Post by Raihor on Jan 20, 2009 9:43:26 GMT -5
First off, a friendly warning: Not for the faint of heart. This story is pretty darn nasty. Scenes of horrific violence etc. (Hell, it's not that bad, but still...)
Remember the thread I made entitled 'excerpt from some thingy I'm writing'? Well this is about one of the characters from that story, Shassura. It's kind of a spoiler for that story too, but read it anyway. It gets revealed later, but I probably won't write that bit up for a long while... Here we go.
________
Well, I guess I should start this with the start of myself. Not my birth, or the seventeen years after that… I’m going to start with the beginning of my real self. The self that I have lived with for all these years. Let’s see, let me cast my memory back to that fateful night.
I was probably out too late. For young ladies like me, this would tend to lead to unpleasant things. I was only 17 at the time, so naturally I thought nothing unpleasant would ever happen to me. I mean, it never had before, so why should it now? I was on my way home from a party- I forget the whos and whys of the situation, but it did end much too late. I walked the outskirts of the town. On my right, the white wilderness stretched away for miles, a flat disc of harsh white powder in the dark. To my left, the hunched, squat shapes of the buildings that made up my small village, Little Haven. It was a suitable name, considering it was pretty much the only settlement in the white wilderness, besides those on the outskirts. I still wonder why anybody would choose to live there. I didn’t have a choice of course; I was born there.
I didn’t know it at the time, but that was to be my last night there. I didn’t know it at the time, but I wasn’t alone. A pair of unblinking red eyes looked on hungrily, shrouded in the shadows, out of my sight. I pulled the black fabric of my coat closer to my body, and quickened my pace. I don’t know why, maybe some sort of primal fear of the dark urged me to get home quickly. My mind started acting up; reminding me of the horror stories that I loved to read so much, tempting the panic that clawed at my insides. I heard heavy, crunching footsteps in the sand, and then I was off. My fear got the better of me and I ran, but it did me little good. The next thing I knew was a heavy fist shoving me in the back, almost knocking me down but grabbing me up at the last second, pulling me roughly by the coat. I remember screaming and managing to struggle free, and then running further, not looking behind me. The sound of leathery wings flitted at the edge of my hearing. It landed in front of me, my pursuer. I didn’t know what it was back then, but it still scared the nuts out of me. It looked like a man, but with unnaturally large, sharpened teeth, eyes red as blood and dark, demonic wings sprouting from its shoulder blades. It regarded me with a cruel smile for a moment, before lightly reaching out an arm and shoving me to the floor with as much effort as if I were made from feathers. I landed roughly on my back, and the thing sat itself on the lower half of my body, leaning over me. It dug into the skin on my forehead, just below my hairline, with a sharpened, claw-like finger nail. Blood was drawn. I remember feeling the pain, yet I remained silent, paralysed by fear. It wiped blood off my face and lifted its finger to its mouth, licking it clean. Obvious pleasure crept over its face, and it sat up, before tearing down, ripping the bottom part of my top away, exposing the bare skin of my abdomen to the air. Tears pricking the corners of my eyes, I saw him carefully prepare. And then my world erupted with pain and blood, my vision spinning, clouding and re-clarifying, blurry with tears. He tore at the flesh as if it were paper, soaking me in my own blood. His hands dug deep inside me, and I saw it all. I wasn’t passing out. I wasn’t dying. The quiet comfort of the unconscious kept its distance, leaving me in an existence of endless pain. But I didn’t submit to my violation, not mentally. I was resilient. Why could such a creature have such power over something? Why could I not have such power? I willed him to break me, I willed him to tear me apart, bleed me dry. And I cursed him as the blackness finally crept over my vision like a blanket, shielding the dreadful violation of myself from me.
I didn’t die. That was the worst thing, especially considering the aftermath. I woke up, and the pain was gone. But my belly felt unbearably cold, in places that had never been that cold before. I looked down at myself, and it was horrible. The wound in me was great, and like a deep pit in my abdomen. But it was empty, save for gory remains of my entrails. I knew something was missing, from the basic knowledge of anatomy I have. I wondered if it were possible to survive with no small intestine. But I felt so weak, and so… hungry. Enough blood had spilled from me to fill a bath it seemed, and I needed… nourishment. I staggered to my feet, clutching my enormous wound, for fear of anything else falling out. I think my mind was gone, was not accepting what my senses showed me. I was in a daze. I followed my nose, leaving a trail of blood in my wake, and my nose led me to the village’s small hospital, which was closed at this time of night. In frustration I punched at the window which, to my surprise, shattered under my fist. I looked at it, as if it had a life of its own. Small shards of glass were poking out. As if I hadn’t bled enough already. I crawled through the window, ignoring the cuts that the broken glass gave me, staggering towards the source of my desire.
I found the blood bank. Some sort of instinct kicked in, and I greedily tore at the containers, swallowing up the delicious blood. I felt stronger now, but as much as I drank, I would lose from that great wound. Still operating on instinct, I found my way into one of the hospital rooms. There was a man lying there, in the darkness. He weakly asked if I was the nurse. He told me he thought he was dying. I told him he was right. And then I attacked, smothering his mouth with my hand and biting into his neck with my unnaturally sharp teeth. He died pretty quickly, and I drank the blood from him. It felt amazing, and when I looked down I saw that the wound was gone. It had healed over at a remarkable speed. I could tell that a part of me was still missing. The man who had attacked me earlier, who had made me turn into this, had taken a piece of me away, literally. I calmed down after my little feeding frenzy, and the enormity of my situation hit me. I’d been involved in an attack that should have been fatal, but survived, and gone on to kill a man myself. I had changed. I realised now that I would never be the same again. I found a mirror and looked at myself. My eyes were red as blood and my teeth were sharp fangs. In horror I covered my face with my hands, and saw that the nails were now long and sharp. Tears sprung from my eyes, and this triggered something else: A terrible pain in my shoulders, and the skin tore as my own wings grew out, small, black feathered things, plastered with my blood. I reached back and touched them. I felt them, they were real. I brought my hand back to my face and licked at the blood there. The pain in my shoulders went away, but the wings remained, dripping slightly. I tried to move them, and found I could. I shook them, and the blood flew off, revealing them properly. They made me look like some sort of evil angel with their grey and black feathers. I couldn’t bear it, I ran out. I leapt out of the window, but I didn’t land on the ground. Somehow, I flew. It felt wonderful and terrible at the same time. I squeezed my eyes tight shut and flew away from that place, hoping never to return.
I never did go too far from there in the end. I still live in the white wilderness, in a large empty house on my own, about 10 miles from the village. I’ve grown used to my changed self, and found out a lot of things. One thing I’m pleased about is that I can change back to looking like a human at will, but my incisors still remain sharp, and my skin pale. Over the years I’ve grown to like this look, quite a lot too. I have taught myself many things, and now, from the third floor of my mansion I can observe… anything. Anything I please, with the right runes and enchantments. Nobody in the village knows the old me any more; my parents are long dead. So are my sisters, and their children, and their children’s children. That event that I just wrote about happened well over a hundred years ago. It seems I don’t really age any more now. I must leave this now, the first chapter of my memoirs. I can hear a knocking at my door. It’s probably a fool from the village. That could be a bloody, tasty mistake on their part. A part of me still hopes that one day somebody else will come though. Tomorrow I’ll write about my observations. But for now, this is the end.
________
I'm quite pleased I managed to finish this
Note: This is copywrite under a creative commons license, according to these terms: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/
Remember the thread I made entitled 'excerpt from some thingy I'm writing'? Well this is about one of the characters from that story, Shassura. It's kind of a spoiler for that story too, but read it anyway. It gets revealed later, but I probably won't write that bit up for a long while... Here we go.
________
Well, I guess I should start this with the start of myself. Not my birth, or the seventeen years after that… I’m going to start with the beginning of my real self. The self that I have lived with for all these years. Let’s see, let me cast my memory back to that fateful night.
I was probably out too late. For young ladies like me, this would tend to lead to unpleasant things. I was only 17 at the time, so naturally I thought nothing unpleasant would ever happen to me. I mean, it never had before, so why should it now? I was on my way home from a party- I forget the whos and whys of the situation, but it did end much too late. I walked the outskirts of the town. On my right, the white wilderness stretched away for miles, a flat disc of harsh white powder in the dark. To my left, the hunched, squat shapes of the buildings that made up my small village, Little Haven. It was a suitable name, considering it was pretty much the only settlement in the white wilderness, besides those on the outskirts. I still wonder why anybody would choose to live there. I didn’t have a choice of course; I was born there.
I didn’t know it at the time, but that was to be my last night there. I didn’t know it at the time, but I wasn’t alone. A pair of unblinking red eyes looked on hungrily, shrouded in the shadows, out of my sight. I pulled the black fabric of my coat closer to my body, and quickened my pace. I don’t know why, maybe some sort of primal fear of the dark urged me to get home quickly. My mind started acting up; reminding me of the horror stories that I loved to read so much, tempting the panic that clawed at my insides. I heard heavy, crunching footsteps in the sand, and then I was off. My fear got the better of me and I ran, but it did me little good. The next thing I knew was a heavy fist shoving me in the back, almost knocking me down but grabbing me up at the last second, pulling me roughly by the coat. I remember screaming and managing to struggle free, and then running further, not looking behind me. The sound of leathery wings flitted at the edge of my hearing. It landed in front of me, my pursuer. I didn’t know what it was back then, but it still scared the nuts out of me. It looked like a man, but with unnaturally large, sharpened teeth, eyes red as blood and dark, demonic wings sprouting from its shoulder blades. It regarded me with a cruel smile for a moment, before lightly reaching out an arm and shoving me to the floor with as much effort as if I were made from feathers. I landed roughly on my back, and the thing sat itself on the lower half of my body, leaning over me. It dug into the skin on my forehead, just below my hairline, with a sharpened, claw-like finger nail. Blood was drawn. I remember feeling the pain, yet I remained silent, paralysed by fear. It wiped blood off my face and lifted its finger to its mouth, licking it clean. Obvious pleasure crept over its face, and it sat up, before tearing down, ripping the bottom part of my top away, exposing the bare skin of my abdomen to the air. Tears pricking the corners of my eyes, I saw him carefully prepare. And then my world erupted with pain and blood, my vision spinning, clouding and re-clarifying, blurry with tears. He tore at the flesh as if it were paper, soaking me in my own blood. His hands dug deep inside me, and I saw it all. I wasn’t passing out. I wasn’t dying. The quiet comfort of the unconscious kept its distance, leaving me in an existence of endless pain. But I didn’t submit to my violation, not mentally. I was resilient. Why could such a creature have such power over something? Why could I not have such power? I willed him to break me, I willed him to tear me apart, bleed me dry. And I cursed him as the blackness finally crept over my vision like a blanket, shielding the dreadful violation of myself from me.
I didn’t die. That was the worst thing, especially considering the aftermath. I woke up, and the pain was gone. But my belly felt unbearably cold, in places that had never been that cold before. I looked down at myself, and it was horrible. The wound in me was great, and like a deep pit in my abdomen. But it was empty, save for gory remains of my entrails. I knew something was missing, from the basic knowledge of anatomy I have. I wondered if it were possible to survive with no small intestine. But I felt so weak, and so… hungry. Enough blood had spilled from me to fill a bath it seemed, and I needed… nourishment. I staggered to my feet, clutching my enormous wound, for fear of anything else falling out. I think my mind was gone, was not accepting what my senses showed me. I was in a daze. I followed my nose, leaving a trail of blood in my wake, and my nose led me to the village’s small hospital, which was closed at this time of night. In frustration I punched at the window which, to my surprise, shattered under my fist. I looked at it, as if it had a life of its own. Small shards of glass were poking out. As if I hadn’t bled enough already. I crawled through the window, ignoring the cuts that the broken glass gave me, staggering towards the source of my desire.
I found the blood bank. Some sort of instinct kicked in, and I greedily tore at the containers, swallowing up the delicious blood. I felt stronger now, but as much as I drank, I would lose from that great wound. Still operating on instinct, I found my way into one of the hospital rooms. There was a man lying there, in the darkness. He weakly asked if I was the nurse. He told me he thought he was dying. I told him he was right. And then I attacked, smothering his mouth with my hand and biting into his neck with my unnaturally sharp teeth. He died pretty quickly, and I drank the blood from him. It felt amazing, and when I looked down I saw that the wound was gone. It had healed over at a remarkable speed. I could tell that a part of me was still missing. The man who had attacked me earlier, who had made me turn into this, had taken a piece of me away, literally. I calmed down after my little feeding frenzy, and the enormity of my situation hit me. I’d been involved in an attack that should have been fatal, but survived, and gone on to kill a man myself. I had changed. I realised now that I would never be the same again. I found a mirror and looked at myself. My eyes were red as blood and my teeth were sharp fangs. In horror I covered my face with my hands, and saw that the nails were now long and sharp. Tears sprung from my eyes, and this triggered something else: A terrible pain in my shoulders, and the skin tore as my own wings grew out, small, black feathered things, plastered with my blood. I reached back and touched them. I felt them, they were real. I brought my hand back to my face and licked at the blood there. The pain in my shoulders went away, but the wings remained, dripping slightly. I tried to move them, and found I could. I shook them, and the blood flew off, revealing them properly. They made me look like some sort of evil angel with their grey and black feathers. I couldn’t bear it, I ran out. I leapt out of the window, but I didn’t land on the ground. Somehow, I flew. It felt wonderful and terrible at the same time. I squeezed my eyes tight shut and flew away from that place, hoping never to return.
I never did go too far from there in the end. I still live in the white wilderness, in a large empty house on my own, about 10 miles from the village. I’ve grown used to my changed self, and found out a lot of things. One thing I’m pleased about is that I can change back to looking like a human at will, but my incisors still remain sharp, and my skin pale. Over the years I’ve grown to like this look, quite a lot too. I have taught myself many things, and now, from the third floor of my mansion I can observe… anything. Anything I please, with the right runes and enchantments. Nobody in the village knows the old me any more; my parents are long dead. So are my sisters, and their children, and their children’s children. That event that I just wrote about happened well over a hundred years ago. It seems I don’t really age any more now. I must leave this now, the first chapter of my memoirs. I can hear a knocking at my door. It’s probably a fool from the village. That could be a bloody, tasty mistake on their part. A part of me still hopes that one day somebody else will come though. Tomorrow I’ll write about my observations. But for now, this is the end.
________
I'm quite pleased I managed to finish this
Note: This is copywrite under a creative commons license, according to these terms: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/