The birth of (Your New) Rival

[Rival (DELETED 7664)]

"This ain't no place for no hero” the lyric reverberated through his mind, mocking him.
"This ain't no place for no better man" He shook his head vigorously, as if his bloodlust could be denied by sheer force of will.
"This ain’t no place for no hero to call home" Finally, he ripped the headphones out, accidently breaking them in the process. Distantly, He recognised that the song, mocking or no, was correct. A mere moon ago he was an criminological psychologist, entirely convinced that the last 25 years had taught him all he needed to know about the depths of human depravity.
Now he was a psychotic criminal, entirely convinced he knew next to nothing about anything, pacing back and forth in a damp and mould-ridden motel room whilst waiting for the sun to go down.
He would have liked to believe that it was all her fault- That eccentric, larger-than-life, basket case that calls herself “Nishaa”- But truth be told, just as he hadn’t asked to be turned into a human sized mosquito; she hadn’t asked for him to play the hero and ‘save’ whom she intended to turn.

He had seen her in a cliché alleyway, arched over a limp figure in her arms like the finale of some twisted ballroom dance. Impulsively, he had tried to save the un-named civilian by restraining its attacker. Unfortunately, he restrained this particular girl in the same way a paper bag might restrain an angered bull- That is to say, not at all. A broken arm and a few puncture wounds later, he found himself a newly made vampire- as a replacement for the individual who had died during his un-timely distraction.

The cheap porcelain sink had broke in his grip when he looked In the grime-spotted mirror. No reflection greeted him, but he had curled back the left side of his lip to reveal a wolf’s grin, always present but now emboldened by its deceptively sharp fang and the new hard set of his jaw. The tired violet bags under his bloodshot blue eyes told the story of every man he had hoped to put away . . . The realisation of this fact would have tempted his fangs to surface if it wasn’t for the fact that they never disappeared. They hadn’t receded since his heart had stopped beating, and he could have sworn that his body had started to decompose- the smell of putrid flesh literally seeped from his pores no matter how hard he scrubbed. Absently he tested the point of his fang with his tongue, earning a nick that quickly healed in the process.

[Rival (DELETED 7664)]

The edges of the motel’s thick curtains had a tell-tale shine that cut through the room like a knife. Gradually the sun abandoned the town, leaving the room at the mercy of a flickering fluorescent bulb- buzzing a mono-tune that matched the lights rhythm. Just as Rival decided he would leave this god forsaken cesspool he heard quiet, yet amplified, footsteps lazily dragging their way up the hallway. The closer they came, the more he could hear a second rhythm . . . a persistent throbbing that was nearly in tempo with the footsteps. It made his veins writhe like cut cables, His pupils constrict, and his mouth salivate with a primal urge. . . He shook his head again . . . Hating himself for it. Even so, Rival found himself hoping that the footsteps continued their lazy trudge towards his door when it swung open without preamble. Subconsciously he took note that his hearing, although enhanced, could be very misleading.
In the open doorway there stood a picturesque junkie- in clothes last appeared in a store a decade ago. If his skin-and-bones physique didn’t give it away, the deep, grotesque track marks running up his inner arm did. The man didn’t speak; he only traced the room with his eyes before letting them fall heavily on the broken headphones dangling out of Rival’s pocket. Rival could almost hear the gears turning in the junkie’s head- could clearly see the bony hand twitching at his side like a gunslinger preparing to ‘draw’.
Suddenly, He did. He was fast, in the twitchy kind of way that junkies normally are. He made a desperate grab for the headphone wire, hoping to use it as leverage to pull the device it was attached to out of Rival’s dust-caked jeans.

Fast, but not that fast. One of Rivals own arms whipped out and secured a grip around the junkies throat whilst the other punished the junkies thieving arm by securing a death grip on his wrist. The problem with this particular ‘muscle memory’ was that it left the junkie-thief’s other arm completely free. Unfortunately the junkie was sober enough to recognise this and didn’t feel like wasting his moment. The bitter-sweet shiiiiiiing of a blade quickly drawn introduced the counter attack, giving Rival just enough notice to move out of the way. His cheek still took a deep, vertical slice- but Rival would rather that than a blade protruding from the bottom of his jaw and into his mouth. (And all over what could be an Mp3 player for all this idiot junkie knew)
The motion and force of the blow sent blood splashing up towards the ceiling. The blood was a deep impenetrable black and although this was strange in itself, the weirdest thing was that the blood just . . . hung there. For what seemed like the longest moment the two men stood stupefied- one finally convinced he was dead or dreaming, the other convinced he must be really, really high.

The only warning the junkie had was a not-so-subtle twitch of Rival’s cheek.

“This is too much new information” Rival growled to no-one in particular, hand still coiled around the junkie’s throat. “I should ******* rip you open” He declared through bared fangs. Instead, he took a moment to check on his blood. It was still hanging nonchalantly in the air. Rival’s brows pulled together in consternation, and then gripped the junkie’s eyes with a deathly stare in addition to the grip on his throat. To his credit, the junkie struggled less than you’d expect during the exchange. Rival waited for the initial adrenaline-fused hunger to pass and then hooked his thumb under the junkies jaw and pressed with his nail until blood welled. The junkie winced but made no special efforts. In a trance, Rival watched the sanguine treasure crawl down the arch his fingers and thumb made upon the Junkies throat and then make its slow descent down his hand and onto his wrist. With his free hand Rival collected a bit of blood and tasted a sample. He would not press his teeth or lips to this wretched fool’s skin for any reason. As expected, the blood tasted bitter and had a tang that could only be described as similar to bile. Finally, Rival decided against a full meal and took the knife- the same knife used mere moments ago to harm him- and pushed it slowly (but started the process too soon for the junkie to react) into the skin just below where he held the addict. The forever un-named junkie fell to his knees, and then onto his chest, in a quickly amassing pool of his own blood. Whatever the ‘authorities’ thought of this killing, they would have no reason to think it was a Vampire. Still, the temptation to feed was beyond anything he had studied about, and he had studied way too much to find that thought comforting.
He had to get out.

He checked one last time on his floating blood. It was nearly gone. . . it was almost as if it was fading out of existence. Closer inspection revealed that it was. He brushed the cut on his cheek and found that he could feel both the rough texture of a wound and the familiar roughness of the stubble on his cheek. As he said before, this was simply too much information. He had to get out.
And so, Rival made his way down the unpleasant hallways in a determined march. At the end of the badly-designed twists and turns he found a fire exit- that to him looked like the gates of heaven- and kicked it open with no thought given to the “ALARM WILL SOUND” sign looming above. He exited onto the top of a rickety one-story staircase on the side of the motel, overlooking an equally unpleasant alley-way. The building opposite was evidently a bar, as a large group of drunken smokers loitered below.
The shrieking alarm drew their stares to him.
Their combined scents and varying levels of blood pressure drew his stare to them.
The moon anticipated what came next, and hid behind the nearest cloud- casting a blanking over them all.

[Rival (DELETED 7664)]

Moonlit victims ran and ran through the fog. They cast fearful glances over their shoulder at the monster, at him.
Flashes of memory revealed a clearer picture of them. Dead and pale- their corpses as neglected as the alleys they resided in. It was a bitter vision. A sweet smell invaded Rival senses- was one of them alive? It was unfathomably tantalising. Both shame and guilt-ridden hunger consumed him. He bared his teeth at the runners- but no victim could be caught. he couldn't move. Then , he was buried alive not just six but twelve feet under. The coffin was too small, and it kept getting smaller the more he clawed at the wooden walls.

"Subject experiences delirium under hunger" The coarse voice cut through the fog like lightning . . . Rival opened his eyes. "Subject awakes at a regular rate. Immediate return of hyper-cognition is not apparent." Rival blinked the last of the fog out of his eyes and tried to take in his surroundings. It was too bright. He couldn't make anything out beyond a semi circle of blinding studio and construction lights. Another smaller light suddenly appeared and darted close to his eyes. Instinctively, Rival tried to grab onto something but a ripping pressure stunned him. He was STAKED by his wrists and ankles and those stakes were tied around iron piping In such a way that left the sturdy sailors knots out of his reach. staked.
"Subject is observing his surroundings." Rival gave him daggers and a half-arsed snarl. "And seems to understand his position." The figure walked out of sight.
"What the hell is this? Who are you?" Rival asked- half afraid he knew the answer. Some voice inside him screamed betrayal and another, quieter voice nagged at him. He was forgetting something.
"Subject is experiencing symptoms of minor panic. No attempts of escape have been made. Yet."
"Answer me." Rival demanded, losing patience.
"Subject is trying to communicate. No violent behaviour displayed. Moving on."
Crunch- a iron stake ripped into Rivals shoulder and he roared in agony. "Sorry, buddy." He said. Was there a hint of laughter there?
"Subject still feels pain somehow." Rival felt a finger prodding into the mangled gouge that was the far right of his collarbone. He felt like being sick. "Subjects blood doesn't flow through his body and his heart does not beat. But pain is part psychological and his brain clearly still functions. Perhaps this is-" a quickly concealed gasp followed by brief silence. "The subjects blood . . . It oozes." Rival's tormentor used the iron stake to fish some of the black oozing blood out of Rival's wound- flicking it like a wand- and watched the strange shadow-like substance dilute into the air like paint in water before finally resting in limbo. "The subjects blood is of a matter unknown to science and seems to bypass gravity" he waved his hand through a patch of the blood. "Remarkable"

He didn't know why, but it was at that moment that Rival had enough. He tried again, with all of his strength, to break free of his bonds. It was no use . . . But the sudden movement (combined with his excited nature at what he deemed a 'scientific' discovery) made the torturer jump a mile and accidentally hit over one of the blaring studio lights in the process- smashing the bulb and sending shards of glass flying. Metal clanged against metal. the man rushed to get his bearings. In the chaos the lights shuffled in a domino effect of pulled cables- leaving Rival completely suspended in shadows.
Just then; something . . . unlocked . . . Within Rival.
There was no way to accurately describe it, but he felt a force all around him. It was passive, as if biding it's time. As Rival subconsciously willed it, it responded - taking the form of shadows.
They crawled in livid tendrils- whirling through a rotation of opaque and semi transparent- and coiled around his bindings. The tried and tested knots conceded to the relentless fingers of the paranormal force.
Rival fell down without dignity and with the weight of finality. He lay, on his maimed shoulder, and caught the gaze of his tormentor. It was oddly familiar and doe-eyed.
"Subject is . . . " Rival could see now that he was talking into a old school tape recorder. Whatever speculations the man had were lost. Rival saw only red. Smelled it on the mans glass flaked palms. " . . .However, subject's bonds are broken. I'm not taking any chances."
But he already had.
Whilst he was documenting, Rival had been preparing. Just as the torturer was about to click off the recorder, twin shadows snaked up his arm and his leg. The tendril's frayed ends punctured his limbs as they made their ascent. The man Wailed and screeched protests. At the apex, the coils of darkness constricted mercilessly. The tape recorder shattered in the process, along with several of the bones in the hunter's limbs. Evidently, the pain and horror were too much. He passed out cold.

Rival willed the shadows to drag the crumpled heap to him. They obeyed, rising and receding like the tide to accomplish the task. Throughout this whole ordeal. Rival did not think much, this was too much information to process. Being a vampire was one thing but all this? . . He just did not know what to think. It shook his reality. It was no longer a matter of a refined human biology but a whole paranormal spectrum to contemplate. That being the case, he decided to live in the now and took the iron stake from whoever-the-**** this guy was and drive it through his heart. For irony's sake.
Rival fed. Deeply.




It was only as rival pulled the stakes out of his wrists and ankles then unceremoniously fell back to the floor next to his victim that he remembered.
After killing a bunch of students outside a bar- Rival had approached his former colleague and best friend (from his time as a pre-graduate criminal psychologist) to help him with control and better understand himself. He had suggested to test the effects of prolonged hunger. Rival had suggested the crude stakes as a sort of self punishment. Grande- that was the mans surname- had thought it too far but didn't press the matter.

Well . . . Now they knew the answer to one particular question.
Problem is, it provided a whole load more.