Disclaimer - I do not own any of the characters in this story. They were all created by LJ Smith and are the property of herself and her publishers. I only created the setting to the story.
Summary - A story of Thierry and one of Hannah's past lives. Thierry, condemned to the infamous concentration camp known as Auschwitz during World War Two, stumbles upon his soulmate. Unable to save her, he only wants to die with her. (I am fully aware of the fact that in the NW books, Thierry's last encounter with Hannah is @ the turn of the century. Therefore, this story is AU.)
Warning - This story is not your average fanfiction, and may be too serious for some readers. I was taking a more mature, dramatic approach to the writing style, rather than my average happy-go-lucky attitude. Do not flame this b/c you are upset with the earnestness or the outcome, I have given you ample warning. Any respectable reviews and constructive criticisms are more than welcomed. If you do not think you can handle the seriousness of this piece, I suggest you not to read it.
For Violence and Dramatic Angst, I have rated this piece 'R.'
Now that I am done with the necessary jargon, here's the piece . . .
Širdis
A story of loving and losing
Stepping from the cramped boxcar onto the wooden ramp, he knew he still wasn't safe. No matter what the people around him thought, no matter what prayers they whispered, no matter how many times they could claim that things couldn't possibly get any worse, things were taking an unfortunate downturn.
Thierry was pushed through the crowd by the frightened passengers trying to evacuate the claustrophobic nightmare of transportation. He could lightly feel the freezing temperature of the ice crystals below his feet, barely covered by the tattered leather shoes he had acquired before being arrested in the streets of Glasgow. It had no affect on him though. This was further proven by the fact that he was only wearing a pair of attrited slacks and a shirt made of a thin cotton material, severely in need of darning. The snowfall covered his shoulders and back as he huddled over a frightened girl, no older than ten years of age.
He looked up as the officers, dressed in long black coats and red-cloth arm cuffs blazoned with the black swastika, shoved him hastily through the huge iron gates. A incongruous sign welcomed everyone to their doom.
/Auschwitz./
Marching in the line he was forced, he stood before a man in a white lab coat and thick rimmed glasses. The doctor seemed to be quickly analyzing the men that encountered him, and directing them with the mere twitch of his finger, to the right, or to the left.
Thierry was pointed toward the right, behind other lithe, or at least remotely strong, men and boys. He watched as the older, the very young, the weak, and the sick, were lead toward another part of the camp. He thought he overheard an officer explaining that they were being taken to an infirmary. Thierry only shook his head, knowing that they were meeting a different fate.
He analyzed his situation as he awaited his group's ushering into the showers. He had only been trying to help. The woman and her child had been so scared, running from the Gestapo in the Ghetto. He had heard the gunshots, the screams, all of the poor, helpless lives being taken so early. He had been able to hide them, if only for a little while before they were discovered, but he had been captured. Their explanation, or lack there of, for his being taken to the trucks was because he was a creature not of God. He moved too smoothly and was not halted by bullets. And while trying to outrun them, he was only captured by another vampire, trying to help in the process of eliminating more "vermin" from the world. The same old story of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He hadn't meant to stumble upon a world war in his venture, but he couldn't just walk away without preventing the deaths of others.
All he had wanted was to find /her/. The one he was meant to spend his life with. Every life, if he hadn't become what he was. His /soulmate/.
Now all he wanted was to die. He hadn't fed in days, the train being too packed to reveal himself. The people had been scared enough as it was. He didn't need to show them the face of a demon. His breath was quick and ragged, the bloodlust tearing him apart inside.
He knew that his persecution would only grow when the hair they had just shaved off would return the next morning, if not within the next few hours. Though, with the lack of power he had, it may take longer than normal to return to its natural length.
Moving to the barracks, passing by the electric fence that separated the women from the men, he seriously considered giving into the bloodlust. There was no point in living in a world so full of hate and prejudice. Especially if his life meant the destruction of the one he loved. If he were to live and find her again, the other one would be there. His creator. And she would only take the life of his love.
His heart faltered for only a moment, but it was a pain that brought him to his knees. Thinking at first that it was his death spreading, he stayed on the ground, awaiting his final gasp of air. A quick slam of a wooden object in his back convinced him otherwise. A thick, German voice offended his ears, demanding that he stand again or he should be shot. Another blunt attack with the gun hilt, and he heard the scream. It wasn't his own, but one that rang deep to his core . . . vibrated his soul and tore his heart in half.
Jumping to his feet quickly, he looked through the metal fencing and into the eyes of a teenage girl standing a few yards away, on the other side of the divider. He resisted the urge to throw himself onto the electric torture device and hurried through the line, keeping his eyes with those of the girl.
Despite the haggard, thin appearance, the bandana around her scalp, and the cold loneliness in her storm-gray eyes, Thierry knew what he saw. A light, blush-colored mark on her cheek, as if a rose petal had been set there and stained the precious fair skin, only proved it further. She was here.
Being commanded to sleep as he was thrown into an overcrowded housing, he was suddenly filled with new inspiration to live. He had seen her. /Hana of the Three Rivers./ The girl that held the other half of his soul. The poor thing was being abused here. He wanted to inflict pain on whoever had brought her here, kept her from eating, ruined her life in an unthinkable way.
Waiting for the men around him to fall asleep, he came up with a way to survive. He had to. For /her/.
Weeks had passed, and he painfully watched as Anah grew thinner.
He had gotten close enough to probe her mind and listen to her surrounding conversations. Her name in this life was Anah Belavitz. She was a Lithuanian Jew who had so far survived two other concentration camps, and had watched her whole family pass. With her was the only friend she had left in the world, a girl by the name of Chesla Ozhadev. Together, they were struggling to stay alive.
He had also found out that she would be seventeen in one week.
At night he fed off of unsuspecting patrons of his bunk, returning what he had taken with his own blood. It kept them stronger, helped them last one more day longer. He never used the same person, to avoid the risk of the transformation.
He also mentally searched the miles of camp, looking for any sign of his creator.
Two days before her birthday, the two groups had somehow been put together to work on a work ditch. That mental-controlling power had taken a whole night of various feedings for Thierry to accomplish, and a lashing for the fact that his hair had reappeared, but he finally managed it.
He moved into position beside her. She glanced up, continuing to shovel, but keeping a steady gaze.
In her thick Lithuanian tongue, she spoke to him. "I know you."
He nodded, giving her a light smile.
"But how do I know you? I have never seen you outside of this camp before, have I?"
They both turned back to their work as an SS officer passed by. Once Thierry could detect that the man was gone, he looked toward her again. He grabbed what he could remember of her language to phrase his remark. "Many, many lives ago."
She shook her head. "Lives? You must mean years."
This time he shook his head. Making sure there were no guards nearby, he reached out discreetly with his hand and touched the birthmark, his curse.
This immediately caused the feeling that he had longed, he had searched years for. She looked at him, wide-eyed, then slowly, smiling, nodded her head.
In his mind, he heard her voice in a language that had no cultural boundaries. /Together throughout time./
The connection had caused them to be distracted from their business, and he watched distressingly as a female guard hit Anah with a free shovel across the back. Thierry felt the pain, not only from her, but from his own beating as well.
He had risked too much. This wasn't the outside world. This was Hell, the deep infernos of fire and brimstone that swallowed you after a life of sin. He had underestimated his ability to be close to her.
He met her eyes when the beating was finished and they were being dragged away. He spoke to her with his heart. /I will find you when we are out of here./
He felt the passion she sent him through the link, but he also felt the pain of what her officer was doing to her. Hopefully, the bond would make her stronger.
Anah lay on her bed of straw that night, contemplating her new discovery. She /knew/ him, but had never met him before. Well, she had. But that was before this life.
She closed her eyes quickly as the door to her barracks was opened. She heard the girls around her whimper, one letting out a sob. Anah herself kept quiet, still feeling the wounds of her earlier experience, but silently tried to remove a louse from her scalp.
He had regretted getting her in trouble, but for some reason, it had been worth it in her eyes. She would die for another moment with him, for she would see him in the next life.
She was alarmed when she heard a chuckle from beside her. She opened her eyes to meet bright blue ones leaning over her body. Without notice, her body was being yanked from the little security she had and was being dragged out of the dwelling. The other girls screamed, Chesla making a pained sound as she was moved past her.
Exposed to the night air, Anah shivered as her bare feet came to rest in the snow. She looked into the eyes of her officer again, shocked to see them a mellow green, like that of the grass in the fall. /How did they change?/
She was surprised once more when the woman began speaking in Anah's native Lithuanian. "So you remember that boy, do you?"
Afraid to utter a word, but even more frightened to be harmed for not replying, she managed to get out a stuttered answer. "Y-yes. How did you know?"
The woman chuckled again, raven-black hair tumbling over her fantastic figure. "I see much. But you do not remember all. The pain he has caused you. This morning was only the beginning. He will do much worse himself. I have warned you. Now, go inside, and tell no one of our talk."
Confused, Anah only nodded, taking quick steps backward. She stumbled on the cement steps of her lodgings before quickly running in the door, finding her bed and quickly hiding under the rag that she dared to call a sheet. She knew Chesla was asking her questions, but she couldn't understand them. All she knew was that she needed to sleep, and soon she fell into the abyss.
Anah awoke again hours before the sun was to rise. There was yet another disturbance at the door, but that had not been what woke her. She had been disturbed by the dreams she had.
She died, painfully, in every one of them. And she had been so many people. A girl in a river tribe, an Egyptian priestess, a girl that had lived in a country known as Canada.
And the one she had loved had killed her each time.
This is what alarmed her most when she saw him standing above her, just as the officer had.
"Come, we shall leave this place."
She tried to cower away from him, more afraid than she had been since the beginning of the war. He grabbed her anyway, tearing her from the bed violently. Once again, all of the girls made noises from around her.
She was dragged out and tossed into the snow. She hit the ground hard, causing a deep gash to reopen on her arm. Looking up, she cried out to him. "What do you want from me? Why must you torture me so?"
"I want your life, your soul. And there's nothing you can do to stop me." With that, he knelt beside her, and she felt the horrible pain of the flesh ripping at her neck. Her essence was draining from her body as she struggled to pull away from him. She knew it was not him. The mind, it was different. It hadn't been that of the one she had experienced that morning with the boy.
In a desperate attempt to be saved by anyone, she used what was left of her voice to cry as loud as she could.
Thierry was jerked awake by the scream that tore through the air.
He ran as fast as he could, breaking down the door that was locked by three different reinforcements. He didn't care, he had to save Anah.
Stumbling out into the snow, he saw that it was already too late. Disturbingly, he was witnessing what she had seen every single life. The poor girl was being killed by /him/.
As if to spite him, the figure disguised as himself had decided to do this next to the fence. Thierry ran, not knowing what he could do, only knowing he had to be beside her. Falling to the ground, only separated by inches, he saw as his creator stood, dropping the body into a pool of its own blood.
Anah's eyes, now unseeing, turned toward Thierry. She smiled. "I know it was not you."
Thierry felt himself beginning to cry. "Oh goddess, don't take her away from me again. I love you, please don't go."
She brought a trembling, pale finger to her lips. "Do not be upset. I will be with you in the next life." She sputtered, blood landing on his arm. With her last breath, she whispered lightly to him. He would not have heard it if it weren't for what he was.
"I love you . . . you are my . . . Širdis . . ."
Thierry felt rough hands pulling him back, harsh voices threatening him for the damage he had done to the barracks. He watched as her hand landed lifelessly on the ground . . . as her chest refused to move . . . as the wheelbarrow was brought . . . as she was taken toward the huge chimneys . . .
And the whole time, Maya smiled back at him. Her sickening green uniform cut to fit her body, black hair falling around her face, and eyes that seemed to glow yellow from so many yards away.
In his mind, Thierry could hear her voice. /You're the one who keeps letting it happen. As soon as you give in to me, she will never be harmed by you again./ The smile on her face screamed triumph, but he knew she had not won. Anah would be back again. He didn't know when, but she would.
A few months later, the camp was liberated. Thierry, along with the thousands of Jews, Gypsies, Africans, and so many other outcasts during the war, walked out, each of them having lost a great amount.
He walked past the others, in a direction they were afraid to go. The war and haters were still everywhere, and he was heading into the heart of it. But he didn't care. There were people that needed to be saved. And he had to find his Anah again.
Fini.
***
Author's Note: Any suggestions, constructive criticisms, raves, or intellectual questions, please feel free to review. I'd like to know what you guys think of my writing and the storyline. Yet, once again I'll add: Don't flame me. Thanks for reading, and I look forward to your comments.
~Soraia~