Tanith (silverwhip) wrote in light_of_may, @ 2012-10-18 10:05:00 |
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Entry tags: | #solo, 2009-09-19, tanith |
But death would not come.
Who: Tanith
When: Night
Where/What: Tanith’s dream
NSFW.
Tanith’s dreams were never pleasant. Over the years she’d grown numb to the experience, and found her own little ways of coping. Mostly her dreams had an unpleasant basis in her past. That night was no different. A little girl of no more than eight years old, sitting in a mostly empty room. The only toys to be seen were two well-loved stuffed animals – a Miss Piggy muppet baby, and a Tigger that was practically falling apart. The little girl had a needle and thread, and was attempting to reattach one of Tigger’s ears. When the door began to open, the little girl looked up in a mixture of apprehension and curiosity. A pale man with dark hair stood on the other side. For a moment they just stared at each other, feeling one another out. At length, the man spoke.
“You don’t know what you’re doing, do you.” Not a question. The little girl shook her head.
“My mummy always did this sort of thing for me,” she answered, speaking in an Australian accent. “I’ve had him forever and she always had to fix him. She never taught me how.” The little girl looked down at her stuffed animal. One of the few things from home she still had. The pale man stepped into the room, and the small bed creaked loudly as he sat down. He patted the space beside him.
“Let me show you,” he said. The child climbed up onto the bed next to him, offering over her Tigger, as well as the needle and thread. “You’ve threaded it properly. That’s a good start,” he encouraged. Then she watched as he began the project. While he mended the toy they did not speak, unless it was about the task at hand. The little girl didn’t know this man, but she was happy to have the help. Once the project was half-done, the man handed it back to her, and encouraged her to try. She accidentally touched his hand when taking the needle, and jumped slightly in surprise.
“Your hands are really cold,” she said.
He nodded. “Tanith, your uncle has told you that you’re special, right?”
“The water stuff I can do?” the child asked. The man nodded.
“There are a lot of people out there that are special like you. Do you know what a vampire is?”
Tanith frowned. Yes, she knew what a vampire was. “They’re Halloween monsters,” she answered. “They turn into bats and don’t like the sun. There’s one on Sesame Street, but that’s for little kids.”
The man laughed softly. “Are you not a little kid then?”
Tanith shook her head. “I’m almost nine,” she answered. “You stop being a little kid at seven. That’s the cut-off point,” she explained, very matter-of-factly. This seemed to amuse the man greatly.
“Right you are,” he agreed. “So if I told you vampires were real, you wouldn’t be afraid? Since you’re a big kid.”
Tanith stopped sewing, and looked up at the man dubiously. Vampires were a movie thing. She knew that. She’d seen a scary movie once on accident, and it had had a vampire in it. He had been a very bad man, and she’d been scared half to death by it. This man didn’t look anything like that man from the movie. He was pale, but otherwise… normal. “I’d tell you to prove it,” she finally said, obviously thinking she was being quite logical about it.
The man grinned widely, exposing a pair of sharp fangs. Tanith stiffened slightly, but did not draw away from him. “Tanith, my name is Wesley,” he introduced himself, “And I’m a vampire. I’m a friend of your uncle’s.” He offered her his hand, but Tanith wasn’t sure she wanted to take it. Carefully, very carefully, she put her hand in his and shook it.
“He’s not very nice, you know,” she informed Wesley. “My uncle. He wouldn’t even let me bring all my things with me. He said I could only take one suitcase and a carry-on when we came from Australia. And I don’t like the way he talks, either.” Even as a child, Tanith hadn’t held back much.
Wesley nodded sympathetically. “He’s not used to children,” he informed her. “And I’m sure he’s still very upset about his sister’s death.” Tanith wrinkled up her nose, doubting that very much. If that had been the case, she would have known him before her parents died. He would have visited once in a while.
“Still, I’d like to go home,” Tanith replied. “He says my home isn’t there anymore. I wanted to go with my sister, but they wouldn’t let me.”
“You are a big girl then,” Wesley said. “I’m sure your parents would be very proud of you for sticking it out.” Tanith rolled her eyes. It wasn’t like she had a choice. She looked back at Wesley, curiosity apparent in her face.
“Are you really a vampire?”
Wesley nodded. “I am. Do you know what vampires do? Other than turn into bats?” There was a flash of memory, and in the dream the memory appeared in the window near Tanith’s bed. A crowded school lunch room decked out in orange and black decorations. A boy across the row from Tanith stuck two carrot sticks under his upper lip and laughed maniacally.
”I vant to suck your blood! Ah ah ah!”
“You’re stupid,” the Tanith from the window informed him. ”And you look more like a walrus.” The scene in the window faded to black, once again reflecting the room.
“Do you really drink blood?” Tanith asked.
Wesley nodded. “I have to, or else I would die. And nothing is as good and healthy as the blood of special people – like yourself. So I made an arrangement with your uncle. He and I made a deal, and he has agreed that you should give me just a little of yours.”
Tanith’s eyes went wide, and she inched back a little. “But you can’t,” she insisted.
“Only a little. Not even enough to make you sick,” Wesley promised. “And I’ve already paid your uncle. You wouldn’t want to make him look bad.”
“I don’t care,” Tanith blurted out, voice higher than it had been. “You… you just can’t!”
“Tanith,” said Wesley, warningly, “I don’t think you’re in any position to say no. Didn’t I help you with your toy? You should want to return the favor. Didn’t your parents teach you manners?”
Tanith looked down at the needle in her hands, and behind her, blood had begun to drip down the walls. All color but red had slowly begun to seep away from the room, as well as the things and people inside it. Before long they were in a nearly monochrome world, with walls running so thickly with blood that they were nearly black. Tanith’s hands had started to shake. “Will it hurt?”
“Only for a little while,” Wesley answered. “But you can scream if you want to.” And in an instant, he had seized her. A shrill scream filled the room, and the glass of the window shattered into a million pieces. But it wasn’t just the window that had broken, or even the wall or the room, but the world. Tanith had turned to glass and when Wesley’s fangs broke through her neck, she collapsed into dust. Wesley and the room itself morphed into other rooms and other vampires, but with each end Tanith suffered she came back anew. A bloody and yet colorless creature rising from the dust like a phoenix from the ashes. Years passed by in moments, the dozens of vampires who had bought her blood moving in a constant blur, until the creature settled on a scholarly looking man that brought color back to the world. But the color was not good. Along with reds there were now shades of blue that brought corpses and rot to mind, and everything seemed to be tinted a sickly shade of yellow. When this terrible creature tried to explore her body, the thirteen-year-old Tanith evolved again. Not glass now, but ice. She seized a long shard of ice from the black nothingness around them and plunged it into his heart.
All at once Tanith was human again, her fear painted plainly on her face. The world around her was no longer black but a labyrinth carved of ice, and it was all beginning to melt. She took off at a run, full tilt as she tried to escape that day, that place, that man – no, no, that thing. As she ran she was overwhelmed with the sensation that something terrible was just behind her, and when it caught her her fate would be terrible. She ran and ran, even as the walls around her melted, and the long corridor she traveled began to flood. Before long she was not running through mere puddles, but wading through a river of blood. She was so tired. So tired. In those days Tanith had often suffered from dizziness and vertigo, she could feel now that the world was threatening to go black again. She didn’t want that. This world was hell, but at least when she was awake she knew what she was up against. Tanith feared the things that would be done without her knowledge or consent even when she was sleeping. If a vampire fed from her, she wanted to memorize their face. She had to. It was the only way she’d ever settle the score later. And she would. Oh yes, she would. Only just now she was having difficulty staying upright. She felt the world wobbling around her, until finally her legs gave out.
She did not fall into the puddles of blood below. When she hit the ground it was not the melting labyrinth she landed in, but cold cement. She raised her head to take in her surroundings, and she was sixteen again. Her hair was very short, but she couldn’t remember why. Down the hallway, she could hear screaming. She could hear cheering. She was in the pit. Tanith closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “This is a dream,” she told herself. “Wake up. Wake up. Wake the fuck up, right now.”
But it wasn’t a dream. She opened her eyes, and she was still in that cold place. The scent of blood in the air was so thick and heavy she felt as if she might choke on it. Cautiously, she climbed to her feet and started down the hallway. When she reached the large, open room at the end of the corridor, she could see dozens of vampires circling around two teenage girls who were both fighting for their lives. When one of them fell and didn’t get up again, the vampires descended on her. When there was nothing left, they threw another girl in and the fighting began again.
“I don’t want to do this,” she whispered. “I can’t keep doing this. Can’t you just let me go?”
Her uncle had materialized beside her. He was a hard man with cold eyes, and he watched the scene before him without blinking. “No. You get out there and make me some money, or I’ll make it worse for you in the end.”
“Someday I’m going to kill you.” The words were only whispered, but they caused everything in the room to stop. Her words echoed off the walls, and all at once all motion ceased and every pair of eyes turned to Tanith. Her uncle seized her by the throat and backed her into the nearest wall. He was choking with her, first with one hand, but then both as he lifted her right up off of her feet. She couldn’t breathe. She clawed desperately at his hands as she attempted to break free. All color was fading from the world again, monochrome once more in shades of red that called to mind blood and rest. Things grew dark, and gradually, her field of vision began to narrow, until all she could see were her uncle’s eyes. They had turned black. And then with no warning at all, he had thrown her into the ring. Tanith’s opponent charged at her, but Tanith couldn’t fight back. She was gasping for air, but not getting any of it. Her uncle had broken something. When she tried to breathe, all that came from her lips was a pained, wheezing sound. When it was clear she couldn’t fight back, the vampires descended again. They began draining the blood from her body, and soon it was not the cheering or the screaming echoing off the walls, but the sound of Tanith’s heartbeat. The sound came in a broken rhythm, with the beats occurring fewer and farther between. When the beating had almost stopped entirely, the room around her dissolved until there was nothing left but a crumpled and bleeding Tanith and her uncle.
Minutes passed. He watched her struggle for air. Tanith kept waiting for death, but death would not come. The room grew silent, save for Tanith’s wheezing. And then, footsteps. Slow, steady footsteps, as a man stepped out of the shadows. His face was hidden, but it wasn’t the man that was important. It was what he was carrying. A girl, bound and gagged, and struggling frantically. She was not part of this monochrome world, but full of life and color. She was laid out on the ground next to Tanith.
No. No, no, no. Tanith knew what was coming, and she couldn’t let it happen. But she couldn’t breathe! She couldn’t stop it if she couldn’t even breathe! She clawed desperately at her throat, her fingers scraping through open wounds. Her uncle stepped forward. He revealed a dagger, and held it out high before him as he knelt between the two girls. He wrapped both hands around the hilt, and in an instant the single blade parted into two smaller daggers. He said the words. His assistant took blood from both girls, and used it to trace a series of symbols around their bodies.
The world was going dark. Tanith knew she was on the edge of death. She squeezed her eyes shut and silently begged for her end, but it was too slow in the coming. In a quick thrust, her uncle stabbed each of the girls with one of the daggers. In an instant, all color withdrew from the other girl as her uncle removed the blades, which he then switched and plunged down again. The moment the blood from the other girl’s wound touched Tanith, color began to return to the world, but that other girl was dead. Her uncle removed the knife from her chest, and all her wounds began to close. All of a sudden she gasped for air and received it. Then she screamed. All she wanted was an end.
But death would not come.