Jumpin' on a bandwagon~
Ridin' all the way to town~
Can't wait for views a plenty~
Can't wait to see 'em drown~
Vampire Story (Re-Vamped)
“Amazing!”
The woman’s body had been cut into pieces.
“This is so cool!”
Seventeen pieces, to be exact. He had counted, with dutiful care, each and every one, as well as how it had been done. Conventional logic dictated that the best, quickest way would be to aim for the head first. As if to spite that, the deed had been carried out in reverse. First the toes, then the leg, the thigh, the groin, abdomen to stomach, heart to rib, fingers, arms, lips, eyes, and only then did the merciful separation of skull and spine occur. Enduring would’ve been torturous if the entire thing hadn’t taken less than a second.
The red haired man, or rather, the child in the body of a man, wrenched his eyes from the grisly scene to stare with reverence at his hero. Though he paid it little attention, the knife the woman had been wielding had also fallen apart inches from her severed hand. He cared even less that she had been his aunt before becoming art.
“How did you do that?” the boy asked. “Do you have super powers? Are you a magician? Can I learn to slice people up like you one day?”
The hero spared a small nod. The gesture was enough to send the boy’s imagination into a frenzy. Made up images, each one derived in some part from the image of the cut up woman, got more and more ludicrous until, his thoughts spent, the child let go of his tension with all the relief of Atlas shrugging off his load, and sank into the sofa.
He stared at his blood-stained reflection in the empty television screen, drinking in every aspect of the blood caking his lips. Eventually he smiled, and giggled at the contrast between pearly white teeth and red everything else. Legs now treading air, he put his chin in his hands and stared at the body some more.
“Hey, mister,” the man said suddenly. “I saw something, when you killed her. It was only for a second, but I saw it, kinda. What was that? And… how do I get it?”
A wry, self defeating grin. “Dying.”
The boy blinked. Perhaps for the first time in his life, he was more interested in the killer than the one who had been killed. Because he’d been saved, there was no fear in his words. “Who are you, mister?”
The only answer he received was the lonely whistling of wind past glass. Taking care to go over the display on the now ruined (improved!) carpet, the boy stepped into the dim hall and took a look around. He quickly spotted a broken window, now lying in pieces on the floor. Outside, the winds howled and clouds obscured the full moon, creating shadows for those who didn’t wish to be seen.
“Dying, huh?” That sounded right. The only problem was that he couldn’t die without killing himself, and coming back from that sounded too magical to be possible, but the childish man was nothing if not creative. “So if I can’t die, then I just need to see others die instead!”
It could not be seen, yet he had glimpsed it nonetheless. That image would be what he chased for the remainder of his life, and he’d only truly grasp it at the close.
Those without end, however, would forever remain blind.
“Yeah, he went through here.”
Coffee sizzled as it was poured into a cheap paper cup.
“Didn’t stay very long, though.”
Three cubes of sugar and a good stirring later, the cup slid across the counter to a waiting hand. The young boy grabbed it on reflex and raised it to his lips, only to frown and put the drink down before he’d even tasted it.
“Why are you giving me this?” he complained. “I can’t drink that.”
The man sitting to his left shrugged, spun the bar stool he was sitting on, and leaned back, propping his elbows on the counter and letting his eyes roam the interior of the bustling casino.
“I’m not giving you alcohol,” he said with a wry grin dancing around his face. “You look too young. Blood is out of the question. Want some tea instead? Juice, perhaps?”
“I’m older than you by at least a few hundred years!”
“I’d say you’re definitely a few hundred younger if your memory is that bad.”
The boy pouted and glared at his coffee.
“Appearance is everything to humans.” The younger yet older man showed off the crowded room with a flourish. Smiling faces abounded, except when someone went all in and lost it all. “Tell them of a chance to grab a miracle and they’ll come running against all logic. Isn’t that why you’re here as well?” The insult was obvious, yet the necessary hostility to make it real never appeared. It had been more of a gesture to remind the old young boy of his position.
“It’s not a miracle if it’s within your reach, though leaving your fate to chance is definitely an unhealthy tendency,” the visitor replied easily, still debating whether to try the coffee. “Besides, you could have refused me entry. Why you let him in, I don’t know. From what I’ve heard, this one has the restraint of a newborn and none of the inexperience.” Finally fed up with its master’s indecision, the boy’s left hand dipped a finger into the drink, found it to its liking, and took more small sips.
The other man shook his head. The motion crumpled his expensive looking suit slightly, but he didn’t seem to care. “Turning an Ancestor away isn’t something one does lightly. I let you in because you’re decent conversation and your current goals aren’t necessarily detrimental to the rest of us. I let him in because I feared he was going to sink the whole ship with me still in it.”
“He’s already recovered that much power?”
Without any audible command, a wine glass full of deep, red liquid slid into the man’s waiting hand. He raised it to his lips, closed his eyes, and took a long sip. When he set down the cup his smile had hardened into a line, like a crack in a stone face. “I’m not supposed to be telling you, but I don’t really care. He’s still in the early stages, but he has a troublesome ability now, so the danger has only increased. In all likelihood, it will continue to do so until he’s put down.”
“Hm… and you’re not going to do that?” The boy’s teasing smile was infectious, hidden behind his long, dark bangs. “The Church could use a hand, and I’d put in a good word for you.”
The man shook his head. “I’d rather not. I like the current arrangement as it is. The official positions of the White Wing and the Black Princess are that it’s not their problem, and they’d much rather go back to killing each other.” His distaste was palpable. “It’s obvious that they’re both on edge, though. Who wouldn’t be? He killed an Ancestor while still juvenile. As he is, I’d bet they’re both secretly afraid of losing to such a horrible opponent.”
The boy nodded in agreement. “Then again, hoping the White Princess can do the job isn’t a long shot by any means. If it’s her, then even running away won’t work for long.”
“What if she’s killed? I hear that immortal protégé of yours took quite a beating.”
The boy’s smile cracked at the edges. “The girl is fine, though a bit heartbroken, and I’m not even considering the former as a possibility.”
“You should be.” Another gulp and a sigh. “He’s different. Dangerous. Wouldn’t let go of that knife of his the entire time he was here. If you’ve arrived to gather information to help her, then you're in the wrong place. He just had a drink and then left.”
“Nothing else?” It was meant to be a rhetorical question, but the other man thought of an answer just as it was said.
“There is something,” he began. “This one isn’t much of a talker. Pointed everything out on a menu and so on and so forth. He only spoke once, and that’s when I asked him why he’d come here."
“And?”
“’To run’,” the man sneered. “Shocking, isn’t it? I’m honestly a bit embarrassed. He seemed serious, too.”
Yet, the boy frowned. “That’s bad,” he muttered. “If he’s changed that much, then it’s really bad.”
“You’ll be fine.” The bigger man patted the boy on the head, a carefree move that would otherwise cost hundreds their lives. Yet the boy liked this one, so he allowed it, and in exchange, the man sweetened the deal. “Just tell that Princess of yours he’s heading West rather than East. If you leave now, you should catch him in the land of the Sun.”
His hand came down on nothing. The boy was already gone, and the man felt powerful vibrations under his feet as something huge pushed away from the ship.
“Tch, what a child.” The man looked at the half full cup of coffee. “I suppose it’ll have to be four sugars next time.”
“Okay, bear with me here. This is gonna be difficult, but I’ll grow as a person, so I’m not afraid or anything like that.”
It was talking. He was talking. The man currently missing the entire lower half of his body below the lungs was talking.
“Look, you’re pretty much dead, right? Well, you’re a Dead, so it’s the same thing as being gone. That means I’m not really killing you right now.”
He was also rummaging through something with one arm, looking for something, while missing that same something. Most people would’ve been unable to function without it, but the young man wasn’t most people.
“Aha!” Triumphantly, he held up a kidney, clutching the limp chunk of flesh as if it was solid gold. He looked down at his missing legs and hips, and bit his lip, taking a moment to taste blood, even if it was just his own. “Okay partner,” he said. “Nice and easy now.”
It wasn’t nice or easy. With a grunt, the man shoved the stolen kidney into the upper half of his body through the hole that had been created by its separation from the lower half. He rummaged around inside his own body much like he’d been looking through the other one, until with a sickening snap the blood vessels connected and he had consumed the organ fully.
“Ah,” he sighed in relief, ignoring the searing pain for the small amount of perverse pleasure his body too. It likely would’ve felt much better if he’d eaten it normally, but he didn’t really have time for that. “Okay, what’s next? Liver? Spleen? I already have a stomach, but I’m feeling lopsided, so…”
A crude crimson blade severed another’s arm at the elbow. Clutching the limb with his left, the man forced the flesh and bone onto the site where his own had been lost. A few sharp cracks later, he was moving the limb as if it was his own. Technically, it was.
“Not fair at all,” he complained to the fallen man. “I mean, why can’t I just heal normally? Is it going to be like this for every wound? You’d think that someone who’s died a bunch would be able to pull himself together, but this is much too slow. How the hell did that nun manage it?”
Despite his complaints, the rest of the affair was quickly finished. A few minutes later, the now whole man emerged from the alleyway in a completely different part of the city, having travelled through the sewer system. A lone man taking a walk through the night was quickly dragged into the shadows caused by the full moon, and sometime after that, the first man emerged wearing much cleaner clothing. The white shirt and black pants just hadn’t been doing the job. He couldn’t do anything about his hair, which stuck out like the palest sore thumb, but hopefully the night would hide him as it now hid his victims.
Instead of venturing forth into more populated parts of the city, however, the white haired cannibal turned right around and went back into the same alley he’d sprung from, which had birthed more than its share of killers. The man’s corpse was gone, leaving behind only a bloodstain.
“It’s rude, you know,” a voice said, accompanied by crunching noises that were much louder than they had any right to be. “Forget not cleaning up after yourself, starting up a serial murder spree so soon after your last is insulting to this city.”
He frowned, and then grimaced when he finally realized. “Fuck,” he concluded. “A vampire? Really? Haven’t there been enough of those already?”
“This party was too interesting to pass up,” the voice replied, while the noises continued uninterrupted. “Sadly, it appears I’m a bit late. You wouldn’t mind telling me what happened, would you?”
“Maybe if you showed your face I’d consider it.”
A moment later he fell to the ground, his legs gone below the knee. A howl of pain was cut short as his vocal chords melted inside his mouth, leaving him to gasp in silent agony.
“I’ve considered it,” was the verbal reply. The clouds obscuring the moon parted at that moment, revealing the form of a young girl leaning against the wall, next to a rather large bloodstain connected to the first. The timing was precise enough for it to have been choreographed by Shakespeare himself. The source of the ever louder crunching and snapping noises was nowhere to be seen.
“Fuck you,” the man croaked, his vocal chords only half regenerated.
“You’re being extremely rude,” the girl said, pushing dark hair away from her red eyes. “I like that, though by all rights I shouldn’t. I suppose you could call it the whims of royalty. I thought you’d died, but this incarnation of yours is by far the worst, so it’s just as bad as if you had.”
“He’s gone,” the man growled, pulling himself up. His body was whole once more, but his trousers were now cargo shorts. “The fucker’s gone. It’s just me now, and that’s how it stays.”
The girl’s eyes were fixed on the man, and her mouth slowly curved upward until it was a smile that wasn’t a smile at all. “Interesting,” she admitted. “I didn’t think it would happen again, but it has. How are you enjoying that new immortality of yours?”
“Ain’t immortal,” the man said. He contemplated approaching the girl, and decided against it, choosing instead to try and get some of the blood out of his hair. “I’ve got Life. I can be killed, just like you. Of course, I’ll probably come back. That’s how it works, right? I’m not dead, so I can’t die, that sort of thing?”
She nodded. “As long as he lives, yes. Of course there are ways around it, but they are beyond you.”
At the mention of that person by another, the man’s eyes clouded over. He slammed his fist into the brick wall of the alley, and it easily fractured the stone. “He won’t. Not for long. I’m not letting him get away this time!”
“Too late for that, don’t you think?” She tilted her head, amusing herself by trying to see the man from a different angle. “You already failed when you had power, but now you’re just a cast off shell. Do you really presume to kill him?”
“Yeah.” Now that his hair was pure and virginial again, his justifications were gone and the man gave himself over to his own instincts. Perhaps it was because the girl resembled an object of his desire, but he couldn’t help himself. He approached, striding forward confidently until she was within reach, watching his movements with nary a reaction. “What of it?” He stared into her red eyes, challenging her with his actions. The memory of his wounds had already faded away.
She grinned, closing the distance herself and touching the man with a single, pale fingertip. He stiffened at her caress, not from arousal but from the spell she’d released into his bloodstream. “Do I remind you of someone, insect? Or do I make the memory of that person seem like a bad dream? If you go after him, you’ll die again and again. It’s better for you to stay in this small, unimportant town and ruin the lives of your family instead of chasing a pointless achievement.”
“It isn’t pointless,” he insisted, his body already adapting freakishly quickly to the magic in his system. It wouldn’t work a second time. “I’ve already realized that I can’t really live until he’s gone. Otherwise, he’ll ruin everything like he did the first time.” With jerky motions, he wrapped his hands around the small girl’s shoulders, pulling her close to him. She allowed it to happen, laughing at how pathetic the man’s every action was. A replacement for a replacement. A sister for a sister. Some people would settle for anything.
“You know it too,” he said, looking into the remaining darkness of the alley now, as the source of the constant background noise approached. “I have his memories now, so I’m sure of it. On top of him slighting you eight hundred years ago, that person will always be a thorn in your side. Even if a thousand years pass, that’s how it'll be. So give me power and I’ll do the job you don’t want to. We’re the same in the end, so it’ll be fine if I’m the one who kills him this time.”
The girl returned the man’s affection-less hug. Instead of wrapping her arms around his torso, she thrust them right through and embraced his naked spine instead, revelling in the feeling of dirty crimson staining her clothes and body. Against her own better judgement, she had warmed to the idea. “That I should be understood even so slightly by such a pathetic person disgusts me,” she proclaimed, managing to sound refined despite the situation. “Yet I suppose I can’t resist a good story in the end. How does the Red Knight sound to you? A Servant of his Princess who slays enemies in her name to recover her honour. The White and Black Knights will be angry since you’re not even an Apostle, but they barely qualify for their titles as well, so I don’t really care.”
The man was no knight. He was the furthest thing from it. “It’ll do,” he said. “I’m guessing the Pink Knight was taken?”
Her hand reached up inside the man’s body and gave his heart a squeeze. As he gasped, the girl grinned. “You are the rudest person I’ve ever met, perhaps because of that bloodthirsty family of yours. Luckily for you, I’m into that sort of thing.”
The crunching had stopped now. As the man strained to hear the unknown beast, it almost sounded as if it had started laughing.
“Oho? What do we have here?”
In the middle of the woman’s stroll, she ran into something one doesn’t often see. For her, however, it was less of an unknown and more of a rare treat, akin to funding a twenty dollar bill stuck in the gutter.
“My, my. You better have an interesting story to tell.”
The cruise liner lay in two pieces, sliced widthways in half with a single, unbroken movement. Upon further inspection, the lines on the metal were cleaner than if they’d been done in a factory. Even the rust of water and ocean wildlife hadn’t been enough to tarnish that. From bottom to top, one cut from a giant’s blade had sunk a whole ship.
The woman tossed aside the bottle in her hands, letting it float gently in place. In order to keep the current from carrying it away, she commanded the sea to rest, and it obeyed. Above, where light could still penetrate, search and rescue crews searched futilely for the lost vessel, unable to descend past a certain line the woman had casually passed on her way down.
Entering the vessel was easy, given the way it had been wrecked, though the doors had buckled from pressure and needed to be ripped out by force. Inside, the serene beauty of the model-like cruiser gave way to a silent nightmare. Bodies, ripped to shreds and dotted with holes, told the tale well enough. Most of the wounds were in the back, so they had fled, unsuccessfully. The bite wounds in necks and breasts and thighs implicated a vampire, but rather than the careful marks of feeding, these were more akin to signs of a rampage.
The woman dipped her finger in a corpse fresher than most, ignoring the silent scream on its face, and sampled some of its blood. She closed her eyes and immersed herself in memories not her own.
Happiness. Vacation. Family. Rest.
Two weeks. A nice tan. Taking the leisurely way back. Passing through a distant state on the path home.
A stranger. Argument with the crew. Talk of a stowaway. A silent one, giving a silent glare.
Screams in the night. Hiding the family in the closet. Walking up stairs to see what the fuss is about. Lifeboats dropping. The captain’s head on a flagpole. More screams, this time from the passenger quarters.
Down the stairs. Through the halls. Into the room. Family dead. Stranger with blood on his lips and silver in his right hand. Red eyes.
A plea, begging for an answer. A one word question.
Fear. Hidden, but oh so visible behind those red eyes. A weak smile. “I mustn’t be killed.”
Incomprehensible answer. Lack of understanding. The silver moves, enters the chest. Pain. So much pain. Can’t breathe, can’t smell, and can’t feel anything.
Hear another scream from the door. Red eyes move in unison. A short fall. Sight fading. The sounds of footsteps leaving. Yet another scream.
Darkness.
The lazy smile that had adorned the woman’s face for the last few hours was gone now, turned into a hard line that ran like a highway across her mouth. “Not a good story,” she said to herself. “Not good at all.”
As she walked away from the wreck, some pilfered bottles of wine in her hands and numerous others leaving a breadcrumb trail behind her, the woman approached her underwater castle. Walking through empty, dripping halls, she polished off the last of the alcohol. A door opened, to a room containing another individual in the midst of raising a tea cup to her face for a drink of what was most definitely too red to be tea. Her fine garments, distinguished mannerisms, and unblemished body labelled her a perfect contrast to the first, who would’ve looked right at home on a small island somewhere.
“Did you enjoy your walk?” she asked.
The first woman shook her head morosely. “I did,” she replied. “But it seems someone enjoyed theirs far more. We need to contact the Princess.”
“Which one?”
“Both.”
“Haah. Haah. Haah.”
It was dark and scary. The child was lost and bloodied. Mere hours ago the streets had run red with blood, but now they were dry, leaving behind only the tang of rust to signify what had happened.
“Haah. Haah.”
The child ran down one of those streets, led by weakened instincts that warned prey of predators, urging them to hide or be eaten. Its urges were stronger than those of its family, so it had survived the massacre somehow.
“Haah.”
The town was a small one, near the ocean. The child had known most of the people by name, so it’d been able to list with clarity how each one had died.
Lizzie, cut to pieces and then sucked dry one by one like an orange.
Marco, his shotgun forced into his chest until it met his heart, while his own finger pulled the trigger.
Abdul, the hilt of a knife smashing into his forehead and caving in the skull, after which the delicious meal inside was enjoyed thoroughly.
Mother, who had grasped the child in her arms and hadn’t let go even after her back was torn open and vertebrae were removed one after the other. Her death had masked the child’s life.
The pitter-patter of small feet stopped in the town square. The child had been told since it was a baby to go there in case of emergencies, but that honed knowledge betrayed it here. The roundabout was a circle of grass no longer, having been transformed into a pile of bodies that stretched high above the boy’s head. There was no blood, for it had all been sucked out, and none of them were recognizable as anything other than shrivelled husks. None could be mistaken for living beings, save one.
The man at the top opened his eyes, looking at the child through a crimson blindfold. He reclined in a caricature of a throne, a hollow in the top of the hill that served well enough as a chair. “A survivor?” It was less of a question and more of an affirmation that such a thing was possible. “So there was someone besides me here with the capacity to run from Death.”
The child cried, loudly. The synapses in its brain had connected the information, and its soul accepted that fact. Its loud, unrestrained cries of sorrow echoed through the empty city, overpowering the man’s weak speech.
He sighed, embedding the knife in his hand into a nearby skull. He didn’t let go, however, even after when it was clear that he would’ve much liked to. “Go home,” he told the child. “Die alone or call for help. I haven’t cut the phone lines yet.”
The child hiccuped, its tears all but shed, and wiped away some snot from its face with the frayed edge of a sleeve. “No!” Its yell was clear. “Why did you do it!? Why?”
“I was hungry,” the man replied. “It’s only natural to follow your urges, isn’t it?”
“You killed them!”
“Yes.”
Another fit of tears. More wiped away. The child sank to its knees and sobbed while the man watched dispassionately.
“Are you afraid of me?”
The child shook its head, eyes screwed up in defiance.
“And why is that? Just because I’m full and I decided to spare you?”
Another denial, more vehement this time.
“Oho?” The man leaned forward, elbows on his knees and hands propping up his chin. He pushed his blindfold into place with clean fingers. “Go on, then.”
The child sniffled. “You’re the one who’s afraid,” it said. “You were afraid so you killed them all instead of talking to someone or singing the happy song or hitting a tree.”
The man’s eyes narrowed beneath the fabric. “Continue,” he breathed. “Why would you, an organism that hasn’t even existed long enough to learn of the world, come to such a conclusion?”
“M-mom said that when people hurt others, they’re really hurting themselves. So you must want to die, but you’re too scared to!”
“I’ve died before, child. It’s nothing special. You’ve seen enough death tonight to know that.”
There was no answer to that. Or perhaps there was, and the child simply couldn’t grasp it. In any case, it knew that the man sitting on top of the pile, casually plucking bits of fat from his teeth, was no man at all.
“Then why are you running?” The moon shone a beam of light onto the ground near the child, and a woman stepped from it to stand proudly before the man. Her light hair and red eyes made for a sharp contrast to his dark clothing, painting them as opposites.
The man stiffened, words failing to leave his lips. He growled, but said nothing.
“This is the first time you have fled from me, Serpent of Akasha,” the woman said. The child, not knowing what to do, just stood in place and let tears silently run down its cheeks. Both ignored it. “I would know why.”
“Princess,” the man acknowledged the visitor yet ignored her questioning. “It hasn’t been very long, has it?”
“Not long enough for my tastes.” One pale hand descended onto the child’s head, both as reassurance and to make sure it wouldn’t be attacked. “You were easy to find, despite your efforts. I expect the nineteenth will be your shortest life.”
“Or perhaps my longest,” he rose, standing now, grip tightening on his knife, as if he was afraid to let it go. The skin had almost fused with the handle, but the blade shone brightly in the light of the full moon. “I have more power now. These eyes can-”
“They see only your end,” the woman cut him off, her eyes narrowing. “Life wasn’t enough for you, so you chose Death instead? You’ve doomed yourself. If the snake bites through its own tail, there’s no course left but to bleed out.” The child saw a small black cat crawl along the dark pavement, and it nuzzled against a shoe. Somehow understanding that it was to be followed, the child clumsily walked towards the small guide, moving away from the confrontation with only an empty glance spared for the two opposites.
The man glared, eyes burning now. “You knew!” he roared, pointing his weapon at the woman. “You knew this would happen, didn’t you? That’s why you allowed the other one to live. This entire body was to be a trap for me!” He slammed his fist on bone, and with a shuddering crack followed by a deep rumbling, a large portion of the bodies rolled down the hill, shattering the haphazard structure like a well placed cue ball.
“Don’t pin your shortcomings on others," the woman in white sneered. "It’s too pathetic for someone bearing your name. If I were you, I’d blame the world for this sad coincidence. Clearly, Gaia is sick of you. Frankly, I don’t think there’s anyone out there who would disagree. Well, there was one, but you’ve already killed him, haven’t you? Your own fellow seeker of eternity, reduced to nothingness. I’m guessing that you’ll be following in his footsteps soon.”
“You-!” The man’s hatred had reached a boiling point. It was difficult to keep calm in such circumstances, and the woman’s presence was only reinforcing his anger. There were two conflicting impulses in his body, yet both of them urged for violence. One to slay creatures of the night, and the other to feed on that which he loved and hated.
Then, as if in response to his rage, the crimson moon descended, and, laughing, the Red Knight appeared to herald the upcoming blood bath.
“Kitty, what’s happening?”
The cat let out a complaining meow, but the child simply hugged it tighter as it pushed through the woods, going back to the roundabout instead of away. It heard yells and screams in the distance, yet it couldn’t resist the wish to witness the climax of the nightmare, no matter how horrible it would be. Perhaps this was the duty of the final living member of the village: to see it through to the end.
“It’s okay. I’ll be quiet.”
Loudly crashing through bushes and brushing past scratching branches, the child eventually made it to the edge, seeing the crimson moonlight ahead. Some self preservation instinct compelled it to stop before exiting, and it chose to instead cling to a tree and watch to the best of its ability. At the child’s feet, the feline shook itself free of dust and shot its escort a dirty look, before nervously pacing about, only occasionally glancing at the display.
Three violent storms clashed, raging around and meeting in an elaborate dance.
Red threw itself around without fear for its life, pushing into razor winds that tore its body apart with a glancing blow, and a silver blade that did much the same. Whenever it lost too many pieces of itself, it dove into the pile of shrivelled bodies and came out whole again, even wilder. Driven by inexhaustible energy and a blessing of power from its benefactor, it compensated for inexperience with sheer zealous recklessness.
White was a beacon of power. It stood, constantly illuminated in a single column of white light, letting loose its power on the rest of the world. The air complied, turning the area into a death zone, yet such things did little to impede the others, who darted in and attempted to get a single hit in before being repulsed by the world itself. With a wave of its hand, the pale creature summoned heavenly wrath like a fallen angel.
Black, by contrast, was the most controlled of the three. It vanished and reappeared without rhyme or reason, unleashing deadly bursts of light from sigils that appeared at its feet, or cutting air and flesh alike with the steel that had become its hand. No wounds stained its flesh or clothing, though the red blindfold had been cast aside to reveal bright blue eyes that didn’t suit the vampire bearing them.
There was rage and hatred and jealousy and denial there. While the child couldn't understand or even perceive the true extent of the battle, those feelings were clear. Its own trembling heart thudded with every spark, wondering what would become of the world when night finally died.
The cat, by contrast, wasn’t particularly worried. White wouldn’t be able to lose, barring a miracle. Red was simply an eyesore. Black was worrying, but would fall in the end for sure. If nothing else, that could be predicted without fail. The boy with the bright blue eyes wouldn’t live to see sunrise.
Yet.
Yet it was White who broke first. A single well placed spell shoved aside her protective wall, and Black forced itself inside, committing to the attack with all of its remaining energy. A knife pushed forward, slicing past defense and offence alike, until it struck White’s beating heart.
Red was there. Behind Black, fearlessly pursuing revenge, it braved the wall without hesitation. Though it tore skin and limbs from Red’s body, the storm screamed and shoved and used its own blood to pry a way open. It was barely enough, and a stream of blood thinner than a finger punched through Black before fragmenting and spearing all of its organs from the inside out.
Red, too, was done. It had gone too far this time. Scarcely anything remained but a head, yet that face bore a grin of satisfaction, even as eyes closed and a shredded heart stopped beating. His revenge was over. No one would be coming back this time.
The winds fell. Black coughed, throwing its own crimson onto the White Princess’ pure garb.
“This was a pointless match,” White said. The fatal wound remained, but White would not die so easily. “Are you satisfied now? This is what you’ve been chasing for all this time. Go on, take it.”
A look of despair crossed Black’s face. “No,” he whispered. “It wasn’t meant to be like this.”
“What do you seek?” she asked.
“Eternity.”
“Yet you chose Death over Life,” she smiled weakly, laughing at the joke. “What a ridiculous notion. There is your eternity, snake. Eternal Death for you. I’ll ask again: Are you satisfied?”
“I… this is the end. For both of us.” Eyes widened. “You knew?”
She shook her head. “Only now do I understand. It actually hurts,” she laughed. “Why couldn’t you have just stayed at home, you idiot? Yet I liked that part of you. No matter what, you accepted what you liked, and refused what you didn’t. Others would call it being enlightened, but I think you were simply someone who didn't want to let your fate influence your actions.”
“I… what?”
“Hey.” The atmosphere of bloodlust had already died. “Did you love me? Did you hate me?”
Eye screwed up with pain, Black couldn’t force himself to say yes. White saw the answer in his eyes, now more red than blue, hidden behind the most transparent veil of all.
Another laugh, this one tinged with more than physical pain. A smile ringed with blood. “I was never enough for you, was I? It was always someone else. Is that why you’ve been running all this time? So you’d never have to face me? So your chase could continue on for eternity?”
No answer. He couldn’t bring himself to look at what he’d chased and then rejected at the last moment.
“Well, congratulations. You’ve reached the end of your path. I hope it was worth it.”
Black raised his empty hand, reaching futilely towards White, trying to touch her face one last time, the damaged muscles snapped and it fell back to his side before he could do so.
The other hand… clutching the knife. That hand could only do one thing.
Black raised the knife, and plunged it into his own chest.
The last thing he saw before fading forever was the smiling face of the woman he had never been able to love. An image that would never be seen again.
Had it been worth all the pain?
He’d had an answer once, but its memory faded away long before.
“The morning sun has vanquished the horrible night.”
A shadow was cast over the remains of the Red Knight. It wasn’t much of a sight to look at, but the same could’ve been said of him before the battle.
“Are you satisfied with that petty revenge of yours?”
The head, which shouldn’t have been able to move without a body supporting it, cracked one eye open. The first rays of sunlight hadn’t yet fallen on him, and, in a fit of clarity, he realized that they likely never would.
He shouldn’t have been able to speak, yet enough air remained in his throat to utter a single word.
“No.”
The girl smirked. “I didn’t think so. From what I’ve heard, it was a most anticlimactic experience, even if the Serpent is finally gone. And besides, even if you’d torn out his heart, you still wouldn’t have been satisfied. A being like you can live only to take from others now, so it’s obvious that you’ll never truly reach the goal you sought. I shouldn’t even need to say that pursuing your sister is a lost cause.”
She bent down and scooped up the head, cradling it in her chest. “In any case, don’t go dying on me again. I’ve fulfilled my part of this little bargain, but you have yet to take care of yours. An eternity of servitude is a long, long time.”
The head’s muscles shifted, and it laughed silently, either cursing or revelling in its new fate.
The two vanished, leaving an empty town behind.
A few minutes later, as the red sun lightened to yellow and its comfortable warmth swept over the buildings, a small black cat emerged from behind the trees, followed by a young, tired child that had trouble keeping its eyes open.
They made their way to the center of the roundabout, now only green grass instead of a hill of corpses. The child curled up in a ball in the soft turf, and the cat lay down beside it, taking advantage of the radiating body heat.
“Hey, kitty…” The child yawned, reaching out to pet the animal. “Is it over?”
The cat licked the child’s palm.
Taking that as an acceptable answer, the eyes of the last remaining human on the island closed. Its dreams were initially full of terror and darkness, until, abruptly, they changed to ones of soft warmth, serene beauty, a bright, unreachable moon.
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Originally Posted by Tobias
