Golden Hue (Ascension)

by Stone, Zachary

  A sharp, painful sensation on my back awakened me, along with a loud cracking sound. I cried in agony as I turned around, and felt the end of the whip strike me across the face. Managing to open my eyes, I saw Demetrius standing beside a vampire holding the long, leather whip.

  Again I was struck by the whip. The pain shot through my body, and I screamed as I was repeatedly beaten.

  I tried to pull myself together and summon all the self-control that I could so as not to show how much pain I was in. When the next strike of the whip hit me, I felt the searing pain, but this time I didn't make a sound.

  “Is that all you got?” I managed to say. “You’re so pathetic.”

  He pulled out a knife.

  “Don't kill him,” Demetrius ordered. “Just bleed him.”

  The vampire reached down, took my arm, and slashed into my wrist. Blood began to pour out of the wound. Once again, I didn’t let them see that I was in pain, but the sharp sensation of my flesh being cut burned in my mind.

  “More,” I said. “Here is my other wrist, you want to cut it too?”

  The vampire growled at me and came at me with the knife.

  “No,” Demetrius said. “That’s enough.”

  The vampire and Demetrius left the room.

  I quickly took off my over shirt and wrapped it around the wound, desperately trying to stop the bleeding. As the blood flow started to slow, I began to feel dizzy. A moment later, I collapsed onto the floor.

  “Mister, are you okay?” I heard the little girl say as she crawled towards me. “I saw the bad man hurt you.”

  “I'm alright,” I muttered, before I lost consciousness.

  Chapter 7

  “Wake up, Mister. Wake up,” I heard the little girl say. “They’re coming back.”

  I opened my eyes, and I had double vision. In the candle light, which my captors only sometimes provided, I saw two small girls in front of me.

  It took me a minute to mentally process what she was telling me. As soon as I realized what she meant, I told her to go hide in the corner. She complied, and I pushed myself up to a sitting position.

  As the door to the room opened, I felt an intense hunger for protein. My stomach was not just growling; it was roaring.

  “So how do you feel?” Demetrius asked.

  “How do you think I feel?” I asked, trying to maintain composure.

  “You’re probably starving by now,” he said. “Here's a steak.”

  He tossed a small, bloody piece of meat into the cell. My first instinct was to devour it. However, my intellect told me not to touch it.

  “How do I know it's not poisoned?” I asked.

  “You don't know,” he said.

  I looked at the steak, and it took every ounce of my will power not to consume it. Then I realized something else.

  “Put your fingers in your ears,” I called out to the little girl. “I don't want you to hear this.”

  I saw the little girl cover her ears.

  “You know it would just make me more hungry,” I whispered to Demetrius.

  “Of course,” he said. “That’s part of my plan.”

  “You sick monster,” I said. “I wonder what your congregation would think if they knew you were endangering this innocent little girl's life.”

  “They know nothing about my order,” he said. “At least not most of them.”

  “You’d lose your church,” I said. “You think vampires are evil, but you’re the most twisted creature I’ve ever met.”

  “Don't worry,” he said. “You won't last much longer. Why don't you go ahead and eat the steak, eat the girl, and let me end your suffering.”

  “No,” I said. “I'll never attack her. You may think I'll break, but I won't. I'm stronger than my hunger.”

  “You’ll break,” he said. “All vampires eventually succumb to their hunger.”

  I felt my stomach growl again, and I realized the girl's scent was stronger than ever.

  “By the way, I'm not subjecting you to the red light this time,” he said. “It suppresses your sense of scent.”

  “You better subject me to the light again,” I said. “I might get strong enough to escape.”

  “No you won't,” he said. “You’re starved and that makes you weak.”

  He walked out of the room.

  I looked at the girl in the corner of the room. She was still holding her fingers in her ears.

  My stomach churned and roared with hunger. As my desire for protein grew, the scent of the girl increased. She smelled every bit as good as a fresh grilled steak. He aroma was beyond enticing.

  “This is your dark side,” I thought to myself. “Don't let it win. You’re better than this.”

  I turned towards the wall and tried to think of Cathy. Although I was very weak, I tried to call fourth enough power to project my mind outside of the cell. I wanted to see Cathy; maybe I could communicate with her.

  Closing my eyes, I focused and looked beyond the wall of the cell; all I could see was dirt. Looking upwards, I could see a street and tall buildings. I was in downtown Atlanta.

  The little girl touched my arm, and my mind instantly returned to the cell.

  “I'm hungry,” the little girl said. “Please tell the man to feed me again. He listens to you.”

  Her scent was now overwhelming. A part of me wanted to turn around and sick my teeth into her neck. I now knew how Sarah must have felt the night she attacked me; it was a horrible feeling.

  It took all my will power to resist attacking and consuming the young girl. However, I couldn’t take her continual poking and prodding. Although I knew she was hungry and suffering, I had to get her away from me.

  I turned and growled at her.

  “Get away from me!” I yelled. “Go to your corner! Get away!”

  She crawled to the other corner and started to cry. I felt like a complete and total monster for yelling at her. However, it might have saved her life.

  I sat in my corner for several minutes desperately trying to maintain control. If I attacked the girl, I knew I deserved to die. Maybe Demetrius was right; perhaps I was a monster.

  Once again, the door opened. This time, a vampire came into the room. He was carrying a set of chains with him. Demetrius followed.

  “Chain them together,” I heard Demetrius say.

  I panicked.

  “Please, no,” I said. “Don't chain us together. I’ll kill her.”

  Demetrius looked at me. I could see the scar on his face.

  “You’re going to kill her anyway,” he said. “This will just speed up the process.”

  “No,” I said. “Don't do this. It’s murder!”

  The tall vampire opened the door to the cell. I got to my feet and tried to run out, but he knocked me against the wall. He then proceeded to put a shackle and chain on my right arm. The vampire connected the other end to the girl's left arm. Only a few feet away from the young girl, her scent was overwhelming.

  The young girl cried as the vampire and Demetrius left the room. I couldn’t stand to hear her cry. In my hunger crazed state, it was making me angry.

  “Shut up,” I screamed. “Shut up.”

  The girl only cried harder.

  “God help me,” I cried out. “Please God don't let me do this. Please just kill me now. Don't let me hurt this girl.”

  I looked at the shackle on my wrist, and I tried to pull my wrist out of it. However, it was too tight. There was no way I’d be able to pull my hand out, and I didn’t have the strength to break the chain.

  There was only one option.

  “Shut your eyes,” I told the little girl. “I'm sorry I yelled at you before. But please shut your eyes.”

  I lifted my wrist to my mouth, and I bit into it. I began to chew off my wrist. The pain was excruciating as I ripped through skin, muscle, and bone. Blood started to pour as I tore through my arteries. With a final bite, I cut through the last of the connecting flesh.

  Due to all the blood
loss, I began to feel faint. With my severed hand under my arm, I crawled to the other side of the room. A moment later, I was unconscious.

  I didn’t wake up suddenly. Slowly, I realized that I was still alive. With my eyes still closed, I could feel the hard concrete below me.

  “Please let this end,” I prayed to God. “Just kill me.”

  Due to the intense hunger I felt, I kept my eyes closed. I didn’t want to see the girl. My will power was spent; there would be no way for me to resist the temptation to feed – if I even had the strength to do so.

  I could feel my cold, severed hand. It was still under my arm. I shifted my body, and it fell on the floor.

  “Cathy,” I said, wanting to hear her name. I visualized her face in my mind, and I tried to focus on it as my body shook with hunger.

  I then heard footsteps.

  “You can turn around,” I heard Demetrius say.

  “I won't,” I said, barely able to speak.

  “Don't worry,” he said. “The girl is no longer in the cell with you.”

  I turned and looked at him. The young girl was standing next to him; she was smiling.

  “What the heck?” I thought.

  “The truth is that this little girl is not really human,” he said. “She doesn't have a soul.”

  “I'm a demon from hell,” the little girl said. “It was fun playing with you.”

  I managed to crawl closer to the bars of the cell.

  “What?” I asked.

  “This girl is demon possessed. She was that way when my order found her. Usually, those possessed by demons have a soul. However, hers was absent. We’ve tested her repeatedly, and it turns out her soul left her body,” he said. “We use her as a tool to make vampires kill themselves.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “In your weakened condition she’s strong enough to kill you,” he said.

  “It would have been fun to rip your guts out,” the little girl said.

  I realized what he meant. The whole thing had been a test. If I’d tried to eat her, the little girl would have killed me.

  “In my years of serving the order, I’ve never seen a vampire or any other creature resist the hunger for as long as you did. The fact you chewed your hand off to protect her is impressive,” he said.

  “You’re a sick freak,” I said.

  He didn’t comment on my insult.

  “I’m not going to kill you,” he said. “You may be damned, but I don’t feel right about killing someone who’d go to such great lengths to protect an innocent child. But I don't know what Henry is going to do to you,” he said.

  “Why don't you just let me go?” I asked.

  Suddenly, I heard an explosion. It rattled the room and made debris fall from the ceiling above.

  Demetrius and the demon girl ran out of the room.

  A moment later, a vampire came rushing in holding a gun, and pointed it at me. It was Clint.

  “I'm not going to let your friends take you alive,” he said.

  Just at the moment he was going to fire a second explosion shook the room. A shot went off and I felt a searing pain in my shoulder. I fell backwards onto the floor.

  In an instant Cathy appeared next to Clint, and before he could fire another shot, she cut his head off with my dagger.

  “I'm getting you out of here,” Cathy said.

  All of a sudden, I could feel my body being picked up and slung over Cathy’s shoulder.

  She carried me out of the room and up several flights of stairs. When we got out onto the street I saw furious fighting going on; dozens of vampires were battling Henry's thugs.

  As I drifted in and out of consciousness, I heard her beg me to hold on.

  “I love you,” she said. “Just stay with me.”

  Eventually, I heard Sarah's voice.

  “Get him out of here,” she said.

  The next thing I knew, I was being carried by Cathy through downtown Atlanta at high speed. I could feel her aura surrounding us; it felt wonderful to be close to her.

  In only a few minutes, we were at the empress’s mansion. Cathy took me into a room that looked like a trauma center. A couple seconds later, I was placed on a bed; doctors and nurses swarmed around me.

  “Get an IV into him,” I heard one voice say. “He’s going to need blood.”

  “Bring me thirty milliliters of hemaproxen,” another voice said.

  A blond haired nurse flashed a light into my eyes.

  “How is he doing?” I heard Cathy say in the distance.

  “We have to work on him,” I heard someone say. “Please just stay here.”

  “Cathy,” I called out.

  “I love you, Eli” she responded.

  As the nurses gave me injections and put tubes in both of my arms, I realized I was in bad shape.

  “Cell cultures show limited regenerative potential,” I heard a voice say.

  “We'll have to go in and get the bullet,” a red haired, female doctor said, leaning over me.

  I was injected with a syringe, and I passed out.

  Chapter 8

  “Can you hear me Eli?” I heard a voice say. “If you can hear me please open your eyes.”

  I slowly opened my eyes, and I saw Sarah standing next to my bed.

  “Thank God,” she whispered, before kissing me on the forehead.

  “How . . . where . . . ” I tried to talk, but felt extremely weak.

  She touched my face.

  “Don't try to talk,” she said. “Just relax. You’re safe.”

  I looked around the room; it seemed I was in a hospital. There was a heart monitor next to my bed, an IV bag was hanging next to me on a stand, and I could see an empty wheelchair in the corner.

  A sharp stabbing pain shot through shoulder, and I cringed. The memory of losing my right hand flashed through my mind, and I lifted up my arm. My hand was missing, and a large bandage was wrapped around the stump.

  Sarah continued to caress my face.

  “You were so brave,” she said. “You saved our lives outside the restaurant. Then you were willing to sacrifice your arm for the little girl.”

  “Where's Cathy,” I managed to utter.

  Sarah lifted her head and looked into my eyes.

  “She’s resting in the next room,” she said. “You’ve received several blood transfusions from her. She insisted that you receive blood from no one but herself.”

  I pushed myself up into a sitting position.

  “No you don't,” Sarah said, gently making me lay back down. “Cathy’s fine. She just needs to rest.”

  The door opened and Lizzie came in.

  “You’re awake!” she said, rushing to my bedside. She leaned over and hugged me.

  “As soon as I found out that you were kidnapped, I came as fast as I could,” she said. “I want you to know I'm here for you.”

  I looked into her eyes, and I could see that she was sincerely concerned for me.

  “Thank you,” I said. “You’re so good to me.”

  “No,” she said. “You’re the hero. You saved Cathy and Sarah, and we know what happened in the basement with the little girl.”

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  “As soon as we heard you were kidnapped, we called Meg,” Lizzie said. “She found you with her crystal sphere; she saw everything. The whole time we were preparing to rescue you, she was watching.”

  “Could you please tell Sarah to let me sit up,” I asked.

  She looked at Sarah.

  “Alright,” Sarah said. “But only for a little bit. You’re still very weak.”

  Lizzie and Sarah helped me sit up.

  “Can I have some water?” I asked.

  Lizzie went to the sink on the other side of the room, and brought me back a glass of water. I took a few sips; it seemed to help clear my throat.

  “Where exactly am I?” I asked.

  “In the medical ward at the empress’s estate,” she said.

 
; I took another sip of water.

  “What are the doctors saying?” I asked.