Nephthys's POV

That boy would have to save himself now because I was already too far away from him - he did not disappoint. He quickly got away from the guard and ran in my direction. Rather surprised, I was not able to react as he walked towards me while wobbling because he had lost his arm. I was tempted to kill the guard as soon as he got close enough, but I wasn’t confident in my ability to be able to both protect the boy and fend off the guard. While I was thinking, the boy quickly grabbed my hand and ran away from the guard who was now chasing after us. I quickly readjusted myself and followed him as he ran off somewhere, doing my best to support his body as we ran.

We reached Cave B - the place where I had been killed and would gladly do it again, but this time around, I wasn’t so willing to go back. Thankfully, we ran towards a different part of the cave, perhaps the part where he was enslaved to - there was no need to show him who I was so early on… I would make my decision later down the road as to whether or not he was trustworthy. But no matter what my brain logically thought, I was still extremely ecstatic to see that a person as young as me had managed to survive down here. He wouldn’t judge me for who I was like those insolent adults had done - he would talk to me casually like other normal people. I swore in the moments we ran that I would not let this boy die, but if we had no choice, then I would die with him. The reverse was also true… I would protect him… only me.

* * *

An adult pointed us towards where we should head towards and then he quickly blocked the guard that was chasing us. I had planned on killing him later, but this was better because I wouldn’t have to risk revealing something to the boy who was still running. We neared a rather nice-looking place - at least compared to the place I had lived for the past months. As we slowed our pace down, I saw him look at an older lady treating injured patients. The stench of blood was everywhere and it took some restraint to prevent myself from exposing my identity - I doubted that vampires had a good reputation outside the realms of demons, especially since the person I had been sold to by my “parents” had cursed at me repeatedly for no reason. However, I still eyed the older lady he was staring at and wondered if she needed to be eliminated too.

Before I could dwell on the thought too long, the boy asked who I was and I stared back at him, contemplating how to answer such a general question. While I was thinking about how to answer him, I remembered that he had his arm cut off. I asked him it was ok to just leave it like that when he proceeded to scream in terror. For a second, I was afraid that he had been screaming in horror at me, but when I realized that he was reacting to his severed arm, I was relieved. He was knocked out rather quickly and the lady who had been treating people turned around to see what the commotion was all about. She looked very worried for Sol and rushed over here as soon as she could. I was skeptical of her at first because of my habit of distrusting adults, but her face was genuinely filled with worry, so I let her take care of… Sol. She had looked at him while saying that word so I assumed it was his name but I would have to confirm later.

She took him and laid him down on the stone floor. She went about treating him and afterward, she spoke with me for a little bit.

“And who might you be, young lady?”

“...Nephthys”

“Why, isn’t that a beautiful name. Do you think you could tell me what happened?”

It didn’t seem like she was a bad person, and she wasn’t much of a threat anyway since she was the descendent of a werewolf. I told her what had happened and she seemed like she was in much anguish throughout the story. She grew extremely angered by the fact that Sol had lost an entire arm even though he was just a child and I shared that sentiment with her. After I finished, she told me that her name was Rosa and her husband was Nor, but he was off fighting somewhere.

“Do you have anywhere to go or would you like to stay here with us?”

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“I… would like to stay here”

“I won’t ask you why you are here, but please take care of Sol… he is my child in heart”

She seemed to know what I was, but I wasn’t positive. Rosa seemed extremely composed considering that she was a race that was controlled by vampires - perhaps her maternal instincts were stronger than the natural hierarchy. At that moment, I came to respect her in some ways. She went and laid down next to Sol and nurtured him back to health as much as she could before drifting off to sleep. Due to the unusually relaxing atmosphere, I had fallen asleep as well. I reentered that mysterious dream and I saw Sol curled up as if he was hurting terribly. I floated up to me and he lifted his head to look at me. Wrapping my arms around him, I tried my best to comfort him, although I did not know how effective it was. Eventually, I left the dream and Sol seemed to sleep comfortably after that. As I watched his chest rise and fall as he breathed, I wondered what he would think of me for being a vampire. Would he condemn me for being the unknown or would he just accept me because he knew no better?

The one thing I was afraid of was that he would be afraid of me for whatever reason it may be - he was the only one to look at me with such pure eyes: no hatred, judgment, or disgust. Thoughts came and went while I sat down next to him, gently caressing his beautiful, dull red hair.

* * *

He woke up. Sol had woken up and Rosa was still sound asleep. I stared at him for some time after he woke up and he looked at me awkwardly before drifting his eyes off into space. I became worried that he had already grown afraid of me.

“A-Are you scared of me too?”

Plenty of people had grown scared of me, but I had hoped that Sol would not. Had I been wrong in my judgment? Was it something I did? What had I done? Thoughts chaotically collided before he answered that he was not scared of me, and then all my thoughts died down - Oh how fickle the mind could be. Eventually, he even said that I could stay with him as long as I wished, and internally I was beaming with happiness, although some may have leaked out.

* * *

Some time passed and we were now getting ready to escape from this place - I doubted anyone wanted to stay here any longer, however, there were a few cowards who didn’t believe that we would make it out successfully. They would probably stay here and either die or rot away - I did not care. As we made our escape we came across a pit of dead bodies which people seemed to be disgusted by; I could not understand… had they all not seen dead bodies before? I did not know the reason they reacted, but I was thankful for the dead bodies because Sol latched on to me and I took care of him until he got better, whispering that I would always be there for him.

Shortly afterward, we left the cave and we were ambushed by an army, but I managed to run away with Sol. I had briefly met Nor, but he was too preoccupied with other thoughts that I was not able to converse with him - not that I cared much. While running towards the woods, there were many times I wanted to cut down everyone around me, but I held back because I still had to support Sol as we ran, or else he would have been trampled. After what felt like forever, we managed to get into the woods and dispersed. This accomplished two things at one: The pursuers would have a harder time catching all of us and I wouldn’t have to be irritated every single time we bumped into someone. After some time, I figured that we had gained significant ground - at least enough to buy us some sleep. I figured that I would let Sol sleep first because I was strongest during the night which it currently was. After I stubbornly refused to go to sleep instead of him, he finally laid against a tree and drifted into sleep. Checking to make sure that he had fallen asleep, I scouted the surroundings for any warriors or guards sent by the human bastards.

As hours continued to pass, I dropped more corpses with my dagger and left them in discrete locations where it would be hard to spot. I could create daggers with the specialized magic I had honed over time, but it cost me blood, which I was not fond of losing. So at times, I decided to store them under my thin layer of cloth, strapped by the vines I had found around the forest. During this time, I also satiated my hunger by drinking the blood of those I had killed - they no longer tasted as good as when I had first tried. Perhaps Sol’s blood would taste good… The thought entered my head but I quickly erased it - I refused to commit such a horrid act. The sun was about to break and I needed to find a way to minimize the rays that hit me as much as possible - I decided to create a leaven hat as weird as it was.

Day broke and I made my way back to the area Sol was. As I popped out of the shrubs, I noticed that Sol had conjured magic to fire at me but immediately dispelled it as soon as he saw that it was me - that made me happy for some reason. He proceeded to ask for my name which I gladly told him.

“What’s that red stuff on your chin?”

He asked this question out of nowhere and for a second I panicked. I swiped my chin casually before replying that it had been some berries I had been eating earlier - a complete lie.