Chereads / Endless: Live. Die. Repeat / Chapter 4 - Chapter 3

Chapter 4 - Chapter 3

That night his eyes pop open and somehow everything before him his illuminated. He can see perfectly in the middle of the night. He doesn’t know it yet, but he has been changed forever. His ice blue eyes are glowing as he looks around. He sees trails of energy coming from the trees in the forest. Looking down at the ground the dead wolfs tracks are clearly visible to him. He looks at his love and sees no energy in her, no hint of life. Tears begin to fall from his eyes at the stark realization that she is gone. The tears feel warm for some reason, and he wipes them away to find they are made of blood. He walks over to her and cradles her in his arms as he cries the deepest darkest cry he has ever had. In one moment, his life has been torn apart by a ravenous beast. By nature, by the very world itself and he looks up in the trees. Trying to find the winged creature from before that filled him with such dread but it is gone.

After a while he decides she deserves to be buried and he looks at his hands. His nails begin to grow and become sharp. He digs a hole in the ground and lays her to rest. Covering up with dirt he decides he wants something more. Something to distinguish the love they shared, a monument. He looks at the massive boulder and stabs into the rock with his sharp fingers. He begins to lift it and he places it on top of her burial site. A deep primal anger begins to seethe in his mind and body. The wolf took his family he would do the same. He dashes through the night leaping and soaring through the air. As he leaps, he can see the wolf’s footprints glowing in the night and follows them util he comes upon a cave. Outside of it four grown males lie sleeping, these must be his kin.

Their animal senses alert them to a nearby predator and they wake up and start growling. Looking for their would-be attacker but they cannot him. Roderick sits on a tree branch high above them. His eyes begin to zoom in on the wolves. His eyes begin to glow and a thirst for their blood overtakes him. He leaps down onto one of their backs and plunges his hand into his back which paralyzes it instantly. He opens his jaws and bites into its flesh and as the gushing blood washes down his throat is strength increases. It feels like he is harnessing the sun itself as raw power runs through his veins. The other wolves become terrified at the sight and begin to run. He chases them down with ease and tears them limb from limb. After the mayhem he stares up at the full moon above and roars. The sound is heard for miles and the nearby clan of humans that hear it are terrified as they have never heard an animal like that before. As time marches onward, tales will be told of a man like creature in the woods that will kill anything it can and drink its blood.

Roderick spends the next few years wandering through the wilderness honing his newfound abilities and searching for the winged creature. He feeds when the thirst becomes too much to ignore but he refuses to feed on humans. Whenever he comes in contact with them, he uses every ounce of willpower to flee. His body wants their blood, it craves it. One night while he is hunting for a nearby mountain lion, he comes upon two men standing by a river. He stands just outside their vision in the darkness. His hearing has improved along with his vision and its as if he is standing right next to them. He can hear every word clearly and even their breathing.

“What do we do? We weren’t supposed to kill her, just have some fun.” One of them asks.

“If she didn’t fight back as hard then I wouldn’t have held her under the water. You know when my anger becomes too much I just can’t stop. Who knew a youngin would be so feisty?” He replies. Roderick steps closer to see who they are talking about, and his vision focuses on a body of a girl lying in the river in front of them. She has been drowned but something about her seems familiar. He leaps upwards and grabs onto the tree branch that was hanging overhead. From this angle he can get a good look at her face. This cannot be… She looks like Reina! What… “Have you done!?” He screams as the hunger for violence rears its ugly head. I’ll kill you!” He propels himself forward and the two men turn to see Roderick flying towards them. His eyes are glowing and his teeth almost glow in the moon light. The man who spoke first tries to run but Roderick grabs the top of his head and tears into his neck with his jaws. His blood tastes like honey as he drinks it down. His body begins to shake as it becomes accustomed to human blood.

“Monster!” The perpetrator yells and disappears into the brush as he runs back towards his village. Roderick turns to look at the little girl and he leans down close to her. She looks just like Reina did the day she saved him from the bullies. He hears the man who killed her scream for help and enraged he leaps off into the night to hunt. The hunger has taken him, and it will not let him go. He glances one last time at the little girl and as the light from the moon reflects off the water, he sees just a hint of green in her eyes. Roderick arrives in the village to find ten men standing between him and the murderer. They are brandishing spears and two of them have torches. They lunge towards him, and he grabs one of the spears with ease and flings the man holding it far into one of the huts. From behind him he is stabbed in the back, and he punches the man in his jaw and his neck snaps.