Chapter 25: Chapter 22

1 … 2 … time is ticking, four minutes left to live. Contrary to popular belief, I didn’t see precious memories shortly before my death but rather had to suffer through my thirst for blood and my inability to move even a little bit. At least, I was only half-submerged then which meant that I was already as terrified as usual but for once, I could actually see the surroundings. With my hazy vision, I could barely make out walls, covered in algae, and a prison door that certainly had seen better days as well.

For two whole minutes, I had to live through this horrible feeling of despair as nothing changed at all. I didn’t know why Aska told me that this time would be different yet, but I still had faith in his claim. Something just had to change in my last few minutes and I wasn’t disappointed as I noticed the difference.

Although it was a rather dull sound, I heard someone or something wade through the water. It sounded very far away still, but my eyes were already a mess, so I didn’t rely on listening to gauge the distance for one second. They would make it in time, that was for sure.

132 … 134 … finally. The darkness around me waned a bit, replaced by the gentle shine of a torch. I heard the voices of two men, talking unnaturally silent. My senses were all messed up and I couldn’t make out any word, but I did see that they were hurrying up as soon as they saw me. Together, they tried to open the door but failed spectacularly. Somehow, the prison door survived all these years relatively unharmed.

Luckily, one of the hooded figures seemed to have a solution. I couldn’t look at how he did it, nor could I observe their faces as the upper hinge apparently dissolved into thin air. With one push, the lower hinge gave way to the pressure and the door fell inwards. It splashed loudly and a sharp pain shot through my right arm. The iron door fell directly on my hand and although the water certainly slowed the fall, it still broke a few bones. I would have screamed and murdered them for their insolence, but both of these things turned out to be quite hard at this moment.

And so, I could only watch furiously as one of them trampled on the door while wading inside the room which shot another wave of pain through my arm. With a mere minute left to live and a broken arm, one of them finally approached me and turned me over. The water now covered both my ears, making me even more unable to hear anything. They took their precious time talking while mine was running out. As disgusting as it may sound, I was actually grateful for the one that stood above me to open my mouth and feel my incisors. I hated him for doing so, but at least it meant that he knew how to save me.

He was apparently quite conflicted and didn’t want to donate a bit of blood to a vampire dying of thirst. But as he was looking to the person who opened the door quite often, I understood that he must have felt quite pressured to help me out a bit. He knelt beside me in the water, placed his hands beside my head and slowly but surely brought his neck towards my mouth.

In my last few seconds, before I ultimately would die, I thought about how idiotic this person was. First of all, did he really think that I was able to drink his blood myself? I couldn’t even lift a finger, let alone my whole head. And second of all, why did he have to squirm around so much that water got into my eyes? It burned in my eyes and my vision was as good as gone. I steeled myself to die once again, just because of their incompetence. Water flooded into my mouth, terrifying me even more.

And yet, it wasn’t as expected. I didn’t feel the urge to spit it out immediately, but rather tasted sweetness in my mouth that I only barely tasted when I put too much sugar on strawberries. It was incomparable to anything I have tasted before. Not exactly better, but different in a way that made it exciting to gulp everything down. A bit of strength returned to my body almost immediately, just barely enough to wipe away the water on my left eye. Now I could see that there was no water flowing into my mouth, but rather blood that ran along a blade. The man that knelt beside me was as close to death as you can be. A sword was struck through his neck, right above my mouth. His partner brutally murdered him, just to satisfy my thirst. The human above me, held up by his hair, soon lost his life. Meanwhile, I grew stronger by the second and grabbed him a moment later.

His partner let go of him as I pulled him towards me and dug my teeth into his already open wound. I enjoyed every second as even more blood filled my mouth and I regained every bit of my strength. Soon, I sat upright and dragged the corpse with me. Surprisingly, it still bled even in this position and I was damn sure that there wasn’t a drop of blood in it as I discarded it to the side. This meal was nearly perfect, but I did prefer more variety in my food. The whole minute, I only tasted sweet strawberries, which was incredibly refreshing in the beginning but became dull and boring quickly.

Feeling a lot better and trying to ignore my wet dress and my surroundings to the best of my ability, I stood up and stepped on the discarded corpse. His clothing was drenched as well, but at least I didn’t stand in water. My thoughts were racing. I couldn’t decide if I should drink the blood of the other human as well. There were certainly many advantages in doing so, but there was one important problem.

I had to step in the water again and now that I thought more consciously about my actions with my sated thirst, this suddenly became a hurdle I couldn’t overcome. And now that I looked at him closer, I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to fight him without a weapon. He still held his sword rather leisurely, but I saw his trained hand that held his sword tightly without trembling at all. The man was two heads higher than me and had a scar on his right cheek, probably from a blade. I wasn’t impressed in the slightest by his battle marks though, but he did have a rather domineering aura around him that made my alarm bells ring. Without a weapon, I wasn’t so sure that I was able to beat this one. And so, I chose the diplomatic route instead of attacking him outright.

“Bonjour? Hello? Hallo? Salve? Hola? Kon’nichiwa?” I furrowed my brows as I wasn’t entirely sure that he understood me at all. He should understand at least one of these languages, especially because I mixed the common human language in. He took his sweet time to answer and looked at me as if he was surprised. In hindsight, I shouldn’t have given so much away about me and let him initiate the conversation.

“It´s hello, except when you want to offend a human. Anyway, where are my manners? My name is Markus Goldbaum. It is a pleasure to meet you.” He said rather dull and finally seethed his sword, judging that I wasn’t keen on trying to fight him.

I held up my broken right hand in front of me and eyed it suspiciously. It still hurt and some of my fingers were spread in rather funny angles, but I could already see how the bones began to rectify themselves.

“ … Likewise. Who was this guy here?” I pointed downwards to my footing as I said that, wanting to understand what kind of person was in front of me.

“Doesn’t matter. Come, the lord doesn’t like to wait.” He valued life as I did. Low and with no remorse to end one.  He began to wade to the door, seemingly losing interest in me. Meanwhile, I was quite desperate, mostly because his movements send waves in all direction.

“Hey! I can´t walk like this. My legs are still shaking from malnutrition and I may faint any second.” I purposefully trembled and held my arms. After staring at him for a few seconds, he finally turned around and looked at me with interest.

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“Why would he want me to secure such a pitiful vampire …” he mumbled, but I could make it out clearly with my returned sharp hearing. I was rather happy that he thought of me as weak and not of someone who couldn’t stand the sight of water. “And how do you intend to solve that problem?” he said, this time a lot louder.

It took me quite some time to utter the only possible solution I could find. “C … Carry me!” It was either being terrorized by water or being carried. While my solution left a bitter taste in my mouth, I still smiled and tried to mask my insecurity. Markus turned around nonchalantly as soon as he stood right in front of me. I wrapped my arms around his neck and he pulled me up by my legs.

I could puke. He didn’t even touch me directly, but distant unwelcomed memories immediately shot through my head. Accompanying this was that my wet dress was now pressed against me, agonizing me even more. Markus soon began to walk forwards while I tried to shake these disgusting feelings off me. Largely unsuccessful, I closed my eyes which made everything even worse.

I began to hate this world even more than I did previously. Why did there have to be so much water in the first place? Couldn’t it be more like a desert? While I was deep in thought and grimaced with every step Markus made, he reached a stairwell and picked up a torch that was still burning in the entrance.

As soon as he climbed a few steps and left the water behind, I breathed out satisfied. Finally, I could leave this horrible place behind. “You can let me down now.”

“Are you sure?” He stopped but didn’t let me down right away. “You are still trembling.” I haven’t even noticed it until this point, but the fear of falling into the water again must have crept into my consciousness.

“I´m fine.” Finally, he let me down and I immediately distanced myself from him a bit. It was already pretty awkward, there was no need to make it even more so. Without saying anything further, he ascended the stairs again, with me following closely behind. After a few seconds, the silence got on my nerves and I initiated a conversation again. I mean, for most of the time I talked to Aska and as such, every other conversation partner was welcome. At least until they get boring. “Why are you here in the first place?”

“The Lord asked me to.” His conversation skills were similar to a loaf of bread or a dead cat, depending on who you ask. If I wasn’t this motivated to strike a conversation, I seriously would have lynched him right here as his back looked rather undefended.

“Alright … and what do you do except rescuing me?”

“Whatever the Lord wants me to do.” Did he even have a life without his lord? Just thinking that Markus' world revolved around one person made me incredibly furious for some reason.

“Okay … I guess … and your job is? Ahh, let me guess … you are a humble servant of your lord.” The stairwell became brighter and Markus increased his speed a bit.

“Correct.” Said he as I needed to squint my eyes to see his back. Within a matter of seconds, the light grew so bright that I had troubles seeing anything and my eyes hurt like hell.

“Do you have any ambitions other than serving?” I still tried to keep the lame conversation going, although I knew that I wouldn’t be able to keep it up for any longer. My eyes felt so tired that I already closed them, and yet the light still pierced through my eyelids.

“No.” He turned around, probably out of concern. I mean, he led a supposed vampire into direct sunlight, which was as deadly as it could get.

“You are … incredibly boring …” I uttered these words in my last moments. Untypical for a vampire, I wasn’t going up in flames, but rather fell asleep faster than ever before. The last thing I noticed was how I hit my forehead on the stair and then … nothing. This asshole didn’t turn around to catch me, but rather to see what was going on behind him.

 

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