The moon, once silver and familiar like still water in a well, now glowed red as fresh blood on the second night. It pulsed against the dark like a heart no longer in its cage—strange, but oddly alluring.
"The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb," I muttered to myself. It sounded much cooler in my head—like something a vampire in a black coat would whisper from a balcony. "That'd sound even cooler if I actually were a vampire," I sighed, turning back to Viviana.
My excitement had dimmed after she'd confessed, during one of our talks, that she really was a vampire.
My mind swelled with excitement, my face doing very little to hide of mind's thought.
"So you can't turn me into a vampire, even though you are one yourself?" I asked again, hoping the answer would somehow be different this time.
I had always had this fascination with the occult and what have you but bullying lent me a mask.
"I just feed on blood because that's how I get the life energy to live. It's part of my physiology," she explained softly. "Not really something magical I can transfer. You have to be born a vampire."
"Oh. Then… can you suck my blood?" I blurted.
The silence wrapped itself around my neck like a loose cord. She stared at me, with unblinking deep green eyes and with hint of red studying my face.
"You're a really strange one," she said finally.
"Your cheeks are red."
"Huh?" I gasped, hands flying up to cover my face.
"I don't mind." She stepped forward and took my hands in hers, cool and dry. Our eyes met. Something heavy and warm slid down my throat like a swallowed stone.
"Come here Victoria, get comfortable," she said, pulling me gently toward the bed.
"You can call me Vickky or Tori if you like", I murmured as I felt the crushing weight of what I was having her do, but my curiosity damned any space for mirrors to reflect.
We ended up sitting side by side on her bed—a massive four-posted thing with red curtains embroidered with deeper red roses. It looked like a bed for royalty, not a coffin. I'd even joked about that earlier.
"Why don't you sleep in a coffin?" I'd asked.
She'd sighed. "Think of it this way. I'm like an albino with a need for blood. And no, I won't turn to ash, but the daylight is very irritating."
Now, with my heart pounding, fear and anticipation braided themselves together.
"All right," she murmured. "Here I go. A little should be fine. Let me know if anything—" she broke off, looking at the smile on my face. "Never mind. Weirdo."
She shifted the neckline of the nightgown Miss Mary had lent me after my bath. Her fangs caught the light of the crimson moon like tiny silver daggers.
I closed my eyes—half from excitement, half from fear—and then felt it. First, my body stiffened, shocked, then pain sparked like a struck match. But the pain dissolved almost instantly into something softer. My body began to relax as a strange, soothing warmth spread through me.
My neck grew hot; blood surged upward, flushing my cheeks. "Ah—" I gasped. That only made me blush harder.
How… how… shit, this feels so naughty, I thought as my fingers drifted, unsure, into her hair.
She finished after a while. I felt a little dizzy, but that was all.
Like she'd just downed a carton of milk, Viviana wiped her mouth and said, "Well, I'm going to bed. Are you?"
"Nah. I think I'll go for a walk outside," I murmured.
She looked at me for a beat. "Okay. But don't wander too far. And get back soon." She slid under the sheets, turned away, and the curtains whispered shut.
The nightgown was oversized, hanging off me like a charm stitched with borrowed threads. Slipping on my slippers, I stepped outside into the night of the crimson moon.
Viviana had explained that the second sun was the reason the moon took on that hue during the second Nightrest, but standing underneath its light really anchored that fact.
The wind was cool and calming against my face, but my mind had its own gravitational pull. I had left the room with the best of my effort not to look like I was running away.
"Shit, that was really weird," I sighed. "Stupid. Stupid. Stupid!" I hissed at myself, stomping to the edge of the forest where we'd first appeared.
I tried to calm down. The stars were beautiful—like silver chips scattered across a sky the colour of blood and sunset.
Squatting down, I tore up a handful of grass, clutching it hard. Inhaling and exhaling the night's cold air, I whispered, "I might be a little weird." I sighed letting the silence help me calm the raging sea that is my mind.
The silence stretched comfortably with creatures of the night whispering in the scene.
That's when the air shifted.
The wind froze. The grass around me withered to ash. My bones knew it before my mind did: you don't run from something like this. My legs wanted to move but wouldn't. My voice died in my throat.
And then, in that dread-saturated air, words appeared—words using reality itself as their parchment. A scroll hung suspended in midair, its text glowing with sickly green light that seemed to make existence shiver.
Despite the fear, curiosity pulled me forward like a hook in my chest.
I began to read. My voice sounded warped, echoing off dead plants. Yet the words poured out of me in a strange, inevitable cadence:
"O Rider upon the pale steed, O Reaper before time, arise."
"Thou who gatherest kings and beggars alike, whose scythe was forged in silence, draw nigh."
"O Threshold, O Passage, O End that is Beginning."
"Thy breath is frost, thy hand the sundering of flesh."
"By the tomb unsealed, by the seed cast into darkness, come forth."
My racing heart slowed. The grass, trees, and flowers began to bloom again—red as the moon, sickly green as the text—casting an unholy aurora around me.
"O Silent Harvester, whose shadow unbindeth, whose touch remaketh."
"Thy march shaketh the earth, yet bringeth forth green shoots."
"Thy crown is bone, thy law the last breath of all flesh."
"I summon Thee by the silence after the cry."
"I summon Thee by the dawn that followeth the funeral pyre."
"O Veiled Monarch, O Keeper of the turning wheel."
"Thy banner is woven of extinguished stars; thy throne is the horizon of all."
"Let the old pass; let the new awaken in thy shadow."
"Let the living tremble, for Thy hand is just."
"Let the dead rise, for Thy call is merciful."
"O Skeleton of aeons, O Gatekeeper of the unseen."
"Thou art the harvest of time, the sickle of destiny."
"Thou art the shroud that concealeth, the veil that revealeth."
"Ride forth, O Pale One, whose silence thundereth louder than war."
"Stand upon the threshold and behold all things undone."
"Arise in Thy dread majesty, O Death, sovereign of the eternal cycle."
"Seal the covenant of ending and beginning, and let it be so."
The final words burned in my mouth. The silence after was absolute—the kind you only hear in a grave.
Then it appeared. Someone. Something.
It manifested from the darkness my lantern couldn't touch.
"Have you the slightest idea what it is you are doing?"
I turned. The voice was impossible to place—not quite male, not quite female, not old, not young.
Flowers bloomed and withered at their feet with each step—a mockery of life and death in one breath.
The text had vanished. I stood before a being dressed in all black. A sheer black veil draped over their head and back. Black hair tipped with silver spilled from the sides like liquid moonlight.
"Who are you?" I croaked.
"You know who," they replied.
"So… as per the contract, what do you offer?" they asked.
Questions ran wild in my head. "Who?" I asked back trying and possibly failing to keep the confusion and trembling from my voice.
There was dread—but also fascination.
"What can I offer?" I asked back.
"What can't you?" they replied.
"Then I offer a year of my life," I said. It felt fitting. A year—just one—didn't seem like much, I thought.
"By this offering, the contract is recognised," they said.
I felt no different.
"So… what now?" I asked, already stepping closer.