Vampiric Ascension Chapter 2: Death is only the beginning

’Humans,’ The ta scoffed, his pale face face looming over . ’Weak, powerless, worthless in every sense of the word.’

In the distance, the screams quited. Everyone had either escaped or died. I’d done it. I thought with a smile. Id distracted him long enough.

I couldn’t see the boy or his mother anywhere.

Hopefully they were out of danger by now.

If there was ever a ti to escape it would have been now.

Sohow I managed to stand.

I looked at the ta and ... yeah, the monster was still smiling.

The ta slowly adavanced. His cruel smile deepening. ’Despite all this ... your will is still unbroken. Rare . . Very rare.’

’But even this fun ga of our must co to an end,’ he sighed.

He was just a foot away from now.

’I was just thinking the sa thing about you.’ I threw a fist at him.

In retrospect, that was a pretty stupid thing to do.

Above , I caught a glimpse of the weird apparition of the young woman – transcient and impossibly beautiful.

The ta roared laughter as he mirrored , He thrust out a burning hand at a speed I could barely register.

His arm ploughed into my gut like a hot knife through wax – burning, searing, destroying.

I couldn’t breathe. The pain was so intense I felt every cell in my body convulse.

Despite that, a strange sort of calm fell over : I was going to die. No way I could co back from this. Part of thought, All right. Make it count.

My vision dimd. The fist i had punched with had burned off, leaving a bloodless stub.

But I rebered seeing a docuntary about the lting point of bone being above a thousand degrees.

The ta studied , a smile on his face still.

Weakly, I raised my remaining hand and closed it around the arm in my gut.

He was still at ease, assured of his victory. . .

but he never should have allowed this close.

I stabbed what remained of my left arm at him. His eyes were suddenly alive with terror. He had not expected this...

But it was too late.

I forced my ulna and radius through him, right under his ribcage, the closest way to his heart.

’No!’ He fought to free himself, bursting into flas, kicking and gouging. But his flas were no longer ignited in calm, they were panicked and weak

I held on as his fire battered , blowing away pieces of my flesh and bone, my arm still embedded in his heart, my own organs burning away from the flaming arm in my gut.

His pale skin finally had a color to it. A nuclear orange. He was going to blow..

The sky flashed in and out of view. I caught a glimpse of the apparition of the woman, she was much more real now – and she was rushing towards at full speed,

her hand outstretched.

FWOOOOOOOM! The ta roared as his form ca apart in fire, burning my eyes through their eyelids. Enveloping in what I assud would be a deadly explosion

A pity. . .

I would have liked to see if his smile still remained. .

I was dead..

Or rather I was supposed to be . . .

And then, though I still couldn’t see anything, suddenly I could feel sothing. As if i still had limbs, I imagined I could feel my arms again.

A then there was a warm ember exactly where my heart should’ve been.

The warmth intensified until it was almost tangible, warr and warr.

Hotter.

Hotter.

Hotter.

Painful now. Too hot. Much, much too hot.

The burning sensation grew— it increased then plateaud then it surged again until it surpassed anything I’d ever felt.

I would have scread if only i had my physical body. I would scream for soone to do the kindness of killing .

The flas had burned out of my heart now, spreading with torturous pain through my chest.

Kill !

Kill !!

Kill !!!

And, for this single mont that spanned an infinity, there was only this pain.

Pleading for death to co though it never did.

The only change ca when suddenly, impossibly, my pain was doubled.

My left arm —the arm i had lost—was lit with the sa fiery tornt.

I could feel bone fragnts reforming, rejoining —knitted together by the scorching tongues of the fla.

I continued to live in the fiery hell.

It could have been minutes or hours, weeks or months, but, eventually the pain slowly dulled until i could think coherently again.

Then it happend, and I got stronger.

My body once more surrendered control to but only in tiny bits, and thats how i sensed the flow of ti.

I could twitch my toes now, curl my fingers, ball my hands into fist.

The pain was still not gone—in fact, I could sense it more vividly now, each needle stabbing through my flesh—but it no longer overpowered my mind. I was aware, curious again.

What had happened?

Where was the ta?

The young woman?

Where was I?

Hours later, I could feel the soft embrace of silk.

I was on a bed... and there were a pair footsteps.

Light... rhythmic....elegant.

"How much longer?" A chi like voice asked. It was female.

"It won’t be long now," A colder voice responded. "His strength is growing. I can feel great potential in this one." The voice affird.

"My lady... was he.. worth it?"

"Hmm.. we will not know until he wakes."

There was a long mont of silence, and then the other voice sighed. It was a sigh of resignation.

"Either way, the sire bond is already complete," she breathed.

"Everything is going to work out, my lady."

"You weren’t so certain two days ago."

"That was because he was a charred corpse, barely alive. And his ta energy. Present, but faint. A defective piece of trash."

"So what changed?" The cold voice asked.

A sigh rang out. "My lady...

I see the resemblnce now. . ."

Quiet breathing.

"Thank you, Hera."

The voice was brighter now.

"Hes going to be perfect." The voice said finally.

Then both presences breezed out of the room. I heard the slik or their robes brush through the wind as they move.

I heard minute tongues of fla sputtering above a chandelier that must have blazed above .

I heard several hushed footsteps hurriedly strutting through obsidian halls.

I could hear everything.

Then my heart took off in a frenzy, beating like a propeller blade.

The fire intensified, containing itself within my heart —the last remaining part of that was still human.

There was one last defiant struggle before my heart thudded quietly agaist my spine.

Then all was still. No breathing. No heartbeat.

And then I opened my eyes. . . .

Everything was so clear.

As if all my life my eyes had been trapped in a haze.

Light. . .

Sothing so basic and common seed to have becomre countless tis more wondrous.

I could see glowing strands of the thermal energy that connected to form each sputtering fla on the chandelier.

I could see droplets vapour in the air.

I could see how upon touching these particles the light of fla split into a thousand wondrous streams.

They surged across the room like a celestial lazer show.

The sight was so beautiful that I gasped in shock; the air tunneled down my throat in a vortex.

The sensation was strange... wrong.

I realized that my lungs reacted indifferently to the influx of oxygen.

The air was not needed, but It was welcod.

In it, I could taste the room around

—taste the vapour in the air, the acrid scent of burnt wax.

Taste the luxurious whiff of silk I lay in.

And sothing else. . .

A faint hint of sothing warm and moist, ....

My throught burned, and i could feel a fluid congealing underneath my incisors and canines.

Venom?

"Unnn" A sensual, cottony, languid moan sounded right besides my ears.

It was from a presence so still I had only now sensed it.

I turned reactively.

"Suu...Suu" She breathed.

Her skin was white. Thats it.

There was no other description. With not a single blemish and as white as the purest snow.

So smooth and flawless that it almost hurt my eyes, whiles her hair took on a deep midnight black.

Right now it was scattered over a pillow— a waterfall of frayed silk.

My mind raced. ’Just what was going on?’

Eyebrows like crescent moons, rose colored lips that were fresh petals, and perfect, indescribable, devastatingly beautiful features.

Before my panic could deepen her eyes snapped open.

Dark, bottomless pupils that nearly sucked in my very soul.

’Oh? You woke up so soon?’ A delicate, soft, silky voice that numbed my body and lted my bones.

The womans exceedingly beautiful face carrying faint smile.

She slowly rose upon seeing wake. She was naked... save for a lose dark robe.

A pair of long slender legs naturally bared themselves beneath her robe.

My mind was drunk on the orchid fragrance that diffused into the air as her sultry thighs rubbed against each other.

’Who ar-’ Halfway through my words, I felt sothing strange about the breezy feeling on my body.

I sheepishy lowered my head only to find out that I wasn’t wearing anything at all.

I stared dumbly at the woman for a split second before jolting of the bed in panic like I had been electrocuted.

The woman let out a lovely laugh at my embarrassed look. She laughed so much that her perfect body kept on shaking, causing her enormous breast, beneath the dark robe, to bounce unceasingly as those dazzling, snow white mounds nearly spilled out.