previously titled beserk
A young gay witch with deadly powers on the fringe is traveling the U.S. in search of a substitute for suppressing his magic and a way to control his powers. Ezra Pierce was born into a religiously strict family with no one...
"some people are artists, some, themselves, are art." w o r d c o u nt : 1,128
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Hands pressed his shoulders into the mattress and only exacerbating his panic. Flailing limbs became a hazard as Ilan threw herself back to avoid Ezra's harsh hands.
"Mr. Pierce!" She shouted, watching as he flew up in a panic, eyes flinging wildly around the room. Suddenly he calmed, sagging back to his bed with a heaving chest and sweat-slicked skin. "Mr. Pierce, are you alright?"
Ezra gripped at the sheets with one hand, rubbing his eyes with the other. "I'm fine, Ilan." Tossing his feet off the bed, he got up with a weighted groan.
"Would you like to shower?" It was then, Ezra noticed Ilan was already dressed. Her hair was slicked back into a tight bun and a thin hoodie hung loosely off her frame, slipping slightly past her wrists. "I can show you where the bathroom is." She offered and Ezra nodded mutely. "Alrighty then, grab your clothes for the day and follow me."
Ezra obliged, scooping up a pair of jeans and a flannel, tucking them into the crook of his arm and following Ilan into the crowded hallway.
Kids pushed their way through the hall, most freshly showered and returning to their rooms to get ready, chatting loudly with each other. Ezra ignored their passing stares the best he could but it was hard not to be peeved.
"Don't worry about them." Ilan chimed as soon as she noticed Ezra's jaw tightening. "No one here but the leaders have ever seen a real vampire, much less been in an actual fight. Of course, we practice fighting but it's nothing like the real thing. It's always moderated and you can only ever let loose on the dummies." Ilan explained as they reached the bathroom.
Inside there were twenty decently sized shower stalls, separated with an opaque door stretching from the floor up to the top of the stall.
Ilan grabbed him a plush green towel and tossed him a bottle of coca soap. "I can wait here or I can head back to the room, whichever you'd like." Ilan offered, shifting nervously.
"It's alright, you can go back to the room." Ezra stepped into the shower stall, setting his things on a dry bench and yanking the handle up. Immediately, the water began to pound the tiles as Ezra peeled off his clothes, tossing them in the corner and stepping into the water.
The frigid water was soothing for his tight muscles and the sweat that had accumulated from his nightmare.
He saw Paul in Nik's spot, dying just as Nik had. The bodies began to pile up and pile up until finally, he was drowning in blood. Just as his lungs filled with the thick crimson liquid, he woke up.
Ezra showered as quickly as possible before turning off the shower and toweling off quickly. He couldn't help the depression reappearing in him, making him want to do nothing but stay in bed all day and suffer. His fight with Paul had taken so much out of him and despite it, Ezra missed him so intensely it was torture.
He changed into his new clothes before gathering his things and taking them back to the room. Ilan was knitting on her bed, yarn splayed over her outstretched legs as her shoes dangled off the bed. It was a scarf and a clear improvement from her monstrous creations crammed under the bed.
"You can put your clothes in the hamper in the corner. We're all responsible for maintaining our own rooms and cleaning our clothes. I usually do mine once a week so tomorrow we can go down there. We can rotate or just do our own. Either way, I don't mind." Ilan explained as he dumped his clothes into the mesh hamper. "You ready? First is breakfast, then I'll give you the grand tour, explain the rules, then is lunch, I'll give you the rest of the tour if need be, and throughout that, I'm to explain the different jobs, you get to test a few out and the head of each occupation will meet to choose. You get to pick three favorites and they get asked first. Not a lot of people get their top three, most commonly they'll get their third but it's rare anyone will get their second." She sent him a wink. "Choose wisely."
Ezra followed her back down the stairs with Pads following close by to avoid getting trampled. She wasn't quite comfortable enough in the new space to leave Ezra's side but he knew it'd be a matter of hours rather than days that she'd be traipsing around like she owned the place.
"What do you do?" Ezra asked curiously as they entered the dining room, unlike the other rooms he had seen, this was lit by skylights littering the ceiling that allowed the early morning sun to leak through. Long wooden tables stretched from one end of the huge room to another with benches as seats.
The entire arrangement reminded him of the one in the Harry Potter series, except there was no table in the front for the leaders, instead they intermingled with the rest of the population. Looking around, Ezra realized there must have been nearly a hundred witches all gathered there, the most he had ever seen in his life.
"Me?" Ilan asked, generally shocked that he'd ask about her. At his affirming nod, she continued. "I'm a Herder. I take care of the livestock, keep them fed, clean them and their pens, things like that. I really like it. It was my second pick though. My first was to be a Recruiter. They get to go out and search for young witches who grew up thinking they were human like you and I. They bring the children back here and catalog any witches too young. If they aren't in dire circumstances the Recruiter will wait and just catalog them. To my credit, the Famers were in dire need of workers."
She sat down at the edge of the table and Ezra across from her. As they ate he noticed that not a single person had talked to her. "The rules are pretty simple," Ilan explained. "No unsupervised fighting, no stealing, no leaving the compound without a companion and letting Miss Venus know. We clean up after ourselves, no going into marked off room or anyone else's dorm without their permission, murder is a big no-no unless your life or someone else's is in danger obviously. No revealing the location of the compound for safety reasons." Ilan paused for a moment and hummed. "There's a big one that could get you kicked out of the compound too."
Ezra glanced up at her expectantly. "What is it?"
Ilan crammed a slice of bacon into her mouth. "You can't reveal your magic to humans or vampires under any circumstance at all. We don't need a repeat of 1236."
