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We've been nominated! Commission has been nominated for "Favorite Darkward" at the Bellie Awards (.), and "Best Alternate Universe, WIP" category at the Indie TwiFic Awards ().
With each award, Commission will only get on the ballot if it's one of the top 4 or 5 to be nominated in that category. So, if you like what you've read, please take a minute to nominate the story for either or both awards. (Or some other award, if you're so inclined :) )
Disclaimer: SM owns all things Twilight. I own this plot.
*****
The midnight air is cold, sharp. It smells of dying leaves and nascent snow. The campus is deserted; most students have left for the Thanksgiving holiday, and the few who remain have found warmer, brighter places to be for the night.
The architecture here is eclectic. One quad is bound by old brick and ivy, another by gray concrete slabs and odd angles. The music library resembles an old cathedral, while the student center, built in the 1970s, is more like a post-modern military bunker. Student opinion is sharply divided. Some are pleased that their university is not defined by obsolete tradition, and willing to build "outside the box." Others wish this place would look more like the Ivy League university that it aspires to be.
He weaves through the grounds for hours, wandering slowly, pausing at each building for a thorough examination. The campus has expanded considerably in the last half-century, and most of it seems entirely alien. A few sections, however, are familiar. One dormitory in particular calls out to him. The doors and windows are different - they have had several upgrades over the decades - but the structure is essentially the same. He knows this place. He used to live here.
He walks the perimeter of the building once, twice, trying to provoke recollection. Studying each window, he wonders which was his; his fingers glide over the door handle and test its weight as he tries to imagine pulling it open. Such exercises have helped jog his memory recently, but not today. He can't seem to remember anything; eventually, he turns away, lights a cigarette, and begins the long walk home.
He could hunt. In fact, he probably ought to, but for some reason, hunting has recently lost its luster. He would much rather relive the past than carry out the tedium of the present. True, life has been a bit more stimulating lately – books and films have added a new dimension to his world, but it is little more than window-shopping. In his flashbacks, he doesn't just look, he gets to touch and feel and taste. There, life is rich and complex. Memories bring new sensations, make him think new thoughts. They leave little pieces behind, too, giving him something to reflect on during the long, windowless days. It is a welcome change from his earlier musings, and he revels in the distraction each memory provides.
Passing through Evanston, he enters Roger's Park. While the south side of Chicago is its unequivocal crime center, this area keeps plenty of police officers' wives up at night, too. He turns east on Howard Street to walk along the lake, passing under the El tracks. Several homeless men lie sleeping in front of an empty attendant's booth, a few of them cocooned in gray, dirty blankets. He spares no more than a passing glace. Once, he lived among these people, fed on them, desperate for blood and ignorant of how to better himself. His recollections of that time are faint and fading, as tenuous as the memories of childhood. Now, the thought of their filthy, diseased bodies turns his stomach, and the disgust is tempered only by contempt.
Suddenly, his reflections are interrupted. Several blocks ahead, people are arguing - two men and a woman, their voices increasing in volume and aggravation as he approaches. Were the commotion not directly in his path, he wouldn't have batted an eye, but drawing nearer, his curiosity stirs. Now he can discern their words; something about drugs and broken promises and money. It figures. People are always arguing about money.
The conflict escalates. The woman is berating one of the men, and he swears at her in return. She fires back, but is silenced by a dull smack. More shouting, just the men this time. He pauses, steps back and waits for the fight to play itself out. Several punches are thrown, then two men spill out onto the sidewalk in front of him.
One holds up a knife. "Had enough, motherfucker?"
The other dabs at his bleeding lip and takes a step back.
"Yeah, that's right. Run on home now, you little bitch."
"Fuck you," the bleeding man spits out. "We had a deal, and I want my money."
Neither of them seems to have noticed him yet, so he stands perfectly still against the trunk of a tree, watching.
"Fuck me? Fuck you! You sold me shit, and I ain't paying for it. So get the fuck off my street, and take your bitch with you."
Grimacing, the second man throws a look over his shoulder and takes another step back. The other straightens slightly, shifts the knife in his hand. In the next instant, it falls to the ground with a muted clatter as the echo of gunfire reverberates against the surrounding buildings. He stumbles and sinks to the ground, clutching his shoulder as blood begins to ooze through his fingers.
The vampire jerks back, unintentionally revealing himself. The gun was discharged less than fifteen feet away, and the sound is deafening to his supersensitive hearing. He staggers, eyes squeezed shut, palms nearly crushing the cartilage of his ears against his skull. Then the gun fires again, and now the pain in his head is joined by a burning sensation against his hand. Something clinks onto the cement as he looks up.
His attacker is frozen in place, eyes darting from the crushed bullet on the ground to his target's unmarred hand. This man is scared – he has just mortally wounded a rival gang member, and now there is a witness. A witness whose skin deflects bullets.
The vampire swallows and glances down at his hand, where a thick red welt is forming between the knuckles of his middle and ring finger. He flexes it to test for broken bones and pain shoots up his forearm. His gaze jerks back to the human, and he snarls. The would-be shooter gasps, nearly choking with panic, gun trembling in his outstretched arm. But he won't take another breath, let alone fire another round, before his neck is snapped in the other's cold, steel grip.
Panting, the vampire whirls. Rage and adrenaline have taken over, and now the smell of blood assails him, fueling the frenzy. The metallic odor has saturated the air, and it burns the back of his throat like hellfire. His fists clench and unclench, and he lunges to its source.
The man who was shot is not yet dead, but it is only a matter of minutes. Nearly half of his blood has already been spilled, spreading along the cement and soaking into its pores, but half still remains. The vampire's lips close hungrily over the wound, sucking the thick fluid into his mouth through tattered skin and clothes. Although he wasn't hungry just minutes ago, the taste has possessed him. When the body is drained, he leaps to his feet, gasping for more.
A voice sounds faintly from around the corner, and he turns. The woman. She had been knocked unconscious, but is now coming to, trying to push herself up off the ground. Vessels pulse throughout her body, and he imagines the heart beating behind the ribcage, sees the blood pouring from the ventricle into the aorta with each contraction. She is barely on her feet before he pounces, and the breath goes out of her lungs as they land on the cold cement. His own breath has quickened to a gasp and he grunts, jerking her head back to expose the carotid artery. Razor - sharp canines pierce the skin, and she cries out, but the sound falls on deaf ears. As the salty-sweet liquid coats his tongue, he hears nothing. It envelops him, drowning out the world as it courses down his throat. He shudders, intoxicated.
Gradually, the urgency abates, and he begins to savor each swallow, drawing it out rather than gulping. Briefly, he pauses to breathe and reclaim his senses. The scent of blood now mingles with others – burnt gunpowder from the fired bullets, motor oil on the ground, the faint rot of garbage in a nearby trashcan. There is also sweat and urine and fear. These are the woman's, and he notices that she is still alive, still struggling under him. His cheek rests against her jaw, and it moves as she mumbles something. He pulls away then, spontaneously, for a reason that he won't try to understand until later.
"No," she whispers, "Please..."
Something shifts in him then, something deep in his gut, and he draws back to look at her face. Her nose is swollen and smeared with blood. Her eyes, with rich brown irises, are half closed and bloodshot. Short brown hair forms a jagged halo around her face, and her thin lips part as she gasps softly with each breath. He stares and doesn't know what to think or feel.
She seems to realize that he is no longer at her throat, and begins to drag herself away. She is weak now and moves slowly. As she pulls her head around, blood courses from the wound at her neck and onto the ground. He watches each drop splatter with a thud and, unable to permit the waste, lurches forward for what is rightfully his. This time, he won't pull back until it is gone.
***
The night had not turned out as he expected, and neither has the day. In the bedroom, books sit untouched, the newly acquired television and stereo are silent. He is huddled in the corner with his journal, scribbling madly, as if possessed. On the way home, he has had another flashback, and this one, along with everything else that has happened on this night, just won't let him go.
He had been rushing home, nearly flying, but the growing distance between him and the dead girl did nothing to get her out of his head. Her body swam before his eyes; he saw her lips move as she dragged air in and out of her lungs, saw her face turn towards him, heard her whispered plea. He ran faster, but the images kept coming, cycling past like a broken record. She was alive, she was bleeding, she was dead. He was famished, he was frenzied, he was sated.
Then, suddenly, he stopped short in the middle of the street. Except that he wasn't in the street anymore. He was somewhere else, somewhere he didn't recognize. A white empty room with an empty bed, surrounded by machines whose limp and useless wires dangled to the floor. It smelled of disinfectant and disease. He stared dumbly at the bed as something gnawed at him, a sickening emptiness that grew and grew until his hands shook and his stomach seized. He was alone there, so desperately alone. He didn't remember who had died or how, but he knew that death had brought him here. The thought of it was overwhelming and he felt nauseous. What had happened here? Who had died, and why was he so gut-wrenchingly miserable? No answers came as nausea overwhelmed him, and he threw up.
The smell of vomit dragged him back to the present. He was on his hands and knees in front of a sour and bloody mess, and he reeled back, gagging. Something else assaulted him then, and he looked up to see the unmistakable glow of sunrise in the sky. Scrambling to his feet, he took off for his apartment in a lumbering run, barely managing to drag himself into the bedroom room before collapsing.
Now, through a blistering sun-induced headache, he writes like his eternal life depends on it. Or, at the very least, his eternal sanity.
I have feared death. I have clung to and defended my life against it, for life is the most precious thing I own. But the death of someone else, someone who matters... is this true suffering? What I saw and what I felt in that little white room – it is far worse than any misery I have imagined, but precisely because I had not died. Were I to be struck down tomorrow, I would hardly know it. And were I to become ill, or through some other external intervention be made to suffer, then death would, perhaps, be a relief.
But if it is not my life that ends, but someone else's, and I am left behind? That is surely worse. That sort of death begins, not ends, the torment. Without permission, or concern, it gutted me. It shook me, spit me out into a mockery of my old life. I was abandoned, ignorant and helpless, and had no choice but to live without the only thing I cared about.
It's like that blasted song...
That woman... did she love someone? Did someone love her? A child, a parent, a sibling? What is their life like now, now that she is dead, now that...
Now that I have killed her.
If it is true that the value of life is relative, then the loss of hers is not merely my gain. Against my satisfaction, I must weigh the suffering of all others who might care, who are still waiting for her to come home. And while the taste of her blood is already fading from my lips, their grief will last for decades.
She begged me not to do it. She wanted to live, and I... am sorry.
He stares at the words in front of him, reads them over and over, first silently and then out loud. On the last sentence, his voice breaks, and he hurls the notebook away.
He wants to go out. He needs to leave, to stare at something other than his own bloody hands. But the day is a prison; it fetters the vampire to his budding conscience, forcing him into penance.
He rebels. One by one, books from the tall stack on the floor are pitched into the opposite wall. Each one leaves a dent in the drywall. Spines burst and pages explode into the air, until the words of dead men blanket the floor like freshly fallen snow.
The sleek and glamorous electronics are next, but he is not satisfied to merely shatter the casing. Each piece that flies back at him is all but ground into dust, and still he rages.
Once there is nothing left to break, he stands panting in the center off the room, staring at the remains of his belongings. Yet more destruction by his hand... and some of these things he loved.
This is wrong, it's all wrong. He feels powerless, exhausted. Slowly, he makes his way back into the corner and sinks to the floor.
I can still taste her blood, but it is bitter. Her scent is all over my clothes, all over my skin. I've scrubbed myself raw, but it won't come off. Worst of all, her eyes... I see them everywhere I look. They bore into my chest, and I can't breathe.
I wish she hadn't died.
Human life is sweet. I can only glimpse the best of it, but the people I hunt are its very embodiment. Everything that I am lately missing, all that I am coming to understand and to covet – they live it each day.
I destroy it.
But what else can I do? I suppose... I don't know. It has never mattered, so I have never looked for alternatives. Perhaps there is an easy answer. Do I really need human blood? Could I survive on other animals instead?
And if not, if I must kill people to live... is it better to kill some and not others?
