I Am A Monster

I Am A Monster : Chapter 9

Chapter 9

We walk among the dead, and I follow Sabrina forward until we finally get to a dead vampire.
"Do you...recognize him?" asks Sabrina.
She turns over the body, and immediately I recognize the man as Major Graham. His eyes are open and glazed, glowing crimson, and he's clearly dead. His face is so pale that I can only assume he was transformed over the last few days. I kneel over him, checking his pulse and looking hard at him.
"I think it was 'bout...six, seven days?" I mutter to myself.
"Since what?"
"Since I was captured," I reply. "This...this was Major Graham. Which means that the transformation takes less than a week. D'you know how long?"
She grips her sword strapped to her side. The color of her eyes seems to grow darker.
"I was captured myself," she admits. "Long ago. I was young, stupid, naive, and cocky. I thought I could single-handedly beat a human army. My parents and boyfriend tried to stop me. They told me I would be killed. I didn't listen. I snuck out during the night and immediately found a human hunting party. I was inexperienced, though, and I hadn't been expecting so many. I was only able to harm and even kill a few before they overcame me. I was locked up for three years. Every time they came in with food, I ate the vampire who was holding it. They learned their lesson quick enough, and installed a slot on my door. I practiced by making a makeshift punching mat, which was a mattress propped up against the wall, and I taught myself my own version of karate. Then I attacked the mattress in wolf form. I practiced different attacks. I grew stronger, tougher...." Her voice trails off. She stares into the distance, and I've never known a leader who has so many emotions hidden under such a hard case. It's like a clam in a clam shell. Whenever it opens, you get an attack at the soft meat inside, and then it snaps shut again and heals its injuries. "I broke out. Three years after I was captured, I killed literally all of the vampires in the castle. I picked them off while they were sleeping. I was quiet, and I had planned it for many nights. I rescued all of the werewolves in the castle, roughly fifty, and since then we've been going around raiding castles, letting the humans go and killing the vampires, adding the werewolves to the pack. They keep the humans for when they're ready to change them, or for hunting parties, and they keep some of the werewolves for food, and some for entertainment."
"That's horrible!"
"Anyway...I met up with my boyfriend and my parents eventually. At least, my mom. My dad had been killed earlier on, while I had been captured. So we started to make our way across the country...." she pauses. Then she says in a whisper, "They found us. My mother was killed. My boyfriend was bitten. I was the only one who got away."
I don't know what to say. Her expression is a mask of pain, anguish, and timelessness.
I get up and stop kneeling on the ground. Instead I look at Sabrina, her dark black hair flowing loose around her shoulders, her jaw set in a determined way, her black eyes hardened. She grips the handle of her sword, and for half a second she stands there like that, her right hand on her left side, gripping the wooden hilt of her sword. Then she suddenly unsheathes the blade; in half a second, her expression changes from pain, determination, and sadness to one of courage. She looks at the blade, glinting silver in the sunlight. Words are etched in the elaborate mahogany hilt studded with jewels: The bearer of thee sword shall be a strong warrior. They shall end the war that is yet to come.
Sabrina's eyes seem shattered. "I am only the messenger," she tells me. "The true bearer of the sword will have the power to end this war."
"What d'you mean?" I ask.
"I brought you here, not because of Graham"--she jabs a finger at the body of Major Graham--"but because I wanted an excuse to talk about the sword. I'm a coward. I could not bring it up quite yet, I needed to compose myself. Then, when...you asked...."
"Let's forget about it."
She nods. "The sword--it's named Black Flame--it's...magic."
"Magic? I know of werewolves and vampires, but magic?"
"The only blade of its kind. When the true bearer holds this sword, it is given a power of darkness so strong that the enemy will be vaporized into ash. If you were in complete darkness, what would you use to light everything up?"
"A fire," I say immediately.
"Exactly," she agrees. "Black Flame--your enemy becomes darkness. The first thing they consciously think is of light--any light. They try to light a fire. They are trapped in their own body, in their own thoughts, but they can still affect themselves. That is the power of the blade. They wish for fire, to end the darkness, and they get it--on themselves. Once it starts, it's impossible to stop."
I shiver and then say,"So, you want me to deliver the sword?"
She looks at me, calculating. Her eyes narrow a tiny bit. She seems to be thinking about something very hard, weighing my trust. Then she seems to make a decision.
"I want to see if you're the bearer."
"So...I use it against something?"
She morphs. Get on my back, she says. I clamber onto her back, and she darts into the forest. Trees fly by; branches whip at my face. The wind blows against my face and makes my hair go flying back like I'm in a shampoo commercial. Finally, Sabrina slows to a stop; we've ended up ten feet away from a deer.
Climb off, she says. I slip off her back and she morphs. She hands me the blade. I sneak up behind the deer. It's strange that it can't hear me, but every sound seems muffled. I doubt it even senses me. I raise the blade over its back.
It stares off into the forest, oblivious to my existence. I bring the blade down and it connects with its back.
The deer makes no sound. The blade grows dark, and the deer is incased in darkness. Me and Sabrina gasp in harmony. Then it bursts into flames--but not normal flames. They're pitch black. They swarm around the deer, and I can see its form, running in circles and panicking, until the flame finally dies down.
The only thing left is a pile of ash.
Sabrina looks straight into my eyes, and I see wonder, amazement, and finality in hers.
"You are the bearer of Black Flame," she says. "You're going to end this war."