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The carnage he left behind is immense; the bodies were stacked into a neat pile in the deep ditch. The faces of the sheep are suspended in the last expression before death. Some with eyes closed in resignation while others are open wide with shock, but now all clouded in death. Their white or black coats are stained with drying red-brown. Skin, ligament, tendon, muscle, nervous tissue, all severed at the neck and the head hanging on by a thread. Fulgur grabs his shovel and begins the painstaking process of shoveling the dark earth onto the corpses. He can name every single sheep, thanking them for the sacrifice in his mind.
Shu’s hunger grows every single day. Fulgur doesn’t understand it. He wishes the consequences of the vampirism that has trapped Shu’s gentle nature into the corner of his mind could be borne by him instead.
His pleas for Shu to feed solely from him went unheeded so he came up with another plan; these consequences are only his to bear.
Collection had been done earlier in the day, the blood repackaged into plastic bags similar to those at blood banks and labelled with animal blood before being stored in the fridge. The way it makes it feel clinical and detached will help Shu cope.
Fulgur thinks he has enough to last Shu for the next two months, provided Shu supplements his intake by feeding on him once a month.
Shu is curled over in the fetal position huddled in a corner of the room when he enters the bedroom.
He can empathize with the pains of hunger, the pangs of the stomach and how it eventually fades into the background before coming back in vengeance as dizziness and weakness. Nobody has any right to deny Shu his life.
“Shu-chan.” Fulgur whispers.
“Fuu-chan?” Shu whispers back, voice cracking several times from dryness.
“Shu, you need to drink before you die.” Fulgur waits for Shu to slowly rise, while he supports him with a hand on his back. When Shu is sitting on the edge of the bed, Fulgur places the heated cup of blood into Shu’s hand. Shu seems reluctant to drink, but when Fulgur makes a point to try to nick himself on the palm with the edge of his pocket knife, Shu quickly starts to gulp down the beverage.
The sound of screaming fills his ears. As their keeper of course he could understand what their pleas of anguish were. “Fulgur Ovid, why have You forsaken us? Were we not worthy of Your love as well?”
The vision of the dead overlapped with a broken Shu. Shu with the same gash at his throat. Shu with fractures all over his body, limbs at odd angles and limp as a ragdoll. Shu with skin grey and gaunt. Shu, Shu, Shu, Shu. Everyone else be damned.
The gold band on his left hand sparkles, solidifying his resolve.