Death starts to lose it's meaning when we live sheltered lives, unexposed to the tragedy of the loss of life; when we have faith that there will be a continuation of life, an escape to a place we believe is in our control. But what if there is nothing waiting for us on the other side? Just emptiness. The day when we cease to exist in this world is a day when we cease to exist forever. Forever lost. Forever engulfed in emptiness. No more dreams, no more nightmares, no more hope.
Gone.
Blood. A great ocean of blood stretched across the floor, glistening. Still.
Discarded limbs littered the floor, puce coloured stains covered everything. Chunks of raw flesh clung to the walls, slithering back towards their slaughtered origins.
Drip, drip, drip.
I could taste it on my tongue, the taste of blood, the taste of death.
Something compelled me to move forward, to take those shaky steps down into the graveyard of over a hundred young girls. It felt like I could float over it, over the remains of numerous undecipherable faces, bodies.
It was so unreal. Like a compilation of my darkest nightmares. Any moment a pale hand was going to rise up from the liquid mess. Rise up and pull me under.
But this was real. It was real because I could see it, taste it, smell it, hear the sticky wet sloshing as I waded knee deep through an ocean of corpses. I could feel it, feel the solid, slippery surface of the bones that lined the floor.
If I didn't remember that these were once people; If I just forgot that they were once living, breathing people, just like me, then I could keep my sanity. It was the one thing I had left… but even that was dangling from a dangerously fine thread.
"You're afraid of me." Heath's voice filled the reticence, reverberating like a sinister omen. "But I set you free. I saved you." My shoulder was sticky from where he had held me - even if I knew, I didn't want to see it, didn't want to confirm my beliefs. I knew what that meant. I knew what all this meant, and somewhere deep down inside me, in the far recesses of my mind, I had feared it all this time. "Isn't that what you wanted?"
"I didn't want to be saved." It was barely a whisper, but I knew he heard me. I could feel him watching me with those foreign eyes. "I never wished for this. I would never wish this on anyone!" Turning to face him, the resolve that I had gathered cracked, watching those blank eyes observe me.
He was standing beside the throne, beneath the cross that glittered red in the dim light, holding the Domina's head. Her raven tresses, slick with blood, were fisted in his hands.
I watched him release it, listening to the splatter as it broke the surface of the red lake, irritating the almost viscose liquid. The slow, dispersed waves felt heavy, like they were pushing me under.
Heath licked the remainder of her blood from his fingers, his eyes never leaving my face, my eyes never leaving his. "Are you going to run?"
"I have nowhere to run to." The realisation came with the words, painfully numbing.
"I meant what I said, Jade. You are mine." Backing away, I tripped over my feet and fell, down into the liquid. Thick. Sticky. It clung to me like a second skin, dragging me down, deeper. Before I broke the surface again, fingers tangled in the entrails of some maimed girl. Her life stolen. I couldn't be sick. I wasn't going to let myself be sick. Not even when I could start to smell the rancid stench of rotting flesh and excrements. "Don't pity them. They didn't have anything left to live for. I saved them all."
"They all had friends, relationships, families… futures outside of here." I muttered, unable to raise my voice. The taste of iron filled my mouth… cold. The taste of someone else's blood. "You didn't have to do this. There was no purpose. You could have let them go! You could have given them a second chance at life!"
Heath grinned sadistically, dipping his hand into the bloody mess until his hands met the pulp at the bottom. "This was my purpose from the beginning, Jade. Why would I want to let them go?"
"What do you mean?"
"What you thought was a plot to destroy the world was a scheme to keep my species under control." He chucked the meaty lump he had pulled out behind him, and it splattered against the wall, peeling off slowly before it returned to the murky depths whence it came from. "Do you think vampires really care if they might cause an outright pandemonium? Didn't you ever think it was strange that they went to so much effort to keep it a secret?"
"I don't understand…"
"Or were you so engrossed in your own emotional trauma, that you overlooked everything else?" I tried to run away, to the other side of the room, to the massive window that overlooked the forest. No matter how much strength I put into each push forward, the laws of physics kept pulling me backwards. I was easy prey to a superhuman monster. "You've figured it out, haven't you?" He was standing right behind me, casting a dark shadow that left me clinging to the little bit of light that crept through the gore encrusted glass.
Even in the darkness from the storm, when I slowly turned to face him, I could see the elongated fangs. "You're…"
"Don't waste your breath." With one swift tug, he had pulled me into his arms. "It just makes this so much more tedious. Instead, I want you to scream and beg for your life, just like every other, pathetic girl-"
I slapped him, hard across the face with my free hand, not really understanding how. It just… sort of happened. "You fucking jerk. If you're going to kill me after everything that's happened, then you might as well explain why my best friend had to die right in front of my face!"
He laughed, a cruel stony laugh that left me feeling vulnerable. Weak. There was nothing I could do. "I admire your spirit, Jade. Even though I was never really going to kill you, I just don't have it in me... but you should really learn your place."
The hand that gripped my arm, made it's way towards my throat, before crushing me back against the window. Glass shattered and fell in shards from the impact, sinking slowly into the pool of blood. He wasn't choking me. I could still breathe. Still speak. "Stop stalling and tell me. Tell me if it's so bloody important."
"That's the Jade I know." In a brief moment of confusion and pain, I saw a flicker of the Heath that I used to know. The Heath that didn't exist. "Well, if you're going to go to all the fuss, I'll tell you… for a price."
"No." I refused, not even wanting to hear the terms. No more deals with the devil. He couldn't have me. Not before and certainly not now. "I'm not going to play into your hands anymore. You've used me enough."
His lips were dangerously close, his eyes now a steely grey. How they could have ever seemed blue was almost like a distant memory of something impossible. Implausible. "Is that a death wish, Jade?"
"I'd rather die than be touched by you." The humour had left his face, leaving only the hollow emptiness that made me cringe away in terror. How could something so beautiful be so deadly? The striking contrast of blood smeared on his pale skin was both disturbing and somehow appealing.
What the hell! Snap out of it, Jade! But I couldn't. It was as if the rest of this room didn't matter, as if the only thing that mattered was where our exposed skin met…
The sharp stinging of broken glass slicing into my back brought me back to my senses merely moments before his other hand came up to rip away my shirt. Words wouldn't form, just an ear-splitting scream as I kicked my leg hard against his abdomen, catching him off guard.
There wasn't time to care about the fact that I was now missing a large part of the design on my band-tee or the fact that there was no longer any coverage on my chest apart from some now very red, slightly ripped underwear. The force of the kick had not only managed to push Heath away, but had made the brittle remnants of the window pane give way.
So I fell,
down,
down,
down, eyes wide with surprise. At some point it started to feel like I wasn't even moving, and I knew that wasn't good. I knew that this would be the end of me, and no matter how much I told myself I could accept it. I was scared. I was fucking scared. I could hear the shrill ringing of my own voice as I plummeted towards the earth beneath me.
It wasn't the silver eyes that watched me from the window that silenced me, it was the loud howl that rose like a crescendo before I was knocked off course by some blurred, gargantuan entity coming at me from the cliff face a few hundred metres away. Even through the haze of my subconscious, I could feel the sharp teeth grazing my flesh, locking the remainder of my shirt in an obscenely large jaw. I couldn't have fallen that far, but time had moved so slowly, as if I had already fallen one thousand feet.
And with a loud thud, we landed, this mysterious creature and I.
His breath fanned against my skin as he released the tattered remains of my clothes, his tongue coming out to lap at my injuries, but I couldn't see him. All I could see were the steely eyes of the vampire. The murderer. Heath.
The broken howl that had haunted my dreams rolled over the hills, louder than ever before. It was all I remembered before I blacked out completely.
"That was quite a show - all it's missing is a standing ovation… but you killed your audience and used them for the stage set. It's really too bad for you. You could have been a star." Isaac revealed himself, stepping out of the shadows behind the throne. "… But honestly, I'm surprised you still kept so much a secret."
"I just wanted to give her a little taster." Heath sighed, discarding the remnants of her shirt into the pool beneath him. "Besides, we can only tell her so much in one go and expect her to take it in. If I had given her the whole song and dance now, she would have more reason to be suspicious."
"Is that your self-conscious side, I hear?" Geraldine chuckled, jumping down from her perch, sending large undulating waves through the bloody mess. "You could tell her. It doesn't matter anyway. Now that the council's plans to create an army to protect themselves have finally been crushed, you can do whatever you want." Her hand fished around amongst the mess of raw meet, searching for anything. Pulling out a crushed lump of cartilage and muscle, she then raised it to her lips, keeping her eyes trained on Heath's blood smeared face. "We can finally crush those bastards on their pedestals, and take that damned book off their hands. They'll have no use for it when they are dead."
"We need the girl, Gerry." Heath drawled impatiently, snatching the abused organ from her slender fingers. "The prophecy wanted virgin blood of a Halfling."
"You could have used any girl here for that." Isaac suggested bluntly. "But you left yourself with no choice. What's so special about that Jade girl anyway?"
"I don't think she knows it yet, but I could almost taste it in her aura." Heath murmured, running his tongue over the dried blood on his fingers. Her dried blood. "Unlike all these girls that barely radiated any energy at all, this girl is a direct descendant of Elven blood. The only one who has a sufficient amount of energy running through her veins to feed the hunger of the book's seal."
Isaac sighed, grinning wickedly. "So you let her get away? Real smooth."
"It's all part of the plan." Heath snapped, wading his way towards the exit. "We set for the citadel today, and when that's taken care of, we return to take her back. By that time, she'll realise just how powerless she really is." He left the other two, the wolf pendant dangling from a leather strap on his wrist.
I was moving. That part was obvious. Well… I wasn't moving, but I was being carried away, staring at the canopy of trees overhead. The dense smell of damp foliage filled my nostrils as rain continued to wash away the blood that covered almost every inch of me.
The immense wolf beneath me flexed his back muscles and I slipped, dangling upside down, as I watched the fine, black lines, that resembled trees, pass us by. If I didn't get up soon, I was going to fall and hurt myself even more than I already was. This being a fairly strong deterrent, I flipped myself to my front, wincing at the pain that seared from my injuries, while I clung to the jet black fur that was slick with water and blood. My fault, mostly.
The wolf grunted, stopping, waiting for me to hoist myself upright. In the end, I ended up straddling his back, like you would a horse, running my fingers through his thick mane. "Thank you." I murmured quietly. He bobbed his head in response, continuing forwards.
From the way I was sitting, I could feel the muscle beneath me tensing and relaxing, and I could hear the soft but heavy sound of paws padding against the soil. It was a nice sound, a peaceful sound, allowing me to reflect on my freedom.
Then it hit me, both the fit of hysterical sobs and the despair. Everyone else had died, and I lived on with the memory. It was so wrong. It would have been better if I had died, and those horrific secrets dying with me. But that was never going to happen. Heath made sure of that... and to think I had trusted him.
Using one hand wrapped gently around the wolfs neck, I leaned forward, wiping tears away with the back of the other. I needed to toughen up and survive. I was lucky to be alive, and I wasn't going to waste it. I wasn't going to let my tormentors win.
Patting the wolf, I rested the length of my body against his back, arms wrapped around his neck, letting myself fall back asleep. Somehow I had a feeling that this was going to be a very long journey.
A/N: SHE HAS ESCAPED! WHHHOOOOOOOOOOO!
Just to clear things up... if you didn't get this from the text. The Domina wasn't good, she just had different motives. Even though Heath killed her, he massacred everyone else. Yeah, he's evil... but he wasted all that blood! tsk tsk. But as you can tell, these vampires are on a mission, and to maximise their chances of achieving their goal, they will do whatever it takes. The big questions are: what is the book? what is the prophecy? and what are they going to do to Jade?
And FINALLY! The wolf saved the day... but does that wolf have a secret too? Or is it just a wolf?
XD
I will try to update as soon as possible! Hope you enjoyed reading it :D
THANK YOU FOR READING!