Chapter 113: 113
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(Serena's perspective)
I float amongst the void and dense blackness of a space that breathes no air, nor has no life. This is stasis, but it feels like death. My body is cold, chilled by the frigid realisation that I am on the verge of death and that no manner of striving against this inky blackness would help me escape the fate that has encapsulated my soul.
Perhaps it is already too late for me.
I have no presence in this world, this impenetrable darkness that cannot be broken by any light of mine, no presence except a voice, or a thought, that rings out into the never ending gloom. It's a faint voice- my voice, but diminished into a husk of what it once was. Gone is that powerful daring and the blazon cheekiness which I used to address my elders, gone is the sweet romantic coo of the flustered notes of my voice, reduced now to a mere shell of what it was, an empty husk. Yes, it is my voice, but it is also a broken one.
I cannot feel in this void- that is, I cannot feel anything except the cold. A thrumming chill that eats away at my insides like a starved hound in the winter, burying my soul in an icy frost that proves futile to run from. The cold is everywhere, and I am alone.
So I call his name.
But no answer comes.
I wonder with the faintest intellect whether he can still hear me, whether some bond, some insurmountable tether between our souls has bridged the gap between the living and the dead and formed a line between my mind and his. Is it too wishful to hope that some invisible string has been strung between the the vast expanse of our joint consciousness to let me call out to him? But there is no answer for me in the void of darkness, only the cold thrill of stasis, and the faint memory of death. It is lonely here, so lonely. Am I already dead?
I call out again.
Still, no answer comes.
And so my mind continues to be caught among the tug and pull of this all consuming nothing, devouring me in its tight embrace of death with gnashing teeth and sharpened claws. The cold, cold feeling of emptiness persists, unrelenting, the icy chill that sinks in the very bottom of my bodiless soul until all that is left is the feeble callings of my voice ringing out into the gloom. I am utterly alone.
I am unaware for how long I wander aimlessly in this void, it could be hours, it could be weeks, but time here is both relative and irrelevant, for where there is nothing, time has no purpose. Perhaps it is that he has left me to die, that I am now a mere shade floating through the last remaining scraps of my existence, bound to the darkness and everything that lies within it. I have heard fairy tales that tell of those who lose their soul by some act of sin or great evil witchcraft and are destined to wander alone in a void for eternity, never to be passed on into the other world. And so they remain trapped in a listless turmoil for eternity, never able to escape, never able to be free of the darkness and the horrible aching loneliness that swells within their hearts.
I never used to believe in those tales. And I never used to believe in souls either- a 'ridiculous idea'- but who said that? I take a moment to ponder over the matter. Ah, of course, I think, realisation washing over me like a cool ocean breeze, it was the council, how could I forget?
Why did I forget?
The question sends a trembling shiver through my mind. Maybe my fate has already been bound, maybe my soul has already been lost to the night. Perhaps I am dead. Perhaps.
But then the darkness shifts. There is something there, moving against the void, a swirling disruption in the inky blackness that I can only just make out but... yes! A light! A flickering flame of blue flares out against the void, and just like that, everything shimmers back into life. A small spark of hope glimmers inside me, filling me with a newfound determination. With careful precision I pull myself closer to this blue flame, cold and icy like the frost that blankets Faey when winter has wrapped its tight embrace around the world, yet somehow it feels warm, comforting, as though the very notion of its existence is enough to restore life back into my weary body. Perhaps I am not so alone after all.
After a little while I realise that I have a body once more- perhaps some extra miracle granted by this miraculous blue flame. With a tentative motion, I stretch out my hand out into the darkness and towards the light, grasping the wintry air between my fingers before recoiling my hand back into myself, all at once terrified of pushing it further. Something stops me from pushing further, an instinctive notion or memory that forces me to withdraw. Fear.
It occurs to me that I never used to be afraid of the dark, that this inky void would have been somewhat of a reassurance to me in my younger years, proof of the existence of the creatures that I simultaneously loved and loathed with all my heart. The council used to tell me that a vampire is like a shadow, neither living nor dead yet still caught up in the sway and motion of the world like every other poor soul that walks through Faey, waiting to be vanquished by the light of the angels. We were painted at the tributes, the heroes of Faey, leaping to the aid of the poor and helpless to push back the shadows of the night with our gleaming silver swords. Such images covered the walls of the market squares. They even made plays about it. Back then maybe I would have believed this hopeless plea, heard it from the young ears of a naïve child and found myself convinced, but now I can't help to see it as anything more than propaganda bullshit. We were never the saviours of Faey. We were part of the curse.
A vampire's existence is like an inevitable plague- or so they said- because wherever there is light, these creatures of blackness and death would be sure to follow. There they would stand, ready and waiting to sweep up the pulsing hearts of moral creatures into their hungry mouths and awaiting claws to dance and dine on their flesh long into the twilight of the night. The life of a vampire is one of hedonistic pleasure, of blood, of love, of seduction, of aimless ballroom dancing- a life of sin and shadows, and one that I would have neither the fortune nor the pleasure of living.
It was a fanciful thought to imagine we were ever going to get rid of the vampires, an idea that I now see has many flaws. For while our holy light could vanquish these promiscuous shadows, shadows too only ever exist in the presence of light. For while there is life, there is death. And while there are angels, there are vampires.
Then something else draws my focus a few feet ahead of me in the darkness. Inside the blue flame, something flickers.
A scene, half blurred by the surrounding constraints of heavy blackness, swims into view, shimmering with a blurry and dreamlike quality that leaves me wondering if what I am seeing is real at all. Gently, I rub my eyes, stretching out my stiff and leaden limbs in an ardent call to action. Sluggishly I move towards it.
There are two- no three- men at a table, half silhouetted against the half light of the room they are in, talking with a fervent urgency that I can neither hear nor decipher. One of them, a dark haired male with horns jutting up like a rams, is shaking his head with a melancholic sadness, his face drawn tight with emotion, causing my heart to pang with a sudden surge of feeling. It looks like he is in pain. There is a grim nodding of heads around the room. They have appeared to reach an agreement of some sorts, but the curly haired man doesn't seem to like it.
And then, I realise with a stretch of my hand towards a beautiful pale figure in the flame, as though hoping to curl my fingers around those dark, mussy locks of his hair, I understand with a jolt that I know this person.
One of the other figures hands Soren something, a vial of shining gold liquid, face pulled into a deep set frown, black eyes glowing with a strange mixture of proudness and avid concern. Soren encloses it within his hand, clutching it like a lifeline, fingers so tight that his knuckles turn an eerie bone white. But I don't have time to wonder what is in the vial, or why he is with the other blurry figures because as soon as I reach out into the flame, everything goes black.
Panic rises within me as I struggle to comprehend the reason for the disappearance of that bright, icy light, fear flooding my veins as I scream out into the void, my only answer being the blank sheets of darkness and sheer, terrifying nothing.
In my final act of desperation, sinking to my knees as the frigid chill begins to settle once more like a death serum in my veins, I call out his name…
And this time he answers.
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(Serena's perspective)
I float amongst the void and dense blackness of a space that breathes no air, nor has no life. This is stasis, but it feels like death. My body is cold, chilled by the frigid realisation that I am on the verge of death and that no manner of striving against this inky blackness would help me escape the fate that has encapsulated my soul.
Perhaps it is already too late for me.
I have no presence in this world, this impenetrable darkness that cannot be broken by any light of mine, no presence except a voice, or a thought, that rings out into the never ending gloom. It's a faint voice- my voice, but diminished into a husk of what it once was. Gone is that powerful daring and the blazon cheekiness which I used to address my elders, gone is the sweet romantic coo of the flustered notes of my voice, reduced now to a mere shell of what it was, an empty husk. Yes, it is my voice, but it is also a broken one.
I cannot feel in this void- that is, I cannot feel anything except the cold. A thrumming chill that eats away at my insides like a starved hound in the winter, burying my soul in an icy frost that proves futile to run from. The cold is everywhere, and I am alone.
So I call his name.
But no answer comes.
I wonder with the faintest intellect whether he can still hear me, whether some bond, some insurmountable tether between our souls has bridged the gap between the living and the dead and formed a line between my mind and his. Is it too wishful to hope that some invisible string has been strung between the the vast expanse of our joint consciousness to let me call out to him? But there is no answer for me in the void of darkness, only the cold thrill of stasis, and the faint memory of death. It is lonely here, so lonely. Am I already dead?
I call out again.
Still, no answer comes.
And so my mind continues to be caught among the tug and pull of this all consuming nothing, devouring me in its tight embrace of death with gnashing teeth and sharpened claws. The cold, cold feeling of emptiness persists, unrelenting, the icy chill that sinks in the very bottom of my bodiless soul until all that is left is the feeble callings of my voice ringing out into the gloom. I am utterly alone.
I am unaware for how long I wander aimlessly in this void, it could be hours, it could be weeks, but time here is both relative and irrelevant, for where there is nothing, time has no purpose. Perhaps it is that he has left me to die, that I am now a mere shade floating through the last remaining scraps of my existence, bound to the darkness and everything that lies within it. I have heard fairy tales that tell of those who lose their soul by some act of sin or great evil witchcraft and are destined to wander alone in a void for eternity, never to be passed on into the other world. And so they remain trapped in a listless turmoil for eternity, never able to escape, never able to be free of the darkness and the horrible aching loneliness that swells within their hearts.
I never used to believe in those tales. And I never used to believe in souls either- a 'ridiculous idea'- but who said that? I take a moment to ponder over the matter. Ah, of course, I think, realisation washing over me like a cool ocean breeze, it was the council, how could I forget?
Why did I forget?
The question sends a trembling shiver through my mind. Maybe my fate has already been bound, maybe my soul has already been lost to the night. Perhaps I am dead. Perhaps.
But then the darkness shifts. There is something there, moving against the void, a swirling disruption in the inky blackness that I can only just make out but... yes! A light! A flickering flame of blue flares out against the void, and just like that, everything shimmers back into life. A small spark of hope glimmers inside me, filling me with a newfound determination. With careful precision I pull myself closer to this blue flame, cold and icy like the frost that blankets Faey when winter has wrapped its tight embrace around the world, yet somehow it feels warm, comforting, as though the very notion of its existence is enough to restore life back into my weary body. Perhaps I am not so alone after all.
After a little while I realise that I have a body once more- perhaps some extra miracle granted by this miraculous blue flame. With a tentative motion, I stretch out my hand out into the darkness and towards the light, grasping the wintry air between my fingers before recoiling my hand back into myself, all at once terrified of pushing it further. Something stops me from pushing further, an instinctive notion or memory that forces me to withdraw. Fear.
It occurs to me that I never used to be afraid of the dark, that this inky void would have been somewhat of a reassurance to me in my younger years, proof of the existence of the creatures that I simultaneously loved and loathed with all my heart. The council used to tell me that a vampire is like a shadow, neither living nor dead yet still caught up in the sway and motion of the world like every other poor soul that walks through Faey, waiting to be vanquished by the light of the angels. We were painted at the tributes, the heroes of Faey, leaping to the aid of the poor and helpless to push back the shadows of the night with our gleaming silver swords. Such images covered the walls of the market squares. They even made plays about it. Back then maybe I would have believed this hopeless plea, heard it from the young ears of a naïve child and found myself convinced, but now I can't help to see it as anything more than propaganda bullshit. We were never the saviours of Faey. We were part of the curse.
A vampire's existence is like an inevitable plague- or so they said- because wherever there is light, these creatures of blackness and death would be sure to follow. There they would stand, ready and waiting to sweep up the pulsing hearts of moral creatures into their hungry mouths and awaiting claws to dance and dine on their flesh long into the twilight of the night. The life of a vampire is one of hedonistic pleasure, of blood, of love, of seduction, of aimless ballroom dancing- a life of sin and shadows, and one that I would have neither the fortune nor the pleasure of living.
It was a fanciful thought to imagine we were ever going to get rid of the vampires, an idea that I now see has many flaws. For while our holy light could vanquish these promiscuous shadows, shadows too only ever exist in the presence of light. For while there is life, there is death. And while there are angels, there are vampires.
Then something else draws my focus a few feet ahead of me in the darkness. Inside the blue flame, something flickers.
A scene, half blurred by the surrounding constraints of heavy blackness, swims into view, shimmering with a blurry and dreamlike quality that leaves me wondering if what I am seeing is real at all. Gently, I rub my eyes, stretching out my stiff and leaden limbs in an ardent call to action. Sluggishly I move towards it.
There are two- no three- men at a table, half silhouetted against the half light of the room they are in, talking with a fervent urgency that I can neither hear nor decipher. One of them, a dark haired male with horns jutting up like a rams, is shaking his head with a melancholic sadness, his face drawn tight with emotion, causing my heart to pang with a sudden surge of feeling. It looks like he is in pain. There is a grim nodding of heads around the room. They have appeared to reach an agreement of some sorts, but the curly haired man doesn't seem to like it.
And then, I realise with a stretch of my hand towards a beautiful pale figure in the flame, as though hoping to curl my fingers around those dark, mussy locks of his hair, I understand with a jolt that I know this person.
One of the other figures hands Soren something, a vial of shining gold liquid, face pulled into a deep set frown, black eyes glowing with a strange mixture of proudness and avid concern. Soren encloses it within his hand, clutching it like a lifeline, fingers so tight that his knuckles turn an eerie bone white. But I don't have time to wonder what is in the vial, or why he is with the other blurry figures because as soon as I reach out into the flame, everything goes black.
Panic rises within me as I struggle to comprehend the reason for the disappearance of that bright, icy light, fear flooding my veins as I scream out into the void, my only answer being the blank sheets of darkness and sheer, terrifying nothing.
In my final act of desperation, sinking to my knees as the frigid chill begins to settle once more like a death serum in my veins, I call out his name…
And this time he answers.
Serena's perspectiveI float amongst the void and dense blackness of a space that breathes no air, nor has no life. This is stasis, but it feels like death. My body is cold, chilled by the frigid realisation that I am on the verge of death and that no manner of striving against this inky blackness would help me escape the fate that has encapsulated my soul.Perhaps it is already too late for me.I have no presence in this world, this impenetrable darkness that cannot be broken by any light of mine, no presence except a voice, or a thought, that rings out into the never ending gloom. It's a faint voice- my voice, but diminished into a husk of what it once was. Gone is that powerful daring and the blazon cheekiness which I used to address my elders, gone is the sweet romantic coo of the flustered notes of my voice, reduced now to a mere shell of what it was, an empty husk. Yes, it is my voice, but it is also a broken one. I cannot feel in this void- that is, I cannot feel anything except the cold. A thrumming chill that eats away at my insides like a starved hound in the winter, burying my soul in an icy frost that proves futile to run from. The cold is everywhere, and I am alone.So I call his name.But no answer comes.I wonder with the faintest intellect whether he can still hear me, whether some bond, some insurmountable tether between our souls has bridged the gap between the living and the dead and formed a line between my mind and his. Is it too wishful to hope that some invisible string has been strung between the the vast expanse of our joint consciousness to let me call out to him? But there is no answer for me in the void of darkness, only the cold thrill of stasis, and the faint memory of death. It is lonely here, so lonely. Am I already dead?I call out again.Still, no answer comes.And so my mind continues to be caught among the tug and pull of this all consuming nothing, devouring me in its tight embrace of death with gnashing teeth and sharpened claws. The cold, cold feeling of emptiness persists, unrelenting, the icy chill that sinks in the very bottom of my bodiless soul until all that is left is the feeble callings of my voice ringing out into the gloom. I am utterly alone.I am unaware for how long I wander aimlessly in this void, it could be hours, it could be weeks, but time here is both relative and irrelevant, for where there is nothing, time has no purpose. Perhaps it is that he has left me to die, that I am now a mere shade floating through the last remaining scraps of my existence, bound to the darkness and everything that lies within it. I have heard fairy tales that tell of those who lose their soul by some act of sin or great evil witchcraft and are destined to wander alone in a void for eternity, never to be passed on into the other world. And so they remain trapped in a listless turmoil for eternity, never able to escape, never able to be free of the darkness and the horrible aching loneliness that swells within their hearts. I never used to believe in those tales. And I never used to believe in souls either- a 'ridiculous idea'- but who said that? I take a moment to ponder over the matter. Ah, of course, I think, realisation washing over me like a cool ocean breeze, it was the council, how could I forget?Why did I forget? The question sends a trembling shiver through my mind. Maybe my fate has already been bound, maybe my soul has already been lost to the night. Perhaps I am dead. Perhaps.But then the darkness shifts. There is something there, moving against the void, a swirling disruption in the inky blackness that I can only just make out but... yes! A light! A flickering flame of blue flares out against the void, and just like that, everything shimmers back into life. A small spark of hope glimmers inside me, filling me with a newfound determination. With careful precision I pull myself closer to this blue flame, cold and icy like the frost that blankets Faey when winter has wrapped its tight embrace around the world, yet somehow it feels warm, comforting, as though the very notion of its existence is enough to restore life back into my weary body. Perhaps I am not so alone after all. After a little while I realise that I have a body once more- perhaps some extra miracle granted by this miraculous blue flame. With a tentative motion, I stretch out my hand out into the darkness and towards the light, grasping the wintry air between my fingers before recoiling my hand back into myself, all at once terrified of pushing it further. Something stops me from pushing further, an instinctive notion or memory that forces me to withdraw. Fear.It occurs to me that I never used to be afraid of the dark, that this inky void would have been somewhat of a reassurance to me in my younger years, proof of the existence of the creatures that I simultaneously loved and loathed with all my heart. The council used to tell me that a vampire is like a shadow, neither living nor dead yet still caught up in the sway and motion of the world like every other poor soul that walks through Faey, waiting to be vanquished by the light of the angels. We were painted at the tributes, the heroes of Faey, leaping to the aid of the poor and helpless to push back the shadows of the night with our gleaming silver swords. Such images covered the walls of the market squares. They even made plays about it. Back then maybe I would have believed this hopeless plea, heard it from the young ears of a nave child and found myself convinced, but now I can't help to see it as anything more than propaganda bullshit. We were never the saviours of Faey. We were part of the curse.A vampire's existence is like an inevitable plague- or so they said- because wherever there is light, these creatures of blackness and death would be sure to follow. There they would stand, ready and waiting to sweep up the pulsing hearts of moral creatures into their hungry mouths and awaiting claws to dance and dine on their flesh long into the twilight of the night. The life of a vampire is one of hedonistic pleasure, of blood, of love, of seduction, of aimless ballroom dancing- a life of sin and shadows, and one that I would have neither the fortune nor the pleasure of living. It was a fanciful thought to imagine we were ever going to get rid of the vampires, an idea that I now see has many flaws. For while our holy light could vanquish these promiscuous shadows, shadows too only ever exist in the presence of light. For while there is life, there is death. And while there are angels, there are vampires.Then something else draws my focus a few feet ahead of me in the darkness. Inside the blue flame, something flickers. A scene, half blurred by the surrounding constraints of heavy blackness, swims into view, shimmering with a blurry and dreamlike quality that leaves me wondering if what I am seeing is real at all. Gently, I rub my eyes, stretching out my stiff and leaden limbs in an ardent call to action. Sluggishly I move towards it.There are two- no three- men at a table, half silhouetted against the half light of the room they are in, talking with a fervent urgency that I can neither hear nor decipher. One of them, a dark haired male with horns jutting up like a rams, is shaking his head with a melancholic sadness, his face drawn tight with emotion, causing my heart to pang with a sudden surge of feeling. It looks like he is in pain. There is a grim nodding of heads around the room. They have appeared to reach an agreement of some sorts, but the curly haired man doesn't seem to like it.And then, I realise with a stretch of my hand towards a beautiful pale figure in the flame, as though hoping to curl my fingers around those dark, mussy locks of his hair, I understand with a jolt that I know this person.One of the other figures hands Soren something, a vial of shining gold liquid, face pulled into a deep set frown, black eyes glowing with a strange mixture of proudness and avid concern. Soren encloses it within his hand, clutching it like a lifeline, fingers so tight that his knuckles turn an eerie bone white. But I don't have time to wonder what is in the vial, or why he is with the other blurry figures because as soon as I reach out into the flame, everything goes black.Panic rises within me as I struggle to comprehend the reason for the disappearance of that bright, icy light, fear flooding my veins as I scream out into the void, my only answer being the blank sheets of darkness and sheer, terrifying nothing.In my final act of desperation, sinking to my knees as the frigid chill begins to settle once more like a death serum in my veins, I call out his nameAnd this time he answers.
