“What was that?”
“Me.”
“Me.”
The words rang loudly and repetitive in her ears, it tightened the area around her heart. It touched her very soul, if she had one. It was every truth that she had once cleverly [ stupidly? ] hid from. It was everything that she had shoved down so far that it reached the tips of her toes and was now unrecognizable. The truth crippled her and turned her into a walking short fuse, a woman who couldn’t take understanding or sympathy. A woman who felt completely undeserving. Maybe she was as undeserving as she felt. You’re only supposed to get one shot. One life. One chance at happiness and hers had died the day that he had. Ever since then she had burned every bridge that had been given to her or offered to her by people who were willing to understand her. They were willing to be there and all she wanted to do was run. She pushed them away. She got angry with them. It was easy to tick her off and she couldn’t control herself and she didn’t try to control her rage. She didn’t want to control her rage. It felt like the only thing she was allowed to feel. Athena would allow herself to feel her rage and the sorrow of her losses. But happiness? She was far too cheap to afford that.
She had left Cosimo standing there against the mausoleum wall and tomed herself straight from before him to the middle of the Andras family home’s common room. Her heels dug into the rug, her head turned this way and that to see and hear the bustle of her family. Athena saw them but her ears didn’t stop ringing. The guilt didn’t stop tugging at her stomach’s core. It felt empty, bottomless, useless and full all at the same time. She knew she wanted to throw up but she also knew that she wouldn’t. The feeling stopped at her throat, it balled there and she swallowed it down as she did most of everything else. It was nerves. She couldn’t talk about this. What would she say? Would they all find her crazy? They would all laugh. It was easier to picture them laughing than it was to picture them understanding. These vampires were her family now but she couldn’t see if she would blow hot or cold if they understood. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to blow cold, they were her family now. They were here for her and they where here for each other.
Her emotions moved the shadows. The shadows and the dark energy within them had moved to her will after a few uncontrollable moments. At first as uncontrollable as her temper. Her frustrations. Her deep-rooted pain. She had made the shadows move with the pulses of her anger. This is what her feelings had become. They had grown and now they had betrayed her. It was her fault. Of course, this was her very fault. Athena had refused her feelings for so long that now they were growing and morphing into something that she wasn’t sure that she could control. Could she control this the next time? That was a question that was nagging in the back of her head. Her head shook quickly once. Twice. A third time. Now it wasn’t just a simple shake from side to side. It was now a furious rattle that had her body following suit. The man hadn’t done anything wrong, Athena! You had tripped him and he had fallen! This wasn’t his fault.
This was your fault. Wasn’t it also your fault that Hunter died? How selfish can you be, Athena? How selfish you have always been. Always. Always. Nothing in your human life was good enough. You had been brought up with a silver spoon in your mouth but you spat that out for a plastic one. Nothing about that life had been anything you wanted. Not the dresses. The parties. The social life. The money. Nothing had been what you wanted besides Hunter. He had been what you wanted all your life and now he’s dead. Not your type of cop-out dead. But for real down and honest dead. Never coming back dead. How come you got to cheat death? He had been the better out of the both of you. You were the dark cloud and he had been the bright one.
Athena was glad that no one was too close to her at the moment. She didn’t know what would she do if she touched something. How was she touching the floor without it breaking? How did the shadows remain in their respective corners while she stood here on this rug? Why wasn’t the Andras hotel shaking too? Just as the mausoleums ancient walls shook even while they held so strong and for so long. She didn’t know and she kept pushing her feelings down but to no avail did they stay. She wanted to scream. Where was a good place to scream? The mausoleum was out even if she suspected that Cosi had bolted out of there after she did. He’d be stupid not to leave a place where she could easily find him. She had shaken the entire building on him, he had almost fell with the force of it and he was already injured with his earlier fall. A fall that was also her fault. If she had just tomed home when she felt tired instead of propping herself against a wall and sleeping with her legs stretched out, maybe, just maybe, this wouldn’t have happened like this. Maybe she would feel as if she were in one piece instead of scattered along a lonely wind. The same wind that kept knocking her down when she felt like she was finally standing tall again. Surely she knew you could run from someone but not yourself.
It wasn’t long until she felt her knees begin to buckle as she stood frozen in her spot. She opened her mouth but no sound came out. What would she have said anyway? Would she have screamed for her siress? Come help me. Someone come and help me, please. The ball in her throat stubbornly stayed and stole her voice, it mattered not how many times she tried to swallow it down. It stayed. Her feelings kept boiling to the surface and her knees buckled under the weight of them. She could no longer stay standing, she no longer trusted her knees to stay and her legs to hold her. It was without thought that she began to run towards the fade portal that she knew took her towards the warehouse that held her most prized belongings: her drum set and her instruments. They would level her. They always leveled her. Brought her back to reality. Brought her happiness. The only sort she allowed herself to feel without guilt. Athena knew he would never want her to stop playing. Her heels hit the ground hard with how she bolted to the portal and while she took it, her entire body tensed again. Red lips pressed tightly against each other, her body stiffened as she struggled with every sort of being in her body to stay together. Just a few more minutes. Just a few more steps. You can do this, Athena. No one needs to see you break. No one needs to know how selfish you are. No one needs to know. It’s a secret. It’s a secret.
Once she was standing in the middle of the street and the crisp night air breezed right over her she took a calming breath. She knew where to go from here. Athena started to run and she didn’t stop running. She didn’t stop to look around her. Nor behind her. She didn’t even bother to mask her vampiric speed. She needed to get out of there. Out of the streets. Out of the eyes of the public around her. A place to scream. She needed to scream and scream loud. Athena didn’t make it as far as the warehouse she had claimed as her own. No, a few gulps of blood came gushing up from the pit of her stomach and passed the ball in her throat to spill passed her already crimson lips, flowing down her chin to drip over the ivory skin of her neck to finally meet the top of her tank top. With her vision suddenly blurring she took a hard right and into the doors of another abandoned warehouse that was only three buildings away from the one she loved. Her arms outstretched to meet the doors with her palms and easily enough they opened with a loud screech that matched the deteriorating building. If it had been any other time the sound would make her wince, but as for now? It felt fitting.
Her right hand lifted and she didn’t bother wiping the blood but instead she rubbed furiously over her own eyes as she made her way into the dusty building. She needed to see but everything came up blurry even after she rubbed over each of her eyes a few times. The place was just as big of a wreck as she felt emotionally. It was dark and dusty and the place had clearly been left to rot on it’s own for at least a few years, with all the spider webs and all the damn dust. Maybe once it had been a place of business but now it was left to stand alone with the hard test of time. The poor place’s roof was already starting to cave in. It definitely wasn’t safe for anyone mortal in here. Athena’s stiletto caught a rolled up piece of carpet on the floor and finally she was left on her knees. She hadn’t caught herself with her palms, her right hand was stubbornly rubbing at her eyes and her other arm had failed as if she had anything to catch herself on. Athena was now on her knees inside of the warehouse.
At first it took her a moment to understand what was going on. She had fallen? What over? What was she doing here? It didn’t matter what she had tripped over. What a ludicrous thing to think of right now. Then she just couldn’t think anymore. Her emotions finally took over her entire body and she fell forward but this time her palms caught her weight and held over the dusty and dirty floor. As she parted her lips to scream - more blood came pouring out of her along with the toe-curling scream of a woman in uncontrollable rage. It was along with the blood she had fed on earlier that the scream followed. The sound came from deep in her stomach, in the soul that she wouldn’t admit she hoped she still had. It came from the pain that she had been rejecting to feel for so long. It came from the guilt that she knew deep-down inside that she didn’t deserve and would destroy her in the end. Maybe she wanted to be destroyed. Maybe that’s what she deserved instead of the painful guilt that came soon after any good moment in her life.
What did she deserve?
The screaming continued until well after she felt her throat was raw. Her body jerked with every mouth-full of blood she lost. Her body kept heaving as if she needed to breathe. She knew she didn’t but she hoped that it would end this. That it would end her screaming, her inner- suffering and her pain. Of course, it didn’t. Breathing didn’t help anything before and it certainly didn’t help anything for her now. Long fingers curled into fists in the puddles of the pre-packaged blood that covered the area of floor she was on. She didn’t know what it felt like to feed from a person yet. There was a ringing in the emptying of her stomach that made her consider ditching the blood bags and going for something fresher. A living person. Her head shook. It was just her rage and not her common sense talking now. She was so angry she wanted to use her bare fingers to carve somebody's, anybodys heart out, really. Anybody would do at this point. Did anybody understand that? Was this even okay to think? She knew she had to keep their secret. It was more than bloody important to.
“I understand.”
His voice came flooding back to her. His face. His understanding smile and his understanding eyes. She hated his understanding eyes the most. Not that she was anywhere sure why but she knew somehow that he did. That he did understand how she didn’t like to be touched. Athena only screamed louder. It wasn’t he in particular that she wanted to hurt. She wanted to hurt herself. She wanted to hurt his understanding. It was weak and pathetic and she didn’t need it, right? It didn’t make her slow for not accepting it. It made her brave. It made her stand alone.
Here alone she kneeled for sure, here alone she was. All alone. Just like she had wanted, just like she asked for. She had rejected his understanding and she had ended up alone exactly like she had chosen for the past years. There was that sudden pull again, it was the shadows coming to greet her. The shadows pulled towards her like an old friend greeting each other after some time away. They came and this time she didn’t reject them. This time she wasn’t scared of what her own anger could do. She was no longer ashamed. Let it all be as it may. The shadow’s dark energy broke into pieces that flowed and braided together to sliver from every corner and coil it’s way around her body. The tender tendrils curled, twisted, and wrapped around every area of her body besides her face. It covered her clothes and left her looking pitch black from the neck down. With the dark matter wrapped around her like a lover her she felt powerful, she felt invisible, and she felt downright unstoppable. It was slow at first but she stood up on one heel at a time, her arms stiffened at her own sides with her fists still tightly clenched. Just as sudden as her anger, she tipped back her head and screamed one last blood boiling time.
The entire building shook, the once proud brick walls rattled almost in tune with her scream. The bricks started shooting out of their spots from every area of the walls. None of them hitting Athena, they all avoided her. She didn’t flinch or grow remotely scared as half the roof on the opposite side officially caved in, broke, and fell down into the once dignified working establishment. While it had been abandoned and left to rot- she had given the place a new meaning. It had helped with her rage like nothing had before. As the building fell around her, slowly but surely she stopped screaming. She stopped feeling and the dark matter only tightened around her body like the embrace she had once been missing. The only embrace she needed.
“Hello?! Are you ALRIGHT, MISS?!” A voice came now that wasn’t Cosi’s gentle accent in her head or even the sound of her own voice. No. It was someone else’s entirely. Athena pivoted on her heel, still embraced by the shadows as she looked over at the man who only seemed concerned with the deteriorating building and the fact she was still standing in it. He was about 5’6, a strong build, a wandering teen who had wandered into the wrong building.
Athena didn’t feel bad for what she would do next. His Momma should have taught him better. You see danger? You see something not quite right? You ******* run. Athena used that same heel that she pivoted on to push herself and rush after him. The poor teen didn’t stand a chance with Athena after him. Not even when he screamed out that he had only meant to help, and not even when he tried to run when he realized she was after him. He probably had but Athena didn’t ask any questions when her hands found his tender blonde hair, yanking his head to the side even as she rushed them both to a brick wall to pin his chest there so that he would stay. When her fangs sank into the supple flesh, her grip tightened and she fed until she couldn’t anymore. He stopped screaming after a few gulps of blood anyway. When he stopped screaming the building ceased its inward crumbling onto itself and what was left of it stood tall as it once had.
The blood had calmed her with every gulp she took. It was warm. It had been delicious and even as she dropped his body to take a step back she licked over her lips. Well, she wasn’t hungry anymore and the rage in her stomach had dulled to a mere kitten’s purr. Her hand raised and she wiped the rest of the blood of his that had sprayed over her chin over the back of her right hand. It was with a calming and releasing breath that the dark energy slithered and unraveled from around her body and back towards it’s proper place. Looking down she saw the death in the teen’s eyes. Death didn’t bother her now, anyways. She was the dead. Her taking his life didn’t phase her yet, her blood covered hand shoved it’s way into her pocket where she always kept a sharp knife. Now bending to her knees once more by the teen’s body to use the sharp edge of her dagger to cut the boy’s ivory neck open. She gave his neck a deep gash across the once delicate part of his body with no more feeling than you would using a pocket knife to cut open a plastic knife. Athena stood and with one good look around the place and a pleased smile- she tomed home. What did she deserve again?
She deserved absolutely nothing.
