Chapter Eight
1217 Words
They say that your life flashes before your eyes when you die. But what if you don’t have a life? What if your life is an empty abyss of nothing but darkness and pain?
I don’t know who they are, but when someone’s memories are filled with emptiness, dying is nothing but death. There is no sugar-coating it.
As the man I know now to be Rune advances on me, the large, shiny knife inching closer and closer, I wonder what I have to fight for. Should I just let this be my fate? It’s not like my life is all hearts and flowers anyway.
Still, one of my mantras continues to repeat in my mind.
If I die, it’ll be on my own terms.
I don’t hesitate anymore. Giving up is for sissies.
My feet start moving, backing toward the door without ever taking my eyes off this Rune guy.
A sinister smile decorates his face, and the knife glows in his hand. Not just glints or shines… it actually glows, even with the dim lighting in the small cabin. The reddish-purple illuminates Rune’s face, and I suddenly feel drawn to the blade.
The way it’s glowing so bright and beautiful makes my stomach flip with wonderment.
“You enjoying the appearance of your fate, little vamp?” he asks. It’s like his voice is crawling over my skin, and the creepy way he talks snaps me out of the mystery that is the knife.
It’s a weapon, and he’s continuing to advance faster than I have the ability to escape.
I take a few more steps backward before my ass finally hits the door—the same door I tried to get out of just minutes before. I feel for the knob, frantically hoping it will suddenly become a tangible item I can grasp and turn.
Another sinister laugh fills the small space, causing me to bare my teeth in defense.
I’m not going down without a fight, and he damn well better know it.
“We should’ve put muzzles on your kind a long time ago.”
My kind?
He stops, the knife only a few inches from my face now. “There’s no way you are stupid enough to be unaware of the filth that flows through your veins,” he says with a scoffing sound.
His comments of filth make me snarl, a feral sound that seems to come from within me. The last time I remember making a sound of such deep savagery is the day I left the orphanage.
Rune lunges for me, the illuminated knife out for blood.
My blood.
Without hesitation, my hand flies up and grabs ahold of his wrist, the growl rumbling deeper in my chest with the weight of it inching closer to me.
While the glow of the blade continues to captivate me, dying doesn’t, and I fight for my life as he pushes his body weight onto me.
He strains, the veins in his throat thickening and undulating with each beat of his heart. Suddenly, the hunger that has plagued me for so many years returns with a vengeance.
Need fills me.
My stomach curls in on itself.
My mouth waters.
And I continue to fight the knife as I plunge forward, sinking my teeth into the man who is trying to kill me.
His scream is the only indication that I’ve hit paydirt, and it doesn’t really dawn on me what I’m doing until I feel the sweet sensation of his blood flowing down my throat.
Again, just like the evil foster father I drank from in the parking lot, I see images—memories—flashing through my soul as I continue to devour Rune.
Hatred fills every image passing through me.
Hatred for… vampires.
I need to stop, to get as far away as possible from this man. He’s out for blood but not in the same way I am.
No.
He’s out to rid the world of beings like me.
My mind is a whirlwind of confusion and wonder at what’s unfolding before me, but I still can’t stop. It’s just too good.
Unexpectedly, a bitter, almost acidic taste fills me, and I wrench back, separating myself from the evil man standing before me.
He wavers on his feet, and the hand holding the knife shakes. Blank eyes stare back at me, the trickery that was in them moments before completely gone.
Only a few heartbeats pass before an empty smile finally coats his face, twisting it into a more sinister look than before. “I’ve been waiting for this day for so long, but being able to take down a princess is more than I could’ve ever wished for,” he grounds out.
If I wasn’t confused enough before, this new statement takes the cake.
The next move takes me off guard. He slices the knife through the air, forcing me back again. The tip of the blade making contact against my throat before he plunges it into my abdomen.
Pain registers in my gut as I look down to see the colors that once illuminated the blade now spreading throughout the wound, snaking around and inside me like a serpent looking for its next meal. The agony isn’t what has my attention more than the glow that lights my middle, the wound now radiating with red and purple light.
I ignore the poor excuse of a man standing before me and pull the blade out, the light traveling through the veins beneath my skin as I hold the knife toward Rune.
“Do it. I beg you,” he demands while holding his arms out, requesting that I stab him just as he did me.
I hold the knife lazily in my hand, unsure of just how to properly grasp the hilt while I continue to stare at the luminosity traveling like track marks beneath my skin.
“Do it!” he screams, grasping my hand that holds the blade and pointing it in the direction of his chest. “I did my job, now do yours. Just get it over with!”
Spittle flies from his mouth as he speaks, his words forceful and desperate. Tears begin to pool in the corners of his eyes.
It’s the first human reaction I’ve seen out of him.
I think about it, my thoughts taking longer than he wishes, but I can’t help the disbelief that fills my mind as I stare at the blade now gripped in my hand.
It’s no longer glowing. No longer covered with the illumination it had just before sinking into my flesh.
Now it’s just a simple knife, the blade broad enough to stab someone through the chest.
This knife was designed to kill.
The pain continues to radiate through me, the agony followed by the light that was once covering the knife.
“f**k you.” The anger coating my voice almost makes me choke as I turn the knife back toward my own throat.
He screams at me, an incoherent blurb of panic as I s***h once, allowing the blade to sink deep into my neck.
The last thing I see is Rune’s tortured face before the light in the cabin disappears and, like a pop, my surroundings go dark.
- Writer
