Chapter Text
Sobs echoed in the dark night, haunting, resonating among the trees.
A small boy, crying with pain and fear, pushed past leaves and branches as tears streamed down his face. His arm burned yet there were no flames, only blood. Two gaping holes left him throbbing, a deadly venom igniting his veins and slowly spreading the blaze throughout his body. Seeping, clawing, racking through his muscles, through his blood.
Trees loomed over his head, casting dark shadows over the ground that resembled claws—no, fangs. Cruel dark fangs that flashed momentarily white in his eyes.
Feet tripped over feet and his small body was suddenly sprawled over the ground, his teeth clacking together painfully. He lay there, trembling as he felt the toxins creep into his legs, blistering anguish and rendering them immobile. The boy whimpered, squeezing his eyes shut as the pain increased with each second, spreading to every corner of his body till it was consumed by the blaze.
Each beat of his heart grew ever lethargic, slowing, drawing closer to a halt.
He began to gasp for air. The fire had reached his lungs and it was suffocating him, smothering him in heat and pain with each breath he took. Till his world was nothing but agony.
Blue eyes dimmed as they stared at the churned soil before his nose, fallen leaves stirred slightly by each slowing breath. The movement was almost trance like.
The world was fading, growing duller by the second in the weak dappling of moonlight. His mind was spinning into a void of darkness, cool and welcoming to his scorching body. Promising relief. Promising to free him from the pain.
The boy’s lungs released their final breath and welcomed the darkness, allowing it to fully embrace him.
Darkness. Peace. Silence.
Time held no place, no sway. Flowing ever indifferent as the tree leaves rustled above apathetic to the small body below, still among the silent woods.
The moon arced above, time passed and the dawning hastened to the cusp of the world.
Eyes fluttered open just as the world seemed to breathe once more.
Red.
Blistering red shinning in the dim of dawn.
He gasped.
An impulse and it felt...utterly wrong.
Empty. No reaction. No stirring deep in his chest.
Only the powerful taste of the earth, of the wind and leaves. Other strange scents and tastes assaulting his palate for the first time, like he had never tasted before. Like he had never known what it was like to actually smell.
His ears were suddenly bombarded with the sounds of the forest. Every chirp became a screech, every rustle a roar, and every movement was deafening. The boy clenched his eyes, clamping his hands over his ears in an effort to drown out the clamoring noise.
And then there was silence and it came not from the world, but from the stillness in his own chest.
No heartbeat.
No heat. No flushing through his veins.
No breath, no urge to fill his lungs. Only the echo of a habit.
All but one thing.
The burning. The insatiable fire clawing at his throat forcing him to swallow and taste his dry mouth.
A sharp pain on his tongue made the boy freeze with uncertainty. He slowly ran his tongue over his teeth and was met with a sharpness, wicked and cold. He removed a hand from the side of his head and lifted his nervous fingers to his mouth, pushing past his clenched lips and confirming with his touch what he had just felt brush against his tongue.
No!
He couldn’t believe it.
No!
He wouldn’t believe it.
No! No! NO!
In a panic, the boy sprang to his feet and began to run. Sharp teeth glistened in his mind, cruel and smiling just under orbs of hellish red. Then they flashed and the memory of pain returned, sinking into his skin, sharp and suddenly followed by a strange lulling sweetness that tried to calm the nerves in his body. But fear was sharper.
And in that flash, he recalled small hands clawing forward, raking pointlessly down that shadowy face. But the teeth did not let go.
A child’s scream growing muffled, whistling through the air and…remembered something cold, hard, pressing against his tongue. The clenching thunder taking his jaw as he bit down past skin into the forearm of his attacker and then the heat of blood dribbling, smearing against his teeth, between his gums. The metallic taste sharp against his tongue.
Then running.
Darkness.
Death.
Then…not dead. But not alive. And the boy knew it. He knew what he was.
A voice haunting and familiar, echoing in the black. Stern and unyielding, urgent and harsh.
Remember, son. Vampires are death, whoever they may have been before is gone. Nothing in them is human anymore. And it is your duty, ours, to end them. No matter what.
Sobs wracked from the boy’s chest as his feet carried him further and further away. The forest was a blur as his feet, powered by an unearthly force, reached new speeds.
Brown suddenly shot into view, breaking the shafts of weak morning light.
The sounds echoed, a rhythmic beating, a pulsing. Singing so sweetly to his ears.
And some reaction, primal and new had his mouth watering, salivating in an instant. His mind sharpening, focused as the world seemed to slow into focus.
A small fawn was before his vision, its light steps trembling the earth ever so slightly. The weakest of vibrations running through the soil and to him.
The boy meant to slow, but his eyes suddenly glowed red as hot coals. His stomach clenched and burned with flames of insatiable hunger, rising fire to his throat till he felt more parched than he recalled possible and his fangs unsheathed, ready to strike.
And action became reaction.
Without thought his feet carried him to his new goal. To the new desire only decided moments ago without his consent.
The distance between them closed and he was lunging, some strange energy he was unaware of carrying his through the air. The heat was palatable as his face inched near, the sound growing louder. Calling.
He gasped, his mouth open wide and a strange sensation rushed into his mouth as his teeth bit down, snapping tight to the fragile neck. That pulse was suddenly his entire world, thrumming against the cold of his teeth only to be washed with heat.
Taste bloomed, surged anew against his tongue yet some sense of dissatisfaction clicked in his brain. But it did not stop him from swallowing the first gulp.
The fawn struggled and let out a horrifying squeal, peeling against his ears.
Why didn’t he flinch? There was no urge to, no guilt, no horror for causing pain. No human reaction. Only the satisfaction of the catch, of the thirst soon to be sated.
The boy held fast, small hands gripping at anything in reach with an uncontained strength. Not even realizing as the sound of bones snapped, pinched under his fingers and then echoed in the air followed by another cry.
And yet no other reaction came but to feed.
More sweet liquid poured from the wound, and the impulse strengthened till he drank greedily and unaware. Dazed into a calming and almost peaceful stupor, honed by savage desire.
He drank, swallow after swallow. Losing track, not even realizing when the forest had grown quiet and the beast had stilled before his body against the bed of leaves and grass. There was silence, the absence of the succulent sound that had driven him.
The slow seeping of heat in favor of a colder embrace, now echoing under his own skin.
The boy did not move until the corpse before him was sucked dry and nothing more than a dried-out husk of flesh. He sucked at the wound hoping to tease the last few, delicious drops from the creature before slowly sitting up when nothing more came to his lips.
The burning hunger, though not completely satisfied, had calmed somewhat. The urge to feed slowly drifted from his mind, and he was left with the reality that lay before him.
Horror slowly dawned on the boy as he stared at the broken creature before him. Its limbs were askew and its neck torn up, flesh savagely riveted and matted dark with the blood he had spilled.
The sickening urge to hurl climbed up his throat till he was left tense and staring. Yet nothing surged up and neither did he feel bloated with what he had just consumed. Again, no physical reaction, only his mind reeling with the desire it fought to have from his body. Yet his body did not respond to it meekly.
Sobs wracked his chest once more, horror and shame flooding through his being. He wrapped his arms around his chest in a faux attempt to comfort himself.
The sunlight peeking through the trees, though weak, caused the boy to squint painfully. He buried his face in his arms, both to shield himself from the light and to hide his shame. He wanted nothing more than to crawl into his bed and hide under the blankets, but going home meant going back to his family as…a freak. A monster. He could still feel it, the craving of blood, though not from just a mere animal. In his mind’s eye he saw those flashing teeth once more and shuddered. He didn’t dare go back home. Not as a monster—he could get his family killed…or they would kill him. That’s what his father did, wasn’t it? Hunt vampires?
It was a horrid, cold and empty feeling when the boy realized that he could never return home, not like this. His sobs slowly turned to sniffles as he sat there, hugging his knees to his chest and his face buried in his arms.
The sun, the boy sensed, was almost fully risen above the horizon and with it came a brightness seemingly too much to bear. Its blazing heat warmed the world, bringing displeasure and discomfort to the child.
A sudden…coolness, almost like a breeze but more like a shiver down his spine made the boy look up, squinting in a certain direction.
He stood and ventured in the direction of the breeze, keeping to the darkest shades of the trees in his path. He didn’t keep track of the time but soon it got cooler, the trees denser till the forest floor was mantled in twilight.
He paused as a sharp metallic scent hit his nose, something almost akin to the smell of blood but not blood.
Rust.
The underbrush around him was strewn, old and dead in the overgrown area, hiding something just below the surface. Some kind of metallic arch was barely visible below the foliage, weathered by rain and wind, tarnished to a pale grey and rusting browns.
Yet it caught his attention.
Carefully he approached the mass of bushes. His hands grabbed some of the gnarled old limbs and when he tugged they snapped as though they were brittle and dead, not alive and covered with leaves.
Disturbed by his sudden strength, he tossed the broken branch aside and kept his gaze focused on the strangely shaped oddity deep in the forest. He ripped more branches aside from the shrub, finding it too easy to do but he tried not to dwell on the fact.
He was just relieved to be in the shade, away from the sunlight that stung his eyes.
Finally, concrete steps were revealed sinking into the earth to an old rusted door.
It was dark, and the overgrown vines covering the pathway suggested it had been long abandoned.
His short legs buckled as he followed the steep steps down.
The boy lifted his hands and pushed on the door but it did not budge. Gritting his teeth, he put a little more back into the effort till divots sunk into the metal around his hands and a sharp screeching sound echoed in the air. Metal scraping concrete. After a few tries, the door finally swung open noisily and with much complaint.
A cold gust sighed past the old door, ominous and rank with mildew, draping him with its embrace. Inside it was dark and moist…and perfect. He tiptoed inside, his eyes immediately adjusting to the darkness like a second instinct, a blessed relief from the blinding light of the sun.
The emptiness of the room echoed his footsteps and the darkness seemed to chasm out endlessly, echoing each sound like a whisper.
Empty.
Hungry.
Alone.