A Terror Nocturne [original]
Posted: 2007-03-03 11:06pm
This is what happens when you mix a stressful week, an urge to write, a heavy dose of animistic thinking, a handy computer, and lots of heavy metal.
C&C are appreciated. Enjoy.
A Terror Nocturne
by Feil
What's this, hmm? What do we see? What is a young woman doing walking down a street like this as this time of night? The city is dangerous at night, particularly for a pretty girl. Purse carried under her arm, too. Not good. Not good at all.
Ach! We feel our insides lurch as we sense the malevolent hunting emotion emanating from the alleyway. So powerful—there are many of them, we can tell. We begin to focus, but we know we will be too late. Still, we cannot but try.
Damn! Damn it all, we will be too late. Here comes a man—two, no—five. The bloody red mind-glimmer of weapons leaks from them. They are smiling. It is an ugly thing.
They don't even stop to speak, though they growl softly. We can't feel her, though. Her fear must be covered by their hunger. We hasten closer, beginning to knit ourselves together.
One of them reaches out, grabbing her by the shoulder and yanking her forward. She brings her arms up desperately, opens her mouth to scream, and—
---
Ah, the night! The night is a time for hunting, a time for blood. These fools know that much, aye, they know't. But ah! I know it better than they!
I feel his breath on my face for a moment as he tugs me towards himself. I bend into the motion, plant a foot on his instep, and strike out and upwards with my hands, catching him under the chin with devastating force.
Ah, the hunt!
I feel the subtle crunch under my hands, the tearing sensation under my foot as his body is subjected to the opposite forces of hands and foot. A spatter of blood and spittle flecks my face as his hungry growl turns into a death rattle.
The scent of blood is on the air!
I smile, smile wide, wide wide, crinkling my eyes into narrow slits, displaying thin, sharp short fangs between my red painted lips. I sink into a crouch, step forward with the foot that had torn his ankle while keeping my hands grasped around his broken neck; I push and pivot and the dying body goes airborne. I let myself be taken up with it, rotate as I fly.
The wings of death are open, the song of doom is loud, the dance macabre startest; the time to kill is now!
One has reached into his jacket for a weapon. I hit him with legs splayed, catch his head between my legs and fall with him to the ground. The pavement scrapes my knees and legs as I land, but the pain is nothing. I smile down at him, raise my hands, and slash them down, thumbs outstretched. When I draw my hands up again, his eyes are gone, and there is a spreading pool of blood on the ground; the base of his skull has cracked against the hard blacktop.
Blood. Blood, bloood BLOOD!
I feel the blow coming, and bend under it, still kneeling over the twitching corpse; a knife swipes through the air over my head. I whip up one arm, and the blade sinks through my forearm between the radius and ulna. I twist and yank, and he loses his grip. I draw the weapon out of my flesh as I roll forward and up into a crouch. Blood from the rapidly-closing wound leaks out over my arm as I grin at the three survivors. One has a pistol out; I lunge towards him, knife flashing at his throat as I knock the barrel out of line with my body with the other hand. He falls back in a spray of blood. I complete the turn and release the knife; it buries itself through the solar plexus of another.
The hunt is nearly at the climax!
One has turned to flee. I jab a crooked finger at him, and a line of invisible force catches him around the neck; caught off balance, he falls. A diving forward role inflicts more scrapes on my forearms and shoulders, but places me at his side. I catch his flailing arms with my hands and roll over onto his heaving chest. I can feel his panic flowing through the body under mine as I press close my body to his. I can taste the fear in his breath, smell the horror in his sweat. I notice with delight the little trickle of blood running from one nostril.
I bat my eyes at him, run my tongue slowly along my lips. His eyes are wide, wide wide as I open my mouth, reveal the fangs therein, and sink them into his—
---
Vampire. How could we have missed it? No matter; we have a duty, we do. Almost come corporeal now, almost to the scene. We had meant to save her, but now we know better, we know we must destroy her. It is our duty, the law of the city, the demand of the great gestalt soul of the place, the horrified cry of the stones and the pavement and the air.
We are sad that it has come to this. Fey against fey, huntress against watchers. But such is the way, so it has always been, so it shall be, e'en in this world of man, e'en with our weaker brothers driven into hiding by the relentless march of 'progress', driven into their trees and their stones and their winds. We have always opposed the vampire, just as they have always hunted Man.
Such is the will of the God that Failed.
And so we take our final shape and dive silent-shrieking to mete out final justice upon this feeding stalker of the night. Without remorse, without pity, without—
---
DANGER!
The song of blood is loud in my ears, the heady power flows from my belly through every inch of me. But over all comes the sudden shriek of warning. I whirl, mouth still crimson with spilt blood; anticipating battle, I draw power from the air, from the blood within me, and from the lingering souls of the slain.
In a half moment of awful clarity, I see it—the glowing white ghost shape swooping from above, tatter-feathered wings tucked tight against a body with a thousand mouths and a thousand faces. Long shredded sheets and ribbons of purest white spill out behind its two meter tall manlike body, and its silent scream precedes it as it falls.
I have only time enough to throw up my arms before me when the city spirit strikes. I am knocked to the ground, bent back over the fallen body of my latest meal. As we grapple, my blood-fed strength against their multitudinous mights-of-will, it bends its many-face towards my blood washed visage.
“<<<DIE, VAMPIRE>>>” it rasps in a thousand voices. “<<<IN THE NAME OF GOD, DIE!>>>”
Even as I feel the life force seeping out of me under the burning light of its will, I smile and reach out with my mind.
“You first,” I gasp—and then the report of a firearm cracks through the night.
The many-soul distorts and flutters, and I throw it off of me. Standing some meters away is the eyeless corpse of my second victim, a pistol in its hand.
The spirit pulls itself to its feet, healing the wound torn through its spirit-form with a rippling of fabric threads; light trickles from the gash like mortal blood.
I lick my lips, feeling the warm rush of victim blood on my tongue as the other four ghouls rise from the various positions of their demise.
Gunfire sounds again, clattering from two pistols in the darkness of the night. The many-soul shifts this way and that, avoiding most of the bullets, though some tear through its wings, rip long trails of glowing agony through its body. The ghouls will not last long—but they don't mind.
They're already dead.
A shiver runs up and down the length of me as I draw power to myself, metabolize more of the victim blood, drink in the fears and terrors of the city's inhabitants. Across the city block, dreams turn to nightmares, children wake screaming from their sleep, dogs whimper, cats hiss at shadows.
A rictus grin spreads across my bloodstained face, even as the many-soul lashes out at one of my victims with a hand of purest light, obliterating it in an explosion of gore. Even as it strikes, it focuses its tremendous will on two others, causing them to burst into flames.
I extend an arm, and the already bloodied knife I had used moments before flies to my hand.
It is still coated in the blood of my prey, and in my own blood.
It is coated in the substance of my power.
As the last of the ghouls meets its final demise, I leap.
The spirit turns towards me. The knife tears a long swath of red-black in the air; in the corners of the alleyway, shadows squirm. Nearby lights flicker out, bathing the blood washed alley in purest blackness broken only by the self-light of the spirit that opposes me.
The spirit spins in a swirl of feathers and tattered cloth, and long talons form on one outstretched hand. They catch at the blade as I drive it forward; a dark sunburst flashes from the point of impact. Overhead, thunder rolls without lightning from the rainless sky.
I can feel its fear.
It strikes at me with its other hand, talons leaving trails of shimmering brilliance in the darkening air. I fade backwards, keeping my eyes fixed on its face. My eyes have lost their soft brown color, have turned carmine-red and gleaming.
The sound of distant flies fills the alley with buzzing.
We exchange blows, the many-soul and I, drawing thunder and lightning from the sky. The alley fills with the stench of ozone and sulfur, the copper stink of blood and gore from the fallen. Light and darkness flash. The city wails in sympathy, rousing from dreams to terrible to countenance, feeling horrors lurking in the corners, tearing at the bedclothes, drenched in sweat.
The buzzing has reached a crescendo; the tiny spirits of the bloodstained ground rise flylike from their hiding places. The walls of the alley twist into daemonic faces, howl their hatred from the binding prison of their kiln fired faces; the alley floor ripples with barely repressed bloodlust. Over everything, the stench of blood fills the air.
The many-soul falters.
Through the air, spirits of murdered men spin screaming. Blood drips from empty air, ripples down the walls, coats the alley floor. This place has seen blood, blood, blood, so much, such beautiful blood blood blood, blood the source of all, the origin of life the sign of death the source the source OF POWER!
“You know nothing, spirit! You know naught, servant of Man, follower of an impotent God! This is the face of reality! Can you countenance it? Ah, spirits, thou art a slave! Thou couldst have been mighty—look at you! You are greater than I!”
“<<<WHY...<<<DON'T...<<<YOU...<<<DIE?>>>” it rasps, pain in its myriad voices. Flylike spirits have coated its white surface, staining it black, hiding its inner light. It continues to block my blows, but it is on the defensive.
I slash over its head, my guard too high. Even through the overpowering darkness, it sees its opportunity. With all its remaining strength, it drives its talons forward, deep into my body. Hot pain scorches through me, coldness trickles through my hands and feet, the darkness that fills the alley feels close and oppressive, and—
---
She smiles? We... have... killed her! How can... how can she...
We see the dark-knife slash through the air, sending a swirling cavitation of red-black liquid darkness tumbling in its wake. We see her eyes, glowing red-white through the dark, and the glimmering whiteness of her teeth rimmed by blood red lips.
Then there is only pain and darkness.
I feel my being cut loose, distanced from the many. The darkness is suddenly cold and terrifying. I struggle, fighting with all my might against the irresistible pull of corporeality.
But there is nothing I can do. Nothing, nothing at all. I scream with my one tiny voice against the hateful draw of the city, that edifice of Man, that hateful hive of villainy and decay. I scream, and scream, and scream and scream—and strike something solid.
I am a watcher! I am a guardian! I am an opponent of the night haunters, a foe of the huntresses of the dark, follower of the God that Failed! I am me! I am me! I am me... I am... I am...
I am...
I am brick 401928, kiln fired, color: red, service: wall component.
---
The darkness flutters back, sinking into the blacktop and the stones and the walls. The spirits go quiet, disappearing into the now-still night. The thunder overhead has stilled. Across the city, the nameless horrors fade; lights flicker back on, children quiet, men fall back to sleep.
I stand surrounded by five utterly destroyed corpses, alone in an alley covered with the blood of murder victims and massacred natives, gang warriors and cops, laborers driven to an early grave by their corporate masters.
I drop the now normal knife on the red stained blacktop, clutching at my slashed-open torso to keep my guts inside.
I stagger to a wall, slump against it. The mingled blood of dozens seeps into the back of my shirt, mingles with the blood in my own wounds.
I close my eyes and focus, feel myself begin to fade even as my body starts to knit itself back together. In the distance I can hear the sound of police sirens responding to reports of the gunfire.
When they arrive, I will be gone. Let them puzzle over an alley full of five corpses and a thousand gallons of wet crimson blood. I will have vanished, for a time.
Vanished into the night.
C&C are appreciated. Enjoy.
A Terror Nocturne
by Feil
What's this, hmm? What do we see? What is a young woman doing walking down a street like this as this time of night? The city is dangerous at night, particularly for a pretty girl. Purse carried under her arm, too. Not good. Not good at all.
Ach! We feel our insides lurch as we sense the malevolent hunting emotion emanating from the alleyway. So powerful—there are many of them, we can tell. We begin to focus, but we know we will be too late. Still, we cannot but try.
Damn! Damn it all, we will be too late. Here comes a man—two, no—five. The bloody red mind-glimmer of weapons leaks from them. They are smiling. It is an ugly thing.
They don't even stop to speak, though they growl softly. We can't feel her, though. Her fear must be covered by their hunger. We hasten closer, beginning to knit ourselves together.
One of them reaches out, grabbing her by the shoulder and yanking her forward. She brings her arms up desperately, opens her mouth to scream, and—
---
Ah, the night! The night is a time for hunting, a time for blood. These fools know that much, aye, they know't. But ah! I know it better than they!
I feel his breath on my face for a moment as he tugs me towards himself. I bend into the motion, plant a foot on his instep, and strike out and upwards with my hands, catching him under the chin with devastating force.
Ah, the hunt!
I feel the subtle crunch under my hands, the tearing sensation under my foot as his body is subjected to the opposite forces of hands and foot. A spatter of blood and spittle flecks my face as his hungry growl turns into a death rattle.
The scent of blood is on the air!
I smile, smile wide, wide wide, crinkling my eyes into narrow slits, displaying thin, sharp short fangs between my red painted lips. I sink into a crouch, step forward with the foot that had torn his ankle while keeping my hands grasped around his broken neck; I push and pivot and the dying body goes airborne. I let myself be taken up with it, rotate as I fly.
The wings of death are open, the song of doom is loud, the dance macabre startest; the time to kill is now!
One has reached into his jacket for a weapon. I hit him with legs splayed, catch his head between my legs and fall with him to the ground. The pavement scrapes my knees and legs as I land, but the pain is nothing. I smile down at him, raise my hands, and slash them down, thumbs outstretched. When I draw my hands up again, his eyes are gone, and there is a spreading pool of blood on the ground; the base of his skull has cracked against the hard blacktop.
Blood. Blood, bloood BLOOD!
I feel the blow coming, and bend under it, still kneeling over the twitching corpse; a knife swipes through the air over my head. I whip up one arm, and the blade sinks through my forearm between the radius and ulna. I twist and yank, and he loses his grip. I draw the weapon out of my flesh as I roll forward and up into a crouch. Blood from the rapidly-closing wound leaks out over my arm as I grin at the three survivors. One has a pistol out; I lunge towards him, knife flashing at his throat as I knock the barrel out of line with my body with the other hand. He falls back in a spray of blood. I complete the turn and release the knife; it buries itself through the solar plexus of another.
The hunt is nearly at the climax!
One has turned to flee. I jab a crooked finger at him, and a line of invisible force catches him around the neck; caught off balance, he falls. A diving forward role inflicts more scrapes on my forearms and shoulders, but places me at his side. I catch his flailing arms with my hands and roll over onto his heaving chest. I can feel his panic flowing through the body under mine as I press close my body to his. I can taste the fear in his breath, smell the horror in his sweat. I notice with delight the little trickle of blood running from one nostril.
I bat my eyes at him, run my tongue slowly along my lips. His eyes are wide, wide wide as I open my mouth, reveal the fangs therein, and sink them into his—
---
Vampire. How could we have missed it? No matter; we have a duty, we do. Almost come corporeal now, almost to the scene. We had meant to save her, but now we know better, we know we must destroy her. It is our duty, the law of the city, the demand of the great gestalt soul of the place, the horrified cry of the stones and the pavement and the air.
We are sad that it has come to this. Fey against fey, huntress against watchers. But such is the way, so it has always been, so it shall be, e'en in this world of man, e'en with our weaker brothers driven into hiding by the relentless march of 'progress', driven into their trees and their stones and their winds. We have always opposed the vampire, just as they have always hunted Man.
Such is the will of the God that Failed.
And so we take our final shape and dive silent-shrieking to mete out final justice upon this feeding stalker of the night. Without remorse, without pity, without—
---
DANGER!
The song of blood is loud in my ears, the heady power flows from my belly through every inch of me. But over all comes the sudden shriek of warning. I whirl, mouth still crimson with spilt blood; anticipating battle, I draw power from the air, from the blood within me, and from the lingering souls of the slain.
In a half moment of awful clarity, I see it—the glowing white ghost shape swooping from above, tatter-feathered wings tucked tight against a body with a thousand mouths and a thousand faces. Long shredded sheets and ribbons of purest white spill out behind its two meter tall manlike body, and its silent scream precedes it as it falls.
I have only time enough to throw up my arms before me when the city spirit strikes. I am knocked to the ground, bent back over the fallen body of my latest meal. As we grapple, my blood-fed strength against their multitudinous mights-of-will, it bends its many-face towards my blood washed visage.
“<<<DIE, VAMPIRE>>>” it rasps in a thousand voices. “<<<IN THE NAME OF GOD, DIE!>>>”
Even as I feel the life force seeping out of me under the burning light of its will, I smile and reach out with my mind.
“You first,” I gasp—and then the report of a firearm cracks through the night.
The many-soul distorts and flutters, and I throw it off of me. Standing some meters away is the eyeless corpse of my second victim, a pistol in its hand.
The spirit pulls itself to its feet, healing the wound torn through its spirit-form with a rippling of fabric threads; light trickles from the gash like mortal blood.
I lick my lips, feeling the warm rush of victim blood on my tongue as the other four ghouls rise from the various positions of their demise.
Gunfire sounds again, clattering from two pistols in the darkness of the night. The many-soul shifts this way and that, avoiding most of the bullets, though some tear through its wings, rip long trails of glowing agony through its body. The ghouls will not last long—but they don't mind.
They're already dead.
A shiver runs up and down the length of me as I draw power to myself, metabolize more of the victim blood, drink in the fears and terrors of the city's inhabitants. Across the city block, dreams turn to nightmares, children wake screaming from their sleep, dogs whimper, cats hiss at shadows.
A rictus grin spreads across my bloodstained face, even as the many-soul lashes out at one of my victims with a hand of purest light, obliterating it in an explosion of gore. Even as it strikes, it focuses its tremendous will on two others, causing them to burst into flames.
I extend an arm, and the already bloodied knife I had used moments before flies to my hand.
It is still coated in the blood of my prey, and in my own blood.
It is coated in the substance of my power.
As the last of the ghouls meets its final demise, I leap.
The spirit turns towards me. The knife tears a long swath of red-black in the air; in the corners of the alleyway, shadows squirm. Nearby lights flicker out, bathing the blood washed alley in purest blackness broken only by the self-light of the spirit that opposes me.
The spirit spins in a swirl of feathers and tattered cloth, and long talons form on one outstretched hand. They catch at the blade as I drive it forward; a dark sunburst flashes from the point of impact. Overhead, thunder rolls without lightning from the rainless sky.
I can feel its fear.
It strikes at me with its other hand, talons leaving trails of shimmering brilliance in the darkening air. I fade backwards, keeping my eyes fixed on its face. My eyes have lost their soft brown color, have turned carmine-red and gleaming.
The sound of distant flies fills the alley with buzzing.
We exchange blows, the many-soul and I, drawing thunder and lightning from the sky. The alley fills with the stench of ozone and sulfur, the copper stink of blood and gore from the fallen. Light and darkness flash. The city wails in sympathy, rousing from dreams to terrible to countenance, feeling horrors lurking in the corners, tearing at the bedclothes, drenched in sweat.
The buzzing has reached a crescendo; the tiny spirits of the bloodstained ground rise flylike from their hiding places. The walls of the alley twist into daemonic faces, howl their hatred from the binding prison of their kiln fired faces; the alley floor ripples with barely repressed bloodlust. Over everything, the stench of blood fills the air.
The many-soul falters.
Through the air, spirits of murdered men spin screaming. Blood drips from empty air, ripples down the walls, coats the alley floor. This place has seen blood, blood, blood, so much, such beautiful blood blood blood, blood the source of all, the origin of life the sign of death the source the source OF POWER!
“You know nothing, spirit! You know naught, servant of Man, follower of an impotent God! This is the face of reality! Can you countenance it? Ah, spirits, thou art a slave! Thou couldst have been mighty—look at you! You are greater than I!”
“<<<WHY...<<<DON'T...<<<YOU...<<<DIE?>>>” it rasps, pain in its myriad voices. Flylike spirits have coated its white surface, staining it black, hiding its inner light. It continues to block my blows, but it is on the defensive.
I slash over its head, my guard too high. Even through the overpowering darkness, it sees its opportunity. With all its remaining strength, it drives its talons forward, deep into my body. Hot pain scorches through me, coldness trickles through my hands and feet, the darkness that fills the alley feels close and oppressive, and—
---
She smiles? We... have... killed her! How can... how can she...
We see the dark-knife slash through the air, sending a swirling cavitation of red-black liquid darkness tumbling in its wake. We see her eyes, glowing red-white through the dark, and the glimmering whiteness of her teeth rimmed by blood red lips.
Then there is only pain and darkness.
I feel my being cut loose, distanced from the many. The darkness is suddenly cold and terrifying. I struggle, fighting with all my might against the irresistible pull of corporeality.
But there is nothing I can do. Nothing, nothing at all. I scream with my one tiny voice against the hateful draw of the city, that edifice of Man, that hateful hive of villainy and decay. I scream, and scream, and scream and scream—and strike something solid.
I am a watcher! I am a guardian! I am an opponent of the night haunters, a foe of the huntresses of the dark, follower of the God that Failed! I am me! I am me! I am me... I am... I am...
I am...
I am brick 401928, kiln fired, color: red, service: wall component.
---
The darkness flutters back, sinking into the blacktop and the stones and the walls. The spirits go quiet, disappearing into the now-still night. The thunder overhead has stilled. Across the city, the nameless horrors fade; lights flicker back on, children quiet, men fall back to sleep.
I stand surrounded by five utterly destroyed corpses, alone in an alley covered with the blood of murder victims and massacred natives, gang warriors and cops, laborers driven to an early grave by their corporate masters.
I drop the now normal knife on the red stained blacktop, clutching at my slashed-open torso to keep my guts inside.
I stagger to a wall, slump against it. The mingled blood of dozens seeps into the back of my shirt, mingles with the blood in my own wounds.
I close my eyes and focus, feel myself begin to fade even as my body starts to knit itself back together. In the distance I can hear the sound of police sirens responding to reports of the gunfire.
When they arrive, I will be gone. Let them puzzle over an alley full of five corpses and a thousand gallons of wet crimson blood. I will have vanished, for a time.
Vanished into the night.