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Cross 5

𝐙𝐀𝐘𝐍𝐄 — 𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕳𝖆𝖑𝖋 𝕳𝖚𝖒𝖆𝖓 𝕭𝖑𝖔𝖔𝖉𝖘𝖚𝖈𝖐𝖊𝖗

Doctrine says it took right around 3 days for the Lord to make this world, the way it is. From flora to fauna, fathers to mommas, sunrise to sunset, this world he begeted. All the pretty things. All the good things. All the ugly things. That was him, the Lord above all.

That’s right, it took only took 3 days.

Now if that sounds short, then it sure as hell is. 

When you think about it, 3 days is an unrivaled, nearly impossible feat. Even if you were some all powerful supreme being, 3 days seems unnatural when you break it down. There’s no time to rest or stop when you’ve allotted three days. Not only that, how could you possibly know you’ve got it right in just three days? Shouldn’t it take a millennium…or how about infinity?

But it only took him 3 days.

I’ve always thought there was no way you could take all the necessary stops and put all the good details with that amount of time.

But boy, it hurts solid rotten to be wrong.

My mouth feels like I’m chewing on rocks. My jaw was locked in place and words were afraid to form as I stared down upon her.

The detail in what she’s like in death just screams what she once was in life. The little girl I stand above, rests sprawled out on the sandy ground. It’s so harrowingly precise; a disturbing meticulousness of the worst kind.

The outline of her bloodied face. The nick in her broken nose. The red on her stunted, once growling lips. The monstrous fangs protruding from her jaws. The color drained from her rounded scratched cheeks. The abnormal mangling of her gashed limbs. The horseshoe bend to her snapped neck, and finally the wooden stake I jammed into her caved chest.

I have the stomach to look at all these little details. But, there’s one thing I can’t stand, and that’s the look—the fucking unforgettable look in her eyes.

Her eyes are open wide, and peer directly into mines. Those glossy orbs still glow ferocious crimson, but the sheen of death flood and devour the entirety of her eyes. She has this look, a look of cold unfeeling, unmoved, horror that rejects life and shrieks eternal slumber.

Her life was taken too short. Wrongly, short.

She would have had a life before this. Dreams, before this. Hopes. Wishes. Family. Friends. A future.

I just know from the way she stares at me. She knows that she didn’t deserve an ending like this. She didn’t deserve suffering at the hands of creatures of sin and wickedness. She knows.

I bend down to my knees and softly brush her eyelids close.

I killed this child. Turned Vampire or not. I killed her. I killed a child.

The taste of bile burns my tongue. Pain ruminates in my chest with every breath. 

I killed a child today.

I never killed a child, and I know what it makes me now. It makes me a child murderer. 

“Fuck.” My eyes sting a little, but I pinch the core of my nose, refusing the sensation. 

So now I’m an animalistic fanged predator, a matricidist—cursed mother killer, and even a child murderer. I’m a heathenitic disgrace, a creature of sin, and worst part of all, I can’t even explain why I exist. 

I acknowledge the cactus’s thorn. I know if I didn’t exist, maybe this child would still be here. Maybe if all vampires were exterminated no human would ever have to suffer because of us bloodsucking monsters.

“If we didn’t exist…” I scoff. 

If it took 3 days for the Good Lord to make this place, then what good are Vampires? How could he allow the Devil to make us? And just how long did it take the devil to make monstrous abominations like me?

I know Father Baron always said, I was the lord’s miracle, but just as the sun always sets on the horizon, I bloody hell fucking think nought of that idea; ain’t nothing miraculous about a vampire raping a nun to create an murderous ugly creature who tore his way out of his mother’s womb. It’s unnatural, that’s what it is. 

I’m unnatural. 

Even the things I do aren’t natural, and I know I can only imitate and pretend. 

I brush my hair back, blood smearing on my grimacing face. 

I can only pretend that I’m not what I’ll alway be. I know that. But, hell? I can’t help wanting to escape.

I can’t. 

I glance at Nina. She’s about a foot away from, passed out cold flat on her backside. She was down seconds after she heard me snap the girl’s neck. My eyes back to the little girl’s snapped neck, and I guilt punches like a rightful fellow. 

I don’t have time to paddle through this sea thoughts. I should burry her. 

I lift up the little girl’s limp body and slouch her over my shoulder. For a moment, my eyes bounce around the desolate scenery until I notice a shallow dip in the cracked dirt grounds. Right in the center of the itty shallow is a withering desert flower. It just looks right that this poor child should rest there. One crooked desert flower is all I can give her to mark her grave. 

I adjust my grip on her, and gradually bring her against the ground. 

My fingers plunge into the dirt and dig with my bare hands, a cloud of dirt and dust escaping into the air. I can feel coarse dirt and jagged pebbles wedge their way under my claws, and the rough texture against my skin cut blade lines in my hands. I don’t really register the pain though, these days I haven’t really felt much. Stab me, cut me, slice me—it doesn’t really matter. More and more, I haven’t been able to feel the pain of knives slicing my skin or bullets gnashing my limbs. 

I can’t feel pain the same way before like when I was a young sprout at the sanctuary. Sure, maybe I’m in a human looking vessel, but most days I’m not sure anymore. Were my nails always so englonated and claw-like? Has my sense always been this dulled and heightened like I’m some beast, at the same time? The things I want to feel and the things I should feel, I can’t even draw the line anymore. Have I become more vampire than human? Or have I always been this way?

“Oh.” Immediately, I stopped digging. Oddly colored rust blood leaks from now injured dirtied hands.  

I guess I’ve been digging too hard. My fingers should hurt, but I can’t exactly register that pain. I probably wouldn’t have noticed my fingers are bleeding had I not seen the blood. Odd, despite it becoming harder for me to recognize pain, I’m becoming better at finding blood the moment I smell it. 

“Agh…” The sound of Nina’s rustling draws my attention.  

I look at her, and then back to the piss pot of a hole I’ve dug. I’ve been digging for a little, but it’s certainly not any grave right now, that’s for sure. I’ll need something to dig a little more. My eyes land on Nina’s good ol’e trust shotgun and best pal. 

Now, that hunk of metal will do me some good, and some bad. Everytime I come near Nina’s prized possession, she throws a donkey feud. I know even touching it will place me in hot water, but what else can I do? 

“Hey, cross-eyed auger.” I take a few steps towards her, and bend down to her. “Nina.” I give her a light slap on her cheek, but she’s not responsive even to my icy touch. Normally she’s like a flighty gecko, fidgeting at the slightest hint of movement, especially when it comes to me. 

“Nina?” I pinch her marred cheek. “Kill me later, but I need to use your friend—.” A sharp gag stifles my voice. My eyes twitch and I can feel a sickening feeling crawl over me. The blood vessels in my eyes flush and I can feel the burning glow in my eyes starting. 

No. No. 

I can feel my fangs growing, and pressing like blades against the inside of my salivating mouth. My eyes drew to Nina, there’s blood coated on her flesh. Her smooth dark tawny skin takes on a burnished sheen glazed by blood and sweat. 

Quickly, I lock my eyes. I can’t look. I can’t look. I can’t look. I can’t look. I don’t want to open my eyes, but eye move without my control. In a forceful tug, my blazing eyes pry themselves open, craving for the sight of flesh and blood. 

That’s when something suffocatingly sweet invades my nose, and it sends my senses flaring. Something burns violently in my chest and it takes all I have to keep my sanity. 

I can’t pull my gaze off her neck. I can’t stop the craving of the taste of her blood in my mouth. I can’t stop my traveling gaze, coveting every inch of her flesh.

I can’t stop the hunger, and fucking know I can’t give into it. 

My mind is screaming to have just one bite. Just one drop. But one drop wouldn’t be enough until I drained her. And one drop isn’t what I want—I want a taste. 

My body is moving on its own, and before I have any chance to stop myself I’m on to of her gripping her by her neck, fangs ready to strike. I know where my fangs want to dig their teeth in, and I know what I want more than anything right now. 

But what I want isn’t what I should have. 

Thud!

It takes all my strength to pry my inhuman grip off Nina before collapsing onto my backside. 

I hurriedly reach into my pocket and rip out my blood syringes pouch, and jam one into my arm. I don’t really know how long my body will respond to animal blood, and I don’t know how long I’ll be able to tether this spider’s web of my bloodlust. To be honest, I don’t know much about this jacked up world.

Father Baron says I’m doing the right thing by being here, and that I’m special unlike actual vampires I can ‘control’ myself…that I can be humane.

I wonder what he’d think if he knew that there isn’t one second of the day when a thought passes about tearing apart someone’s flesh and guzzling every drop of their blood.

I reach into my coat’s pocket and tug out a cigarette. With little effort, I light it and place it between my lips. The moment the heavy smell of tobacco slightly masks the savory scent of blood, my body eases a little. 

I know I don’t know much about a lot of things, but there’s one thing I do know, I’m tired of giving a horseshit about it because one these days, there’s going to be a stake through my chest and I can’t wait until it happens.