Divine Descent

Chapter One

With an open sky drowning Rome in water, the sounds of the heavens roll through the air and crashes in light, piercing the ground with electricity. The old cemetery grounds have become muddy hills of death, concealing decaying corpses of many eras. The roars of the undead have faded to echoes now, leaving only Mother Nature to rumble tempestuously at my changing of fate.

What was once fable is now reality. All of the story books, the movies, the things of my nightmares have proven true. A woman, an unbeliever ridden with torment, now divine, a celestial being set apart from the world that beat her down. A planet of humans and monsters alike, all mixed together harmoniously, a world content to be shrouded with secrecy.

Monsters live among us. They always have.

They have governed through the ages, thriving on the world's desire for indifference.

Humans would rather be unaware of the darkness, the true darkness of the world. It's all a foreign concept, something one can easily ponder about... other life on earth. Deep down, we haven't the capacity to accept what we do not know. We can search and conquer and hope, but deep down, we are terrified of something smarter than us, more advanced than us.

Something without a conscious, that could kill without a second thought.

If the world knew such beings lived among them, chaos would ensue.

If they knew I'd just summoned a man from the depths of time and space, right out of the ground, the earth as we knew it would never be the same again... which is why I'm positive the storm will be considered a rare anomaly, something that can be explained through a simple meteorologist. The roar of the undead will no doubt be speculated, but deep down, the humans that are so willing for an answer, will dismiss the sounds as sirens, an explosion... an effect of the storm.

They do not want the mistress of darkness. They do not want me.

After six months of sorrow, of aches and hindered spirits, I am anew. My veins are unbreakable, my will even more so. My limbs are healed, my heart only recently cold. Standing still, I can anticipate the familiar beat but it doesn't come.

It will never come again.

As Elijah once foretold, I am no longer one with this world and I feel it keenly. It fills me with excitement and defiance, with vengeance. The stone stained with my blood continues to crack and blister open, crumbling under the duress of inhuman hands.

While the sky douses me in icy rain, I stand completely still, eyes locked on the cursed grave, unsure of what to expect. I've been warned to clear the area by the voice I am still unsure of, but I am invincible. I am already undead, so why would I need to run?

Maybe he will emerge as someone else, a different man. Maybe he will not remember me. It's possible. Anything is possible. To imagine this was a quick fix is ignorant. Nothing about this journey has been easy... other than falling in love.

A smile touches my lips at the sight of his fingers, and then his forearms, his shoulders. A large piece of the tomb scatters off the side when he raises his head, lifting himself out of confinement. He has all his limbs that much I can tell. My blood has regenerated him, pieced and sewn him back into the man I remember.

The flames which were accomplices in his murder have melted away most of his clothing. While I look on, frozen and unable to move, the vampire Elijah de Ricci straightens, nearly as nude as when he came into this world with only tattered, gaping remains of cloth hanging off of his muscular limbs.

My eyes observe him, drifting over his pale flesh in search for differences, unable to comprehend that he's standing above me, alive in the most unusual sense of the word. His skin is the color of the moon, marred only by the dust of stone and blood that came from my arm but the frigid rain is quickly washing it away. He stands in a foreboding way, his limbs rigid and stiff as if discomforted. His figure is no different. He is an incredible specimen, chiseled as if someone carved him themselves with marble. My eyes continue to push upward as thunder shakes the earth from a distance, speechless. I reach his throat, his cutting jaw line, his full-bodied mouth and bridged nose... until I reach his eyes.