Oracion's POV

"You mentioned wanting to grow old? That implies there's some way to convert back, correct?" I ask while we make our way up the spiralling steps.

"Eragon's mentioned it, but refused to explain the details behind it." Clementine oversimplifies.

"Alright." I hum as I place my hand along the door, pausing as a flash of Aluca's memory hits me suddenly.

Her emotions seem distraught as she looks around between human to human, Shadows filling the Veil as a scene that depicts an unnatural disruption in the world, playing out before her very eyes that she has little influence over.

"What's wrong?" Clementine's voice brings me back.

"Nothing." I state, pushing the door open and unintentionally inhaling the blood mist. 'Rich' Is the only thing I could describe it as. A scent that would previously send me into a dazed nausea, flipping that concept on its head as I freely allow it to flow through me.

I continue walking without hesitation, the waves of mist almost beckoning me to trail along towards something in particular. Like a voice echoing through the halls, whoever it is...they want to see me.

Even through my tunnel vision gaze, I notice a blur of a wall. Stepping back a bit and noticing a mirror in particular, lined up between the usual paintings. My veins bulging through my skin, my eyes comparable to that of Eragon's and the tips of my pitch black hair beginning to dye silver. Clementine stands next to me, still not much shorter than me but as my new eyes lay on her, she can't help but shrink herself.

𝘊𝘭𝘢𝘱, 𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘱, 𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘱. I hear from the reflection, looking just behind me to see Aeron's shadow once again.

He leans against the wall, folding his arms behind his head with a cocky smile of glee. "As I said, easier for me." He comments whilst I look at him, squinting my eyes as I try to focus on whatever shape he's trying to maintain, whether it be my brother's, Freya's or Requis' this time. "You already know who I am, don't you? My little Oracion." He places a finger across his lips before a minor breeze catches his guise in the wind, causing him to dissipate once more.

Through the memories, I can make an educated guess, but the implications that I currently care stand out just as much as his ego.

After enough mist has entered my lungs, I can't help but feel a small click in my mind. "We never did get to talk that much after, did we?" Eragon's voice echoes through me.

"Why would we need to?" I respond.

"I thought I had experienced everything 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 world had to offer, becoming immune to surprises and sensations and yet here I am. Still able to siphon up some sort of excitement in the name of death. How is it that something can be so predictable and yet still surprising to me?" He asks.

"I don't know." I continue following the beckoning aurora.

"For you to be able to hear me...you've done something, haven't you? But why?" He asks yet another question.

"It was easier for me." I repeat the Shadow's words, slowly beginning to understand what he means.

The mist's flowing motion stills until eventually stopping entirely as if reacting to something, "But...who...how?" He ponders.

"I killed Noah" I comment, noticing Clementine shift uncomfortably at it. "I find it strange because I did truly like him. But the moment he became an obstacle like that, I just found my hand already in motion. How did I feel so much at once until there was truly nothing left?"

"You kill-" He tries to speak.

But I interrupt him, "I'm going to kill Clementine next as well." I announce, not bothering to look back at her fear written expression.

Instead focusing my attention to the thickness of mist behind this door...it's here. Looking up at the doors, I can't help but notice it's leading to Eragon's throne.

Like a tsunami, a torrent of blood pushes the door open, forcing me to hold onto the handle alongside Clementine as it begins crawling along the walls and flooding the halls. Continuing throughout the castle as Eragon makes it truly his own.

We step inward, noticing his throne has been moved to the centre of the room. The entire royal theme to the regal room, diminished to nothing less than a crimson gore house as simple ripples chime out across the blood covered floor. Along one of the walls, I notice Ira standing with his arms crossed with a strained expression as if he's fighting with something of his own.

"Something always bothered me about you Oracion." Eragon's voice brings my eyes back towards the throne as he sits there calmly, his back arched as he leans forward with his fingers clamped together. "Us vampires can look through the memories of those who's blood we've consumed, and yet through Ira's...I noticed there was something constantly blurred out, almost as if he's purposely ignoring something so blatantly obvious to him."

"And that would be?" I ask whilst walking around him, circling like a wolf.

"I'm aware of why you're still able to use that sword made up of light, but do you?" He defers the answer with another question. "Aluca's body was fit for the sun, and I can smell her scent reeking from your breath...such a primordial taste, wasn't it?" He almost relishes in the memory.

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"Sure." I answer.

"My point is, it's her body that makes her so special...not just her blood. Even if you were to move her very soul, it is only the body that allowed her to bathe under the sun. So why is it...you're not burning up at the mere presence of that sword?"

Again, another question I do not have the answer to.

He sighs upon realising my deliriousness, "This would all be fixed if you just gave me your blood." His final breath echoes with a red fog, causing a wave of blood to thrash from his chair.

I slash my sword down, surprised by the level of force it's pushing me back with but nothing I can't cut. "I'm one of the oldest beings this world has ever seen, you do know that...right?" A torrent near enough sucker punches me from a blind spot, sending me rolling through the liquid as I try to regain my barring's.

"You're trying to kill a relic." He stomps his foot, forcing geysers to raise around him. Causing a blood rain that hardens on contact with my skin.

I rush towards him, slashing away the biggest ones that presented an actual problem for me. "You're trying to kill a god." He stands up from his throne, kicking it towards me. I attempt to throw myself to the side, but I slip along the surface as my foot's caught in the impact, dragging me away with it to one of the walls.

My head collides with the wall, forcing more of Aluca's memories than I can handle. Glaring pearl white teeth, attached to skin as dark as night. The screams behind this figure are becoming louder and louder as time goes on, inaudible words that I can't help but find familiar to my ears.

The Beast picks me up by my hair, flashing between Beast and Eragon as my visions of memory and realism blend together. "What I'm saying is...you can't kill a god, Oracion." I stare at their mouths moving, noticing an identifying feature within the Beast as it opened its void of a mouth to me, I can't help but acknowledge the moving stars within it...bouncing together to form constellations like chemical reactions.

"The man who had no record, let's find out who you truly are." His face leans towards my neck as blood threads itself between my flesh and the wall. Without another notice, he buries his fangs into me.

With each gulp I feel the pull in my veins as my blood constricts to his will. With each passing second, I can't help but quiver at his own scent. I give in. Driving my own fangs into his flesh and forcing him to flinch back a bit in pain as he grabs my forehead in an attempt to remove me.

"AGAIN!?" He spits my own blood back at me in rage whilst the entire room begins to move. He causes the blood to drip from the walls, filling the floor as it begins to swirl and race towards us both. He tears me from his neck, slamming my head against the wall as the wave of blood crushes us both through onto the other side and into the room with the engraved metallic diamond.

We wash up at the stairs as I stick my sword into the ground, deterring the blood away from me with light and allowing me to regain my footing. Eragon stands back up, flicking the stains off his clothes and slicking his hair back. "There's nothing."

"Wh-at?" I cough out, trying to remove the filthy taste from my mouth.

"You don't even remember yourself, do you?" He asks. "You don't even have visions from when you were born." He begins talking to himself. "What if...you were never born to begin with?" He smiles.

I watch as Clementine and Ira try to catch up through the hole we created, but Eragon's blood creeps through before them, sealing the entrance.

Before I could even catch a simple breath, I find his hand around my head once more. "You're something these eyes have never seen before!" He cheers in excitement, slamming my head against the marble.

He rushes with me around the room, "You're something I've never experienced!" Shoving my face into the surrounding gears and cog wheels that spin ever so slowly.

"SHOW IT TO ME!" He kicks me into the air, running along the wall and kneeing me in the stomach before spiking me back down to the ground with his fists

"THE MAN WHO ERASED HIS OWN MEMORIES, WHY IS THAT!?" He screams with passion as my bones reconnect themselves but the pain continues to grow. "ARE YOU SCARED OF SOMETHING!?" He hardens the blood around his shoes, kicking me in the stomach and most definitely piercing my organs.

I slide once more, barely being able to reach for my sword in order to stop the unconsented motion.

"Even after Aluca's blood, you're just letting yourself take this beating?" Aeron's shadow appears on the wall behind him.

Eragon's eyes dye a full crimson as he throws blood in that direction, "Who else could be here!?"

'He can hear him, but why now?' I think to myself.

"My dear sweet Oracion..." Aeron's shadow appears in front of me, extending a hand to me so I can stand up. "By that look in your eyes, it looks like you really know who I am. Don't you?"

Eragon stops his pursuit as he looks onward, almost completely star struck. "Stars." He comments when looking at the back of the Shadow.

"You dying would be inconvenient to me and for the fate that's to come for this world. So I'll give you a little push like old times." He drives his hand into my heart, ripping through my rib cage with ease and stroking my heart as if it were a pet. He leans his head near my own, exhaling a black mist into my lungs as his figure gradually begins to deplete.

Bit by bit, I can feel my heart returning to a spot far more comfortable than it was at before. My ribs hardening and restoring themselves better than before. My cuts and bruises fading like a faint star in the sky as Aluca's blood truly takes effect.

I breathe in, gripping the sword far tighter than before until the point where I feel the handle crack.

I breathe out, shifting the lake of blood in front of me as Eragon dodges in anticipation of something.

This body has always felt like someone else's...a sensation I can't quite explain with words. It's almost like it learned to walk without me, learned to speak and read without my acknowledgement...as if it's been here long before I was.

I feel myself practically glide across the room, watching Eragon's painfully slow movements as he sticks one of his hands up. Before the sword even makes contact, three of his fingers burn up to ashes.

And again, I collide with the wall denting some of the cogs and using the pressure to push myself back off towards Eragon. I sweep for his legs, barely able to feel a connection as he rolls out of the way.

Sticking my sword into the ground, I spin with the momentum, near enough throwing myself at him and dividing the blood each time I slice down over and over again, each time with him narrowly avoiding one final breath. Gone was the arrogance from his face as he flicks blood into one of my eyes from his missing fingers.

We both freeze and stare at each other in complete silence as I hold my sword above his face. But his fingers click, turning half of my vision to complete darkness as nothing but pain fills my face from where my eye once was.

I hear him laugh before kicking me off and away from him, "Immortality isn't a gift, Oracion. Hold those words deep to you. The wounds hide themselves but the pain is forever, you'll regrow your eyes, your organs, your life. But your soul will forever be damaged." He comments, holding his hand up to me as the blood collects around it, almost instantly recollecting the figure of his fingers as they once were.

"It's been far too long since my life's been threatened, let me enjoy this."

Dropping my sword, I hold my breath while sticking my fingers into my eye, removing his clotted blood out of my head alongside my eye. Tossing it to the floor and watching as it rolls freely.

There will be no more mistakes.