Oracion's POV
The castle's almost completely silent throughout the day, guards still wander and prisoners still cry but nonetheless it's incomparable to the night. They tend to avoid this end of dungeon throughout the day because of the uncovered windows welcoming the light within my room. But this doesn't stop some in particular from coming to collect me.
"Get up." A vampire bangs along the metal door, one sent personally from the scarred one.
My body slowly lifts itself up, never a jolt or a rush. "You know the routine already, put them on." He slides the dented metal cuffs through the door for me to place on myself. Unlatching the door once he confirms they're on me and pulling me by them using a chain.
He uncovers his skin from a leather material once we leave my room. With each step, the chain clanks along the floor, bashing and banging itself across the hall as we make our way to a shower of sorts that lies within the same wing of the castle. "In" He tugs me inward.
I strip down what's left of my now shorts, walking into the makeshift shower that's nothing-less of a slow cooker. My cold skin reacting negatively to the sudden burst of scorching water that now runs down my skin. I still don't know how many people there are around me, but I do know that they make sure we never meet each other in here. The walls are thick and the halls are just open enough to where a voice can't echo.
Two weeks. That's how long I've been here. And only during these periods do they allow us to clean our skin so that their teeth can breach something fresh and clean. I flick my eyes towards the rising white steam, noticing the entire room is flushed away from that red haze that fills the castle. A scent of blood that latches onto your skin as easy as mud.
"You're finished, move." He barges down the door, throwing me the torn up shorts for me to put back on.
He reattaches the chain, beginning to pull me once more as we head back to my room. While he goes to place the leather cloth back over his skin, someone calls out to him. "That 0808?"
"It is." He simply confirms.
He comes closer but the Vampire holding me steps back a little bit, "Hand it over, Eragon's asking." The other one tries reaching for the chain but I'm practically snatched away as the one in leather steps in front of me.
"If he goes missing, I'm dead. Don't fuck this up." He deadpans before giving him my chain.
His smug face whistles while carrying me off, only looking back at me to spit in my face. "Look at you, causing problems for me already." He hisses in annoyance, pulling far more aggressively than the last.
He practically kicks a door in that leads upstairs, slowly leading to the warmth that I haven't felt in a long while. "Don't get too excited. Eragon does this with every human we have." He announces despite me never even asking.
He pulls my chain harder when I begin to straggle behind. My feet still damaged and my body far from energised as they perfectly proportion the food to where there's nothing to resist them with, but just enough to live off of.
"You're not special, you're food, everything will be fine once you get that in your head." He laughs just as he places his hand along the throne room's door. And there, his already discoloured face begins to drain of any expression as Eragon opens it for him.
"I-here's 0808 as you said." The guard practically whimpers while placing the chain in Eragon's hand.
He smiles at the guard briefly, an expression you think would make him feel more welcomed but if anything it did the opposite. "Excused." Eragon states, causing the man to scamper away back into the dungeon.
"Come along 0808." He tugs just like the others, pulling me into the throne room but quickly turning to the right for a gold stained door that looks near immoveable. "Come" He encourages again despite nothing changing, placing his hand on the door and pressing it in with ease.
We enter, having the door aggressively slam behind us with no handle along the other side. Eragon turns around, unlocking my cuffs and placing them on his belt. "Walk alongside me." He urges.
"Us with royal blood have lived a long time...sometimes too long. So for that, only recently have I finished collecting Mael's memories. And dare I say, you're not quite what you seem, are you?" He continues to talk to me but doesn't face me.
"I have no record of you, Oracion. But what I do have are answers...and some questions." He looks at me but I say nothing. "But I doubt those would be answered for me at this current point." He tells himself as if knowing I'm not answering anything at this point.
"I'm sure you're aware that Mael used your people as a means of sustenance, correct?" He asks.
I nod as a response but continue without words. "The Veil you called it? Us Vampires deemed it another name when it was our time there, The Haze...I guess you could call it. I tried copying it here, that's what all the red is." He laughs to himself. "Pressurised and airborne blood that makes it feel just a little bit more like home, you get me?" He answers, causing me to force swallow the bile from my stomach back down my throat as I cover my mouth from it.
"Sorry, but you can't avoid it. It's all over the castle if you haven't already seen." He guides me with his hand towards a large wall sized glass window that stares at another section of the castle. "Can you tell which ones are the vampires and which are the humans?" He gestures to the large hall of workers doing something related to machinery. Some standing along the side and others helping each other to finish building parts of the castle.
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I look at him briefly before staring back at them all, "You can't, can you?" He asks with a humble laughter. Urging me on to walk further along with him.
"I said earlier that I had no records of you being in the Veil, but what I do have is someone who existed in the Veil and is no longer there. Do you know anything about that?" He asks me, continuing to look ahead and waiting for my answer.
I think back but there's nothing that stands out to me in particular.
"I've never gotten the opportunity to ask a human from there so this is an honest opportunity. He clamps the cuffs back onto me, grabbing them and lifting me against a wall, dragging me up against it to meet me eye level with him. His eyes begin to swirl a misty red like before, "Who...are you?" He asks but t he question didn't feel like it was for me, but rather something more direct as if he was trying to resurface something.
His eyes widen as if he's suddenly worried about something. Giving me an opportunity to struggle against the grasp, twisting my skin against the metal over and over until eventually the blood releases one of my hands. Punching him as hard as I could with the energy I had left.
He drops me, looking away from me as he wipes his slightly grazed face. Eragon looks back at me but not with rage or interest, still that same shocked expression he had before. I back away as he reaches for me, fearing he'd strike back but he does nothing. Instead grabbing and unlocking the remaining cuff from me and continuing to walk forward as if nothing happened.
We walk in silence, opening one final set of grand doors that break the eerie silence. "What I do, I no longer do for myself but instead for the one known as Aluca." He steps up onto an obsidian platform with a large metallic diamond hovering just in front of him.
"Just before we left the Veil, there was someone there, something that wasn't a vampire but had the appearance of one." He slides his hand along the metal as it begins to glow a light blue along its engraved runic symbols. "This man was a human, one who became very much dear to Aluca, dear enough to where she even offered for him to come along with us, live alongside us and rule as both a human king and a vampire queen."
The diamond begins to open as visible sparks are sent out, lining the walls and gears that float high within the room. "He declined." He deadpans as we both stare out to the gargantuan darkened window staring off into the snow, something that allows him to not be in direct sunlight from what I can tell. "Aluca had a compromise, designing this castle in hopes of being able to see this man every now and then." He waves his hand, causing the diamond to spin along the same direction and causing the view outside to blur. "This man's name was Adam." He answers, grabbing my hand gently and pulling me towards the window to stare off as the colours begin to match each other and paint a clear image in front of me.
The Veil, sitting just outside of the castle. "This isn't an image, nor is it some sort of vision. You're in fact, just feet away from your home, Oracion." He states, intentionally widening the emotional hole within my chest.
I finally open my mouth to speak, "H-how?"
"So you do still have a voice." He walks away, waving the diamond again and whirling the clear escape away from me.
"ERAGON!" I shout at him, beginning my sprint towards him but I'm quickly knocked on my feet before knowing what even happened.
He places his foot on my chest before lowering down to my face to answer me, "They say those who were the first, were given some sort of...deformity? A failure in design if you will." He removes his foot, offering his hand to me and lifting me to my feet with ease.
"Do you know why I'm able to bathe in the moon whilst others simply walk in it?" He asks me.
I look at him, knowing I wouldn't speak even if I knew the answer.
"Aluca's body could walk in the sun, she thrived in the sun if anything. A gift that allowed her to be with Adam but a curse that separated her from her people." I pick up the pace as I realise he's walking back, uncaring to whether or not he leaves me in this room.
"I hope to create a space where both human and vampire are synonymous. You all look like us, act like us...but you don't do the same things as us." He looks at me to judge my facial expressions, "You look as if you don't believe me but hear this, my job isn't to persuade you. Nor do I care if you do or don't. I'm simply an old man with a wish." he defiantly finishes.
Even despite his use of old man, his features remain paused as if he was still in his 20s. "I need to know where Aluca went...where Adam went. You'll be seeing me again, just don't hold your breath, Oracion." He advises while we stand by the very first gold stained door. His presence seemingly causing it to open from this side and on the other side, two guards steadily waiting for us.
"How did you release yourself!?" They both run to me, grabbing me by the arms roughly and placing a new set of cuffs around my wrists.
"Where do you want 0808, Eragon?" The other one asks.
Eragon waves his hand as if suddenly uninterested, "Wherever he came from." He orders, flicking his detailed white cape in the red mist as he walks back towards the throne, throwing one leg on top of the other with a bored look running across his face.
Even despite me being dragged directly through his vision, he didn't bother to meet eyes with me. They practically send me flying down the stairs, hurling my spine into the steps and my head into the bricks. I press against the floor despite my hands being tied, struggling to pick myself up from it. Amidst my beating heart, I hear something shifting from the wall as he kisses his teeth in annoyance.
"They send you back half dead and now you're my problem again?" He picks me up, using the metal to set me back on my feet. He checks my head and back, rubbing it down from rubble and but causing me to flinch back from the temperature of his skin. He turns to look at me as if realising something, "Right." He answers himself, taking me back to my room but no longer needing to cover his head from the sun moving away from the window.
He takes the cuffs off just before we enter the room, looking at me through the bars in the frame before saying something that surprised me more than anything. "Noah." He simply states.
I tilt my eyebrow in confusion for why he's even bothering to say his name, "I can't have you confusing us all once you break out and decide to kill us. My name is Noah, remember it. 0808." He slides my portion of food through the slot, leaving me with some water, bread and...something else, 'It's in a bowl so at least that's something.' I think to myself while leaning towards it with curiosity.
I take the bread, sitting back on my bed and waiting, waiting for that voice that's been talking to me every so often whenever I find myself alone with my thoughts. I hold onto Xandier's book that I've managed to keep, knowing that what's left to tether my sanity lies with the sentiment of these pages.
After sometime and the shadows line the halls, the voice finally calls to me. "It's Clementine, you-there?" Her voice softly announces herself as if using something besides her own body to communicate with. Something so subtle but distracting me enough to think about something that isn't here.