a shrill and striking cry from Merrill. She stood, much like Drew, her own mind battered by his anguish. She pressed her hands to her ears and moaned in pain, gasping in broken sentences, "It hurts ... oh god ... it hurts ..." her eyes clenched shut as though against a sudden bright light.
"This show is worthy of popcorn," Marty exclaimed, the ghost of a smile still on his lips.
"You can't eat popcorn," Karl remarked, his mouth remaining slightly ajar as he finished speaking. His eyes, which always sported a generally perplexed look, seemed even more puzzled by what he beheld before him.
'I'm gonna come find you, Drew,' the tiny and innocent voice taunted from within the confines of his brain, 'then we can play together.'
There was a little titter of laughter after the words, a piercingly sharp sound like glass breaking ... then there was only silence, utter and complete. Drew buckled under the weight of it, stumbling forward a step then plunging to the floor with the peculiar gracelessness of a hanged man cut free of the noose that had strangled him. He watched with dispassionate interest as the floor rushed up to meet his falling body.
It was the sudden whimper from Merrill which subdued his lethargy and Drew turned his head, angling it so that he could look in her direction. The girl had fallen to her knees and her head was bowed as if in prayer. Her hands rested on the floor with the palms turned oddly upwards as though she were a medium at some macabre seance. Her mouth moved but no words left her lips until she lifted her hazy and distant gaze, resting it firmly on Drew.
"What was that?" Merrill's tone was that of a frightened little girl, seeming almost accusing, though her next sentence came as barely more than a sigh. "It sounded like a child but the voice ... the voice was wrong."
Drew closed his eyes and shivered.
Circle Two: Facets of the Reaper
Drew stood in front of the monitors, his face taking on an even paler cast as the glow from the screen touched his skin and bleached away its color. He looked ill and almost ... old, even though those trivial human frailties could never truly infect him. Essie sighed weakly, finding herself feeling such a strange tenderness for the boy who seemed to be deteriorating more and more before her eyes.
The others had dwindled from his company slowly so that now she and Drew were alone; Marty, after the initial merciless mocking, had found other ways to amuse himself which would most likely result in some new form of E-bola being created. Similarly, Karl had drifted off to his own personal distraction ... his ever growing interest in the game of chess. He was, Essie mused, becoming quite the admirable opponent. Merrill and Dr. Murdoch had slipped away to discuss whatever horror it was Merrill had seen in the tormented tangle of Drew's psyche because, Murdoch had surmised, the boy was really too fragile at the moment not to be damaged by further interrogation.
Drew's voice broke the stillness like a violent cough, "Essie ... Did you know that the lightening bolt is a symbol for death?"
She was taken aback by his tone; he spoke with the lukewarm dispassion of someone who had pointed out that it was raining rather than having just expressed something that was so simply morbid. She wasn't sure just what he meant until she turned her attention from him to the monitor and she saw the image that had brought about his epiphany. Drifting on the screen with teenage disarray was a vague representation of a dark haired girl wearing a pair of new-looking jeans and a dark t-shirt with a vivid bolt of lightening adorning the chest. When the girl's movements stilled Drew's finger followed the line of electricity down her shirt the way a boy might trace the curves of his lover's face in a photograph.
"It's odd ... to wear something like that, don't you think?" he posed the question, not shifting his attention from the two dimensional figure that swayed and moved in the world of black and white.
"Drew, are you alright?" she'd moved nearer to him without conscious effort.
"No, I don't think I am ... not at all," he said softly, lifting his head to look at her. His eyes, she saw, still wore the wounds of the night's previous tears and his face, which she'd mistaken for old and exhausted, seemed suddenly so young and so lost. "I don't know what's wrong with me ... I heard ... it's like," he stammered a little but she continued to listen with benign patience. "It was like I was hearing a ghost."
Essie extended her hand instinctively, gently touching his face, and just as instinctively he tilted his head a little to take full advantage of the caress. "Well if there is any truth in old wives' tales ..." she said comfortingly, "... then ghosts can't hurt you."
"I've never put much stock in 'old wive's tales'," he muttered, unconvinced by her attempt to placate his fears.
"Then I suppose I'll just have to protect you myself," she kidded, coaxing a sad half-smile from him. "What exactly did you hear Drew? Why did it scare you so badly?" she hardly recognized her own voice as she spoke; the self-serving vanity which had always laced her words, giving them an almost noble sound, was replaced with an unabashed concern.
Drew turned his face away from her as if his attention were captured by some faraway noise. "I heard my dead brother's voice," he laughed harshly through clenched teeth. "It sounds so insane when you say it out loud doesn't it?" he pressed on, not waiting for Essie to reply or show any signs of comprehension. "I killed him the night I was 'turned'," his tone was flat and dull, the sound a person might expect to leave the lips of a corpse should one ever decide to speak. "I didn't mean to ... it was ... it was like it wasn't me at all ... like I was some horrible monster ... I ..."
The words died on his lips as Essie enfolded him in her arms. His body felt strangely rigid against her own, as if she were hugging a mannequin rather than a flesh and blood creature. Yet, just as she considered ending the embrace his stance softened and he wrapped his arms around her.
"Shush," she cooed softly, stroking his back the way a mother may to persuade an infant back to sleep. "It wasn't your fault," she soothed, doubting her words were any real solace. She understood all too well the sharp feeling of guilt that came with the sweetness of that first kill ... it was like a razorblade hidden in a ripe apple that corrupts you with a bite and tears at you even more with each cursed swallow.
"I'm so scared," his voice seemed tight with grief.
"It's alright," she consoled him gently.
"Essie," he spoke softly, turning his head so that his lips were a mere breath away from her ear. "Thank you."
He slipped from her arms then, breaking the strange intimacy between them. He turned to the monitor, looking perhaps for the dark haired girl with death drawn in lightening on her shirt ... or maybe just lost again in the turmoil of his guilty thoughts.
Author's note: Relationship between Essie and Drew? Heh, I could see it ... of course I'm a sick and twisted individual :)