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Scene: Grief, Death, loss and fear.
Characters: Aiyana Vale x Lucien D' Arden
The world was shrinking, closing around Aiyana Vale like the drawn velvet curtains of a fading stage.
Everything hurt—her lungs, her bones, her trembling hands curled tight around the fraying edge of her hospital blanket. Machines chirped and beeped, their lights slicing through the night, relentless as fate itself. Shadows flickered across the linoleum, twisted by passing feet and the endless storm battering the windows.
Outside, thunder split the sky open. The storm's anger was nothing compared to the storm inside her own chest.
Aiyana could feel the end. She tasted it: metallic, bitter, and cold on her tongue. Even as her mother whispered soft prayers, as her father clutched her hand and her little brother blinked through tears, she felt herself drifting—soul untethered, lungs desperate for air she could no longer draw.
"Don't go, Aiyana," her mother wept, her words blurry through the painkiller haze.
But there was nothing left to hold on to. The cancer, merciless and hungry, had eaten everything except Aiyana's stubborn spark of will. The world narrowed to the ticking of the clock, the storm outside, and the ache of unfinished dreams.
Please, let me wake up somewhere else. Somewhere beautiful. Just one more sunrise.
Thunder crashed. The hospital lights flickered, plunging her room into momentary blackness. Aiyana's pulse skittered. For a heartbeat, she felt utterly alone—adrift on the edge of death.
Then, a shape moved at the doorway. Silhouetted by a flash of lightning, a nurse stepped inside. She wore a surgical mask, her eyes dark as wine, unreadable and too bright.
"We're losing her," the nurse intoned, her voice silken, calm. "Just a moment, please."
Aiyana's parents moved aside, their faces hollowed by grief. The nurse approached, gloved hands steady as she drew a small vial from her pocket—glass so dark it seemed to swallow the light.
Aiyana, delirious with fever and terror, watched as the nurse uncapped a syringe and filled it with the crimson liquid. The smell hit her first—rich, metallic, sweet—more intoxicating than anything she'd ever known.
"Painkiller," the nurse murmured. "This will help."
Aiyana wanted to protest, to ask what it was, but her voice failed her. Her veins burned as the nurse injected the blood-red serum into her IV.
The lights shuddered overhead, buzzing. Something—someone—whispered in her ear, a voice like silk on ice.
"Sleep, little blossom. The night is waiting."
Her heart thundered once, twice. A final, staggering crescendo.
And then—
Nothing.
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The world drowned in darkness.
For a moment, there was peace. Warmth. The distant echo of her mother's lullaby, the feel of her father's strong hand wrapped around hers, her brother's small sob. She drifted beyond pain, past memory, into a black void where even hope could not reach.
Then—
A scream. Her own.
Aiyana's eyes snapped open.
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She was cold. So cold. The world above was muffled, as if she'd been wrapped in velvet. The taste of iron filled her mouth.
She couldn't move.
She couldn't breathe.
She couldn't die.
Aiyana became aware of her body by degrees: the weight of something pressing her chest, the stench of chemicals and plastic, the harsh snap of latex against flesh. She blinked—once, twice—and realized she was staring at a ceiling she did not recognize.
She tried to sit up. Her body—her new body—moved with unnatural ease, muscles flexing under flawless skin that glimmered faintly even in the sterile morgue lights.
The room was freezing, metal trays lined against the wall. Aiyana lay on a gurney, covered in a white sheet. Around her, the air buzzed with a hum she'd never heard before—the electric rhythm of heartbeats, muffled voices, the surge and ebb of blood flowing through veins not her own.
Heartbeat?
No—heartbeats. Plural. She could hear them all, as if the walls themselves were alive.
She sat up, the sheet falling away. Her hands were slender, pale—too pale. Her nails, once bitten and ragged, now glistened like polished onyx. The hair tumbling over her shoulders was inky black, catching the morgue's fluorescent light and refracting it in shimmering waves.
Aiyana stumbled to the floor. The cold should have stung, but she felt only a strange, pleasant ache—like hunger, but deeper, darker.
Her mind spun. I'm dead. I should be dead.
The door to the morgue groaned. Footsteps echoed down the hall—soft, hesitant. The scent hit her: blood, warm and sweet, calling to her with a force beyond reason.
She pressed herself against the wall, panic warring with instinct. Shadows flickered under the door, and Aiyana heard a heartbeat accelerate—fear, bright and sharp.
The orderly entered, clipboard in hand, oblivious to the terror lurking behind the freezer doors. His gaze fell on her—his eyes widening in horror.
"Miss? What—how did you—?"
She opened her mouth to answer, but the words turned to a hiss, her tongue scraping against the sharp edges of—fangs? She tasted blood, her own lips torn as her body remembered a hunger she'd never known.
The orderly dropped the clipboard and ran. Aiyana's body moved before her mind caught up—a blur, impossible, inhuman. She slammed the door shut, trapping him inside.
"Wait—don't hurt me, please—"
She advanced, mesmerized by the frantic thrum of his pulse, the trembling of his hands. She saw herself reflected in his eyes: beautiful, terrible, alien.
Her hunger roared. The voice from the hospital whispered again—Feed, little blossom. Become what you are.
Aiyana closed her eyes, fighting the urge to lunge. She pressed her hands to her temples, willing the voice to stop. I'm not a monster. I'm not—
But the scent of blood was everywhere, filling her nostrils, coiling through her veins. She opened her eyes—and saw, not a dying girl, but a queen in the making. Her every movement was grace and violence. She could hear the man's thoughts, taste his fear on the air.
She smiled, lips curling over razor-sharp fangs. The orderly whimpered, dropping to his knees.
"Please, don't—"
She turned away. The hunger howled, but Aiyana forced herself to the door, tearing it open with strength that shattered the frame.
Run.
She staggered into the corridor, blinking against the harsh light. Every sense was overwhelmed—she could smell the coppery tang of blood in distant rooms, hear the thunder of footsteps five floors above, feel the heat of a thousand hearts beating in the night.
She ran.
The world bent around her, colors blurring, shadows bending. She didn't know how long she ran—only that she mustn't stop. Not until she was free. Not until the hunger was gone.
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Aiyana burst through a side exit, stumbling into the storm-choked night. The rain was ice on her skin—delicious, shocking, real. She breathed deeply, letting the pain and fear crash over her.
The city was alive, neon lights flickering in the darkness. She stood alone in the alley, the taste of blood thick on her tongue, thunder rolling overhead.
Lightning lit up her reflection in a puddle. For the first time, she truly saw herself: eyes like garnet flames, lips stained crimson, hair wild and gleaming. She was both beautiful and terrifying—a creature of nightmare, born from the ashes of a gentle soul.
Aiyana Vale was dead.
But something else—something ancient and wicked—now lived in her skin.
As the rain washed the last traces of her old life away, Aiyana looked up at the blood-red moon breaking through the clouds.
And she smiled.
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