Day arrived and grew stronger as Ray was haunted by nightmares.
He jerked awake, sweaty and breathing roughly, confused and disoriented.
His eyes slowly cleared. A sigh of relief. Just nightmares.
His eyes fell on his human. Still asleep.
Something felt off. He recalled coming back last Night, thinking he should have brought back blankets… He was forgetting something… Those nightmares were so vivid, as if real—
It finally dawned on him.
There were never any nightmares. They were memories. Memories of blood and death. Of joy and freedom. Unrestrained. A massacre he reveled in.
He dry heaved.
He had never been more disgusted and repulsed by himself. He called out in desperation, Vorm, Vorm! Kill me.
An exasperated sigh. “No.”
Please! I can’t be like this. I’m not like this, Ray pleaded hopelessly.
Vorm was unmoved, “No way. You can forget about it. Why are you so upset anyway, aren’t humans just food like chickens?”
Ray screamed while Vorm laughed.
He franticly crawled towards the entrance.
No. He didn’t say that. That’s not how he thought. He didn’t do it. It wasn’t him.
Soft light filtered into the tunnel. His skin smoldered, wisps of smoke filling the air.
He would end it himself.
The rock blocking the entrance did not budge. He collapsed weakly.
Deep down he knew it was all him.
He endured the pain as the faint light tortured him.
He would choose differently. He would escape from it all. He would endure the pain and—
The powers slumbering in him violently stirred awake as if sensing danger.
*
Ray came to, the taste of blood still thick on his tongue. His first thought was of Kei and panic gripped his heart.
Franticly looking around, he didn’t even note the dead human. He ran to the other room, looking for Kei.
He slumped to the ground in relief. Kei was untouched, still sleeping.
He laughed, and tears of joy ran down his face. His laughter did not stop, it grew more desperate, more mad, more insane. Maybe he wasn’t laughing anymore. Maybe he was crying.
He couldn’t escape. Not from this twisted city, and not from what it made him become. No… what it had brought out of him.
This perverted, sick city. Humans willingly dying to create a monster that preys upon them. Humans breeding like rats, throwing their off-springs to the feet of lunatics. A city powered by blood, humans farmed for blood. Doomed children paying the price.
He wished he had the power to burn the city to the ground, utterly annihilating it without leaving a speck of life behind. It deserved no mercy, only death.
Eventually, he grew too exhausted, and just stared ahead with empty eyes. Hours passed in stillness.
*
Vorm was displeased. The fool was losing it and not in a good way. Vorm had known the strain would be too much for him, but it had hoped the fool could hold it together long enough. Maybe it should have interfered with that broken-ass ritual more thoroughly, not only doing the bare minimum. But any more than that and the risk of being noticed would have been too great.
It tried calling the fool’s name, “Ray.”
But the fool remained unresponsive, looking at nothing with dead eyes.
Time passed as Night approached.
Vorm, is it your fault? came the fool’s question suddenly. Well, Vorm could see why the ignorant fool would think that.
“No. For once I’m innocent.” And for once, it did not lie.
Why am I like this?
“It’s not your fault, just blame it on your body.”
I enjoy it. Letting go, not being paralyzed by fear. Lurking in the Night, preying on them. Just following my instincts unrestrained, free. I hate that I like it.
“I don’t understand.” What was the fool going on about?
Yeah, you wouldn’t. The fool shivered as he added, Night is coming…
Well, at the end it will have all been worth it, Vorm thought as it considered the human called Kei.
*
At last, Night descended and Ray’s anguish, worries, regret and guilt all fell away, as if they never even existed. Why was he so upset before? It felt all so stupid and insignificant now. It was a curse of the Day, tormenting him with feelings and thoughts that weren’t his. He went to take care of the dead body, wondering how to fix himself to make the Days easier to endure.
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Vorm, you said that ritual was broken, right?
“Yeah.”
In what way?
“Eh, kind of incomplete. But what else would you expect from such a backwater world? It’s a miracle they could even do this much.”
As Ray left his hideout, and stood above the city looking down on it, he wondered. They must have created him with a purpose. But what for? He couldn’t stay ignorant. He took his way towards the Inner City. It was time to find out.
Towards the end last Night, he had questioned a few humans before he killed them, but it was a futile attempt. They knew nothing of importance, the Outer City slaves could not go into the Inner City. Sighing, he wished his human would wake up soon, but he couldn’t wait around doing nothing.
He decided to first investigate the area that looked like a residential district. The middle of it was brightly lit, with sprawling, but short buildings. This was all surrounded by around three dozen housing blocks. Although it was a disservice to compare these buildings to the ones in the Outer City, they were still kind of similar, like a fancier, evolved form.
Unafraid of being seen, he descended from the cliff, knowing no one would be able to pierce through the darkness hiding him. While observing the closest building, he moved towards it. It was completely dark, and to his disappointment, seemed abandoned. He craved for the taste of Bloodborn blood, he couldn’t get those Priestesses out of his head.
The tall, carved door wasn’t locked. He went inside.
He knew there was no one in the building itself, but he felt there were lives with blood underground. He was still curious, and maybe knowing the general layout would help him later. He decided to investigate the empty building first, then go down and see what lay below.
His bet was on slaves, that seemed to be pretty certain. He just wondered what state he would find them in. Recalling those underground lakes, he was somewhat curious if there was something like that. He doubted it, there was no thick scent of blood, but it could be something else. He still found those lakes in poor taste, but wasn’t as repulsed by them as he was at first. He smiled. He had come a long way in a short few days.
Going through the empty building, he didn’t learn much besides that many humans seemed to live in one home, and they liked to have space. The housing blocks in the outer city had twenty homes per floor and these buildings, while only slightly longer, were like two or three times as thick. So, he had expected to find just as many homes on a floor, but bigger ones.
How wrong he was. There were only four homes per floor. He found it strange. There were ten… bedrooms, but they were bigger than his old living-room, and he had considered that one spacious… Not only that, each bedroom had a private bathroom that was as big as his old bedroom. At least he assumed it was a bathroom, it looked nothing like the bathrooms he knew, considering the rituals he didn’t want to touch. But there were tubs big enough to lie in, so bathrooms he concluded.
There were two more bedrooms, more luxurious and spacious, even the bathrooms attached to them were more decorated and twice as big. They also had a room he would call an office with bookshelves and two robust tables.
There was one more room that he couldn’t make sense of. It was a bedroom, but why was it so… huge? Not just the room, but the bed in the middle itself. A dozen adult men would easily fit on it… He recalled the scenes he saw from last Night. Maybe that’s what it was for? Just the other way around?
He shook his head. Humans. Also, inefficient, their reproduction was most optimal with multiple times as many females than males. Having it the other way around… there must had been a reason. He wondered what it was.
There seemed to be a training room that was multiple times as big as his whole house in his old world. He briefly wondered about the inscriptions most equipment seemed to have and the lines running through the walls.
There was also a bare room with odd things he couldn’t make sense of. Maybe an armory that was emptied out?
They even had an empty pool in another bathroom that was just as big as the room with soft couches and low tables, also with a long table with chairs around. Living- and dining-room in one?
But why was the kitchen kind of… small? The storage area as well. They probably never cooked.
As he went through the building, finding the same layout everywhere, he slowly put together a picture in his head. Around a dozen humans would live together, ten males and probably two females. They each had their private areas but also communal ones where they did human things he assumed. Were they warriors? But what did they fight against? An unknown enemy he knew nothing of was concerning and also could be an opportunity.
He headed underground, hoping to find answers. There was a central staircase from where a passage down opened in a hidden corner out of sight. He had actually found hidden passages and inconspicuous doors all around. He couldn’t make sense of them for a while, but he then realized it must have been for the servants. Or slaves. Probably slaves.
In contrast to the spacious, luxurious rooms above, the underground was cramped and dimly lit. He actually preferred it, he didn’t like big exposed spaces. There were red veins running along the walls here and there, barely providing some illumination. Not that he needed it.
For now, he just explored through the winding corridors, avoiding all signs of life. He soon realized there was a complex net of rooms and corridors, sprawling endlessly. It all seemed connected underground.
Bracing himself for something twisted to welcome him, he opened a door he could feel a single human behind. To his relief, there was nothing strange. Just a sleeping human. He decided to throughly interrogate her.
“Human, wake up,” he said softly and the human slowly sat up, sleepily rubbing its eyes. It looked around in confusion and when it noticed the two red eyes burning in the dark that seemed to suck it in, it threw itself on the ground.
“My Lord,” the human hastily said.
“Tell me about the abandoned buildings above.”
“They are always like that, My Lord. But even without Flocks, we take care of it, always ready for new Flocks.”
“Flocks?”
“It’s how the adult Warriors with their Companions are called.”
The same again. Each answer just spawned more questions. He didn’t really care about how humans lived, but if there were these Warriors, there were enemies they fought against. And the enemies of his enemies might be his allies. He sighed and sitting down, prepared for learning about these humans.
“Who are the Warriors and their Companions?”
“Warriors fight the Blothcraad in the Blood Mountain, and bring back precious resources the Bloodborn need. Their Companions provide them comfort each time they return.”
“So the Warriors are male humans and the Companions are females?”
The human violently shook its head is if Ray had said something blasphemous. “No, my Lord. Warriors can be both man and women and Companions as well. But male Warriors have male Companions. Although not many women Warriors have Companions, but if they do, they have female Companions.”
Ah… he had assumed wrong. How did that even make sense, how did they keep up their population? Well, based on the empty buildings they didn’t. Maybe the ritual that created him was partially to blame, but that was just a few thousand people. Was the Bloodborn population so low? Based on how spacious their homes were, probably.
He kept questioning the human until he grew bored of it, but he had learnt some new things. Apparently, both men and women Bloodborns came in two types, female and male type. The slave didn’t really understand why and how, all Ray had learnt was that Warriors were male types, and new ones would arrive for nine years straight. Then for the following three years there would be no new Warriors. Instead, there would be an increase of Companions for three years that overlapped with the last two years when Warriors came. So there would be two years with no one new arriving.
Apparently male-types became adults, and thus Warriors, at 20, while female-types at 18. But only a portion of them became Companions. The slave couldn’t tell what other roles they filled in, besides that some handled the matter of slaves. The human just obediently did as was expected of it, nothing more. Unlike his human. Kei was much better, he could tell him a lot more. Ray wished he would wake up soon, he also needed to bring back some blankets…
As he considered the human, he finally remembered to ask what was nagging at him, but kept forgetting about.
“If a slave disappears, do the Bloodborn learn of it?”
“Not here in the Underground. They don’t care about what we do as long as everything is taken care of Above to their satisfaction.”
“What about the slaves in the Outer City?”
“I don’t know, I was born here. But I heard from another slave that the Bloodborn keep close count of them in the Outer City. Need to report each birth and death. Something about Paradise.”
Ray smiled. So that’s how it was.