Abandon all hopes,
ye who enter here.
~Dante Alighieri, Inferno (Canto III)
***
"The last one, I haven't had my full. This one is preferable." The one before her spoke with his voice thick and grave. The vehemence of his voice… and Ravenna struggled to look up.
A gasp escaped her lips before she could prevent it.
Scars…
He smiled, showing off his sharp canines which was not the normal sight for humans. Not a normal set of teeth.
And she gasped again, this time, more audibly as the terror was perceptible in her gaze.
Ravenna had seen people with canines, a bit long and straight, but this one… this was lengthy, pointed, and sharp.
She remembered the name. What was it again… Fangs! Oh lord…
Those had to be fangs.
"Seems like Browny discovers what we are," someone spoke in sarcasm, and the man at her front hummed.
She moved her head to the side, where she glimpsed a figure positioning the weight of his body on a tree.
He was tall and lean, his messy black hair tossed by the wind as it goofed up. One of his feet leaned on it, while the other was straight and balanced.
At this point, Ravenna was convinced this wasn't real. Whatever this was, she was still stuck inside the memory as she slept in the carriage.
But another part yelled the validity. She was standing, her feet unharmed, and her body balanced to the earth. The feel of raindrops on her skin, the wash of adrenaline coursing through her veins, and the sense of peril, all collided with her earlier assumption.
This was real.
Oh my goodness…
Suddenly, another person materialized in between. It was a female, her rough unbound her tossed by the wind and he moved his head closer to her neck and sniffed.
There was no sign of his earlier sarcasm. All she saw was utmost seriousness from a predator to its prey.
Ravenna's heart was racing like never before. She couldn't understand what was before her. What was happening?
Something pointed and elongated from his teeth, slow and steady, until he stabbed right into the girl's neck.
Ravenna almost lost her footing as her legs suddenly felt weak when she hissed on her behalf.
"Perfect rhythm for a heart," someone declared and Ravenna trembled backwards, her rationality hitting and returning with a hard bang.
Monsters. Vampires. These people were not human!
Vladoryn was a kingdom filled with humans. For centuries, not a single vampire passed their borders. Not a single creature apart from humans trespassed successfully.
Was this what Alaric's dream meant? Was this the confusing part he couldn't acknowledge? Or was this what the sailorman meant by 'befriend death '? Or 'shadow, light and death'?
Ravenna could feel her head throb with heavy thoughts, all rushing under the same sequence.
She wanted to move. To run. To disappear. But she couldn't. Like there was some sort of quicksand pulling her feet beneath them.
Her vision gradually became blurry, perhaps as a result of trepidation or her body suddenly retiring from the toil of the whole day.
You should run, Ravenna heard her thought clearly as always. However, the only difference was the sound. It didn't sound like hers.
There was something about the atmosphere, like it was suddenly shifting, circulating in a motion that got her head spinning.
Again, it could be the effect of the ale. She absorbed little yet she could feel the influence hitting harder than ever.
Could this be the end? Could this be her final destination? Could this be the death her parents descant upon her ears in her sleep?
Darkness threatened to consume her and slowly, Ravenna gave in to it. It was unsettling, intoxicating, and the biggest mistake, yet her body pummeled towards it.
Alaric…
How would he survive this world? How would he live knowing fully well the creatures in his dreams are far better than the humans breeding in a world he was in?
It was cruel. Nastier. Brutal and power-hungry.
No, she couldn't. Not now.
No one dies a coward.
That sentence summoned her nerves and in an instant, she kicked a pace.
"Here comes the run for Little Red Riding Hood," and he tsked when Ravenna started running.
Scars. Fangs. Monsters.
Ravenna's mind echoed, her heart racing wildly as she ran off with a pace fast and unstable. Her heart thumped wildly against her ribcage, threatening to jump and flee on its own.
This had to be another of her nightmares.
It had to be!
But then reality slapped her. Hard.
"…and at the end, she was surrounded by big bad wolves." And she fell to the ground, reaching a rough halt.
Her whole body was trembling in shock as she stared at the shoes buried on the floor. Those weren't shoes. Those were black bare feet. And her face was ghastly and pale.
H-how did they get here this fast?!
"What should we do with this one? Drink? Kill? Or burn?"
The last word had the last hope for survival fade like dust for Ravenna. B-burn?
"Let her be."
That voice…
"She can't stay alive. She has seen us."
"Who says she lives?"
The coldness in that voice froze her to an iceberg. And she shivered. Lord, let this be another nightmare…
She watched the heaviness of his footsteps as he approached her. The rain raged on, thunder striking now and then, and she would almost jump at the sound that swept her off her feet.
Ravenna refused to look up, for that aura which tends to suffocate every fiber of her being ten times over.
"What's your name?" Everything about this presence screamed danger. Mystery and darkness. The voice resembled that of a god that she wouldn't have to look to know what he looked like.
But still that voice… that voice… she was certain she had heard it before. Had he asked a question, she wouldn't have realized.
Ravenna was too frightened. Too frightened she couldn't do more than tremble.
"She would die before a name falls off her lips. Look at that, she's terrified. Make it quick,"
The person didn't respond to whoever spoke and kept his gaze fixed on the girl.
They stayed like that for almost eternity without another word. Another voice. Just the sound of the angry storm.
Ravenna could feel suffocated. She wanted to run, but they surrounded her. Was it pointless?
Was this where the teaching of Nicolas came in handy?
However, these people weren't humans. They lack the swords or the steel but peril emanates like perfume. It was all her mind kept screaming.
Could she escape? She wanted someone to wake her up from this nightmare. Anyone!
He offered her his gloved hand, stretching it forward.
Ravenna looked at it, still not daring to look up while she quivered on the ground with her countenance etched in fear.
She was too paralyzed especially after what she had witnessed one of them do to that poor girl.
They did something to her.
But the girl never screamed. She looked… fine?
What was now left of her if not to scream? But where was her voice? She lost it. And who would hear her, when this storm hindered her voice from passing through its ominous barrier?
"Come," Ravenna heard him again, and she almost jumped, frightened by that voice again.
Without much thought, Ravenna found herself placing her shaky hand on his and he helped her stand. She almost fell back to the ground, if not for the way he retained her weakened foot and she shivered at how close they were.
"I'm thirsty," he said and his deep hoarse voice reverberated in her eardrums, causing her toes to curl. "If you can quench my thirst, maybe I'll let you go."
There was a dark promise in those words that Ravenna's heart skipped for the nth time. T-thirst? "I-I don't have water with-"
A chilly laughter interrupted her, the melody so dark and cold and ugly in her heart, sending goosebumps to her skin. She wanted him to stop. It was making her sick.
"Do I look like someone in need of water, princess?" he had asked, his voice worse than before as he sounded displeased. "I am thirsty and I need blood. Can you or can you not offer that?"
B-blood?
The scene of that girl being killed by that stranger she recalled played in her mind that she had frozen to death. Fangs! These monsters are going to drink from her. S-she was going to get killed…
"Look at me," he ordered and she flinched. "Don't waste too much time." Ravenna was shaking the more she heard him speak, and order her. The more she realizes she was trapped with creatures after her life.
And she slowly raised her head up, frighteningly slow, so that all she ever thought of was this to be one of her nightmares. It felt like forever, for millions of ages, until she finally looked at the face of the creature that held her like his prey.
And thunder struck when she did. Her mind was hazy, as was her sight. All she remembered were those eyes. Those forbidden onyx eyes. Eyes belonging to one creature alive; eyes of a sin.
"P-please…" she begged. "S-spare me, p-please," A lone tear fell from her eyes, when she shut them tight.
The next thing she heard was a sword released from its scabbard and her heart dropped to her stomach, for what might happen next. The images of fire burning were vivid in her imagination as that sound had triggered it.
She felt her body unmistakably hot when something pierced into her neck without any warning. It was sharp and brutal, digging into her skin and turning her pale with every second that she stopped breathing.
And the world turned excruciatingly slow.
She felt a wave of something else pass through her. Something she feared the most. T-this cannot be happening…
Each second she felt her life slip away from her, the longer he drank her life. The longer she felt the same fate as the girl from the beginning.
And it stopped.
W-was it… over?
"Kill her." And that was the last thing Ravenna heard when she fell into the pit of darkness, letting her drown into a mysterious rest.
***
#Hannah&thesevensins