This was supposed to be an ending.
Was this peace descending? Somehow the wound at his neck had almost stopped aching entirely, the gentlest kind of pressure there, a balm to the punctures. But it couldn’t be her bite softening, becoming soothing - it had to be him losing grasp of his senses. This was the end and he knew it.
And he knew it, because his killer’s grasp had become his mother’s arms, fingers carding through his hair, stroking his forehead with too much tenderness to explain, ghosting across his cheek. And he could feel it. What was this supposed to be, then: kindness or remorse?
Ishmael had never professed to think about what happened after one died. He did not much care for death itself, but even this, the bloody kind, seemed better than the alternatives. Better than disease or influenza, a drawn-out sickness. There was nothing so horrifying as an invalid tossing and turning and thrashing about in a bed, hanging on too long for anyone’s comfort. It was an ugliness best avoided. Spared people the pain of patience. This had been quick, at least: drained dry in a matter of minutes, his suffering hidden by the pall of dusken streets. There were no onlookers, nothing dragging him back to the living, nothing of him that would leave a trace. Maybe this was a mercy.
Was it ending, though? Sensations were coming back sharper, the haziness stabbing, the wound in his neck suddenly worse and a throbbing in his head and his chest and every nerve on end from his feet to his fingertips. What was this, if it was not living? If Allah was looking down, had he angered him so much that he was, in death, being dragged somewhere worse?
Surely he hadn’t been that shitty a person. Not the most diligent or devoted or disciplined, no, but not scum either. A shame if there was only punishment to come for whatever he’d done in life. Ishmael was sure he could have been a great deal worse.
Apparently his murderer did not call this punishment. To save you, she said. Some kind of saviour she was, sneaking up on him in the dead of night. (And there had been no need to crush his wrist to do it, thank you very much.) Ishmael didn’t know whether she was expecting thanks for her actions, inexplicable as they were, but she had given him an instruction and an offering, and Ishmael was not conscious enough to make a debate of it. At this moment in time, he could barely remember what a vampire was. He could barely unstring one second from the next. He had no energy left for it.
Later, he would wonder. Whether he ought to have resisted her dripping wrist, whether there ought to have been some alarm in his head. Whether his gut should have told him no, no, never, not like this. If there was anything in his instincts telling him no, though, Ishmael never after could recall it... had he always been a little inhuman, then, or was choosing the way to survival the most human instinct there was?
But he did not think, and only drank. Just a faint loll of his tongue at first, gingerly, like tasting a raindrop or a flake of snow. A lick of blood on his tongue. (This was not halal, would definitely never be halal - one was forbidden from spilling the blood of animals, never mind humankind - but he supposed rules of religion hardly mattered now, if he had been damned or saved or rescued by something no religion understood.) And he felt the restorative work the blood was doing instantly, like some kind of miracle. Like fire racing through his veins, setting him alight and chasing the haze away. The fervour fuelled him on, and his lips latched onto her wrist where the puncture wounds were, sucking greedily, messily, like the babe in arms he was.
With the heightened sense of feeling came a surging sense of pain. The numbness had fled entirely and his limbs were light and jagged and full of ice, the fang marks at his neck just a strange prickling sensation now, utterly subdued beside the raging thirst in his throat that felt dry as bone. That would stop, would it not, if he just kept drinking? He would not need to drink her dry. He would be sated soon. He had to be.
He only stopped and disengaged when his mouth felt full and thick of blood - it did not feel so tangy and metallic as it had when he’d bitten his lip or cheek in life, had never tasted so rich and sweet - and he was tired, again, in a more satisfied way than the weariness of death that had washed over him just a little while ago. Besides, she had saved him, whoever she was. Saved him, she said. That was a miracle and a mystery of its own, and now that his thoughts were shifting back into place, he had questions.
“I’m going to live, then?” Ishmael said, slurring slightly, and he thought he managed to raise an eyebrow in illustration of his bemusement. He curled his hand around her arm; still too full and disoriented to attempt to move anywhere out of her lap, but not so weak that he wouldn’t demonstrate his need of her, as he dug his fingers in. (Her and her answers, whichever she had to give.)
Oh. She didn’t feel so cold now. Not cold at all, not like she had.
No, she was warm.
There was blood smeared at the corner of his mouth. “So,” Ishmael said, as the heady drunkenness of this scene started catching up to him, a whirlwind of things he didn’t understand, a sky full of stars above, some strange new future that had hooked him in, one he could never have foretold. First things first. “Who the hell are you?”
post count: 1000 words
Was this peace descending? Somehow the wound at his neck had almost stopped aching entirely, the gentlest kind of pressure there, a balm to the punctures. But it couldn’t be her bite softening, becoming soothing - it had to be him losing grasp of his senses. This was the end and he knew it.
And he knew it, because his killer’s grasp had become his mother’s arms, fingers carding through his hair, stroking his forehead with too much tenderness to explain, ghosting across his cheek. And he could feel it. What was this supposed to be, then: kindness or remorse?
Ishmael had never professed to think about what happened after one died. He did not much care for death itself, but even this, the bloody kind, seemed better than the alternatives. Better than disease or influenza, a drawn-out sickness. There was nothing so horrifying as an invalid tossing and turning and thrashing about in a bed, hanging on too long for anyone’s comfort. It was an ugliness best avoided. Spared people the pain of patience. This had been quick, at least: drained dry in a matter of minutes, his suffering hidden by the pall of dusken streets. There were no onlookers, nothing dragging him back to the living, nothing of him that would leave a trace. Maybe this was a mercy.
Was it ending, though? Sensations were coming back sharper, the haziness stabbing, the wound in his neck suddenly worse and a throbbing in his head and his chest and every nerve on end from his feet to his fingertips. What was this, if it was not living? If Allah was looking down, had he angered him so much that he was, in death, being dragged somewhere worse?
Surely he hadn’t been that shitty a person. Not the most diligent or devoted or disciplined, no, but not scum either. A shame if there was only punishment to come for whatever he’d done in life. Ishmael was sure he could have been a great deal worse.
Apparently his murderer did not call this punishment. To save you, she said. Some kind of saviour she was, sneaking up on him in the dead of night. (And there had been no need to crush his wrist to do it, thank you very much.) Ishmael didn’t know whether she was expecting thanks for her actions, inexplicable as they were, but she had given him an instruction and an offering, and Ishmael was not conscious enough to make a debate of it. At this moment in time, he could barely remember what a vampire was. He could barely unstring one second from the next. He had no energy left for it.
Later, he would wonder. Whether he ought to have resisted her dripping wrist, whether there ought to have been some alarm in his head. Whether his gut should have told him no, no, never, not like this. If there was anything in his instincts telling him no, though, Ishmael never after could recall it... had he always been a little inhuman, then, or was choosing the way to survival the most human instinct there was?
But he did not think, and only drank. Just a faint loll of his tongue at first, gingerly, like tasting a raindrop or a flake of snow. A lick of blood on his tongue. (This was not halal, would definitely never be halal - one was forbidden from spilling the blood of animals, never mind humankind - but he supposed rules of religion hardly mattered now, if he had been damned or saved or rescued by something no religion understood.) And he felt the restorative work the blood was doing instantly, like some kind of miracle. Like fire racing through his veins, setting him alight and chasing the haze away. The fervour fuelled him on, and his lips latched onto her wrist where the puncture wounds were, sucking greedily, messily, like the babe in arms he was.
With the heightened sense of feeling came a surging sense of pain. The numbness had fled entirely and his limbs were light and jagged and full of ice, the fang marks at his neck just a strange prickling sensation now, utterly subdued beside the raging thirst in his throat that felt dry as bone. That would stop, would it not, if he just kept drinking? He would not need to drink her dry. He would be sated soon. He had to be.
He only stopped and disengaged when his mouth felt full and thick of blood - it did not feel so tangy and metallic as it had when he’d bitten his lip or cheek in life, had never tasted so rich and sweet - and he was tired, again, in a more satisfied way than the weariness of death that had washed over him just a little while ago. Besides, she had saved him, whoever she was. Saved him, she said. That was a miracle and a mystery of its own, and now that his thoughts were shifting back into place, he had questions.
“I’m going to live, then?” Ishmael said, slurring slightly, and he thought he managed to raise an eyebrow in illustration of his bemusement. He curled his hand around her arm; still too full and disoriented to attempt to move anywhere out of her lap, but not so weak that he wouldn’t demonstrate his need of her, as he dug his fingers in. (Her and her answers, whichever she had to give.)
Oh. She didn’t feel so cold now. Not cold at all, not like she had.
No, she was warm.
There was blood smeared at the corner of his mouth. “So,” Ishmael said, as the heady drunkenness of this scene started catching up to him, a whirlwind of things he didn’t understand, a sky full of stars above, some strange new future that had hooked him in, one he could never have foretold. First things first. “Who the hell are you?”
