The Empty World | The Empty World Sequence [complete | rewriting]

Thirteen

Joy was slowing her heart so that she didn't need very much blood.

One day, Joy collapsed. Mazaret shook her. "Her heart's stopped completely!" she screamed.

"She needs blood," said Mother.

Morpheus was surprised when Mazaret reached back and sliced her own wrist on her talon. She forced her wrist into Joy's mouth. "Old Friend," she called her, "I need you here Old Friend." As the blood trickled down into Joy's insides, her heart began beating.

"Oh, Mazzy, you gave me your blood?" Joy said.

"Don't worry about me, I'm far from satisfied, but I'm healthy. We've got a lot of Angels good at baffling Human machines."

Mother went out and told the others what had happened, calmly, very simply, and then she went back into the room she shared with Joy, Mazaret, and Morpheus. Mother had known exactly what she was doing, she was gaining added loyalty toward Joy: the good mother.

They were, both, good mothers.

Maya came to them. It had always been difficult for her to come over, and so she had lived her life with other Angels, but she knew that her mother and brother needed her help, badly, so she came. She would go out into the then crowded tunnels and throw her dust into the air and project illusion onto it. She did not try to convince anyone their world was perfect, she only showed them pretty things: night skies, sunsets, flowers.

Absinthe and Laudanum arrived soon after, bringing many warm blankets as a gift from Sleep, and seeds that would grow in the damp sunless earth from Dream. Morpheus and Spider went out and stole a large monitor, media console, and a diesel generator, while some other Halfangels were sent out for the gas. It wasn't much, but it was a distraction from pain, they watched Pinocchio, and Nightbreed, and every Tim Burton film there was, all over and over. They watched anime and old cartoons with mindless plots.

Except for the Vampyres, everyone there could have children, and many children were there, young children that had never heard anyone say, "If it weren't for those meddling kids and their dog!" It kept the children from crying that they were hungry, or that they wanted to go outside, if they could watch primitive animated characters run past the same background over and over while jangly music played. And, when most of the children were fitfully sleeping, they watched Twin Peaks, or The X-files, or shows about superheroes.

Joy and Sarah would get along every so often if Interview With The Vampyre was played, and sit side by side in front of the TV saying, "This part sucks, now this part is OK, but this part isn't like the book at all." River would just twitch. And then, the original Nosferatu would play, and they would both sit mute the entire time.

Everybody loved Freaks.

And then one year, when things were their worst, and all the children wanted to go up and dance with the humans in the streets, a savior came to them. Mazaret came down, without food, but instead brought two Vampyres, well dressed and full of blood. Morpheus recognized them immediately. In fact his head swam at the sight of them. There was Julien! And who should he casually walk in with? It was Shade.

It seemed Shade knew Mazaret, if he knew she had gotten that cloak from him he knew her. But, it also became quite obvious that, though Shade had become legend to all those in Nede, in fact all Vampyres and Halfangels everywhere, he did not himself feel he knew them. He looked about him, knowing the names of what they were, but marveling that they all still existed, anywhere. Julien looked jaded, but that was just because he'd found all strange things quite believable, since getting the blood.