Path of the Vampire forum

((Postdated to early March, 2014))

Fight Night disappeared before her eyes, the flashing red lights and blood covered floor replaced by the muted shadows and crumbling buildings. The ground beneath her body was cracked and brittle as she fell into the darkness. Heavy air folded around her as she lay, breathless and tried to gather her wits in the foreign surroundings. She felt like she'd been slapped from one realm into the next. In this case, it was quite literal. Steel grey eyes swept the landscape with growing apprehension. She'd been here once before. Years ago when she'd first come to the city she had taken part in a feud between Grigori and another line and had 'died' in the process.

It had been different then, this shadowed realm. To her young eyes it had been dark as night would be to a human. No shapes or defining features. Now it looked like a decayed, patchwork version of the city she had come to call home. The building closest to her resembled a bank she had once frequented in Coastside. Moving quickly she ducked just inside what would have been the door and closed her eyes, trying to calm herself as the silence crushed her. How was she here? No one had killed her. Granted, she had a few wounds from Fight Night, but she wasn't even in a match when before she ended up here. Ari knew that she had learned how to enter and manipulate this realm even though it had been years since she had been here, but she hadn't consciously come here.

Consciously.

Damn her. DAMN her!

It was bad enough that she'd lost her original body when she was killed after being turned. It was the curse of her Path and was to be expected. It was worse when she returned and took a new body, only to find that the host refused to leave. Over the last year that host had been fighting her for control of the body they both needed. Her body and mind had been a battlefield where she was gradually losing ground.

"Calm down, Ari. Calm down. You can handle this." She remembered the Shadow Realm and the things that wandered there. Vengeful spirits of those killed by Ty and malicious, hungry entities from ages past. It would be easy, so easy now, to become overwhelmed and frightened. Pushing past the feelings that crawled up inside of her, Ari stretched out her hands and concentrated, pulling from the blackness around her a practically impenetrable fortress of rubble.

She would find a way out. She would.

She would find a way out and fix this problem for good.

((Postdated to early March, 2014))


Ari woke to darkness.

She had dreamed that she had been back in the world for a day. That she had seen people and walked under the stars with the salt covered icy ground crunching beneath her feet as she walked from her winery to her apartment. It had to have been a dream because she was once more surrounded by the ever shifting miasma of the shadow realm.

Her muscles protested as she uncurled from the corner where she had hid. She felt off, like the world was too big and she was too small. As she stood she noticed why it was different. She was shorter, smaller, and more lithe. Her hands were as slim as they had been the first time she held a paintbrush when she started college in Harper rock. Red curls cascaded over her shoulders and down her back. Her whole frame shook as she wrapped her arms around this body. Around HER body. Her hands tightened on her arms as she hugged herself. This was home. This was and always would be hers and hers alone.

The joy of the reunion faded quickly as worry set in. This body had been dust for years and, try as she might, she couldn't make the new one she had change to fit. There couldn't be blessings in this place without a price.

"So, you're the one in my head. My invader."

Familiar and strange at the same time, Ari turned to locate the voice. Standing against the backdrop of crumbling walls and destruction was her other self, the one she had possessed for a few short years now. It wasn't just a body though, it was alive and as real as she was. It was another person. The other person.

"Care to explain where we are, parasite?" The other questioned. "Because this sure as **** isn't the city."