Resurrection [Solo]

[Asher]

And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake.
Some to everlasting life...
And some to shame and everlasting contempt.

• ONE YEAR AGO

Trapped. It wasn't like this was anything new to the Allurist, having his back to the wall. This time though, he could feel it in the air - he wasn't walking away from this. Death was palpable tonight, clinging to his skin like a foul odor. It was more sure than any 'death' he'd ever walked into before, even the one he'd eluded as a human. He'd always managed to evade his trouble before, whether by talking his way out of it or hiding behind someone else. Asher had a knack for manipulating others, especially his enemies.

Even on those rare instances where death found him, it had never been permanent. It had never scared him like it did now.

"There's nowhere to run," one of the dozen hunters cried out with an undeniable glee in his voice. Allurists had a tendency to draw attention to themselves and Asher was no exception. He'd been seen feeding not by a security camera, but by a hunter armed with the most dangerous technological gadget in modern society - a cellphone. Even as Asher had sprinted between buildings and alleys, the man had chased him with constant location updates to his friends. The chase had ended when the vampire found himself flanked on all sides with a brick wall to his back, which he was now pressed against.

His thumb slid across the hilt of the knife in the back of his waistband, trying to find some measure of comfort but attaining none. These men, twelve of them in total, were armed to the teeth with automatic weapons. As immortal as he might be, bullets still hurt.

"Careful," a different hunter whispered as one of the men aimed their gun at Asher's head. "This one has the eyes."

Asher's eyes, like many of those descending from his bloodline, were slits rather than orbs. The mark of the Dragomir. What did that have to do with him? He hadn't claimed Dragomir for months. In the jumble of his frenzied mind, Asher spared only half a thought of concern for his sire, Azreath, but it was born only from the instinctive bond between a sire and childe, not of any real love.

"What should we do?" The first hunter this time. Asher dug a fang into his lip in worried thought, trying to create a solution to this. He'd wasted all his anima earlier practicing his powers, and would now have to rely on his wits. Unfortunately, these men didn't seem much interested in listening to anything he had to say.

The second man, who seemed to be the leader, checked a picture he'd drawn out of his pocket. From this angle, Asher couldn't make out who it might be a photo of.

"He's not the target, kill him."

Before the words had left his mouth, the Allurist was charging at the hunter closest to him, brandishing a kitchen knife wildly. His jaw split open with a defiant roar, a testament to the fury his kind were capable of. He'd be damned if he would go down without swinging, without taking one of them out with him. Looking back on it, the image was almost absurd. A supernatural entity with a kitchen knife as a weapon trying to bulldoze a dozen armed men.

He'd never stood a chance.

He never felt the bullets, though he counted that as a blessing. Every hunter on the street opened fire at the same moment, riddling Asher's torso with gaping holes. His body spasmed against the momentum, but he'd long lost consciousness. His awareness ended in the blink of an eye, beckoning his spirit to what he believed would be a blissful slumber. Before his corpse could hit the ground, it faded. His body burned at the edges more quickly than any wildfire, and where once had been a man was now only a pile of ashes.

The leader of these hunters cast a dismissive glance at the pile as he reloaded, his tone clipped as he gave his orders. "Bottle the ashes. Drive an hour out of the city, scatter them into the wind."

[Asher]

A girl calls and asks, "Does it hurt very much to die?"
"Well, sweetheart," I tell her, "yes, but it hurts a lot more to keep living.”

• YEAR ONE - SHADOW REALM [REAL TIME: ONE MONTH]

Anger. Pain. He'd given up on trying to find a way out after the first six months. It had become abundantly clear no matter how many spirits he dominated, his door wasn't going to appear. He could only assume he was stuck her, but the why of it was a matter of guessing. There were still too many variables and unknowns to the vampires, a hundred thousand questions that still demanded answers.

After the realization, he'd reverted to a primal state of consciousness. His spirit was raw fury, devoid of logical thought. As an Allurist, emotion was the focus of his Path and it was all too easy to drown in it. His consumption of other innocent spirits never faltered, for in his rage he wanted only to destroy.

Soon enough, most spirits ran the other direction when they saw him coming. That had been a first, as most usually never even noticed him. If he stopped to examine it, he would realize his aura had been tainted. He was a walking disturbance in the natural flow of things, a being that didn't belong where it was that had resorted to the basest of mental states.

His only real thoughts were those of the people he'd left behind, of how they'd betrayed him. Azraeth, killing him for wanting freedom. The Hounds, stabbing him in the back. Phoenix, shattering his goals and plans. Leiren, abandoning him. Every person he'd ever trusted had only brought him to ruin, had left him to die or worse.

Died he had. Whatever pieces of Asher were left, they had long vanished.