Awakening
Snippets of conversation drift through the city’s fog enshrouded architecture. Half remembered voices echo and dance amidst the gothic architecture to form words I could barely form on misbegotten lips. I do not remember how long I have been here amidst the crimson fog of endless sleep, but the fact that I know I sleep at all speaks to me of something I know should be important and yet I am untroubled.
Here there is only passing shadows and the dreams of life that shift like ghosts through the crimson fog
Beside me lounges my sometimes companion, piercing blue eyes the only constant feature of their blurred expression. Their leg casually thrown over the arm of a chair that changes somewhere between a throne of rusted iron and the soft red velvet of some plush chair. I want to remember their name, to reach out and touch their hand in remembrance, but I simply cannot recall it. Even if I were to lay my hand over theirs it would make no difference. That memory is lost to me as well. Their form ever shifts beneath the loosely fitted poet’s shirt and leather trousers, the words that might echo in this place fall silent from sometimes painted lips. Only their eyes remain the same. We gaze over the city in quiet contemplation.
“We’ve never done this before.”
Something new amidst the dark. My companion turns their head to look behind us and my gaze follows suit. A flash of white pearl, a click of porcelain, the soft scent of lilac and jasmine. There’s a tug inside my mind and I slowly stand to clasp a hand against my side. The old wound still wept, the fabric of my shirt had been stained RED for longer than I can remember. This scent though, why now? My companion rose beside me, the soft swish of leather and Blood accenting their movements.
“He’s been asleep a long time, you should be enough.”
The buildings bellow and around come into stark black contrast against red, then slowly fade into nothingness. What had once been the concept of solid ground beneath my feet shifts into the stark reality of slick cobbled stone and the fog of half remembered light focuses to the head of a single crimson pin. Shadows splay and dance, their grasping fingers form the beginnings of an underground chamber. My silent companion is gone, but the memory of their eyes lingers in the fabric of the blue dress worn by one of the woman silhouetted in vibrant red before me. Her delicate fingers curled about a strand of pearls and she sighs into the voice between us.
“Why are you hesitating?”
Another woman came into focus, jaundiced skin framed clenched teeth that snarled out the question. Leather and aggression, blood and concern mingle in her posture. A walking contradiction that resounded in every echoed footstep of her booted feet. The floral scent of vitae carried through the air as she continued to speak, her voice mingled with the faint patter water falling against stone that I could smell yet not see. The voice that was hers continued with words that were not her own.
“You need to give him more.”
Sudden pain flared in my chest and I staggered, choking back bile that threatened to froth against my lips. Staggering I fell to one knee with a gasp, the feeling of cool stone against the back of my neck, the rank scent of stale water, every one of my senses seemed to rebel against the blinding radiance that enveloped the two woman before me. A gentle hand reached out to lift my chin and iridescent green eyes met twin pools of Amber sadness. Another, softer voice joined in the cacophony that assaulted my senses.
“It’s like he doesn’t want to wake…”
A jaundiced hand slapped the first away fiercely then snagged me by a shoulder, it’s fingers dug sharply into my flesh and despite my best efforts I gasped in pain. For the briefest of moments the fog shifted and I could see her face clearly for the first time.
”Wake up Elias.”
Darkness at first.
Darkness and the taste of the lingering vitae they have left on my lips. The scent of some sort of perfume. A creak of leather and whispered words, I can almost feel them getting closer again. The one whose blood coats my throat leans nearer, her worry radiates though the artificial sympathy that now resonates between us. She knows what I am, what I can do. But not everything.
“Give him more.”
The command comes roughly from another, harsh, commanding, masculine. She hesitates to comply, but I already know her acquiescence is inevitable, this one fears the voice more than the stubborn torpid kindred in front of her. What harm could this withered corps do that her apparent master could not?
I decide to show her.
Her wrist hovers close to my lips, the sweet scent of the fresh wound upon her flesh lingering in the air. This one is a traditionalist, and the fog ringed thought almost makes me smile. The terrified surprise that is written in her youthful features along with the horror that screams through her veins as my hand flashes up to clamp vice-like around her arm and my eyes snap open does manage the ghost of one. I am weak, the emaciated flesh of my chalk white hand is the only verification I need of this fact, but I am more than strong enough to fling my would be rescuer away from me. Half blind from the first moments of wakefulness all I have to gage my success in this is the sickening smack of flesh against stone and the reciprocal pain I feel in the empty air between us. With slow, practiced menace I rose to my feet.
First impressions are everything after all.
As if mirroring my thoughts the darkness at the edge of my vision took on a life of its own, it’s movements blurred and aggressive. Pain stitched up along my side as steel parted the rags hanging about my form along with the pallid flesh beneath. Not a shadow. Another Kindred. Gasping more in surprise than pain, I staggered back, one hand clutching at the newly wrought tear in my side, the other reaching out to find purchase on the stone of a roughly hewn wall. With pain brought focus and my vision cleared to briefly take in the dim subterranean surroundings. A cave, man-made most likely, but still underground.
Why was I underground?
A Kevlar encased hand interrupted this train of thought as it encased my throat then slammed me forcefully back against the wall. He was much larger than I, though these things mean very little to those with age. Encased in an odd variant of black swat gear the other half of my rescuers turned assailant glared down at me from behind some form of cloth mask which obscured his features. The face of this one didn’t concern me, it was his eyes that drew my full attention. Twin obsidian orbs stared down at me with equal parts anger and amusement.
“Welcome back, Brogan. You’ve been asleep long enough.”