Shadows & Secrets Ch 1: Part 2

This is the 2nd part of Chapter 1 to Shadows & Secrets. If you haven't read the 1st part, please go over to that post to read that first.

Trigger Warnings:

Violence using fantasy magic/weapons

Death

Loss/Grief

Suicidal thoughts

***************************** Spoilers*****************************

When he woke, there was no way of knowing the time that had passed. His head felt on fire and his vision blurred while he wobbled to his feet, pressing his weight into the wall beside him. After a few breaths, his ears rang with shouting and screams coming from nearby. He grasped at his head, but the pain radiated throughout his skull as large pounds of noise slammed inside his brain every few seconds to break up their voices.

He attempted to breathe, to calm his mind, but nothing did the trick. Then, he thought of Gil and the others still in the bar, and it all didn’t seem to matter as the panic surged through him, causing him to dart to the door.

Soran slammed through the door in a blur, slipping along the floor boards, unable to control his own movements. He wasn’t sure how he was able to move so fast within the moment, how it felt so natural, yet out of body at the same time. His speed had caused him to slip. It was aided by the slickness of the floor. Puddles of blood were still sinking into the wood fibers of the boards and seeping into the air as well as wafting up at his nose.

His heart raced at the scent and his eyes went black as he bit down against his bottom lip, struggling to refrain from the urge to taste it against his tongue - struggling to block out the thrill he felt imagining its glossy red hue coating his lips as he took just one sip. He slammed his back into the bottom of the bar. He yanked himself up in disgust, refraining from consuming a single drop. It was only then, he took in the scene unfolding around him.

The bar floor was filled with dead bodies. Half the bar had been turned and the poor souls that didn’t drink from the tainted alcohol, who were foolish to stay long enough to help, were being feasted on by the ones who did indulge in a sip. It was intentional, that was for sure, but it looked like nothing, but reckless carnage in his eyes.

The yellow-mustard wallpaper was smeared with blood. A few young women managed to escape through the front door only to be plowed down by a quick blur of a man behind them, who had recently turned. The bartender stood with another man in a paisley suit, one that Soran hadn’t seen in the bar earlier that evening. They both watched calmly with the young woman in the red dress as she jumped up to sit on the bartop with her eyes gleaming with delight - all of their eyes matching all her new children of the night.

Soran’s eyes shut with a weight as he caught a glimpse of what was left of the Solairian Six, each one cursed in turning into the creatures around them. Alexander and Phillip had already passed from this world as they lay limp on their sides against the tossed tables and broken wooden chairs with a graying smog painting their once tanned flesh. They each had a dagger resting in their heart - the Solairian daggers he knew too well. Soran’s eyes moved to the floor unable to meet them with his gaze without his heart dropping within his chest. He surmised they had succumbed to the same urge he was struggling to keep at bay once he spotted Gil and Aiden fighting the monsters left in the room, ripping them from the neck or limbs of an innocent as their eyes blackened, relishing in the blood coating their lips.

Cason was in the corner, back shredded and torn, now a lifeless corpse still hovered protectively over the deceased beautiful woman he had been flirting with earlier. Even with his valor, it still wasn’t enough to save her, to wipe the fear from her face as they were attacked.

Soran had fought other creatures, all of the Solairian Six had, but nothing as chaotic of a creature as this. Nothing like this at all. He wasn’t even aware this existed.

Soran clenched his fists as he tried to rise from the bar. His vision covered in a red haze as everyone’s pulse around him seemed to ring like sweet bells in his ears. Aiden, called out to him, yanking him from his fog as he turned, watching six turned men, lunge on top of Aiden in a frenzy.

They pawed at him, bit at him, and tore at him.

Soran blurred to his side, ripping them off of him one by one, hurling them several feet into the wall, knocking them out if he could. Soran stopped several times in his rampage to save Aiden. He clenched at his stomach again as the smells in the room overwhelmed him. One sip. Just one.

In a sense to reach back for reality, his hand flung forward, intending to yank one of the men over to him. His fist went straight through the chest of one of them still on top of Aiden, his fingers feeling the inside of his rib cage as he ripped out his heart. It stopped his breath as he realized his strength had grown tenfold since he woke. His hand trembled slightly at the sight of it laced with blood, seeing what he was capable of.

A growl came from the last one as it bit in deeper against Aiden’s flesh. Soran grasped his head in his hand, snapping his neck in one swift motion. As the lifeless body slunk to the floor, before it even had time to thud, Soran watched as the light slowly faded from Aiden’s eyes.

A rage overtook him while he rested Aiden’s head gently against the floorboards. He barged toward a hoard of vampires feasting in the middle of the bar, and wrathfully lost his composure, ripping limb from limb with brute force at any creature within reach until he came to his senses and grasped his short sword, slicing into them. He realized after a few tries, he had to aim for the head to keep them down. Each swing slowed as he took them in a lowering stride. The thought of blood, the blood seeping at the bottom of his pants and along his knees- it all rushed back to his mind, rooting a hold on him. Let it coat my lips.

“You’ll only grow weaker, if you refrain from drinking.” Her voice practically sang throughout the room as the screams created her music.

The thumping of her heels kicked against the bar in a playful manner as her giggle sadistically whistled in the air. He turned toward her and spotted the three of them on the sidelines, still patiently waiting for the victors. No one dared seem to challenge them, let alone go near them.

Before he had the chance to charge her, he felt the thud of many force him to the floor and her voice, “tsk, tsk, tsk.” He had been tackled to the ground, bracing his arms up as the recently turned snapped at him for a taste. “And the more they drink, the stronger they get.”

Three of them hovered over him, finally sinking their teeth into him, causing him to release a wail in agony as the blood seeped from the wounds they still attached themselves to around his body. Soran’s eyes were still black, unable to regain control as he tore at the creature’s throat who hovered over him, digging into his shoulder. As he saw the blood gush from his exposed vocal chords, the pain forced him to release his bite. Soran lifted his now free arm, hurling a punch into his neck with a force he wasn’t yet used to that severed his head clean off.

With his left side free, he cringed at the other two’s bites sinking into him as he lifted his boot and pulled a small dagger from it. He slung it into the air with precision, landing it directly into the side of one of their heads. The man recoiled back from his thigh, hissing. Soran went to yank the blade from his skull, realizing it wasn’t enough to kill him, but he seized, his body curling again in pain, the urge hitting him in full force as his only medicine to ease his suffering. One drop - one precious drop. He shook his head, clenching his eyes shut, kicking the gentleman with the blade in his cleanly shaved bald head, and watched as it hurled him back several feet in the room.

It didn’t stop him as the blood poured down his newly fractured nose, now bent to one side. Soran was out of options. He still needed to remove the other creature still attached to his arms, consuming what little energy he had left. The bald man began to rise from the floor with Soran’s blood and now with his own mixing down throughout his ungroomed goatee. As he motioned to lunge, Gil came from the side of him, stabbing his sword into his heart, yanking it loose as the creature released a gasp with a gray curse afflicting his skin. He dropped to his knees and fell over.

It seemed unlikely that they would survive this. There were still dozens of them left, scouring the bar. The black hue within Gil’s eyes flickered along his sunken face as he turned to charge at another herd feasting. He was fighting the temptation as well. In this state, they couldn’t keep this up forever.

Soran had already lost too much blood. He slammed his fist into the side of the guy still attached to his arm, with it having little to no effect. He drank from him with such an alarming speed that Soran’s eyes became hazy while his body started to lose sensation. With what little energy he had left, he drew the short sword by his side from its sheath and swung it over his body, letting gravity aid him as he sliced through the back of the man’s neck all the way to the floorboards. It took him a few breaths to catch himself and refocus his vision before he detached the severed head from his bicep, unclenching the fangs from his flesh like snagged fish hooks.

He flipped onto his stomach after noticing there were still too many of them. As he called for the strength to continue with his body torn and smeared in blood from the wounds afflicting him, Soran pushed himself to his knees, his eye catching one of the liquor bottles resting on its side underneath a near table with broken glasses scattered around.

He dragged himself over to it. The thumping of bodies falling and footsteps echoed behind him. As he felt the cool hard glass against his palm, he allowed himself a sigh of relief, knowing he had finally reached the bottle. His lip bent upward, finding a slight humor in the label as he glanced over it, reading twenty-five years aged in golden cursive at the bottom. Then quickly, he bent at his waist, turning back, and hurling with all his might, sent this whiskey bottle into the lit lanterns hanging along the back wall.

A gleam of satisfaction filled his eyes as her piercing scream echoed in anguish at the sight of the fire catching along the twisted souls hunching over their prey, catching the linen among their clothes and the spilt drinks from the night out like a wildfire, engulfing every last one of them in a sea of panic. Gil knocked down the ones that managed to escape.

“You ruin everything!” she screeched, the room filling with her shrill of a voice. Her fingers tightly wrapped around the edge of the bar, crumbling it into chunks of sawdust as she squeezed down in a fit of rage, leaping to her feet.

The flames spread from the wall to the wooden furniture broken along the bar floor and the fallen souls drained of all their blood. Gil and Soran were the only freshly turned vampires left. Gil stood at the far end of the wall, wiping the blood from his sword on his pant leg as another vampire fell before his feet. His eyes were still a dark brown, hardened and struggling, but still his own. He had somehow managed to control the urge and keep it at bay.

Her eyes darted around the room, analyzing her options. After a moment, she took a hard breath, drawing back her rage and standing before them as a becoming young woman.

“Well.” She patted down her skirt in front of her, releasing any creases that might have befallen it while she had sat at the bar. “I had intentions on high numbers, but I must say, it is riveting watching you both. Honestly.”

Her smile flinched as a beam from the ceiling crashed to the floor, smashing several of her fallen experiments while breaking several of the floorboards beneath them. A few limp bodies tumbled into the darkness below. Gil and Soran both smirked at the occurrence with pure satisfaction.

Her lip was refraining from curling as she gritted the words, “But when you get quality, who cares about quantity.”

Her two foot soldiers still standing behind the bar had yet to move. It appeared they were awaiting her orders with their arms crossed.

“Welcome to the Dawn of the Damned.” Her arms lifted up with an open gesture.

“Dawn of the Damned.” The two men repeated her words in unison after her.

There was a moment of silence as Soran’s posture relaxed with his sword still in his grasp. He shrugged. “I’m good,” and called back to Gil, “How about you?”

Gil made a clicking noise with his mouth as it turned upwards. thinking it over. “Yeeaah, not really feeling the whole cult thing.”

Soran tightened his hold on his sword, holding back his smile at her growing impatience. He lifted one of his hands off his sword, shrugging as if it would be a minor inconvenience on her part. “We decline.”

“You will be mine.” She bit through her teeth, her fangs piercing out through her mouth.

“We are not yours for the taking,” Gil snapped back, popping his chest out at her from across the room.

“It’s true.” She jumped back up onto the bartop, propping herself forward with a devilish smile.

She enjoyed the game she set in front of her, regardless of their treacherous moves. Her legs dangled, kicking above the fallen pawns who seeped into the floorboards.

“You’ve yet to drink except for my own blood,” Her finger lifted. “Tsk, tsk.” She waved it, contradicting their confidence. “I’m a patient woman. I already noticed you wavering.” Her eyes met Soran’s as she spoke, gazing into the black hues that engulfed his irises. Her voice suddenly became cold and harsh as she glanced back at the both of them, gripping their weapons tight, preparing to come at her. “One way or another you will drink,” she growled, “or you will both die.”

Soran twisted the blade in his hand, stepping toward her, feeling a bout of control take him. Once he did so, he shifted, stopping in his tracks as a man rushed past him from underneath one of the tables, coughing from the smoke. He pushed past broken chairs and stepped over the dead corpses to get to her.

As he reached her, his hands grasped urgently at her thighs. “My lady,” he pleaded with terror at the scene around him, only to have her pull from him with a look of revulsion. “You promised my drink would be laced as well if I brought you knowledge of the patrons and encouraged the lack of their sobriety, but mine was lacking,” he whined as the blood on his hands stained the fine silks of her dress.

His touch only increased her scowl.

Soran’s eyes widened as he noticed the blue royal guard jacket around his body and recognized his beady eyes, darting around at the wreckage of the room, the long shaggy blonde hair dangling from his face with blood stained throughout its strands. It was the man who had offered him a drink earlier in the night. Soran’s hands tightened merely at his sight while his nose crinkled into a sneer at the gall he had to wear the signets on his body.

“You did this!” Soran shouted at him with a fury that washed over him as it spread to his limbs.

In a flash, he felt as if his blood was boiling under his skin about to explode as he thought of his friends fallen within the mess of the frenzy: Aiden calling for him and not being quick enough, Alexander and Phillip departing in a moment, Cason sacrificing his last breath for another - and he lunged toward the guard with every fiber in his being wishing to tear him apart at the seams, listening to him scream as he clawed at his flesh until there was nothing left of him. Soran’s body blurred over to him and within a matter of seconds, took a hold of him, sinking his teeth into his neck.

Gil screamed at him at the top of his lungs to stop. It was too late. He only moved his teeth in further, feeling the guard’s tendons press up against his fangs like a tight blanket comforting him. It tasted like biting into a steak after fasting for a month and feeling the butter ooze out of the fibers and lick at your taste buds, coating them in its sweet succulent texture - a taste bursting every sensation in his being to come alive. His nails dug into his skin as the man screamed out in agony. It wasn’t enough. Soran couldn’t clench the guard against him close enough and grasp him tighter to satiate the hunger as he continued to drink, listening to his bones snap in his arms as he did so. Every drop that passed his lips coated his rage, coated his fear as to what he had become. It coated his entire being as he relished at the taste. It’s sweet, sweet taste. There was nothing else that filled his mind in a state of ecstasy until the very last drop. After that, it was that he wanted more.

The body dropped from his grasp, flopping to the floor with a lameness as Soran kicked it from his feet without a shred of remorse. He arched his back, feeling a strength awaken in him as the bite wounds scattered around his body began to slowly close.

The woman had a cruel gleam curling to her lips as she fixed her skirt, smearing the blood into the fabric, taking what was left on her fingers and licking them slowly dry while Soran turned to Gil, his face absent from all emotion.

Gil gripped at the hilt of his sword as he shouted at Soran, pleading that he was still in there. “You need to control it!”

As he scanned Soran’s face, he couldn’t find a shred of acknowledgement. He only saw hunger as Soran’s lips parted, revealing his fangs protruding from his mouth as his shoulders hunched forward at the smell lingering from the open wounds on Gil’s muscles.

Soran took a step forward with no reply.

Gil’s lips pinched together as his eyebrows dipped over his eyes before he tossed his sword to the floor, hoping it would wake him from his trance. It did not. He strengthened his stance, laying down his arms.

There was forgiveness in his eyes as they looked upon Soran with sorrow, knowing what was about to happen next. “I will not fight you, brother.”

What happened after that was hard to watch - that is, for anyone that knew their history. Gil was the last shred of humanity clinging to Soran, restraining him from fully embracing what he had become. He was the one who took punches for him when they were seven because Soran had a sharp mouth with the school bully. He was the one who went out searching for him all night that one time when he ran away from home at thirteen and nearly froze to death. He was the one that joined him when he signed up for service because he couldn’t bear the thought of him out there alone. The Solairian Six was Soran’s brotherhood, but Gil was something else entirely. In every sense of the word, regardless that it wasn’t by blood, Gil was his brother; he bled the very definition.

Gil’s eyes never closed or darted away as he watched the blur come for him. His body relaxed as Soran tackled him, forcing them both into the ground as Gil’s black cloak wrapped up, masking Gil’s parting from the world by Soran’s hand. It was only after Soran pulled from him, had he realized what he had done. The blackness in his eyes receded as a heavy guilt took its place.

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no.” Soran said in a haste of panic, muttering to himself, as he shook Gil’s body.

He pawed at him like a child, shoving him to wake, but Gil didn’t move.

“No!” he shouted at him, his voice tearing at his own ears as he heard it screech while his body began to shake.

“No!”

He leaned over him, his body crumbling at the weight that shoved down against him. Water filled at the bottom of his eyes, as he screamed at the glaze in Gil’s eyes and his arm falling when he went to pick it up.

“No!”

“No!”

The tapping of heels slowly filled the room - each step, echoing closer to him. Soran’s mind raced as he lurched protectively over Gil’s body once the red heels came within view.

“Don’t touch him.” He hissed at her, baring his teeth, revealing his pearly white fangs.

“I want nothing to do with him. He’s useless to me now.” She kicked at one of the loose limbs in her path, sizing Soran up. “You’re mine now.”

As her head tilted to the side, he reached for the blade beside Gil, taking it into his hands to pierce his heart. He thrust his arms towards his chest, clenching his eyes shut. Nothing. The blade ceased movement as soon as it made contact with his flesh. It didn’t pierce his skin.

Unsure what happened, his eyes opened to see her standing before him, several feet from the blade awaiting his realization that he was trapped with her. There wasn’t even a desire for her to grab at it. The apathetic look on her face said it all.

“The Vampireinze Virus is a hard affliction not so easily cured. It won’t allow you to kill yourself. Trust me, I’ve watched dozens try.”

This was information one might have found best to ease the news with a soft smile or a light understanding pat at the shoulder, but she lacked all these skills or the desire to even use the muscles within her face.

“You are bound until I decide to kill you.”

Soran lunged at her, piercing the skin along her neck with his newly acquired fangs as he wielded the dagger in his hand and aimed for her heart. His teeth had just broken the skin to her flesh as she clenched at his neck in her grasp and twisted his wrist to drop the dagger. It was so effortless.

She tilted her head, taking joy in listening to the gurgling of his breath struggling to escape as she lifted him slightly above her with minimal effort.

“I tire of this.” She tossed him across the room, slamming him into the back wall, denting it as he fell to the floor. “You’re just a sapling. Take care to remember that!” she snapped at him with a sinister bite that was angered by his challenge. “I have centuries on you!” She bolted over to him and squeezed at his cheeks between her palms, lifting him up to meet her gaze. His body froze from the sheer pain her nails caused digging into his cheeks. “I told you I wanted soldiers and I shall have them.”

Her hands opened and his body thumped to the floor as she flashed her fangs, peering down at him with a hiss. After a moment she scanned the fire spreading at an uncontrollable rate, heading toward the rafters, slinking toward the door. She was running out of time. That much was clear.

“You seem to be doing fine by yourself,” Soran spat.

“I have high aspirations. The throne has sat too long with unworthy swine. You’ll fetch me a book that will bring the Solairians to their knees.”

“Go to a fucking library, you crazy bitch.”

“Oh, this will be much harder to find. This one is made of gold and was made especially for the Solairies.” A wicked smile lifted to her lips. “We’ll drain villages, you and I.”

As she peered down, a growing laughter came from him. The fire had now almost engulfed most of the walls to the bar. All of their time was running out. She had the choice to either convince him to join her or rip his heart out before the fires engulfed her too.

She tugged his shirt up to see his face as the soft notes of him chuckling filled her ears. As her hand wrapped the ball of blue fabric on his back, her face went black, noticing the bald headed corpse underneath him.

It struck her too late, that the small dagger he ripped from the body’s skull had already hurled into the air. It whistled a tone sweet to Soran’s ears and struck the heart of the man in the paisley brown suit behind the bar.

“Oops.” Soran’s hands lifted up, unapologetically, continuing to chuckle, while the gray hue filled the man’s flesh before he toppled to the ground.

It was the only thing keeping the waves of emotion inside from crushing him. Plus, it was just too sweet to not watch her face contort in fury.

She punched him with a force that slammed his face into the floorboards. They snapped and cracked from her sheer strength.

“I will rip the skin from your bones!” she screeched.

Blood leaked throughout his grin as he spat at her, “Fuck you.”

Droplets splattered against the fine blush of her cheeks and the dusting of powder lighting her face. Her fingers smeared the droplets, forming a streak against her flesh, only highlighting her craze more.

“I will not be denied!” She lashed with a deep hoarse anger that spewed from her lips, spitting at him.

Then, without a moment’s notice, to release her frustration, she kicked him across the room mere inches from the fire.

The internal bleeding sloshed inside his body as it slowly began to heal, but he still coughed up blood while the sting radiated throughout his body. From someone her size, he was still in awe she was able to possess such strength. It had to be what she was.

A rafter slammed down onto the bar from the ceiling. Burning embers from it split off, scattering onto the floor, sparking the clothes on the corpses.

She slowly went over to him, past the creeping flames and the smoke engulfing the room. She bent at her knees resting in front of him with all anger absent from her face. This was her last attempt. All this effort for some stupid book.

“I can see you scraping at your insides.”

Soran’s eyes darted from her.

“Hollowing yourself just to survive. There’s nothing left to keep you here.” She sounded sweet and understanding. It was eerily odd.

He glanced back in the corner of his eye at Gil’s boots, lacking all life within them as they tilted to the floor with the flames nipping at his heels. The image caused Soran’s arms to buckle under him. He killed him. This was all his fault. He deserved this.

She dipped the tip of her fingers into a pool of blood, then smeared it on his rounded bottom lip, watching it paint its soft pink flesh red.

“Let the blood fill you like a warm glass.” A sinister grin curled to her face while his posture softened at her touch.

His eyes went black, giving in once more.