Noctem Voluerunt

The Sleeping Spell. 2

The body of the guy in his bed was making some weird twitching movements, his eyes were all white and something like foam was coming out of his mouth. He looked possessed, but he knew it wasn’t it; he couldn’t smell any devils or ghost in the room, just fear, despair and death, but also something bitter.

“Hellie, I’m sorry, but I need you to bite him” The pink haired demon said, without looking at him, he was too busy trying to move the young witch so he was facing down, preventing him from chocking on the foam. “I think something is wrong with his blood”.

He knew that his friend would never ask him to do something like that if wasn’t absolutely necessary, but he still took his sweet time thinking about it before taking the witch’s arm and sinking his fangs in his wrist. It would be a lie to say that the warmth of that blood on his tongue didn’t made thing difficult for him, but it tasted almost too warm, and it had the same bitter taste that he had just smelled. Just as he started feeling quite dizzy, almost drunk he heard Mortty yelling at him, but he couldn’t understand a word, not until the latter grabbed him by the hair.

“What’s wrong with you?! I told you to stop many times!” The expression on the demon’s face was a worried one, but there was curiosity in his eyes, he was always thirsty for knowledge and it seemed like he had just tripped into a lake full of it, but Helian on the other hand, felt like drowning.

“You were right” He said almost out of breath. “It’s his blood, it’s different, it tastes like magic, too much like magic”. The demon’s eyes did that thing where the blossoms spin like a wind wheel.

“I’ll have to investigate this, I’ve never seen something like this” His voice sounded so far, but it could be because of that really bad habit of his, lowering is voice when he was too concentrated on something. “We can´t have a bloody human clothes on the house. This trinkets will tell you if anything is wrong with him again, you hear them already” He pointed at a little owl-like creatures that seem to be made of wood, Helian had never seen it before. “They can’t speak full sentences, so they would probably just beep at you and tell you some loose words.” Mortty stand up starting to gather shreds of clothing from the floor. “I’m going to get rid of this”. He started to walk to the door but he paused without looking at him, speaking with a really soft voice that brings nothing but bad news. “I’m sorry Hellie, but I think you’ll have to drink from him again”. And just like that he left him there, sitting on the floor, conflicted and a little scared, with an unconscious human who’s blood just tasted like heaven.

He managed to stand up and clean the sleeping boy’s face with a wet cloth, he was really careful not to bother him too much, He wasn’t sure if he could feel it or not, so he made sure to use warm water just in case. He also pick up the cloak of the floor and threw it with his own dirty clothes, just to keep his mind busy with something that wasn’t that tempting smell coming from the witch’s wrist. He hated drinking directly from living beings, the warmth of it, the life slipping into his lips made him sick, just the thought of it made him want to throw up and cry at the same time, but this guy’s blood was something new, the bitterness was the only ‘bad’ thing, and he was sure that wouldn’t be a problem to get past it. If Morttymer was right and if he needed to drink it again it could be really problematic, he needed to be really careful not become addicted to it, or he could lose control and end up killing him. A flashing image of the weak almost fainted human asking for help crossed his mind, and he felt again that punch like feeling on the pit of his stomach.

After three, almost four weeks after the ‘incident’, the witch hadn’t wake up and they started to get quite anxious, the wound was fully healed, which was weird in its own, humans didn’t recover that fast from a damn arrow making a hole in their arm, especially one that just barely missed their bone. There was, however, a cute golden flower where the wound used to be, and Helian, who was the primary care taker of the unconscious guest had noticed that there where many other different kinds of tiny golden flowers all over his torso, arms and legs.

The first week was the worst, the possessed looking movements had stop after the first night, but the fever refused to go away until the beginning of the third week, and sometimes it got even worst, he cleaned him and change the cloth on his forehead religiously, like he had known him all his life, like if the one there wasn’t a stranger and it was Mortty.

Over the course of the past weeks, Helian spent all his free time in his bedroom, looking after the witch, and when it was apparent that he wasn’t going to wake up any time soon, he took a sick leave from work so he could be there with him, it didn’t matter that Mortty reassured him that the owl-like thingies could do that for them, all of this was his fault and he was going to take care of it.

He spent so much time just looking at the sleeping stranger that he had taken a mental note of all the curious little thing about him, like how pale his skin was, maybe even more pale than his own, his hair was brown when it all had started, but it wore off, what made him think that some kind of potion was involved, now it was pastel mint, he didn’t even knew that humans could have those hair colors. His eyelashes, however, were black and very long and his eyebrows were the same color of his hair, just a tiny bit darker. He also noticed that his face was splashed with golden freckles, but when he looked closer, he noticed that the freckles were star shaped, except for one just under the outside corner of his right eye, that looked like little sun.

Sometimes, Mortty would join him on the watch, sitting with him on the floor, he would tell him all the thing he wanted to ask to the sleeping human, and they would try and plan how to tell the authorities about it, sure they could try to hide him, but that would be even more illegal than bringing him there in the first place, and it would also be pointless. They kept making up scenarios where everyone ended up hurt, imprisoned or killed until they fell asleep using each other’s head as a pillow.

Vita was running again, he was always running, he wanted to stay alive, and for that he needed to run, he had made it until that point by running, but he was tired, so tired, his knees gave up and he fell, face straight to the floor, it was a wooden floor, weird, he could swear he was running in the forest, he tried to stand up, but he couldn’t, so he thought that maybe, just maybe, it was a good moment to stay still and sleep. Just as he was about to close his eyes, a familiar voice startled him, it was a woman, but who? He couldn’t remember.

“Wake up, little sun, our little hope. You are the last one, they chose you, because you’re going to be so strong”

“Who is it?” Vita asked, the floor wasn’t wood anymore, it was stone, he could hear angry people yelling and someone pulled down the hood of his cloak. When had he stand up?

“Don’t look kid, this show is not for children” That someone spoke, an older man.

“I won’t” the words left his mouth, but he didn’t even moved it.

The floor turned orange, and yellow, like a sunset, and he felt his heart drop when the people started cheering.

“The one that was chosen will never fall, until the last one whose blood is shared with his dies. The sky gave us a gift, and that gift gave us hope” The same woman from before screamed, he could feel the hand on his hood tremble, and he felt himself filled with anger and sadness. He lifted his head just a little bit and then he saw. The woman was tied to a big log in the middle of the crowd, high up, so everyone could see, the fire was catching up to her chest when he heard her last words. “Vita protegat.” She creamed into the night sky just as he started crying.

Loud beeping noises woke Mortty up, and as soon as he saw what was happening, he wake up Helian, who seemed confused, until he started hearing the noises too.

The witch was doing something really weird, he was floating, not too far from the bed, but still floating, his eyes and mouth wide open, and white light coming out of them, the white light changed into red, then orange, yellow, green, blue and purple. The two friends couldn’t move. They were totally shocked by what was going on. The lights then changed to a darker purple, and then to navy blue, it looked like a projection of the night sky. The floating body started to descend slowly, and the projection started to widen, they could see stars and even parts of some planets, then the lights changed to white again, or was it silver? The witch was sitting on the bed, and he violently turned his head to face them, the lights felt good in their skin, cold and refreshing, just as the moonlight did. Helian had a bad feeling when it started to flicker and pushed Mortty just in time for the lights to change to golden, it touched both of their faces, just brushing Mortty’s arm as he tried to grab Helian’s shoulder for balance, and it made a cut on Helian’s cheek. Both of them look at each other terrified of what could’ve happen if it wasn’t for Helian. They looked at the witch and the lights started to flicker again, alternating between golden and silver until his right eye had the golden one and the left one had the silver. Then nothing, the lights turned off and his eyes were closed. Neither of the friend moved, they were kind of scared of that golden light coming back. Suddenly, the witch lifted both arms to his head and stayed like that for a moment.

“I hate sleeping spells.” He said with the same soft voice Helian had heard on the forest, so fragile, so hurt. He dropped his arms and then looked at them with an apologetic smile. “Well, this is awkward.” He laughed it out, much to the surprise of his hosts. He didn’t really know how to speak to them, especially when the last thing he remembered was begging for help on some stranger’s arms. What was his name? He was sure he had told him.

“Are you okay?” The guy with pink hair and funny horns asked him, he didn’t remember him. He nodded checking his body to see if there was something wrong. “You were unconscious for almost a month”.

The witch stopped every movement and looked at him, with his eyes wide open, then scratched his head with his hand and then stopped again.

“You bit me” He said looking at the two little golden sunflowers in his wrist. “I get it.” He said with a sigh.

Helian, again, started panicking and he was going to explain something, he didn’t know what, just something. But Mortty covered his mouth with his hand and looked at the now awaken witch.

“What is that you get?” He sounded a little annoyed, and the room temperature started to feel cold, but it was a different kind of cold as when he was sad. The guy sitting on Helian’s bed showed them his wrist, and Mortty’s eyebrow rose, as demanding and explanation.

“The magic here is too much; I can feel it in the air. When you saved me” He said looking at Helian, and he could see that the witch’s eyes were different colors, the right one was golden and the left one was silver, just like the lights. “I felt it like a punch. I think I might’ve had an overdose of magic” He said looking at his hands. The human world had slowly started to lose its magic, and there wasn’t much left, so coming to this world so full of it, might’ve had the same effect than giving a feast to a famished person.

Mortty nodded, that had been his theory, not exactly like that, but he thought that magic had something to do, and all the times Helian had to drink his blood he was actually cleaning by it sucking out the magic, sort of speak.

“I think it may be good idea to keep Hellie drinking your blood until you totally adapt to the magic flow in this side. I’m pretty sure, due to the past events, that he didn’t tell you about the portal situation” Vita shook his head to the last bit but he seemed okay with the vampire taking his blood.

“I only know that I’m alive, for now”.

“Well, the portal only opens once a year” Mortty said looking at him with something similar to pity, and Helian smelled something new, it was sympathy, and it was coming from the witch, not his friend.

“That’s okay, I don’t have a home anymore. This would give me time to plan where to go now. I’m Vita, by the way” He was smiling softly as he reached for Mortty’s hand.

“I’m Morttymer, and you know Helian already” He stretched his hand while finally letting go of Helian’s face.

“I’m sorry for all the trouble I’m sure I’ve caused” He looked at them and his eyes got fixed on Helian for a moment.

“What happened to your face?”