“Do you not remember, pet?” Bla’Gar asked, his mouth retracting in a sneer, displaying sharp vampiric fangs. The demon’s smile grew, the seams of his mouth beginning to tear. Skin flaked off, displaying pale white flesh underneath. With a snarl, the demon launched at him, mouth elongated, clawed hands coming for Raven.
He turned, trying to run, but the sand around his feet was like lead holding him in place. An ice cold hand clamped over his mouth and jerked his head sideways. Cold teeth sunk into his neck, blood gushed over his naked skin… Raven felt no pain, no torment from the fangs shredding into his flesh. He closed his eyes, willing himself to wake up.
A gust of wind blew over him and, with it, the thing behind him disappeared. Raven opened his eyes. In the distance, a shadowy figure lingered, watching him. A cloak billowed out momentarily before falling flat around it, covering the figure, making its appearance seem endless as it blended into the scenery of shimmering blue. Raven peered around him, seeking the nightmare version of Bla’Gar, only to find a heaped up pile of sand where it had once stood.
He turned to face the figure again, falling backwards, down on his ass. He scrambled to his hands and knees, peering at it with wariness. The hooded being towered over him, so close Raven could see that the cloak itself was sand.
“What bloody fucking dream is this?” Raven demanded, brushing the sand on his hands off on his chest—the impulse instinctive—although none clung to his palms. He halted his actions, not feeling skin on skin, but skin on fabric. He gaped down at himself, clothed now in the black suit he had worn to the Winter Ball… where he had gotten an award, danced with Jessy, kissed Bla’Gar, and then—
“The dead do not dream,” an ancient voice echoed, not just in Raven’s mind but seemingly around him in the vastness of this place. Raven swallowed hard, the sound reverberating in his ears.
“I’m dead?” The words were barely spoken.
Images flashed in blurs of Jessy staring down at him while he tried to beg for help, choking on his own blood. He glared up at the cloaked entity.
“Come, this way...they are waiting for you.”
Raven was too shocked to speak, a spark of fear growing inside him. This forever cold he felt was...death?
“Who are you?” He asked, eyes focused on the sapphire sand under his shoes as the thing moved beside him.
“Morpheus,” he replied.
Raven stopped walking and peered up at the black hole where Morpheus’ face should’ve been. Two small orbs glowed in the endless void of his hood. He shuddered and quickly looked away from the horror before him.
“Who is waiting for me?”
Morpheus said nothing, only raised his arm, causing the cloak to pull back and expose his hand. Bottle blue skin, mummified around bone, the nails long and ebony as he pointed ahead of him. Raven followed the direction, his gaze landing on a white door hovering over the surface of the cerulean desert. The moment he turned to face Morpheus, the cloaked figure erupted into a gust of sand. Sparkling dust scattered in the air, raining down around Raven.
“Hello, Raven.” Raven’s own voice spoke back to him, and he turned his attention to the sound. Leaning against the floating door, stood himself, only younger, much younger, wearing the same suit Raven had on, the dark hair a mess, as he recalled it was back then… The day he’d found his parents dead.
“Shall we start?” Raven Jr. said, his smile crooked and dark.
Raven shivered, angst webbing his heart, fear clawing his soul at what could possibly be beyond that door. His blood pumped loudly in his ears, which made matters more confusing. He was dead, so why in the bloody hell was his heart beating now, when it hadn’t with the nightmare version of Bla’Gar?
“Time to face our past demons, yeah? Since the fuckers can swim, we’ll actually have to rip their bloody throats out.” Raven Jr. stood upright, mischief radiating in those clear blue eyes.
“What?” God, was he ever the cocky brat back then. “I don’t—Stop!” Raven shouted, rushing over to prevent his younger self from opening the door.
He was too late. The door opened, bringing with it bright blinding light, forcing Raven to shield his eyes. He blinked several times only to find himself in that room, sunlight playing against the cream walls and reflecting off the gold wall moldings. The white pristine Persian rug, still showing the traces of where one of the maids had vacuumed. The Victorian chaise and Baroque sofa—with its off white and cream toile patterns—stood in their usual places. The old gramophone glimmered from a fresh polish, the sound of the Sutherland Brothers’ Sailing playing through the radio.
But his parents were missing and in their absence, glaring and snarling at Raven, were two Hellhounds. The one on the left looked older, a thick chain hung around its neck, right ear clipped in half, the one on the right was slender and slightly smaller in appearance, naked of scales. He had a half second to wonder if they were male and female before the larger one leaped at him. Raven knew how hot those teeth were. He sped away, leaving the hound to crash into the wall.
Raven was gripping the edge of the writing bench when claws slammed into his back. He waited for the heated poison to flood his system, but his flesh remained cold. The claws sunk deeper into his muscles, the weight of the hound dragged him down, ripping his suit and skin, pulling him to the floor. He seized the brass letter opener, stabbing the sharp end into the hound’s skull behind him. The hound yelped and immediately disengaged. Raven felt the burst of Hellhound blood splatter onto his hand, the acidity eating away at his skin, still he felt no pain.
He turned, anger rearing up inside him. He kept his gaze locked on the two beasts. The larger one circled him on his left, the other directly in his sight. One was more than enough to handle, two… Raven glanced down at his hand, seeing the burn mark already healed—of course, you’re already dead!
This dream was not about facing these beasts. Physically they were present, but psychologically they represented something else. But what? He was brought here to relive this memory, to learn something, to face something he had not resolved during his mortal life... Was this the determining factor for whether he would pass on, or would he be stuck in this world as a ghost?
“By now you have partly figured out why we are here—Oh!” Raven Jr. shouted, “On your left!”
Raven snapped his head to the left. The larger hound crouched, readying itself to pounce. Raven grasped the writing desk, pulling it in front of him and backing away when the beast attacked. The hound collided with the solid wood.
“Nice moves,” Raven Jr. mocked.
The bloody idiot was sitting on the chaise, taking it all in, like this was some fucking interactive movie in 3D.
“Care to fucking heeelp!” Teeth latched onto Raven’s pants pulling, tripping him and sent him up in the air, only to meet the carpet, back first.
“Nope, I think I like it right here.” Raven Jr. replied, patting the chaise’s back. “Oh, mind you, that bitch has one hell of a nasty temper.”
The smaller hound pounced onto Raven, claws finding their way into his chest and abdomen. Its face was bloodied, dripping with thick oozing gore, the letter opener still embedded deep, one eye now missing.
Raven clawed at its throat, fisted his hand tight around the handle of the letter opener, pulled it out and sliced the sharp end across the hound’s throat. Blood poured out, splattered against the white wall, and burned away at his suit and chest wherever it touched. Raven pushed the lumpy beast aside.
He was barely on his feet when the larger one bounded forward. Hatred swelled in Raven—coming from God knew where—and he flung himself at the beast, weapon ready as he slammed it into the hound’s underside, pulling with all his strength to expose its innards. The hound went tumbling against the Baroque sofa, tipping it over to land on top of it. Raven watched as it crawled out from underneath, whining and…crying?
The larger hound slowly made it way over to the smaller one, leaving a blood trail in its wake. It collapsed next
to its…mate? Nuzzling it with its snout, the smaller one remaining still, not moving, hopefully dead.
The beast tried to push itself up but seemed too weak from the blood loss. Raven’s mind worked overtime; what was he supposed to learn from this? The beast howled, a haunting cry causing Raven to flinch. It wasn’t a howl or a sound a beast would make, it was the agonizing cry of a human man. Raven inched closer, his gaze connecting with that of the beast, the eyes… He knew those eyes, clear blue like a calm storm…like granddad’s…like his…
“No,” Raven gasped. Hands starting to shake while his heart pounded ferociously.
“Have we ever truly considered what happened that day, Raven?” his younger self asked, stepping up to him, a tear tracking down the right side of his face, “That maybe our subconscious suppressed the memory of what truly happened, blacking out that part and replacing it with something, seeming so real, that maybe to us it was. Stepping into the house, the smell of sulfur and blood in the air, only to find our parents’ bodies like this?”
Raven crashed to his knees. Every stain, every splatter against the wall and carpet, the way the furniture laid broken and turned over was exactly as he remembered it when he’d found them. Even the way his father laid over his mother’s body, dead, even then trying to protect her.
Raven’s hands trembled, sticky and wet. He glanced down. Blood covered him, his fingers, the letter opener.
“No… I couldn’t have... I wouldn’t have hurt them.” The letter opener fell to the floor, bouncing and sliding to the corner.
“No?” Raven Jr.’s voice spoke in his ear, his words emotionless, “No...we weren’t angry that they didn’t care for what we wanted, what our dreams were, who we were, who we wanted to love…” He laughed menacingly, taunting Raven now. “No, we could never hurt the parents who had been hurting us our entire life. Forcing us to be what they wanted us to be!”
Raven closed his eyes, recalling anything and everything about that day. There had never been a mention of a murder weapon, the report said the victims had been torn apart, his mother’s throat shredded, his father’s chest and stomach clawed open. Samples of canine hairs had been found, traces of strange unexplainable poison in their blood from the coroner’s report that matched Raven’s own toxicology report. The samples of yellow powder taken from the room had been analyzed, verifying it to be sulfur. The detective also confirming that Raven’s parents had been killed by hounds, and because nothing in the house was stolen, the intent had to be murder. He had told him that someone had to have controlled the hounds to do the deed for them.
“So maybe we were angry, hated them so much that we came in here and killed ou—”
Raven cut himself short. “They loved us, cared for us.” He pushed off the floor and stood. “The true monster, the true demon here is you,” Raven glared at his younger self.
“This was never about them. This is about me facing and reflecting on my youth. They were only parents doing what they thought was right for their son, trying to make him the best he could be. Yes, they disagreed with our lifestyle, but they didn’t hate us for it. We didn’t understand it because we were too young then.”
Raven stepped up to Jr. and sneered in his face. “You are the personification of the anger we never let go of. Anger that was never addressed. Anger that turned to hatred.” Raven shook his head and continued, “It’s sad that we had to die in order to see that our parents were ours, they did everything in their power to give us the best in life, and we took them for granted.” Raven clamped his hands around Jr.’s throat.
“We could never let go because we blamed ourselves for their deaths. When actually we were just heartbroken because we never got a chance to say thank you, to say goodbye.”
“Well,” Raven Jr. smiled, “death is only the true beginning. I’m not done with you yet, Raven.”
Liquid fire seared through Raven’s body, forcing him to his knees. Arms stretched wide to his sides, his back arched as a sea of molten fire flared up his spine. It was as if all the heat and warmth Bla’Gar had given Raven, along with the poison from the hounds, flooded him at once, incinerating every nerve. His stomach cramped, pain slicing through his abdomen, spittle flying and saliva drooled out of his mouth while his eyes felt as if they were going to pop at an any moment.
“Till we meet again, my future self,” his own voice echoed in his head as he was consumed by white neon…
Raven’s eyes flew open. Bile rose in his throat, forcing him to sit upright. The world blurred around him, awash in bright light. A loud humming above his head made him cringe. Everything was too bright, and too loud and too fucking much, to the point he wanted to rip his eyes out and stuff his ears with blunt objects. He twisted, the move causing him to crash to the floor and whatever was in his stomach to want to come out of his mouth. He gulped, trying to force his body to not retch. After pulling himself up, he stumbled to stand. Raven slowly spun himself around and blanched at the glare of sunlight reflecting off a steel surface. It looked like a basin. He went for it, already feeling the bile dribbling past his lips. Raven let loose over the edge of the sink, gripping the steel for support as his body emptied itself.
He coughed the last piece of gunk out. His vision was stabilizing, but was still slightly blurred as he stared at the contents in the bowl. He felt like he was going to fucking puke again. And although what he saw should make want to piss and shit himself, it didn’t.
Food? No. Wine, no, it was too thick to be wine. Blood.
He dry-heaved this time, saliva dribbling in strings from his mouth, and forced himself to take a deep breath. He gazed up at the tinted window before him, thankful they kept the sunlight out which, he could only assume, would have been bloody murder to his eyes.
He turned, spying the room, the cursed fluorescent lights humming above him still. Where the bloody hell—Hospital?
Raven anchored himself when he saw the examination table, a white sheet tangled around one of its legs. He’d been inside this room on far too many occasions to mistake it for a hospital. Blankness was too weak a word to describe his state of mind.
Slowly he lowered his gaze down his body.
Jesus, talk about Snow-fucking-White!
Raven wasn’t concerned that he was naked, clearly he had died and turned into a ghost, surely that was what it was. Until he spotted his pubes, they were fucking silver! Knowing where the mirror was, he shuffled over to it.
He gaped and stared at the deathly white stranger wearing his face, platinum—or was that silver— hair and eyebrows and his eyes… Irises of pure white, glimmering with streaks of silver, staring back at him. His sclera was a dark shade of gray, freaking him the fuck out. His skin stretched tightly, he could see it mapping the veins on his chest, arms and legs—he looked dehydrated.
He rubbed his white hands over his face, trying desperately to see if the stuff might come off. His fingers brushed over his lips, pulling them back, the sight freezing him. Well, these are new—he stroked his digit over the thick porcelain looking fangs. Okay, hell, no fucking way... Maybe... Was this someone’s idea of a sick joke?
He knew it couldn’t be a joke, the memories of his death, and the dream he had just woken up from, were too profound an imprint for him to deny. Raven started to heave, his chest constricting, heart pounding weakly, but gratefully still pounding.
He rubbed at his face angrily. Tearing at his hair, chest, and shoulders until he thought he had ripped the membrane right off, yet every time he peered back into the mirror the image remained.
The approach of voices and footsteps advancing towards the room made him panic. He turned, saw the white sheet—he couldn’t let anyone see him like this. He snatched the edge of the sheet, didn’t think when he went for the window, pushed it open and jumped out.
Well fuck, he thought when he met the snow face first. Now you have gone and done it. First rule of being a vampire, shit head! Stay clear of sunlight...and what do you do, bloody jump right out into
the big world of bright sun. Raven waited for it, to burst into flames and be labeled the stupidest vampire the world had ever seen. Only nothing happened. Raven perked up, snow sticking to his cheek, and planted his naked ass in the soft stuff, feeling it bite icily into his crack, dumbfounded. He peeked up at the sun again, waiting, almost wanting it to send him up in flames. There was just one person who could explain it. One person he could trust to reveal what he had become. But first he needed clothes. Thankfully, Lady Luck was on his side, there was a large extreme sports clothing store down the road, and with the snow so thick the day before Christmas, it meant there wouldn’t be many, if any, people about.
Raven kept off the main road, avoiding the public throughways as much as possible. Just because there might not have been anyone about didn’t mean he wanted to chance being seen. The store was closed, in desperation Raven had ripped out the power cables, not that it would do much for the alarm, but it was worth a try. He climbed through a window at the back of the building, landing hard on the cement floor of the mechanic shop that was part of the store. He contemplated maybe even taking one of the Harleys as a ride. He was breaking and entering, stealing, but his situation was desperate. So why the bloody hell not? He would more than pay them back. The moment he had broken open the lock on the door, leading into the clothing part of the store, all hell descended on his ears. To worsen matters, something was wrong with his stomach. It kept sending sharp spikes of pains and cramps through his abdomen. He was beginning to feel tired, and a burning in his veins, slowly but surely, made its presence known. He knew what it was, waited for it to come and feared it.
Hunger.
Of all the danger to vampires, the hunger was a necessary one. He’d heard stories of vampires starving, turning them into blood lust slaughterers, and eventually they had to be put down. He squirreled quickly through the store, grabbed a pair of jeans, some biker boots and a jacket. He didn’t have time to find a shirt and retreated back to the mechanic shop, snatching a helmet along the way. Raven contemplated on leaving a note, but the hunger was boiling inside him.
Neon White Season One: A Tooth, Claw and Horns Chronicle Page 13