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Fight Club It ******** Ain't |
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Both Squirrel and Bryce would later internally chastise themselves for not seeing it sooner. The place was a perfect spot for an ambush, and one they might have well chosen themselves if it had been the other way around. The darkened Valu-Mart, painted with signs saying "For Lease" rose in the middle of the urban graveyard that once was a parking lot. Several broken down and looted cars lay rusting on the cracked concrete, their steel parts reaching up like sun-burned skeleton hands. Tell's foot kicked an old plastic bottle, the label long since washed off, and launched it across the flaking pavement. He commenced his whining, something the Lasombra punk had been doing off and on all evening as the pack had spent their fourth night searching in vain for the Sabbat Pack rumor had told them was in the area.
"Oh, look! A broken down VW Rabbit!" Tell exclaimed as he and Duessa slowed their pace to match Squirrel and Bryce's gradual halting. He let go of Duessa's arm and trotted up past the two leading vampires, turning to face them as he walked backwards to keep the pace.
"Oh gee, Squirrel...this MUST be the place we're looking for, right? Cuz...only an Elder Sabbat Vamp would own a broken down VW Rabbit, right?"
Squirrel glared at Tell, then shifted her attention to the surrounding area. It was Bryce who responded, albeit curtly and with annoyance.
"Shut up, Tell..."
Tell rolled his eyes, folding his arms and giving Duessa a sarcastic look.
"Witness the cunning and wit of the blood of Cain! Quick, honey, hand me my gun... I think I see a possible showdown coming up between Flowers in the Dust Bin and some old, rusted Pepsi cans."
Duessa smirked from under her newly dyed red hair, the smile coming more out of annoyance than humor.
"Tell, will you just shut your ******** mouth for, like, thirty minutes? Just until my ears stop bleeding?"
Before he had a chance to respond, Tell was silenced by Squirrel's outstretched arm. She had stopped, her eyes search the area carefully. As the group stopped with her, Bryce found himself doing the same as he began to feel that creeping feeling of unease a couple seconds after Squirrel had. The parking lot was silent and cold, giving no secrets away, but this did not deter Squirrel in the slightest. As it turned out, the pack was fortunate for Squirrel's innate sense of danger. If she had acted a moment too late, or had seen the unnatural shift of dirt beside a rusting shopping cart a second later than she did, the attack upon the fledgling Sabbat pack might have gone much worse from them than it did. However, Squirrel's alertness picked up the metallic tinking sound the moment it was heard, and her body blurred into motion at once. She jumped across the darkened pavement and quickly grasped the small object, tossing it away...and then slid back as the grenade exploded upon its descent, far enough away from the Flowers to barely avoid the blast.
Following this, all chaos and a tiny bit of Hell broke loose. Bryce screamed an order that sounded more like an expletive to Tell, then jumped to his left, barely missing the bullets accompanying the blast of machine gun fire echoing around them. Tell darted backwards and grabbed Duessa, covering the two of them on the ground. He cursed as a bullet tore across his back, ripping at his jacket and narrowly grazing him. At seemed at first as if their opponents weren't going to reveal themselves, but a harrowing cry of bloodlust soon announced their descent upon the Flowers. A short and stocky vampire, fangs gleaming across his grinning visage, was circling the group's right flank, trading off hisses with Bryce as he cradled a rather nasty looking shotgun in his hands. To their left and also trying to flank them stood a tattooed cross between a redneck backwoods hillbilly and some feral Eskimo, and though it might have at one time resembled a female, there was nothing hinting at its sexuality now. A rather nasty looking barbed harpoon-esque spear was in it's hands, carefully crafted by its wielder's vicissitude to serve as a frighteningly efficient femur-spear. Tell had clocked this one and was now moving back, despite a loud protest from Duessa. Her vampiric blood had pushed her courage up for the time being, and despite the shock that might have been caused by an exploding grenade followed by a hail of bullets, and all unexpected, Duessa felt the urge to fight...the primal rising of anger and wrath within her blood that couldn't be sated. Facing the foursome was the man with the machine gun, who even now was continuing to spray the space between his flanking comrades with bursts from his AK. No one got a really good image of this one, though Bryce would later swear he looked Native American. It wasn't these three Squirrel was worried about as she crouched, motionless, her blood coursing through her undead veins and waking her supernatural gifts like oil reaching a rusted engine. No, her eyes had caught everything, and now her attention was taken by the outlined silhouettes behind AK-dude...the two who appeared to be wearing some sort of cloak or robe. Yes...it was those she would go for first. Well, that is, after she'd grabbed AK-Dude's c**k to shove in one of the robed figure's mouths.
Like most battles, this one seemed to play out moment to moment as if time had suddenly slowed to a dangerous crawl, when in truth, the entire play lasted under ten minutes. Bryce took the first move, knowing that if these assailant's double-flanking move became successful, they'd be ********. He lunged at the guy with the shotgun, hands peeling off their skin and forming deadly-sharp bone-spikes underneath. On his other side, Tell was backing up with a squirming and protesting Duessa, trying to pull her to cover and away from the spear-whore who was even know preparing to throw the bone harpoon, which was connected to a thick strand of flesh and muscle that would serve as a rope once the weapon had lodged in someone's back. No doubt Tell would be making sarcastic references to Scorpion from Mortal Kombat, if he hadn't been more concerned with getting Duessa out of the line of gunfire. A loud crack burst out as Bryce took a stomach full of grape shot, inches away from reaching his target. Of course, this didn't stop him...it only fueled his anger as his arm extended well past its normal length, catching the shotgun wielder with a quick and seemingly clean piercing of bone-spike through throat. A half-second later, the bone spike flowered out with ten or so smaller points that easily tore through the flesh and muscle that encased them. The vampire hiss silenced as first his skull, then the rest of his body crumbled to the ground, ashing at Bryce's feet. He, in turn, whirled around and caught sight of what he assumed was another Tzimisce heading for Tell and Duessa. As Bryce prepared to attack, the blood from his stomach wound ceasing to flow as it naturally healed, Tell stumbled in his flight backwards. He and Duessa fell to the ground and in a maddened rush of adrenaline she broke free. Not conscious in the slightest of her actions at that point, she was prepared to take on the Scorpion clone herself. Fortunately, Bryce's leap not only saved Duessa from a rather painful injury and possible death, but also caught the other Tzimisce off guard. The two grappled and rolled on the ground, the sound of hissing and biting mixing the shared sprays of blood the two were releasing from each other. Tell, who had regained his balance, seized the moment by likewise seizing Duessa with shadow tentacles that knocked her back into his arms. Tell caught her and wasted no time, leaping back and scrambling behind the VW Rabbit with Duessa in his arms. She, for the moment, was frozen in shock.
And it was then that Squirrel suddenly blurred into action. a short spray of her blood followed in what little wake she had as one of the AK's bursts passed through her arm. It would be the last bullet from that gun to play a role in this fight. Its wielder gave a muffled cry as Squirrel trailed UP his body, jumping his shoulders and landing in a crouched position behind him. The vampire's eyes widened as he fell limp on the ground, two clean slashes trailing from his crotch, up his now exposed chest cavity, and through his neck, meeting just under his nose. This wound would have been enough to at least incapacitate many vampires...but Squirrel wasn't one to follow the "at least" route. The vampire's back arched on the ground suddenly as the bleeding cuts across the length of his body started hissing and boiling. The poison she had applied to her blade would quickly find its way through the victim's flesh and bone, and would leave ash in its wake. This action was much more flawless in its disposal of the target, which was Squirrel's style to a tee. Her attention had barely shifted away from the ones who really bothered her, but it returned fully to them now, and she paused, gritting her fanged teeth and glaring out at the figures, waiting.
From within the writhing and bloody cacophony created by Bryce and his opponent, a high pitched screech rose. The appearance of Bryce's head followed this, his now shark-like maw stretching out a decent sized clump of flesh and muscle from their owner. The Tzimisce beneath him fell quiet and limp as the tendrils snapped, and before anything other move could be made, Bryce's hand was at his belt (the only item of clothing semi attached to his body currently being his pants) and producing a shaft of wood which he drove into the heart of the one beneath him. He stood as a host of gashes and other gruesome and deep wounds to his body began to heal up. His concentration was momentarily distracted as he did this, and later it would be the second thing the young Tzimisce would mentally chastise himself for doing.
The next actions happened simultaneously. From behind the VW Rabbit, an angry Duessa finally bit down on Tell's arm. The unexpected shock loosened his grip, and Duessa took her chance, bolting once again out of Tell's arm. He barely managed a shout to her before she was clear of him. Across the parking lot from the overturned car, the two hooded and robed figures suddenly began an almost choreographed counterattack. One of them slowly stretched out his arms, and a swirling circular motion seemed to rise from nothing around him. Concurrently, the other one raised a quick hand that blurred as it moved in a throwing motion. A lick of unnatural white-silhouetted black flame became a small fireball that shot across the night sky, past Squirrel, past Bryce, and past Duessa with a high pitched droning sound.
The blast itself was strong enough to knock Bryce and Duessa off their feet, but it may not have accomplished this on its own. However, the spreading shrapnel of burning car parts took Bryce down quickly...and painfully, as an anonymous sheet of rusted metal sliced into his upper thigh and left one leg barely connected to the rest of his body. He fell back, shielding himself from being hit more. Duessa was lucky enough to only be sprayed with a shower of small hot debris, yet the explosion itself had taken her down already, and so she was unprepared for painful sizzle of hot metal hitting her skin. It took a moment for her mind to register what had just happened, but when it did, Duessa finally lost herself to the beast. The fire...the swirling chaos of sound and sight...and the sudden clicking realization that the car shielding Tell and, seconds ago, herself as well, had just exploded violently. Like the click of an alarm clock right before its alarm sounds, Duessa gasped. Then her eyes went wide and she fox frenzied, tearing out of the parking lot like a mole running from a cat. Her instincts knew their way around these alleys, and soon she was weaving in and out of them, looking for a place to cower from what her nature recognized as a threat to self.
Squirrel was caught off guard and leapt up when the car bomb exploded. She had barely a moment to think before a sudden and biting pain gripped her body. She fell, convulsing, as the spiraling shapes moved from the robed figured to her. They began to take form, too...a sick, eerie buzzing accompanying what must have been a conglomeration of insects...infernal equivalents to flies.
Later, Bryce and Squirrel would reflect on the next few moments in an attempt to piece together the chaos. They eventually came to a story that was semi-complete, save for a couple critical actions that could not be explained despite their best efforts. The first of these actions was the sudden injury dealt to the robed infernalist (yes...it was clear now they were indeed infernalists) that broke his concentration, sending the mental-scarring myriad infernal insects out in all directions before dissipating one by one into the night's darkness and its hidden agendas. Squirrel, finding herself quite suddenly freed of the debilitating pain, shot up and at her assailant, catching the infernalist at a moment when, for some reason that would remain unsolved, he was too busy crouched in his own pain to retaliate. Squirrel wasted no time in dispatching his head, her sharp daggers slicing through cloth and skin, bone and muscle, all with the ease of running a stick through water. As smoldering ashes collapsed beneath the infernalist?s garb, Squirrel's hungry eyes turned to the last target. However, this one was clearly no amateur, and had already sized up both opponents and knew that Bryce was in no shape to attack him. Furthermore, he saw the Tzimisce had already lumbered toward the remains of his oh-so-craftily placed exploding shield-car, looking for any trace of the one who had been hiding behind it when the trap had gone off. He knew Squirrel was an aggressive little ********, but that her skill lay in close combat. He smiled, ready to play a game with this one before killing her. The moment Squirrel leapt at him, a thick cloud of unnatural mist rose, ringing around the two. An eerie silence ensued...whatever was going on inside that cloud had been completely muffled and muted.
Tell's body would have surely been ash if Bryce had not reached it in time. As it was, he saw his friend engulfed in flames that soon threatened to extinguish the vampire's unlife forever. Bryce wasted no time in leaping on Tell, his arms spreading their thin flesh like a cloth over his friend. Bryce's skin was just supernaturally strong enough to not immediately burst into flame, and this is what saved Tell's unlife, for it allowed Bryce to snuff the flames rather quickly. He lay there, arms and skin wrapped around the charred Tell, and paused to silently do the vampiric equivalent of "taking a breather." He assumed the silence behind him meant Squirrel had taken care of the two infernalists, and before he had a chance to look, said silence was broken by a low moan from Tell. The Lasombra was miraculously conscious, and as Bryce shifted off him, two charred and blackened eyelids opened and lazily took in Bryce before falling upon the scene behind him. This finally caused the Tzimisce to turn and he immediately stood, running to the circle of mist helplessly. He knew he couldn't penetrate it, and was about to frenzy out of sheer emotional breakage, when the mist DID clear. A subsequent cloud of ashes, like falling snow the color of the sludge it becomes on roadsides, fell around Squirrel's form. The girl was wounded and burnt in more places than could be counted, but had somehow taken down her opponent in the end. Even she wasn't too sure of how she had done it, but had not admitted that to Bryce afterward. However, at the current moment Squirrel wasn't reflecting. She was blood lusting. And due to the nature of her clan, it was the staked Tzimisce she jumped upon, her fangs sliding into a mauled bit of vein and flesh that might have been a neck.
Bryce half crumpled, half collapsed on the concrete. He felt his frenzy coming on, and began reacting accordingly...the way his sire had taught him to beat out the rising beast. A single flash of the words "-OR LEASE" crossed his blurred vision before everything went black and he slipped into unconsciousness.
 Flowers in the Dust Bin · Thu Nov 04, 2004 @ 03:32am · 0 Comments |
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The difference between tears and bloodtears. |
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They were not crimson at all, those drips of blood hitting the bathwater softly and inking out like disappearing fog. There was no deep red sheen to them; no double meaning, spiritual connotation, or poetic beauty. Even assigning a color to them would betray their essence. They were simply droplets of blood. Nothing more, and nothing less.
Another one fell softly on the surface, sending small ripples out like sonar waves reaching for nothing. The water was taking a pink hue...pink against paled skin,naked without remorse or shame. It was empty, all of it.
Black and white. Blood being all the same, whether drinking it, pushing it through undead veins, or crying it. Shedding it from small swollen eyelids and watching it dilute into cold resolution. This was not a catharsis. It was a necessary function, and nothing more.
Yet, as each tear broke up into the crystal waters, the curiosity grew.
Was there something there? Something carried by those once salt, now iron-tasting emissions? If tears serve to carry away sadness, anger, depression, and base human want of redemption, could those things be seen? Was there a point at which the blood separated from their carriers, and for one brief but fantastic moment everything would become clear, and the hiding would spring from their holes, laden with saucers, teacups, cakes, biscuits, and suddenly unlife became another day in Wonderland...a day in which contentment could come from knowing the state of unknowing?
No...foolish. If indeed these tears were to carry something of value with them, they would not be called blood. They would not be so void...so empty as the one that shed them.
It was a ritual, and that's all. Questioning it was pointless. Silence was a much better treatment. Much better.
Another bloodtear rolled down Squirrel's cheek and hit the water soundlessly, but her eyes were closed, so this time she did not see it.
Flowers in the Dust Bin · Fri Oct 08, 2004 @ 04:28am · 0 Comments |
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"We need to talk," Bryce murmured as he stood in the dark doorframe of Tell's room. The lack of light inside didn't keep his eyes from seeing the disturbingly clean state of the young vampire's usually-chaotic masterpiece of a room. Gone were the piles of blood-stained, dirty clothing and scattered LPs of old, outdated punk bands. Also absent was that smell...of use. Not an unpleasant one, but an odor unique enough to be unable to place aside from calling it Tell's. In it's place was no sweet cleaning fragrance or "glade plugin" manufactured scent. His room smelled ... of nothing. An unnerving lack of scent.
Tell was propped up against the wall; this much, Bryce could make out. However, the cold darkness prevented him from seeing further, and he gave in to necessity finally.
"Could you please turn on a light or something, dude?"
Not a couple seconds later, the room was softly illuminated by the flickering tongue of a candle-flame. Tell couldn't have lit that just now...he didn't have enough time. The Lasombra must have been hiding it with shadow. But why? And why was it producing no smell?
"What do you want, Bryce?" Tell said in a low, dead voice. Bryce couldn't stop a jolt of hurt from creeping into him. This flat, drained, and hardened voice...it couldn't be Tell's, could it? Surely nothing would turn the punk-brat's sarcastic vivacity so sour...
And then Bryce saw the room.
"Why the hell is your empty? What did you do with all that crap, Tell?"
Bryce was shocked, and wasn't hiding or honeycoating it either. That was the way his relationship with Tell had always been. Until recently, it had been for the better, too.
Tell rose silently and looked at Bryce.
"I cleaned out things that were useless. Things that were bringing me down."
Bryce looked at him incredulously. "Like your mattress?"
Tell shrugged, indifferent. "Unlife grants us the ability to shed such useless refinements like mattresses. Comforts. They soften us." He pulled up his blue hoodie, then gave Bryce another sharp look in the eyes. "Do you need something?"
Bryce shook his head, partly to break himself out of the shock that had overcome him. This wasn't normal. It wasn't Tell brooding or depressed or making some artsy statement; Tell was...changing.
"No...I just..." Bryce trailed off a moment, his eyes falling on the flickering flame of the solitary candle. "Are you alright Tell?"
"No, of course I'm not."
Good...honesty. This comforted Bryce a bit...it was a glimpse of the Tell he knew.
"But I'm facing it," the solemn-faced vampire continued. "I'm growing. Letting go of weakness that has been dragging me down. You were right, Bryce. I was failing all of you. I failed the new friends we've made at the bar. I failed the memory of the sect. I failed the pack. I failed myself. And I failed her. But I'm facing that, and I'm letting go of those anchors that held me down. I'm no good to anyone weak and powerless. Pathetic..."
Tell walked past Bryce, leaving his room with that same creepy coldness. A hand fell on his shoulder, stopping him.
"Stop lying to yourself, Tell. Don't think I didn't catch that... you mentioned her last...after yourself. Christ, Tell, why can't you see how goddamn important she is to you like everyone else does?"
Cold eyes darted to meet Bryce's. He was waiting for Tell's response; waiting for the accusations of hypocrisy (rightfully placed) and the pissed off self-defense that was so predictable from the young punk. But none of it came. No words passed between Tell and Bryce. The Lasombra held his glance a moment, then raised one hand and snapped his fingers. The ambient luminescence in his room suddenly ceased, returning it to darkness, just after Bryce noticed the small abyssal shadow swell around the candlelight and snuff it out quickly and soundlessly.
Tell left Bryce standing in the hallway, watching him with concern that was slowly giving way to worry...and fear.
Flowers in the Dust Bin · Sun Oct 03, 2004 @ 04:34am · 0 Comments |
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I feel like an overprotective big sister again. I hate it.
It's midafternoon, and I'm awake, sitting crosslegged and teaching myself to read Arabic.
The halls are empty, and my family is sleeping. My pack.
But I'm not a sister. I'm not some unit in a family structure. I hate that.
I'm a guard. I'm a protector. If anything comes in to hurt them, they'll have to get passed me.
Duessa left and I didn't do anything, though.
Tell is in his room. Does he think we can't smell his bloodtears? Does he think we can't hear his sobs? Does he care?
Should I have stopped her? I wanted to...I wanted to take that girl, push her down, and tell her she can't just go about gaining the friendship and respect of a group of people, then leave them high and dry for selfish "I'm so ******** up...look at me and how ******** up I am" reasons.
But I couldn't. I couldn't stop her, because I know how it feels to want to run away.
She has to learn. Or so I'm telling myself. She has to learn how to be tough, or die.
Goddamn. Bryce should have gone in there with Tell. Someone should be there...to hold him, to tell him everything is going to be okay. Goddamn.
And now Aoi is leaving. I see you...yes. Why? Why are running away? Probably because you know how ******** up we all are, don't you? Baron and his Special Needs Kiddie Vamps.
I'm not one of them, though. Not like them. I watch over them, and Baron knows it. I'm like a guardian angel of the fallen and damned. But the fact that I can't protect Duessa now isn't hurting me at all. I don't have that soft mushy core or complex nature. That part of me is gone. The Jennifer who loved orange creamsicles on sunner summer afternoons...the little girl who got so lost in dreamworlds while playing with Rainbow Brite and My Little Pony toys is dead.
I'm here. I'm not lonely, I'm not sad, and I'm doing what I am supposed to be doing. The only thing I can do. Anymore.
Nothing is wrong.
Really.
Nothing is wrong.
And I'm stronger than this.
Flowers in the Dust Bin · Sat Oct 02, 2004 @ 02:49am · 0 Comments |
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