It's in the Water [Enver]

[Harrison]

Whoever it was who’d come to help Harrison, who’d come to save him, seemed also to be able to hear him. If Harrison had had breath, he’d have lost it. Never in his life had he encountered another person able to see or hear spirits. He’d thought it was something peculiar to him alone, and sometimes he lay in bed at night wondering if he really was crazy. He didn’t feel like he’d lost his grip on reality. He’d functioned pretty well, regardless. Better now than he had as a youth, admittedly, but he had his own set of morals and desires. He had his own concept of right and wrong. No longer could he say the spirits had told him to do something. He blamed nothing on them. Whatever choices he made, they were his alone to make.

Hovering above the water, Harrison felt as if he were being wrenched in two directions. Part of him was still attached to the body that was steadily sinking, pulled away by the current and unable to defend itself. The other part of him were being pulled backward, and he had to fight it. He had to fight to stay in this world, and the spirits on the shore were telling him to let go. Let go! If he resisted, he’d be stuck. Just like them.

Panic set in, though it was a strange sensation bereft of a racing heart or an adrenaline kick. He watched the scene below like he was watching an action film. He didn’t know what the outcome would be, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to just get up from the cinema seat and walk out. Whatever the outcome of this particular film, it would be the outcome of his own life.

Beneath the water he was being dragged not only by the current, but by the creature that wanted him dead. His head had hit a rock as the current flipped him, a crack that set his skin to bleeding. Claw-like fingers hooked into his abdomen to keep him under, but he really was just a bit of flotsam, and they really were just playing. They hadn’t anticipated power being used by the one chasing after the body; they hadn’t anticipated their toy being taken away from them. But it was. Harrison watched as his body was thrown unceremoniously to the shore, and he moved toward it, moved with it. How did this work? Should he just climb back into it? Would that even work?

Out of the water, the blood was given time to seep and pool. His lips were blue as the blood spilled from the wound at the left side of his forehead, just above the temple, and as it surged from the hooked gash of his abdomen. He wasn’t breathing. Even if he was given successful CPR, would he live?

Spirit-Harrison turned his attention to his would-be saviour, surrounded now by… mermen? What the **** even were they?! They’d exhibited a strength that Harrison had never witnessed before, a strength and a cunning that… ****. They were both done for, weren’t they? They were both going to die out here…

[Enver Marshall II]

Enver could smell blood coming somewhere from the human, which didn't phase him in the slightest. Enver could be surrounded by buckets and buckets of human blood and he'd never bat an eye at it. Still, the fact that he could smell it, made the hairs on the back of Enver's head stand at full alert. Or maybe it was the green silhouettes of men from once upon a time that gave Enver a sense of heebie jeebies. Either way, whatever it was, Enver shivered and then glanced around at not one, but three green tinted men surrounding him. Aliens?

He would have scoffed at the idea five or six years ago, but with vampires, sirens, demi fae, fadebeasts and other things that might go bump in the night, nothing would surprise Enver anymore. Enver put up both hands to say, 'hey, I'm done.' And just like that, they seemed to lose interest in Enver and simultaneously take off in the same direction. Enver let out a sigh of relief and then ran a wet hand through his hair, enjoying the moment, forgetting about the human for a minute. Until Enver turned his back to the shoreline and saw the guy on the edge.

"****. Coming!" Enver waded through the current, wishing that he had the ability to bypass the flow of water that kept trying to keep him from getting to his destination. "Hang in there!" He bellowed out into the night, his hands cutting through the water as Enver went from walking to swimming; the better choice in this scenario. He was hitting the bottom of land after a minute, maybe a minute and a half, indicating that shore was coming up shortly. He stood, finding his way in just above ankle depth water and then all but pounced out of the water with giant steps.

The first thing Enver did was kneel down and listen. After a few seconds, Enver heard....nothing. Not a single breath. He made a fist and thumped on the chest of the guy in hopes of getting a reaction, only to get nothing. No cough, no sputtering of water, nothing. Was it too late? There was only one way to find out in Enver's mind. He fished his set of keys out of his pocket which housed a small swiss army knife, and sliced his arm open. "If you're still in there, drink up, buddy." Enver said as he held his bleeding wrist above the guy's mouth and waited to see if there was any form of reaction from the guy.

[Harrison]

If you’re still in there, he was told. And at first Harrison rejoiced. Yes! Yes, he was still in there. But he wasn’t, was he? He was outside of his body, hovering somewhere between life and death. He watched as his saviour tore a wound in his own skin and held it over Harrison’s lips. He had to urge himself to drink. Didn’t he? He couldn’t even feel his own body to control it.

But then he felt it. A strange, buzzing sensation at his spiritual core. A heat, and then a violent tug. Harrison didn’t have to worry about the fact that he was already dead and had no way to control his own body. It seemed that his body had a mind of its own. A physical, primal reaction to the healing, life-giving blood that touched his tongue.

The minister went from feeling nothing to feeling everything. One second he was floating and numb, and the next he was lanced with pain. He didn’t know where it was coming from. It was in his head, in his lungs, in his back. He couldn’t feel his legs. The blood on his tongue was foreign and yet intoxicating. But his lungs were full, and his body reacted to that, first. He lurched to the side, rolled as far as his unmoving legs would allow. He coughed and spluttered, water exiting his lungs at a gush.

As soon as they were empty, however, he went straight back to that bleeding wrist. He knew, instinctively, that he was going to die anyway. Wasn’t he? His vision swam. And even if he could have been saved, was his back broken? Could he be healed? It was all justification. The truth was, that one taste hadn’t been enough. He wanted more. He grasped at the arm and pulled it back to his lips, sucking at the blood as if it were water and he’d been stranded in the desert. He took all that his body would allow him to; he took as much as his saviour would allow him to.

[Enver Marshall II]

The guy wasn't doing much of anything and that had Enver...upset. Sure, he didn't know the guy, but he had busted his *** to get them out of the water and get him back to life. Sort of. And maybe Enver took too long. Death was not something Enver was ever good at dealing with, but then again, death was tied in with a lot of emotions and the Allurist's emotions could be every ******* where some nights. Which explained his long track record with the law when he was human and all his nights in jail cells, then rehab facilities.

His dad was the culprit behind Enver's emotional upheavals. He would always tell him, "I'm raising a man, not a girl." When Enver tuned into his emotions. Not that Enver had been overly emotional as a kid, but any sign of weakness from the guy's only son only pushed them further away, which was why there was so little love loss when Enver's dad died. In fact, Enver was ******* thrilled when the ******** died, until he came to learn he gave Abby thirty three percent of the ******* company.

But, Enver felt something for this guy, only because this guy had never done him any wrong. And this guy had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. And he had tried to survive. And Enver had failed him. What the **** was the point of being a vampire-being a super natural creature with healing abilities and powers, when they did **** all for other people? This was the side of being a vampire Enver disliked. He envied mortality and wanted to help preserve it and no amount of money that the guy had helped him do that.

Then, the guy moved. And he moved for his own personal survival. He latched on to Enver's arm as if Enver were giving him something miraculous, and perhaps he was in a sense. Vampire blood was like the cup of life, minus the cup, but still gave 'life.' Well, a version of it. "Woah, slow your roll, buddy." Enver said with a soft chuckle as he shook his head and then yanked his arm away enough to make sure that he heard him. "I got a few blood bags on my boat. That's the stuff you really need." Enver preferred to boost his own blood, or hunt animals, but being the guy just suffered his own death-which he still needed to be told, there was no way he was suggesting a hunting party tonight.

[Harrison]

The arm was yanked away and Harrison lunged after it. In that moment he wasn’t a reasonable, thinking human being. He was a human being on the verge of death, driven by instinct. He was told to slow down but he didn’t want to. His body was craving the thing that would save it and, like a drowning man might inadvertently drown his saviour in a bid to reach the surface, this same desperation existed within Harrison.

What stopped him from trying to overpower the giver of the blood (a venture he’d surely have failed) was the sudden cramping pain in his gut. It felt like a blade had sliced through his abdomen; a poisoned blade, the poison which spread like wildfire from kidney to intestine, from stomach to bowel, from lungs and eventually to his heart. He groaned and, like a spider given a shot of bug spray he curled in on himself, crumpling as his human body died to make way for the vampire.

Now, it wasn’t water that spewed from his lips but bile, and everything that remained within his gut. Everything that his body no longer required was discarded, ejected, rejected from his system. There was no room to consider what was happening or why; there was no time for questions or accusations. Harrison was focused only on one thing—the pain, and when it might stop. Somewhere deep down the other’s words had registered; blood bags. That’s the stuff he really needed.

”Blood,” he gasped. ”Will it… make this stop?” he breathed, now finally turning to face the man at his side. A face that Harrison knew, somehow. A familiar face, which was, in its own way, comforting in this time of upheaval.