A Vampire's Rotten Heart

The King of the Hive

    A soft voice came from the other side of the door. "Come on in, y'all."

Everyone else's accents were unidentifiable, but his was clear from the start. He used to be a man. A Shifan man.

I couldn't help but wonder what his life was like before this. He certainly wasn't a nobleman from that eastern drawl.

    I swallowed some spit and stood up. I walked to the door, and not much could prepare me for what was on the other side.

    There was a man nearly the size of a house, situated inside a room that was too low for him to stand up in. Don't get me wrong, the room was huge, but not huge enough.

    He had two pairs of wings behind him, and he wore a crown that looked like horns jutting from his skin.

    Outstretched in front of him was an empty dining hall. A larger-than life statue of a hog laid in each corner.

    I looked up at the man. Bhale... I was as tall as one of his teeth! If he wanted to, he could swallow me whole without a second thought.

    "Good lord, what happened to you?"

    He leaned his massive body towards the supervisor and his ripped apart limbs.

    "Oh goodness!" The supervisor didn't lift up from his bow. "That's not what we're here for! Pay no attention to me, your majesty!"

    "Tell me."

    "It's really not a big deal! I can still do my job just fine!"

    "Obey my orders, you fuck."

    The supervisor's entire body scrunched up. "I uh... I was captured and dissected. That's all."

    "You let them know about us?"

    "...Yes. But! They made a big deal out of me being the only one! And it was in a kitschy museum, not a scientific institution."

    "Well isn't that splendid!" The king gritted his teeth and placed a single finger on the supervisor's back. He began to crush him.

    "Please! No! I can make it up to you! I'll do anything you want!"

    "You know how little that promise holds when you've been doing just that your entire life."

    The king withdrew his finger.

    "I have a headache. No thanks to you, of course. We'll discuss whatever it is you want over dinner. And it better be important."

    He looked at me and narrowed his eyes. A chill went down my back.

    "Get the trinket out of those rags and make him presentable. Come back at six."

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    "Oh goodness! Oh goodness! I've never done anything like this before!"

"You're just cutting my hair."

"I've never been asked to go outside my rank before!"

"My mom cuts my hair. And we're poor as hell."

"But she wasn't cutting the hair of a prince!"