Cera took respite underneath a tree stump from the deadly sun. She was in pain, starving, but no amount of food had sated her. She needed essence or she would eventually die. She needed to kill someone else or she would die.
But even though Cera was perfectly capable of doing so, she did not go through with it. She was content to sit under this stump and die without taking another life. It was painful, very painful, she wanted to die, but she was too scared to take her own life. The sun beat down from above, all it would take for Cera to die would be to leave the stump. But her will to live forced her instead to starve to death in the middle of the woods. Alone.
Cera cursed her father for making her this way, and she cursed the strange man who had made him this way in the first place. She cursed life for being so needlessly cruel, and she cursed herself for being such a coward. She wished she could sleep, but fatigue never came.
From a nearby trail came another girl, this one around 13 or 14 if Cera had to figure. Right about her age. She was about the opposite of Cera, looks wise. While she herself was small, pale, and had straight hair, the girl had a huge curly head of hair, a very pink face, and she was rather bulky, like a sort of clay golem. Cera took her for a baker's daughter or she comes from a rather wealthy family.
She has a lot of essence.
Cera’s stomach growled, knowing that ‘food’ was within reach. Even if she wanted to kill this random girl, which she most certainly did not, the sun prevented Cera from leaving the stump. She prayed to whatever gods she could that this girl would simply leave, but instead she went right up to the stump and sat down.
Cera cursed the gods.
The girl sat cross legged and got lost in some sort of meditation. She obliviously closed her eyes and went still. Her ankle dangled right in front of Cera, just barely out of reachor her. like a cooked bird leg begging for Cera to take. Somehow the pale girl under the stump felt even hungrier, a pain spreading throughout her body that can be somehow misconstrued as human starvation. But that can’t be correct, the more Cera considered it. Her body was dead. Her pulse had stopped, her heart no longer beat. She didn’t need to breathe, though she still did it out of habit. Ever since her father gave her this… this curse, she was as good as dead. ‘You will need to kill in order to survive’ he told her. But that wasn’t her father talking, it was an imposter. A man created when that… when that Demon showed up and turned him into something like her.
If Cera needed to kill in order to live, she considered herself better off dead. She ran away from home, and has been wandering the woods ever since. Waiting. Hoping her suffering would soon end.
It’s right there.
The girl’s ankle would not go away, no matter how hard Cera tried to ignore it. If… If she did not want to suffer, then all she would have to do is feed. It would be so simple, so quick. The will to survive and continue existence forgoes morality and even logic. It was Cera, or the girl. Cera, the girl. Cera… The girl. The Girl… Or… The Girl…
“How’d you get down there?”
The large girl had stood up and looked down at Cera, seeming to have noticed her presence. She had no inclination to be afraid, more curious at the random pale girl underneath the stump. Cera did not reply, in shock and still starving. The girl continued.
“Oh uh… Yeah my name! I’m Pendra, you?”
Cera barely heard Pendra talk, but almost automatically she replied.
“C-Cerrrrrra…”
Pendra kneeled down closer to Cera, causing Cera to nearly froth at the mouth.
“Are you a Vampire?”
Vampire. Cera had never heard that term before. She thought of herself now as a beast, a demon. An entity tainted by evil that must be vanquished.
“What is… A Vampire?”
Starvation made her voice sound raspy and coarse, like an ancient hag. Pendra did not seem to care, seeming to always have a somewhat neutral face.
“The Green Men told us about them. Vampires are like wolves, but people, and they don’t like being out during the day. The Green Men said they were dangerous, but it's daytime so I'm fine. Do you live down there under your stump?”
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Cera was astounded by how dense this girl was.
“You fooooool…. Run awayyyyyy…” The Vampire croaked. Cera knew that the moment she had an actual chance at draining Pendra her body would react on its own, and do it for her. This girl, this bulky girl who looked at a Vampire like an odd frog, was in grave danger. Pendra tilted her head.
“Why?” She asked in complete earnest. Cera did not know how to reply. Why does a man avoid certain death? Perhaps she was merely asking why she was dangerous…
“I… I will kill yooooouu… when the sun goes doooown…” Speaking hurt her throat, Cera’s essence is not enough to fully maintain her undead body any more.
Pendra paused to consider something, before some sort of idea formed in her mind.
“Oh! You're hungry! Of course you’d want to kill me, you eat humans after all.”
Cera found so much wrong with that statement she did not know nor had the energy to correct her.
“Yeeeeeessssss… leaaaaaave… Do not diiiiiiiiieeee….”
“Wait here, I'm going to get you some food!”
Suddenly, Pendra ran off in the direction she came. Her parting words absolutely stunning Cera to the point that she almost didn’t feel hungry any more.
What in the nine hells did she mean by that?
Time passed… Night fell, but Cera dared to not leave her stump.
To Cera's horror, Pendra appeared through the woods again. This time the dense brick of a girl dragged another human behind her by its collar. She seemed to have little trouble doing so, nor did she have trouble placing him before the stump. He was a fat man, dressed in colored attire which indicated status. The wrinkles on his face were interrupted by a massive solid purple bruise in the shape of an open hand. Cera looked up to see that Pendra's right hand was wrapped in heavy cloth.
"I got you food." Said the brick of a girl
like it was a mere formality and not simply expected. The Vampire's entire body ached for essence. For food. However she seemed to be no closer to death than she was this morning. The pain increased, her mind was now a haze and it took every ounce of willpower to hold back, but her body seemed to be in a state of Torpor to preserve essence. Some sort of new internal instinct told the pale girl that she could last like this for literal years before actually dying. Cera hissed, surprising herself somewhat with how close it sounded to an actual serpent.
"I cannot… no… pleassssssse… I do not wissssssssssh to ki-"
"He is a bad person if that helps." Said Pendra plainly, looking down at Cera with a curiosity one gives a gecko they find under a rock.
"You don't… underssssssstand… I kill people… to live… to live… isssss to make people sssssuffer…" Scales began to form on Cera's body, sprouting up like hives or a rash. She was so busy focussing on not killing to notice.
"Then make only the bad people suffer?" Said Pendra, slightly confused, talking as if this was a very simple matter.
"You don't… undersssstand…" Black tears formed at the edges of her eyes, her tongue morphed and began to form. She began to uselessly hyperventilate
"P-PLEASSSSSE! I SSSSSIMPLY WISH TO DUH-D-"
Cera entered a coughing fit, her raspy voice failing her. She began to dry heave and convulse underneath the stump, she was so upset. Without warning, she reared back and slammed her head against the side of the stump with an unnatural amount of force, the sound reverberating throughout the woods and leaving a large indent in the stump that bowed out from the outsife, before vomiting up a vile black sludge and passing out in its contents. Covered in a thin layer of black tar and jet black, a small serpent emerged from the pile of vomit. Pendra looked on, and took a step back, no fear in her eyes, merely a curiosity, like she was observing a caterpillar pupate.
The small jet black serpent slithered out of the stump, looking in the general direction of Pendra. It tilted its head, then moved it side to side, before snapping its attention to the man on the ground. It crawled towards his neck, and seemed to inspect him with its nose, prodding at different specific parts of it. It then went back to the pile of vomit and leaned in to drink, and as it did so slowly extending in length and becoming thinner. Once the serpent drank all of Cera's black vomit, it hooked its tail inside her mouth, and slowly slithered back out towards the man, taking care to leave its tail in her mouth. It was quite long, about the length of an adult man in height. Just barely long enough to reach back to the man. The serpent attached its head to the stranger's artery, a small 'rip' was audible as if tearing paper, before the serpent began to drink. It took big gulps of blood from the man and used its body to transport it to Cera's mouth, like a blood vessel of its own. Pendra simply watched in fascination. Slowly, the man's face became more and more sullen, his bruise disappearing in replacement of a pale complexion. His wrinkles became more and more pronounced, and all of the color drained from his face. However, it was a very slow process. Pendra took a seat across from the two to keep watching. After quite a long time, the man looked like a dried fruit, withered and dehydrated.
Enough time passed for a bug to land on Pendra's head, but she did not dare move an inch, transfixed on the process before her. Suddenly, his eyes fluttered open, and at once the serpent let go of his artery and wrapped itself around his neck. The man tried to fight it, but he was weak, and the serpent had grown bigger from the drinking until it was as thick as Pendra's arms. All the fool could muster was one last gasp before passing out from asphyxiation… and then the snake kept its coils wrapped around his neck as it bit into his artery again and extended his tail back to Cera's mouth, insistent on finishing the job. Once the old man's heart stopped beating, something the serpent was apparently aware of, finally the serpent uncoiled its body from his neck and went back to Cera, now seeming to act as her bodyguard. At the very least, Cera seemed to look much less at the verge of death. Her face fuller, and her slumber more peaceful.
Pendra stood up, and approached the stump, her hands outstretched.
"Are you her guardian now, small thing?"
The serpent hissed threateningly at her.
"I see… I shall return, once she has awoken." And without another word, Pendra turned on her heel and walked away leaving The Vampire to her fate.