You can't hide from your demons, feel them all lurking around Who: Beatrice Stanford Where: her room in the Budget Lodge When: sunset
The light from the sun's descent was like an ice pick to the young vampire's skull. Sleep and the daylight hours were the only time when she felt any sort of relief from the constant headaches that made her entire body feel tender with weakness. Just the act of opening her eyes brought on a tide of white-hot pain to her existence. It was hard to tell whether or not the pain had gotten any less intense than when Bea had woken up after Jaladhi had "turned" her. Butchered was more like it, and just the thought of her sire made the vampire curl into a little ball, eyes squeezed tightly shut. Scratchy carpet embraced her cheek and she peaked out of one eye at her surroundings. Sure enough, Bea was nowhere near the small bed that her room contained and instead had pulled all the covers off to make a heap in the floor. She hadn't remembered doing that. The act of groping into her memory must have triggered something, and the now-familiar whispers filled her mind like a thin blanket against the knife's edge of pain. You know what you have to do, have to do, have to do... It was the same thing, over and over, that had deafened her inner voice and left her bereft of any semblance of sanity or lucidity. At least for a large portion of time, though that too escaped the new vampire's reckoning. Nothing had much meaning anymore, at least not until the voices came.
Despite the fragmented bits of information she could recall about the whys and the wherefores, Bea felt no desire to do much of anything until the elemental pull triggered. And then, all her energy focused in on that gossamer line of influence. It screamed, 'Go, now!' and Bea would follow it, no matter the destination. "Glad" wasn't exactly the word she would use, and yet she felt something for the fact that Jaladhi had explained to her that yes, feeling like something was tugging on her from empty air was normal. That it was her purpose to follow it and do whatever it was that needed doing. Water needed protecting, and it seemed as though Bea was charged with the task, though it was never completely clear just what it was she was meant to do until she got to the place where the pull stopped. To be yanked like an animal, leashed and bound by some invisible force and then suddenly let go was still unnerving. Like stumbling over even terrain, bewildered and forced to comprehend the specific purpose through the tangled, fragmented confines of her mind. To say that it was challenging was apt, if somewhat understated.
Dimly, as if from a long way off, Bea realized that she was hungry. Just the word in her mind made her tongue dart out to her dry lips, as if she'd missed a drop. Silly though, it had been days since she'd fed, as many days as it had been since she'd run from her sire. She wasn't utterly unprepared, having stolen a few vials of water elemental from Jaladhi's vast stash, but it wasn't nearly enough. Not nearly enough for what you need to do, need to do... Her hand reached up and dug fingernails into her temple, still not quite convinced that clawing her brains out wasn't a bad idea. Wouldn't it just heal? No, no probably not. Having never heard Water's voice in life, Bea was utterly confused about the things that she heard in death. Was it truly Water that whispered to her? Jaladhi said it was. Jaladhi this, Jaladhi that. Bea shrunk in on herself further, knowing full well that she had done a bad, bad thing in running. And that she would be more than punished when Jaladhi found her. When, not if. A tremble ran through her body at the thought, inevitable though it was. Why had she run at all when she knew that it was only a matter of time, or whim, or what have you until her sire came back to claim her. "It's not safe." She echoed the words she'd heard so many times as to why it was she couldn't leave, or be alone. "Not safe." Being on her own would mean that Bea understood how is was to survive, and even she didn't quite know everything worth knowing.
Though, knowing something now and knowing something before were two different things. Thoughts and knowledge were slippery now, as if she had to fight tooth and claw just to grasp onto the simplest idea. "Like food. No, feed... Feeding." Her tongue flicked up to graze her fangs and she hummed lightly, tunelessly. Where had she put those vials? The question floated around in her brain for a good long while before she found the answer. "Bedside." Disentangling herself from the blankets and sheets seemed to take ages, and within that time Bea found her mind wandering to the point where she didn't remember why she was getting up. She sat there, still and quiet, her eyes darting around the room as if it would clue her in to what it was she was about. "Ah!" Scrambling up and over to the little night stand next to the bed, Bea opened the drawer so abruptly that she pulled it completely off of its track. The banging sound as it hit the floor was startling and Bea stared wide-eyed at it for a moment before the pain in her head flared up. Yelping, she crumpled to the floor, half on and half off of the drawer with her hands cradling her head. "Stupid, stupid." She had to remember that she was much stronger now than she had been before. And remembering meant thinking, and thinking meant more pain in her head as she still tried to use that extra sense. As if Water was still on the other end of that ghost tether.
"Nope. Gone. Lopped off." Bea made a sound that was half laugh and half sob, imagining someone chopping off one of her arms. Her hand sagged down from her face, brushing the pillowcase she'd used to wrap the vials up into when she'd stashed them. Had they cracked when she'd dropped the drawer? Lifting her head up, the room gave a sickening lurch as she rifled down into the cloth, her fingertips brushing glass. "Why glass? Breakable, fragile." Fumbling with the stopper of one of the vials, Bea gulped down the thick red liquid, smacking her lips with an audible popping sound once she was done. Not enough, enough, enough... She knew she'd have to go get more, and whether more meant more vials, or just more blood in a human-casing, it wasn't clear. What was clear was the fact that she'd eventually have to go back to Jaladhi, and she did not think it would end any sort of good way. "Not! I'm not..." What it was she wasn't, Bea didn't know, but she was sure it had everything to do with her sire. Not happy? Not safe? Not a lot of things, each one just as applicable as the next. Mostly, Bea was not ready. To be on her own, and to be whatever it was she was still learning about becoming.
"Need to incubate more." The only thing that answered her were the voices swirling and sifting around in her head.