Young Writers Society

The icy chill clung to his skin like a living creature, permeating the thick wool of his coat and wrapping its fingers around his very bones. The world spun around him as his boots made contact with the rapidly-dampening earth and the distant thunder rang dimly in his ears as he pushed himself onwards one unsteady step at a time. Crimson stained the fingers that were clutched to his chest, his heart still pounding on within and pushing forth more blood with each and every beat. He may have been a vampire of many decades but now, with his heart shuddering in his breast and his wounds from weeks past still very much present, even he knew he came closer to death with each and every stumbling stride.

Rain began to fall in torrents around him, soaking him and diluting the liberal amounts of blood that still flowed from his injury. The sounds of pursuit had long since died behind him, or perhaps he was merely too disoriented and in pain to hear them--after all, even the roaring thunder that shook the very ground at his feet barely seemed to be conscious anymore. All he knew was the dreadful cold, the pit of fear that hung in his stomach, and, most of all, the mind-numbing pain that lanced through him with every movement and each pounding contraction of his heart.

The mud fell away beneath his feet. The sky spun around him and the trees flashed before the agony jarred through his body as he made contact with the wet ground. His breath came in short, shaking breaths as his fingers clawed at the earth for something, anything, that would get him back to his feet. He couldn't stop. Not now. Not unless he wanted Azrael to become his god once again. Not unless he wanted his son to pay the price.

They couldn't find him. They had to think him dead.

For Gunther.

His arm shook as he pushed himself back to his feet and fell heavily against the nearest tree trunk, squinting through the gray tempest's torrential downpour as his muddled mind tried to make something--anything--out that could mean respite from this living nightmare. There, somewhere through the water, the clouds, the shadows: a light.

Had he been more present, he might've noticed the lack of people or shelter, but at the moment, he was too in pain to care.

Der Silberfuchs stumbled onwards as everything around him faded into a dim buzz. He couldn't count the moments or the steps. He knew only that, as he began to lose his grip on reality and as the static gray began to obscure his already-blurred vision, his feet were no longer on mud but on soaked grass, and that when he finally fell, it was underneath flickering candles suspended somewhere above him in jars. Floating lights shimmering like stars.

That was the last thing he saw before it all slipped away into oblivion.

There was a bleeding man in her home.

He was wearing the uniforms of the men with the weapons, too. She hadn't noticed him at first, but then he started bleeding underneath her tree. So she had to jump down from its highest branches, and had to check him out. She made sure she looked presentable, too: she made her hair wild and blond, and kept it tucked behind her ears so it didn't fall in front of her hazel eyes. And she made sure the dress she was wearing was clean and presentable, too, even though it was mostly just a white nightgown she had seen a lady wear once.

She peered down at him.

Giving him a very, very critical look, she asked, "Are you dead?"

Oblivion. Sweet, dark oblivion. Was this what it was to die? Was Azrael finally coming for him? Was it all over?

There was no light. No life flashing before his eyes, like they said in the stories. It was just that: the abyssal nothingness that stretched for eternity. But there was something else. The sound, that had before been silence, now ticking somewhere in the back of his senses.

Something shimmered in the black.

No. No, no, no--not again. Not again. How much was it to ask to die?

His chest rose, lungs filling with oxygen, and the man's icy eyes shot open. The air was frigid in his mouth and caught on something liquid in his throat. He couldn't breathe. His chest clenched, as though something had seized it and crushed it in its grasp. A rattling cough shook him and blood spattered against the inside of his mask. It dripped down the metal and onto the ground and his eyes met hazel ones.

A girl, in white.

His fingers clawed at his chest. Sanguine ran down his side from somewhere beneath the black fabric. He couldn't find words. He could barely find his breath.

And then there was the pain. Coursing through him, every beat of his heart pure agony, and he hissed and looked up at her. Some unintelligible noise that might've came out of him, and then he went silent again, fighting for oxygen as the cough racked him again.

She took a step back when his eyes suddenly opened.

"So you're not dead," she wisely decided. Then her eyes widened in understanding, and she went darting off towards the med kit she had tucked away underneath one of her bushes. She didn't really need it, but it was great for playing doctor, so she could definitely use it now!

She thrust her hand into it and drew out a thick roll of bandages.

But she never really played doctor, so she wasn't sure what she needed to do. Instead, she just thrust the bandages into his hands, hoping that he'd take care of the rest while she watched and learned.

"You're the first human to come here," she informed him, plopping down on the ground beside him. "The first living one, anyway! They always end up dying."

She gave him a long, hard look.

"You better not die," she warned. "Then I'd have to move your body, and I don't know how to clean up blood yet."

She talking. Ugh. It was loud. Too loud. He pressed his hand into the dirt beneath him, shoving himself up against the tree and resting his head against it. God, it hurt. It hurt so badly.

He pulled his gloved hand away from his chest. How much blood had he lost? He needed to feed. There wasn't anything to feed on. Not except the girl, but she was young. Not an option.

He let out a heaving breath of pain and pulled off his gloves. The rain still fell around them, pounding against the canopy, and he pulled the mask off his face.

"Already...did..." he managed through clenched teeth. His eyes went towards the med kit and he reached into it, trying to find the morphine. He pulled the cap off the needle with his teeth and then shoved it into his arm, pressing down the plunger.

He couldn't work when he couldn't think, and he couldn't think when he felt the pain lance through him every moment. He fell limp for a moment, struggling to breathe, and was quiet for several more seconds before he seemed to wake himself up again.

"I need...the...the big...tweezers," he said, gesturing weakly with his hand. "The needle, the curved one. Thread it. After you hand the...the tweezers to me."

She nodded like she knew exactly what he was talking about, digging through her box with gusto. When she finally found what he was talking about, she did as requested - all the while keeping an eye on him to make sure he didn't die.

"Here!" she said. After placing it in his hand, she crouched down on the ground next to him. "...You're not going to die, are you?"

"No," he said, his voice hardly audible. The man took the tweezers and prayed that the morphine would be strong enough as he pulled aside his jacket, then his shirt. He could see the glint of the bullet through the blood. Oh, lord. Why. Why did he have to get shot? Why wasn't there anyone who could take it out but him?

He took a deep breath, stilling himself. It wasn't too deep, and the whole was decently sized, so it shouldn't be too terribly. Hopefully. He grabbed the bullet, extricating it from his chest, and it clattered to the ground. His hands were shaking. It hurt. Lord, the morphine didn't do enough.

He reached out, taking the needle from the girl, but he was trembling. He couldn't stitch himself up when he was trembling. He sighed, resting his head back and sighing.

"That's good," she said.

Her gaze traveled from his bloody body to the bloody piece of metal he had just pulled out himself. It was weird seeing it so destroyed. They always looked nice and pretty when she stole them - her stash in a nearby bush were different.

But then she saw his hands trembling when he tried moving the needle. Frowning, she sat down beside him and jerked the needle out of his hands. She had been trying to sew some of her toys, and her clothes, too, so sewing a person wasn't that different.

Humming a little under her breath, she started to sew up where he had taken the shiny metal from.

He felt her hands on his, and had he been more present, he probably would've snapped himself out of it to take it from her. But it was too dim a recognition for him to truly be aware of it until he felt the needle in his skin.

The vampire inhaled sharply at the pain, shoving back that stupid, visceral panic that came in reaction to it. He was too close to the edge. His body wanted to fight, but it couldn't, and this was for his own good. It was pain towards an end of survival.

His head fell back again. The sensation of the pinching was only on the edges of his consciousness. It was several minutes before the vampire opened his eyes to look at the girl.

"Danke," he breathed.

"You're welcome," she said. He had looked broken, and she didn't want his blood everywhere, so it seemed like a very good idea at the time. She finished up her sewing and placed the needle down beside him, watching and studying him with curiosity clear in her eyes.

"You're different," she accused him. "Your heart's all funny!"

"Ja, it had a bullet in it," he rasped pointedly. His mouth still tasted like blood. And, by god, he was tired. So tired.

She was an interesting kid, though. How old was she? Not very. Oh, lord, even breathing hurt. Ow. Ow, ow, ow.

She shook her head.

"That's not a heart!" she protested. "That's just a..."

She frowned. She didn't know what to call it, but it definitely wasn't a heart! A heart looked way different.

"This is a heart," she informed him, making the shape of one with her pointer fingers and thumbs. "And yours looks all wrong!"

He would've thought that she was just yammering nonsense about how hearts didn't look right because they didn't look like they did in a picture, but she sounded like she thought she actually saw something. It couldn't really be a heart, but obviously it was important to her.

"I see," he said, his voice still somewhat pained. "Sorry?"

He didn't sound like he was really sorry, but she also wasn't really sure he needed to apologize for not knowing what a heart really looked like. She just gave a nod and went back to staring at where his heart was - up on the right side (her right, obviously) of his chest. It really did look funny, no matter how much she tried to convince herself otherwise.

He fell silent, waiting for the vampirism to kick in and heal him. He hadn't had enough blood. He breathed in a shallow and rasping rhythm, the metallic taste of his own lifeblood strong in his throat. The adrenaline was slowly fading as he came to rest. Shaking subsiding.

He must've seemed dead again for a few moments. Breath hardly there. Eyes unfocused and half-closed. Still, still as the tree behind him, the rain pounding against his coat and the metal mask he'd discarded.

Then the skin of his chest began to move.

One cell at a time, stitching back together from the bottom up. The skin sealing. The heart below pounding with renewed vigor and the muscles closing, blood no longer leaking from the wound. Lungs filling fully with oxygen. He gasped, coughing, hacking out the blood onto the muddied earth, palms pressing into the roots of the tree to push himself wholly to a sitting position.

There it was; the vampirism that sustained him.

He looked up, finally really seeing the girl before him. She didn't look old enough to be without her parents. The starry shapes he'd seen upon his initial entrance were candles suspended from the branches in glass jars. No house nor adult aside from himself was in sight.

He pulled his jacket tighter around him, using the back of his hand to wipe the blood from his face. "What's your name?" he asked, voice somewhat softer than it'd been before. "My name is Engel."