Finn bent to one knee gazing at his sister eye to eye. The cave-like space they were in housed multiple decayed bodies left with only bones and some yet-to-be completely decayed bodies which permeated the air with a putrid odour that Finn was oddly adjusting to by the minute. But oddly, the place was awfully quiet.
This was because for minutes now, all he did was stare at Juan in the eye of which she did the same and occasionally, a smile would leak out from him.
"Fascinating..." Finn said as he looked on at the self-inflicted wound that his sister had on her neck. At the moment, the big deep cut on Juan's neck was healing at a fast pace.
He watched as the blood vessels that she had severed with her sharp nails joined back together. The flesh that had been torn through quite effortlessly was also reconstructing itself. All of it was happening by the second and the healing was so prominent that he didn't need to squint his eyes to even see it happening.
"You know, I gave you too much credit. You didn't actually have a plan, at least not one that weighed all possible outcomes. Now that I think about it the decision you made a while ago could have cost you your life. But I'm guessing you've lived long enough, to begin with, that Death simply would mean nothing to you, right?" Finn asked with a discomforting smile to Juan but really it appeared endearing.
He stood straight up and began to pace around Juan who laid out on the hard rocky ground recovering. As he moved around her, it began to occur to him that he hadn't exactly taken the time to look at the cave they were in.
The walls in the cave just like the ground were black. They were also uneven and would make anyone who was locked up in there have a difficult time. Now thinking about the place brought a few questions into his mind.
-Withholding myself from doing harm to her should have made her create some form of false sense of trust for me. Besides, there isn't anyone who fits right into this spot. I'm sure I could probably get another option but time is something I can't waste-Finn thought inwardly.
"You seem to be nearly fixed and in return for not killing you, I need a favour from you," Finn said to Juan.
He was right about Juan being nearly healed up and even so, she sat upright on the group facing Finn who stood.
"What favour might that be?" Juan asked. At that moment, she struggled a bit to speak. But after clearing up her throat a couple of times, she looked up again to Finn who by all rights appeared quite menacing even for his small size. His red eyes on the right particularly appeared brighter than the golden ones on the left.
His eyes would often trail the blood left on the floor until it met with Juan's neck and in the end, he would end up cracking a smile at her.
"I want you to answer some questions," Finn said. He paused hoping that Juan had something of her own she wanted to say but after the quietness that ensued, he took it as his cue to continue.
"To begin with, this isn't our home. So where are we?" Finn questioned.
"This was mother's feed point. She stored food here and brought what was needed home," Juan said. Her words had confirmed Finn's suspicions. Apart from the obvious human decaying bodies and skeletons he saw, the scent of his mother prevailed in the air too.
-So this is their kitchen, much like old man Zephyr had?.. Finn thought and realized just how odd it sounded that humans were kept in cages for food.
When he thought about it, he wasn't too sure how the world had gotten to this point. But from all he had gathered, it was a gradual process until finally, the entire human population became an endangered species. He remembered during his early days of reincarnating, there were few humans scattered about but even then, he didn't think the racial discrimination would take such a toll.
But as he thought about the situation some more, he realized that deep within he didn't ally himself with the humans in any way. If anything, he suspected they caused serious harm to him as well. But seeing that their existence had now degenerated to the point they were being hunted was beyond his grasp.
He knew humans to be quite resilient and would fight back. He had reincarnated as one countless time to know this fact. So something had to have happened to make subdue such a resilient group as the humans were his thoughts.
He wanted to find out the truth of how this came about. But first, there were other things that still needed to be taken care of.
"So why then did mother stop using this place?" Finn asked. At this point, he too had sat down and faced Juan. They sat not too far from one another and with his sharp senses, he could hear her irregular heartbeat. He knew the same would apply to him but didn't pay too much attention to it.
"You said you couldn't trust me. Yet here you are seeking answers from me. What guarantee is there that I'll comply or at best not tell you lies?" Juan said. This reply had come almost as a shock to Finn but his only reaction was a smile appearing on his baby face which made Juan think twice about how surreal the whole situation truly was that her youngling of a brother gave her such a hard time.
"You are right. I have no reason to trust or believe in the answers you might give to me now. But I believe it would be quite foolish and a total waste of time if you decide to lie about anything. Because if you think about it, these are harmless questions I ask of you to provide answers to. So unless I ask you questions regarding your self-maintenance or any discomforting issue, I expect nothing less than the truth from you," Finn replied.
"You speak as though you are as old as you accuse me of being," Juan let her thoughts out to be known.
"Mother stopped using this place because the new king said so. It's been banned that any vampire in the nest have their own feed point. We all receive from the general blood bank. The King says drinking the same blood would only strengthen our ties as one mighty race!"... Juan explained.
"I see. You believe all that?" Finn asked but gave no room for Juan to answer as he went straight to the next question.
"It doesn't look like mother honours that order from the king, I suppose. These bodies look to me to be dead perhaps a week ago," Finn deducted as he saw some corpses with a certain level of flesh left on their bones to confirm his claims.
"Now whether mother chooses to be a rebel or not affects me not in the slightest bit. But you did mention that the current king is new. Did the old king die? Do vampires fall sick?" Finn attacked with these questions.
"Hmm, I thought you'd know the answer to this by now. Our cultures as vampires are different from the ways of humans or any other race. We value strength quite a lot. To simply put, the process of crowning a new king is a brutal one" Juan said not blinking once or revealing too much information about her state of mind as she said this. Her dark eyes were constantly fixed on Finn's not flinching for once. This was of course a deliberate tactic she had employed. At this point, a lot of things didn't seem right about her youngling of a brother and this made her extra cautious.
"So tell me about the issues of the werewolves and vampires. What has gotten these two to this point?".Finn asked her
Meanwhile, somewhere far from the central area in the vampire nest, the floor was damp and a residing air of loss stilled the place.
The dampness of the floor wasn't water by any sense. It was red and was practically everywhere, it was blood.
Human-like bodies littered the ground with some missing numerous parts. Some bodies were with no head and other bodies lay with missing limbs or a hole dug through them.
This place was the main entrance into the vampire nest. It didn't have much to it except a large statue much like the one at the area where the big stage was set up. Again, the statue was of a man going up to about 20 feet tall. The darkness around here came about because it was still inside the nest which in itself was hidden in a large mountain. This place where the bodies lay with missing parts was not close to the actual living areas where the vampires were situated.
Now at the hand of the tall statue, a figure could be seen climbing on it and just below the figure was another figure chasing violently after it.
The first figure who had now climbed the statue safely to the shoulders on closer look appeared to be human. But where the difference was drawn was that this figure possessed red glowing eyes and fangs that hung out of her mouth.
Below her, what was chasing her left a trail of damage behind it. This figure that appeared to be the aggressor leapt and covered incredible distances and each time this happened, pieces of the statue gave way and fell to the ground because this figure dug its hands into the hard statue for leverage as it climbed up.
The figure in question resembled a beast with a snout like a dog's own which had teeth that could barely fit in. It had long hands packed with huge muscles and fur that covered the chest, the forearm area and the back. With each jump, it got closer and closer to the vampire standing on the shoulder of the statue. And as the huge beast approached, it made its presence known with a bone-chilling howl.
*Awooooooooo!!!!!*