Crimson Hunger

Chapter 14

"What is your purpose, Ian?" A hoarse, deep voice echoed.

The place was damp and dark. The moon's silver rays found their way into the cavern and onto the surface of a foul-smelling puddle, making it glitter as if covered in faerie dust. He felt relieved; at least there was light. He heard water drip, but didn't feel it touch him. His feet were cold. He looked down at them and found them bare—his toenails were almost purple and his toes white. His pants were short and his shirt sheer, his hands trembled and his knuckles felt sore.

The pale, hairless beast emerged from the dark, but stayed out of the silver rays. His sunken aqua eyes stared Ian down for an uninterrupted while. He stroked his long, thin chin and said, "You are not even a nip close to achieving your goal. Time is flying and you need that blood," he paused then continued, "You don't want Garrick to kill you again, do you?"

Ian bent his head in indignation. He stared at his feet, his mind blank and his sight disrupted by his dark curls.

"Stay focused," the beast said, "I gave you the gift of a second chance so you can get your revenge, kill your friend and find peace."

"I don't have friends," Ian said, his voice bitter and his gaze still lowered to the ground, "I'm a lone wolf."

"I made a mistake," the beast spoke callously and slowly, "throughout your sorry life, you were distracted from your true purpose and vocation by chasing your cravings—never satisfied, never settling."

Ian turned to walk out of the cavern toward the source of the moon rays, but the beast blocked his way and cupped his chin in his hand like he would a child. Ian looked into his eyes. The blackness surrounding his aqua irises seemed to suck his awareness into a world of emptiness and distress.

"You shall not be distracted this time because this is the only reason you're alive," he said, now running his long, pointed index finger down Ian's throat, he added, "Know, my child, that you shall not find peace until you drink the fluid of life from your rival's throat. Only then will you fulfill your life and pass over to a better place. Don't drink his blood and you shall forever be stuck in darkness, bitterness and bereavement."

***

"If you want them alive, you need to keep them in the warm room," Abo Ayham said to his son. He was an old man with an extremely wrinkled dark face that depicted a lifetime of labor in harsh weathers.

"We won't keep them long; just until we secure a good deal. I know someone looking for wealthy people to abduct," Ayham said.

"Nevertheless, I say you keep them warm and well-fed," Abo Ayham, Ayham's father, said in a stern and concerned voice, "we are not murderers—no matter what. Maybe I am forced to let you go on with your disgusting plan, but I cannot allow a human to die under my watch."

Ayham, a twenty-five-year-old young man from Quneitra, had fled his home in Al-Hajar Al-Aswad—a Syrian city four kilometers south of the center of Damascus in the Darayya District—with his family and his uncle's family as soon as the violence erupted there in 2012. They lost their Taxi car, their three-story building and their little grocery store. He was married to his twenty-year-old cousin, with whom he had two toddlers and an infant. He had a dark, rough complexion and a heart hardened by his ill circumstances and losses.

***

Ian opened his eyes but could not see a thing—he wondered if he'd lost his sight. With both hands tied behind his back, he tried to feel the wall on which his back leaned. It wasn't a wall, but a mass of hay. The ground beneath him was dry and rough, but there were bits of grass. Surprisingly, he wasn't a tad scared or grim... nor was he content. He was indifferent.