Annabelle (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} neverhurthim) wrote in ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} wariscoming,@ 2013-09-09 21:59:00 |
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What: Walking at night after talking to Death.
Where: Somewhere in Lawrence.
When: Late Monday night 9/8/13.
Rating: High. Talk of past violence and death.
Status: Incomplete/Ongoing if someone tags; Complete if it's a narrative.
Death.
It was something she was acutely familiar with. Had experienced it on a personal level twice now. First, as a human. At age fifteen, she'd returned from her parents' apothecary to find her her two brothers -- both older, and baby sister, and her father -- dead. Murdered. And as she moved to her sister's side, sobbing, she'd felt the knife stabbing into her back and she'd collapsed onto the floor, even as she struggled to fight back. Fighting back had been useless. The pain had been immense, and it had been a very slow death.
The next thing she remembered was waking up cradled in her mother's arms. The pain was gone, but the hunger had been fierce. At her mother's pleading, Katherine had turned her. And then later that same night, she'd turned Pearl, as well.
As a vampire, she'd been staked by John Gilbert. Uncle to the lost boy she'd fallen desperately in love with. Once more, the pain had been immense. But it wasn't the pain from the stake that she remembered. It was the horrible pain caused by the magical device that had incapacitated her in the first place.
She'd also delivered death to others more than once. Not for fun, but because gaining control over her newfound abilities had been damned hard. And later -- because she'd needed to save her mother. She wasn't proud of what she'd done, but she wasn't ashamed of it either. It was a very fine line.
And yet. She'd talked to Death. Not long -- but long enough that he'd warned her to never speak to him again. To warn others like her not to approach him. Had the conversation gone a different way, would she have offered herself up to him? She didn't want to die again. But she loved. And she loved deeply. And she understood where people who were volunteering were coming from. They wanted to protect their loved ones. It was what she wanted, too. To keep the people she cared for safe. Because she had lived nearly 530 years already, minus her last match with death.
She walked down the street, arms wrapped around herself. She couldn't shake the dread and fear that now plagued her. She felt physically ill. And very, very alone.