Blood & Power [Book One of The City of Eternity Series] [✔]

1.2: Endure

The fearsome newcomer was lingering outside the lobby door when I'd caught up to her, her face barely being illuminated by the nearest streetlight. She was tearing open one of the packs I'd placed into her backpack with her teeth. When the plastic had split, the blood had gushed out onto the pavement in front of the building. She snarled at the lost blood for a second, before her attention had turned back to the blood remaining in the pack; her eyes wide and hollow.

Her face was covered in a scarlet red in moments. I was only a few arms' spans away as she had poured the contents of the pack into her mouth, staining the lower half of her face with the red substance. The deep richness of her dark skin was being decorated with the liquid, like an accessory.

She had raised her head as I had approached, staring at me through her darkened eyes. I couldn't get used to how much she had changed from her human form. The animalistic tendencies she had picked up within months were frightening. The human I had met all that time ago was fragile, weak, and wouldn't hurt a fly. Now I wasn't so sure.

Blood had slid down her neck, and onto the white shirt, she had been wearing, soaking the material around the collar. I hadn't noticed it at first, but there was a pain on her face that almost translated to fear. It was her eyes that was giving away what she was feeling; terror. The more she had bit into these packs, the more she realised how much she craved them. It wasn't a sudden understanding of what she had come to be, but the realisation had been tip-toeing towards her door and preparing to knock.

I had stood in front of her after she dropped the empty pack to the floor with my arms outstretched. She hesitated for a split second before enveloping me in a tight grip. Her hug was life-threateningly strong, gripping onto me tightly. She was pressing her entire being against me, her face squeezed firm against my shoulder. I had let myself slump, my muscles becoming looser as I let her calm against me. My eyes dropped to the gravel below us, a feeling of fatigue drifting over me. It wasn't possible for there to be any warmth within the hug, but it still allowed me to ignore the sunken feeling in my stomach and replace it with tiresome hunger.

I had to focus on comforting the girl that wasn't quite ready to let go of her humanity the way she needed to. I had learned to treat her like a child; always needing protection but defiant in an effort to keep her independence. She was close to getting over the second feeling that most newly changed experience; after they get over the wonder of the amount of strength they have, and what they can see and feel they resign to themselves.

It's the horrifying realisation that they are forced to take from other beings to survive. It wasn't as though we could refrain from taking blood, we became weak to the point of not being able to move, lost hair that was difficult to grow in the first place, and a whole array of general deformities that was dreadful to behold. It takes a while to get over that part of the guilt.

She wasn't there yet. But soon the need for survival would trump the naivety of the heart. There would be a point in her journey soon where past vulnerability would be nothing but a memory.