No Sleep for the Dead || ONC 2022

T-Minus Five Days and Seventeen Hours

Despite being a Vampire and spending over seventy years around Mysticals, Tej did not believe in magic. It was silly, all that talk about hope; Faeries were nosy pieces of shits, Unicorns were narcissistic jerks and whatever else lurked on the underside of the Human world were certainly not meant for children.

But now, Tej was flying. Not in an aeroplane but soaring through literal air, feeling the wind on his face as it whipped his hair, nipped at his clothes, hissed in his ears. He was flying, several hundred feet above the city of Seattle that resembled the sky lit up by thousand artificial lights.

And just like that, he believed in magic again.

Because this was wild. This was impossible. He was sitting atop a pure white Dragon buzzing with fire underneath his skin and they... were flying.

Tej, dead to his bones, had never felt more alive.

Don't be scared, Aimos' voice rang in his head as the Dragon flew higher and higher until the city grew smaller and smaller and they broke through the black rainclouds and then...

There was light.

Aimos was gliding now, effortlessly, with his wings spread out on either side of him, neck craned low. Here, over the canopy of suffocating clouds, the moon was out. Half of it was bathed in darkness but the half that smiled down on them was bright enough and turned to molten silver as it touched Aimos and honeyed across his skin.

Here, so far away from earth, there was silence.

The wind roared in Tej's ears and Aimos' heart drummed incessantly but there was a peaceful stillness to it that swept over Tej, drowning his senses.

Against his better judgement, he pushed himself upright and stretched out his frail arms parallel to Aimos' strong wings. It felt like swimming, the weightlessness, the cold kisses against his skin. He savoured the wind's touch on him and, in a hunger for more, he gulped in lungsful of air; air his body did not need but air that his soul craved. It was colder than him. It tasted fresh. It smelled of life.

The sob bubbled deep inside his chest, between his ribs. It churned out of nowhere and grew and grew and grew until his chest caved, until it dragged its way upwards, clawing through his throat and tearing its way out of his lips.

Tej doubled over as the first tear slid down his cheek and clenched his teeth to swallow the violent sob.

The angelic voice spoke, laced with concern, Tej?

Tej could not answer. He placed his forehead against the warm skin of the Dragon, closed his eyes, and cried.

He cried because he did not what else to do. He cried because his insides were stuffed with dead organs that left no room for all the emotions seething through him. He cried because the moon was right there, closer than it had ever been, and it was the same moon who had seen him, the Human that he was, almost a century ago and he felt exposed. He cried because he was a monster who did not deserve this peace and light.