Crisis Chapter 2: Realizations and Bloody Dreams

Jade contemplates the night’s events and deals with an ever-present fear

New to the story? Catch up with the Prologue and Chapter one

Within an hour, I was standing under a steaming shower, examining the worst of the damage. The bruises around my throat were now the color of the average park flowerbed in midsummer, although not as artfully arranged. My back and legs showed the same pattern, with a few scrapes thrown in for good measure.

Even as I examined each site, the worst of it began to fade. Skin began to knit together as the blood washed away, and the purples turned slowly green to only faded yellow by the next nightfall. The cracked rib, which made an ear-shattering grating sound as I turned, would take longer. Bones took a couple of days to heal, even for me, and it would be painful as the fragments knitted themselves back together.

As I climbed carefully out of the shower and wrapped myself in a large towel, I considered the night’s events more closely. The vampire was young but strong and very alert. Only its lack of experience had saved me from more significant injury. While the older vampires scared me, the idea of new, younger vampires was worrying. If they were creating more our chances of eradicating them diminished significantly.

I shook my head, trying to clear the dark thoughts crowding my mind. I could not think like that; if I lost my focus, I was already dead. I had survived and would hunt again within a few days. That was all that mattered right now. This life wasn’t much, but it was all I had; surviving it was the only way I would find the truth.

I moved into the front room, closing the heavy curtains against the sun. The sun was barely across the horizon, and long shadows still covered much of the area. I watched for a moment as the sickly light of day crept across the sky, changing the shape of the buildings as it passed them: so many half-finished buildings, people living among piles of rubble as if it were normal. The multi-levelled outline of the city sky lost something of its mystery as the light hit it, revealing its true nature.

First light couldn’t harm me, and even the midday sun wouldn’t kill me. It would make me wish I was dead if left out in it too long. Short exposure made me uncomfortable as it squeezed my brain and reminded me of the terrors of sleep yet to come.

Sitting at my desk with my towel folded tightly around me and tucked expertly back on itself just above my breasts, I booted up my computer and waited for it to whirl slowly into life. It was an early twenty-first-century model, one of the few that survived, and unlike the later versions owned by those lucky few who could afford them, it relied heavily on my merge energy ration. My report would be simple enough; I sent a breakdown of the night’s events using standard operating code.

Information received was accurate

Task successfully completed

Work area left clean and tidy

Cash and goods received from third party with no difficulty.

I chuckled, remembering the vomit and hoped some wild dog or other creature had taken care of it. It was then that it hit me. The vampire’s victim was swinging something when they were attacked. It had fallen and slid into the undergrowth. I swore loudly.

It was too late to go back; he could have come round by now or even been found. I hoped it would be recorded as an inexperienced mugging if anything of value was left behind. If it wasn’t, it would raise suspicion that I could not afford. I sent the message and silently hoped that my run of luck held.

I slept badly. Despite the heavy blackout curtains, the room felt too light. When I did lose myself to Morpheus, it was not restful. It wasn’t the hunt, the fear of failure, or even the overriding sickness of the kill that disturbed my mind. No, as always, it was the blood. Deep red, almost black, oozing from everywhere, covering everything. I wade through volumes of thick, red, sticky blood, smelling every drop as it invades my senses. Yet, for all my enhanced senses, I cannot tell whether it is his.

The blood deepens, my stomach growls in hunger, and bile rises in my throat in response to my sickening desire. I want to call out, but it is rising too quickly, covering my mouth, trickling into my ears. I know I need to get out of there, but the answers lay beyond the tunnel of blood. I am suffocating, the cloying stickiness pulling me under.

I wake screaming once more before I reach the other end.

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