Acula

by Robert D. Armstrong

  The air was cool and moist, and a slight breeze kissed my skin from the south. Above me, I could see every star; there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I could still hear Zella’s distant cries for help, so I moved even further away. After an hour, I stopped on a dime. The goats—I could now see them in distance.

  “I must get Father…” I said, then suddenly, I collapsed.

  Pain dropped me to my knees as I held my stomach. I rolled over on my back, looking into the stars. “Please…t-tell me what do,” I whispered. I didn’t know who I speaking to, but I felt helpless.

  “You must feed…” a haunting voice called out. It sounded like the wind, howling through the trees. “You have fought it long enough,” it said.

  I turned over, looking up at the goats. They were unaware of my presence. I tore at the dirt beneath my hands, but not with dull fingernails. No, true claws began to grow from my fingers. The red glow from my eyes illuminated the ground beneath me.

  Dirt flung into the air as I exploded towards the goats, the motion so fast that they barely had time to react. I cinched a young white goat around the throat with my fangs, slinging my weight around behind it and breaking its neck instantly. The motion felt natural, instinctive.

  The voice began to chant as I stabbed through fur and flesh with my teeth. Warm blood gushed into my mouth. I closed my eyes, relishing the sweet taste. It was like honey, but addictive. With every drop I pulled from its neck, I wanted more. I drained it dry, watching the skin around the goat’s eyes sink in until there was nothing left but bones and fur. I panned around for the others, lurking through the brush like a stalking panther.

  I could see them up ahead, but now they had scattered into groups of three or four. They appeared cautious; their ears twitched as their heads swiveled back and forth. Maybe they hadn’t seen me, but blood was in the air. I kept behind a black one hiding in a bush, and at the right moment, I sprung into the air to land on top of it. My lunge missed, though, and they all scattered across the plains.

  “Uh, why…what have I done?” I muttered, feeling as if I was coming out of a trance. “Not only have I disobeyed Father’s wishes, but I killed one of our livestock.” I looked down. My chest was covered with blood.

  I sulked back to the village, barely making it before the dawn. I thought about how I would explain this to Father. There was no energy left in me, not even enough to change out of my soiled clothing. When I found my bed far from the window, I lay down and fell asleep almost instantly.

  ***

  “Acula!!” Father said, shaking me.

  “Wha…What?”

  “Wake up!”

  “Why? What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Where have you been all night?” Father asked, squeezing my shoulders together tightly. He looked me up and down, drawing my attention back to the blood all over me.

  “Acula, tell me.”

  “Yes…Father, I killed—”

  “Oh gods! Don’t even say it, please,” Father interrupted, putting his finger over my mouth and looking around suspiciously. I could hear someone crying.

  “I’ll pay for the goat, Father. I didn’t want to, but—”

  “Goat?! Acula, your Aunt Zella has been murdered, drained dry. She’s nothing but bones!” Father said with wide eyes. He relinquished his grip on me and went to put on his helmet. He was furious—that much I could tell from the view of his eyes afforded to me through the slits in his helmet—but he moved with measured steps, still in control of himself.

  “Please don’t tell me that! No, no, no!” I yelled out.

  “Shhhh! Acula. Tell me you…didn’t?” Father asked, leading me to a question he could not bear to ask.

  “Of course not. No, I love Aunt Zella, you know it!”

  “Get up. Now!” Father said, tossing the blanket over me.

  “What should we do?!”

  “We have to leave, Acula. Icar will take no doubt see this as a bad omen. Since we’ve arrived, all the livestock are gone and his wife is dead. We can sneak out the back,” Father said.

  “Preturias!” Icar called out. Father froze, signaling me to hurry downstairs.

  “Preturias and Acula!” Icar yelled. I heard him break down in tears right afterwards.

  “Out the back, come on!” Father gestured, glancing out the window. We exited out the back door. Father held my wrist as he peered around the corner. “Wait for it…okay…wait…Now. Let’s go,” he said, pulling me outside.

  When he yanked my wrist, part of the blanket slipped off my head. Where the light touched me, my skin went up in flames. “AAAARGGGHHHHHHHH!” I cried out.

  Father turned around sharply. “Nooooooo, oh no, Acula, I’m sorry,” he said as I covered my face.

  “I’m okay, I-I’ll be okay.”

  “Over there!” I heard my cousin yell. We looked up and saw that he was pointing from his upstairs window. “They’re running away!” he yelled.

  “Get them! Get them, don’t let them leave!” Icar yelled.

  Father and I ran as fast as we could, but I struggled to keep the blanket on me. The faster I moved, the more it shifted around my body, exposing my skin. Father saw what was happening and he tried to pick me up and carry me.

  I was too heavy; we fell to the ground together. We stood up, but as I looked back, I saw several men were chasing us.

  One of them had a bow. He fired right past my head.

  “Don’t kill them. You kill them and I’ll have your head, just slow them!” my uncle yelled.

  We ran for several more paces, but then Father was struck in the leg. “Ahhhhh! Arggh!” He lurched to the ground to favor his injured leg, and I slowed with him, unable to move without the blanket falling. “Go!” Father yelled.

  “Father, the light…I cannot!”

  “Don’t you take another step!” Icar yelled.

  “We yield!” I said. I kneeled down, tending to Father’s wound. “Uncle, please, we yield!”

  I was so concerned with Father initially that I didn’t notice my own leg was exposed, smoking in the sunlight. Then I felt it, the fire creeping through my skin and muscle like rot through a grain silo. “Arrrrrrrrrr!”

  “By the gods! The sunlight from Apollo scorches his very skin!” shouted a man standing by my uncle. He was armed with a bow; was he the one who skewered my father’s calf? “Do you men see this? Hades has sent him!”

  The group approached us. I could feel my fangs growing in my gums. I spun around and lunged at the archer. I bit his arm, tearing the flesh from the bone as he screamed, “Get it off me!”

  “Acula!” my uncle yelled. I let him go, looking back at Icar. He had a sword to Father’s neck. Suddenly, I felt a tremendous impact over the head, then several more on my back and shoulders.

  “Icar, brother! Please! Don’t, it wasn’t him, it was me!” Father pleaded.

  “Preturias, my brother? You killed Zella? Where are your teeth? Your skin allies with the sun, agrees with Apollo’s purifying light. Your son is nothing more than a child from the underworld, my brother, that we must cleanse—” Icar looked as if he had more to say, but broke down into tears. He put his hands over his face, mumbling. “Acula, whyyy? Of all people…she loved you like her own son! She prayed for you!”

  “No, no, no, I swear it, Uncle, it wasn’t me!” I said.

  “Lies! Hades’ spawn! Zella has two holes on her neck—you have fangs! You have blood all over you!” Icar yelled.

  “It was the goat, Uncle, I-I bit—”

  “Bind them! I’ll hear no more of it!” Icar yelled. They tied our hands with leather straps. Then the men dragged us through the field back to the village. A crowd began to gather in the street. Some of them were distant cousins or people I had known since I was a child.

  Icar pulled me upright by my hair; his sadness had turned into anger. “You!” He and two other men tied me to a fencepost with a long leather strap, then pulled the blanket completely off me.

  “No, brother! Just let us leave,
we’ll never return!” Father pleaded.

  “Arrrrahhhhhh!” I yelled as the sun penetrated my skin. I began to shake as the fire ignited. My hair caught on fire, and my skin botched up and boiled.

  “Pleeeeeeease!!” Father called out, weeping, tugging at Icar’s garments, bowing before him. He groveled on both knees despite his wounded leg. I knew I was going to die. But then, a calming voice spoke to my mind.

  “Here, I’m right here,” the haunting voice called out inside my head. Everything began to slow down as I panned for the source of the voice that had haunted me for days. It felt close this time.

  I could only hear the voice and Father’s weeping; everything else was muted now. The pain stopped. I glanced across the small crowd that had gathered. Then I noticed a strange man in a hooded purple cloak in the back.

  He was smiling at me as I burned. I saw his huge fangs, his pale skin, his cold blue eyes.

  It was him. The monster responsible for everything. The monster who did this to me.

  “You had to know it was me…it always was, the voices in your head.” He spoke to me with saying a word. He nodded his head as my eyes met his.

  “How can this be—?”

  “Ask me for help, my child. I cannot hold your pain back much longer.”

  “Noooo!” I yelled.

  I would rather die than ask for his help, but the pain was too much. I couldn’t take the thought of burning anymore. I felt powerless. Then, the pain returned. My mouth began to burn as fire spewed from it. It felt like the sun was turning me inside out, tearing me apart.

  “…yes! Oh, please, just stop it!” I said to him. The monster disappeared, and then I heard a loud snarl and screaming. Then, nothing but blackness…

  Chapter 5

  Darkness

  I woke up to the sound of liquid dripping on the ground, then a warm sensation splashing on my lips. I instinctively opened my mouth. Blood. Not like the goat’s, no; this was much sweeter.

  “Aaaaahhhh. More….” I pleaded. I tried to open my eyes, but I couldn’t see. “W-Why can’t I see? What’s happened, Father?” I asked, confused.

  “Your eyes are seared. Give it a moment. This will make you right as night.” The voice. It was the monster, not my father. His voice sounded more calm than I remembered.

  I jumped back away from him, feeling around in the darkness. “Stay away! Get away from me!”

  Then I realized that what had happened was real. It was no dream. I thought about Father. I wondered what Icar had done to him.

  “You didn’t hurt my father…did you?” I asked cautiously. I heard him snicker as my vision began to clear. I was looking up at a severed head; blood from the neck was slowly dripping into my mouth. Bits of ragged bloody flesh hung from the main mass of the head, and I could see clearly up into the open throat and broken spine of whoever’s blood I was unwittingly drinking.

  “Oh! Gods!” I pulled away as the blood dripped to the ground. The monster quickly turned it upside down, saving it.

  “So worried, are you? Hahaha!” When his laughter died, he turned the head up above him, draining it.

  “Let me see!” I demanded. He stopped drinking. He slowly extended the head towards me in his lap, smiling as my fear and anxiety rose. “Ahhhhh!” It was a boy from the village I vaguely recognized. Best I could remember, he was an orphan. Was.

  “Monster!” I yelled.

  He stopped drinking the blood and fixed me with a stare. He smirked, nodding his head. He raised a single eyebrow. “Go ahead, admit it. You’re glad it isn’t your father or someone you knew. You would rather a young boy lose his life over a man that has lived a full one?” he asked.

  I ignored him. Admittedly, I preferred it was the boy over Father.

  I looked around. I had no idea where we were; it didn’t seem near the village. The night had fallen. We were underneath a large, dead tree on a hill. I looked up at it; a flock of crows had filled its branches, and they were staring down at us with interest. They were completely silent, barely moving.

  I stared at the monster. His appearance was exactly the same as it had been in the camp. The only difference I noticed was his bald head had slight indentations in it, small craters that were highlighted when he turned his head in the moonlight. His eyes glowed red as he elevated the boy’s head above him, drinking the last bit of his blood.

  I looked down at my arms. On my left arm, I could see straight through it, only bone and ligaments in places. I clenched my fist, then opened it, watching the tendons move back and forth. Muscle and tendons began to magically fill the gaps as I looked on in horror. “Uhhhh, noooooo.”

  “You should have seen the rest of you. Imagine a skeleton, with a few bits of flesh about it. Then you’ll get a better idea.” The monster smirked. His fangs appeared green and black in color. I wondered about the souls he had taken in his time.

  I also noticed I was staring at the severed head.

  “More?” he asked. He offered the head as if extending a melon to share. “The more you drink, the faster you’ll heal.”

  “…no!” I replied. Then it hit me—Aunt Zella.

  “You killed her…Y-You killed her while she was sleeping, didn’t you?” I asked.

  He paused, nodding his head in agreement.

  “Ahhh, that. I did what you were too weak to do. Hadn’t your aunt suffered enough? Did she not ask you to aid her?” he asked, shrugging his shoulders.

  I lunged at him, grasping desperately for his throat. My claws were out on purpose this time. “You!” I said, grasping him around the neck. He began to laugh loudly as the crows above erupted in a call that sounded as if they were mocking me.

  I pinned him against the ground, attempting to choke him. “Please, please stop, Acula, I can’t breathe!” he said, feigning fear before his features shifted into a callous sneer of scorn. He laughed—cackled—with delight at my meager show of force. “Hahahahaha, ohhh, child.”

  He pressed me off of him with one finger, breaking my grip.

  “First of all, you’re not much stronger than one of them at this stage,” he said. “Heal first before you try that.”

  “What do you want?! Why did you do this to me? Why me?” I yelled.

  “Shhhh. In time you will know. For now, we must move. Keep in mind, if you try and flee—I’ll kill everyone in your village,” he explained. His words gave me hope that Father might be alive.

  He began walking to the northeast, gesturing me towards him. I had no choice. After feeling his strength, I couldn’t risk trying to escape. Even if I did, what if he delivered on his promise? I couldn’t stop him. Not now.

  So I followed him. We walked for an hour without a word between us. We climbed high into the mountain, so high above the plains of my home that snow soon blanketed the rocks we clambered upon. I could see the breath in front of my face, but I wasn’t cold.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “Home,” he said.

  “Where’s home?” I asked. He didn’t respond, but something stopped him in his tracks. He gestured me towards him. He ducked down low, staring into a valley of trees between the snowcapped mountains.

  “You see it?” he asked.

  “No, what?” I replied.

  “There, in the distance. Five wolves chasing a stag. That stag, he’s tired of running,” he said, turning towards me. His red eyes widened. “Look,” he said slowly.

  “I am looking. I-I don’t see,” I said.

  “Remember when you jumped up in the tree in front of your father? Somehow you understood how to abandon your limits. The same is true with your senses. Look harder. Breathe the night air in, cycle it through you,” he explained.

  He had seen my life through my eyes somehow. I wanted to sever his connection to me, but I needed to learn more about these dark powers. I played along.

  I breathed in the air slowly and deeply. First, sounds of hooves trudging through the snow chimed in slowly. Then I could hear growling and the stag’
s panting. I could hear his heartbeat under panic, pulsing quickly. I could hear its lungs wincing for air. Admittedly, the stag’s fear excited me.

  “Good, now open your eyes, your true eyes. Imagine those trees out there beyond you. Think of what is on the other side,” he said. When he said it, my vision began to skip forward to an angle I normally wouldn’t have seen. It was behind the line of trees.

  “How is this—? I’m…I’m seeing behind the forest?” I said.

  “Your connection to the night is no different than my connection to you. We are reborn of the night. What the night sees, so can you,” he explained.

  “So I can see everything?” I asked.

  “Limitations depend on you,” he said.

  The man refocused his attention on the distant chase between the wolves and their prey.

  “You hear it? The stag?” he asked.

  “Yes…” I replied.

  “The wolves are wearing him down. The stag is beginning to realize it’s over; their breathing changes when they start to give up. The wolves hear it too; it excites them, drives them forward. They enjoy the hunt, the kill,” he said.

  “They kill for food, they are animals,” I replied.

  “Hmm. Men kill. Has your father ever killed?” he asked.

  “I…once that I know of, but the man he killed was treasonous,” I replied.

  “Ahhh, this is justified, then? He must be a monster if not,” he said in a musing tone.

  “Yes, treason is punishable by death.”

  “Ah yes of course. So, the wolves…this is justified?” He asked.

  “It is their nature—”

  “How am I different?” the man asked. “I have teeth and hunt at night, I am a monster, but wolf is not? Hmm?” I thought about it for a moment, watching the wolves pull down the stag down in the snow, tearing into its flesh. I began to salivate as I watched their mouths bloody.

  “Come on,” he said with a wave of the hand before moving quickly towards the wolves. We walked right up to the stag carcass as about twenty more wolves approached. Blood soaked the white landscape. It was a feeding frenzy. The sound of bones crunching, flesh being torn and ripped filled the air. Somehow the carnage made me feel relaxed. It was like listening to birds chirping in the sunlight before my change. This was my new harmony.