(Rose)
This finishing winter looks a lot like autumn now.
Bleue doesn't talk much lately, except when she's telling tales.
She's making me say everything I know however, all day long, about everything.
B - What about the second sun we can sometime see in the sky?
R - It's an optical illusion. From what I've seen and as I understand it, there's a layer of the atmosphere where strange clouds can act like prisms and cause that sometime. They distort the direct light partially.
B - And the shooting stars are either rocks or parts of artificial satellites falling down.
R - Yes.
We're crossing a field as the road is warped in a manner making it impossible to follow.
It's all quiet except for us. I like that.
B - And no birds beside the ducks the other day.
R - Real birds, they're very rare. I've seen more fishes in the sky than birds.
B - And bats?
R - I think I saw a few, but I can't recall when or where.
B - And vampires?
I walk a few more steps in silence before replying.
R - I... Haven't. But I did found the fountain of youth you know... Only it was a pact with Dragod.
B - Which was one step further toward our reunion. Bound by time in the river of fate.
R - I don't think that's the right words... But I'm... happy that we are.
She ties her hand to mine and we keep going.
We're close to the Queen's tunnel to France now.
Bleue keeps bugging me about vampires. She got some idea stuck to her head and it's all she can think and ask about for a while.
Have I seen the tracks of one, or any clue about it. Either a beastly one of old, undead lieutenant, or the more recent ones, wizards and blood suckers nonetheless.
How would I know? I have seen and killed monsters that were shadily between life and death.
I wouldn't have called any of them a vampire though.
Speaking about vampires for days and night over a week and then a fortnight, in this world we live in; we were bound to summon one...
Her dreams, come true.
We had to meet something that fitted her expectations eventually.
Because they became more and more broad over time, and because the land holds so many holes for beings-like-her to evolve, that one will eventually match.
And also, in the chaos of history, I'm afraid to see where is the limit of Bleue's natural fulfilment of wishes spoken aloud.
She sounds so confident about destiny. I've always been drifting along with the flows.
Well, not quite, but I never had clear long goal motives and plans to achieve them, nor believed in such.
When Bleue says she made this world come to be and us to return, according to her old wishes, I think it makes a ridiculous and odd story. But more importantly, I feel uneasy about how much of this could actually be true.
How much of an influence can a being like her have over the flow of history?
I thought it was rather nil, and just her way of believing in fate. A way to make sense of the past.
But then we met that vampire she longed to meet.
Which made me wonder... How many coincidences can occur before a pattern is confirmed?
Bleue may be more than she appears to be to my naked eyes.
~
We reached the outskirts of London and its eternal cloud of toxic spores.
We went across the ruined residential areas in the East, hoping to meet the river and then the railroads heading to the tunnel.
Some buildings still stand. Some basements are open to the street like caves now.
I remember the complex sand of Maghreb, colourful, filling the houses, basements and tunnels, like a sea. Eroding everything slowly, turning everything it consumed into same ochre grey sand.
Here it's dark brown grey and muddy. It's the damp opposite of the northern shore of Africa.
Such a wide continent I've only scratched the edge of.
As it was going to rain this night again, we found shelter in a warehouse. Half of it had collapsed, but the other half was still very nice.
Bleue gathered stacks of papers and wood to burn.
I cooked the snakes we had left, along with dry dandelions leaves we carried for a while.
Bleue ventured around on her own while the fire burnt and before it was too dark outside.
And she returned with apricots in her hands.
R - Apricots? What?
She hands me over a branch of a blooming tree with some fruits amongst the leaves. She plucked a few others.
B - The tree is inside a small square, just south from here.
We carefully taste the fruits that are out of place and out of season.
They have a rather salty taste instead of sweet, but they're good and juicy.
We eat a few more of them before going to sleep. Bleue is happy of what she found.
~
We wake up in the middle of the night in cold sweat.
We feel scared and as if we're going to be attacked by a beast. We dress and ready ourselves in slight panic.
We're not sure of what is happening but we're afraid of something.
Once set to fight or flee, we realise that the night is as peaceful as ever.
Silence, untroubled but by our laboured breathing.
B - Where is it?
Then as we look at each other's pale face, we begin to realise.
Sweat, clammy skin much more pale than usual. Feeling cold, heart rhythm in a rush, trembling in fear.
Both of us.
We're poisoned. The fruits were toxic.
The stomach ache is mild, but we begin to feel awful.
I make the fire start again. Bleue is undressing as her stomach begins to hurt and burn her more.
As I see her belly, I gasp, as it is a translucent white now. Mine is the same.
We feel dry and dizzy. Bleue is the one saying it as she feels the swelling inside her stomach.
B - They're sucking our blood!
My thoughts are dizzy so I don't connect the dots yet. But I feel the swelling of something in my tummy too.
I have a sudden hiccup. Bleue is trying to vomit and chocking herself.
I go hit her back with the palm of my hand as I begin getting difficulties breathing too.
Bleue vomits a large sponge pudding of blood and undigested apricot flesh as its plums.
She vomits more blood. But then she breathes again, while I'm not.
I feel the growth filling my stomach.
Bleue is telling me to vomit. I try but I'm mostly trying to breath in.
Bleue forcibly puts two fingers into my mouth to induce vomiting. I bit her by reflex and feel the monster being pulled forcibly in my throat.
I tear up and choke fully.
Bleue is helping me.
My throat gets distorted as the sponge is pulled up, my stomach doing its very painful best to throw everything out. My eyes tear out. I can't breathe nor see anything, it hurts... I feel the bloody massive thing slowly sliding, hardly, toward my mouth.
Until a bit comes out. Bleue grabs it and pulls it out.
I feel the sponge sliding out from my chest to my mouth slowly. It was filling my digestive system rapidly.
Bleue is grabbing this now giant sluggish creature with both hands to extract it. A leech with the shape, or rather without shape, but with the structure of a sponge or plum pudding.
Its bottom finally comes out and I gasp for air. I inhale some of my blood it drips and cough a lot.
I'm saved I think, but I collapse messily.
~
When I wake up, I have a blanket over me.
There's blood stains everywhere around the camp. I'm worried.
R - Bleue... Bleue !
B - I'm here. I'm alright...
She appears very pale and covered in blood as if she had murdered someone in the most gruesome manner imaginable.
R - All this blood...
B - Some is mine. Some is yours. Don't stand up yet.
R - These fruits... That tree.
B - It's gone. While I set fire and burnt these parasites yesterday. When I went to burn the tree next, it was gone. It left. There's a trail of ploughed ground going away if you want to chase it. But I think it's already quite far of and away.
R- This was a leeches' tree...
B - No, this was a vampire tree.
I cough a dry laugh.
R - Well, here you go... I guess vampires nowadays are like that.
B - A pretty skin, a salty taste, and they hit you in the middle of the night to drink your blood from the inside.
R - I never liked them anyway... At least Blume asked before drinking my blood.
B - Oh really? You'll have to tell me about that, Rose.
R - Uh... Let me rest a little while longer first.
~