The sound of a crow cawing right outside his window jolted Allen up and off his bed. He hadn't fallen asleep, but he had still been surprised by the sound. A chill made its way through Allen's hands from where they were pressed against the floorboards.
The new person, as Allen had started to consider himself, had been lying on the bed for no more than a few hours, so he still wasn't tired as he pushed himself up off the floor and turned towards the window.
The crow made another loud, birdish sound and then with a loud flapping of its wings, took off. Allen watched it go, his eyes wide. A few seconds of almost painful silence. The window was covered on either side by curtains with a sizable part in the middle that he could see the outside through.
With his hand moving like the air around it had thickened, Allen moved a curtain on one side out of the way with the back of his hand. He, strangely, found the outside view surprising but also not. He hadn't really thought about what he was expecting to be outside, but this was kind of it.
One could say that the forest outside looked like the remnants of one that was burned down years ago. The trees were emaciated sculptures of cracked and burned wood. Few of the trees were growing leaves and the leaves that did appear were darkly colored and dry looking.
Allen supposed that the forest didn't have to have been on fire to gain this look. While the sun did shine down on the area his new home occupied, it did not do so unobstructed. Dense cloud cover and the foggy, thick air of the area made the sunlight that reached Allen's window sill a mockery of what it could have been.
Allen felt he probably didn't know a lot of things about himself or about the world and how it worked. He certainly didn't know about plants and sunlight besides the most basic, obvious parts. Still, Allen was sure that if this part of the world was normally so cool and dry and dark, then that in and of itself would be an explanation for why the plant life was as it was.
Allen jolted as a thought occurred to him. Perhaps that was a place to start!
He didn't like the feeling of knowing so little, especially about his new home. He likely couldn't learn more about many things until Lavi came or this Yu Kanda came for him, but there was something he could learn about in the meantime.
Thankfully, Allen knew how to get to that massive library from his room. Lavi had learned to create Allen, at least in part, from that library! Surely, there was something or other in that library on plants to fill the void in his knowledge about it.
Slipping away from the window and out of the room and he proceeded to make his way carefully down the hallway.
The redheaded vampire crawled along the ceiling, making his way down the hallway to Allen's new room.
Lavi couldn't help but be proud of his creation, feeling awed by him. He hadn't really known what to expect of the person he was creating before he'd woken. He had known, of course, that they wouldn't be anything like a zombie.
This kind of thing had happened before, but even with the written accounts of such experiments that he had read in the library, the things he didn't know about it somewhat outweighed the things he did.
The results of the experiment, if not the process, was shrouded in much more mystery. Factually speaking, there was more raw information available on what the resulting creation wouldn't be than what it would be.
He knew it wouldn't be mindless or half-dead like a zombie, it wouldn't hunger for dead flesh like a nidhogg, and if Lavi dealt with the bite on the neck as he had, then it wouldn't come to life only to transform into a vampire or other supernatural creature. That was more or less it.
From that, Lavi could extrapolate that it would have free thought, even a personality. It would be fully alive, possibly fully human. It shouldn't fall apart or have issues like that.
But what would he eat?
Would he sleep? Would his lungs work? Would his blood flow or would it sit still in his veins like Lavi's did? The questions and therefore the apprehension, piled up and finally, as the project wrapped up, he would have his answer.
A pulse. His creation had a pulse, he'd felt it as soon as they'd sat down in the library together that morning.
The heart beat, the blood flowed, and it was amazing. He had kept in mind, of course, that the outcome of his experiment would probably be very close to human, but he hadn't really expected it. Even if he had? Seeing it was a totally different experience.
As well, from the small amount of time he'd spent with his creation, Lavi could tell he was smart. Or he would be, once he got some knowledge in him. He clearly had thoughts and feelings, too, just like Lavi had barely dared to hope.
Not that he was too expectant that Yu would be pleased with his new partner. He was difficult to please, after all. Allen might be an amazing creation and look flawless on the outside, but he was still new on the inside.
Lavi just hoped he had enough time to help Allen learn and grow before Yu started expecting too much out of him. Wishful thinking, Lavi mentally scoffed as he crawled down from the ceiling to stand on the floor before Allen's door. He knocked firmly and waited patiently for his young charge to open the door. He didn't.
Maybe sleeping . . . he's had a heavy morning, Lavi supposed. He knocked again, this time louder and longer. Still nothing. And it was at this point that Lavi decided the direct way was the only way forward. He turned the door handle and slid into the room, keeping the door half-closed behind him.
He'd expected to see his Allen laying in the bed, dead asleep, or maybe sitting in one of the chairs, doing nothing in particular. He wasn't there.
Lavi went to check under the bed, just to be sure, and then he stood by the window. Looking out at the dark night beyond the glass, it was much later now. After he had woken up at his usual time in the late evening, he did need to do some of his nightly chores before going to get Allen, as promised.
Did Allen leave sometime during that metaphorical window of time? Lavi's vampiric eyes scanned the wide swathe of land outside the window, but his night vision didn't pick up a bit of movement from outside, much less his little charge making an escape.
If he went outside, he had to have left earlier than Lavi had woken up. And if Allen had gone somewhere else in the mansion . . . he still would have had to get up and go there before Lavi had woken up. The vampire found it quite hard to believe that the boy would have made it to wherever he was going while neither running into him nor leaving his scent rubbed all over placed Lavi would pass through later.
For the sake of his head remaining attached to his body, Lavi was going to assume Allen had only taken a little jaunt around his new home. The vampire would deal with the alternative if it happened. He just really hoped it didn't happen!
And so proceeded the redheaded vampire named Lavi, sniffing around various corners of the mansion for places Allen would have gone, like the kitchen or the lab. He had to be somewhere.
Well, this is informative. Allen thought in a nonplussed manner, staring at the page of the book he was currently on. He'd spent countless hours at this point looking through various books on various types of plants.
Naturally, he'd started his reading quest by first getting a book on gardening. That turned out well and when he'd finished the 300 page book in a half hour, it became apparent to him that he read quite quickly, despite never having done it before and not understanding all words used in the book.
He moved on.
Steadily, he made his way through that section of the library, ultimately picking out stranger and stranger books. Now, regrettably, he was on a book of deadly plants, which was proportionally large to its subject matter. Specifically, he was on something known colloquially as the suicide plant.
Apparently, it was a kind of pretty plant absolutely covered in deceptively small, translucent hairs. These hairs make the plant's name a reality. If one of these plants is cut and you inhale any of these hairs, if you even so much as touch the plant lightly and the little hairs inevitably break off into your skin, you will experience indescribable pain.
The pain is supposed to be so intense as to be intolerable. Some who'd been unlucky enough to get to know that plant intimately had decided to end it all just to end the pain. Worse still, if you don't get out every single one of the hairs that got stuck in you, the tiny translucent ones, the pain will be recurring. The pain could last for days, months, or years.
So, even though that's not its scientific name, it's called the Suicide Plant. And Allen now knew that. All of that. Why he had to know that, he couldn't say, but he knew that now. Allen hesitantly turned to the next page and just barely caught sight of a drawing of a man with blistering skin tied to a tree and screaming, before he slammed the book shut and quickly placed it off to the side.
I think I;ll stick with petunias, Allen thought to himself as he cautiously picked the dreaded book back up and began carrying it back to the shelf he got it from. Did Lavi stock this library? I wonder if he's ever had to use this information . . .
It was as Allen was passing by a random shelf on his way back to the plant section when he caught a word on one of the spines out of the corner of his eye. Wait, was that . . ? Allen stopped and turned towards it.
Yes. The spine of the book only had one, very large, word on it. The word was: Demons.
Lavi . . . Lavi did say the person he was made for, Yu, was a demon, didn't he? Allen found himself drawn curiously towards the book, reaching out one of his pale hands towards it, the white flesh glowing compared to the dark leather of the book he reached for.
Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, another pale hand, this one quite bony, lashed out from somewhere behind him and latched onto his wrist. Head snapping around to view his attacker, his pale blue eyes clashed with a pair of older cerulean ones.
"So you're him, are you?" The harsh voice coming from the man looming over him stated. It didn't really sound like a question and it seemed to Allen like the man was passing judgement.
"I could say the same about you," Allen responded before he could think about it. He couldn't seem to tear his eyes away from the opposing pair. "Yu Kanda."
