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You're crawling through the vent. You just woke up from the funny blood limbo playing Adam Sandler movies because you died. You died because a certain pair of twins tied you to the roof of their warehouse to get a nice tan... as a vampire. Now, you're crawling through the vent to enact revenge. Before this, you were accosted by an amalgamation of your sire - who is also on the hypothetical hit-list - and some weird spider at a random warehouse with a bunch of random ass people who seem familiar to you but you can't quite place it, they were wearing demons colors but you couldn't recall ever seeing them. Not to mention the potential masquerade break this probably caused, which would 100% be blamed on you and/or your brother, you guess whoever is found first by that cowboy guy.
You're crawling through the vent. The coldness of the metal surges through your hands and knees as you inch closer to the bright red lights in front of you, bouncing around like a disco ball within the vent. You feel a cold breeze rush from behind you suddenly. Oh yeah, part of the rebirth is that you come back fully nude. At least, you're not sticky. You stop for a second, thinking about if you should change your course of action. 'Eh, fuck it. It's a distraction', you think as you shake the original thought into the trash, as if you plan ahead of doing anything in your life- err, unlife now. You continue.
You're crawling through the vent. You can hear the antagonistically sour voice of one of these new twins you've just been kidnapped by. As you approach you can tell he is talking to someone, or something, with each of his statements followed by a sickening squelching. There's also a slight buzz, an unbearable droning noise that's drilling into your skull, and you can't tell if it's there for ambiance or it's part of the twin's pleasure to mentally fracture their "patients". All you know is that your patience is running thin.
You're crawling through the vent. You finally reach a grate that leads directly above where the male twin's, Vex, lab is. You can smell the heat of viscera beneath you, a nauseating but sweet smell wafts through the air as you watch him jab into this mound of flesh that could've been a torso at one point. You watch him take his time dissecting as he comes up with a joke with each slice, you could even call it witty at points. You catch yourself stifling a chuckle at some bits because they don't work. You wait for a few seconds before pulling up the grate to let yourself down into the room.
The room is dark, mainly illuminated by deep red fluorescent shop lights dangling low from the ceiling. The only other source of light in the room is a spotlight right above of Vex, who is still man-handling the mound of meat but is forcing it back into a humanoid shape. Regardless, you try to assess your surroundings. You notice that despite the perfectionist front Vex seems to put on, his lab is unbearably messy and unkempt. Tables with scattered papers strewn about every 5 feet, multiple mannequin busts with half finished projects, dried blood is all over the floor. Quite surprising for the type of personality Vex presents with, you think. Someone who prides themself in presenting as the pinnacle of perfection just to be a slob in real life, it reminds you of someone but you're not ready for that level of self reflection, not yet.
You land onto one of the lights as softly as a mouse, slowly swinging between each one, getting as close as possible without alerting the devilish monster beneath you. You watch him put the finishing touches on the amalgamation, and that's when you notice the red and black meshing into the flesh, that was a member of the demons, your demons, your gang, probably one of your friends. You feel sick to your stomach, you have to end this and end it now.
You sharpen your left arm into a blade - you still aren't used to the transformation, the stretching of your skin, the melding of your fingers to make a unified shape, it's not too dissimilar to what's happening below. You take a few breathes, to get the timing just right. You wait for the target to get into a more damaging position, when its back is hunched over the table the most, and... you jump.
You leap from your position blade first, bracing with the other, landing directly between the shoulder blades and protruding out the other side of the chest so far you hit the table. There's a slight struggle at first from beneath you, it trying to wrench its arms back to scratch at you. After a few seconds of holding him down, you start to pull up to where you're both standing straight, wrapping an arm around its neck to properly restrain. You remain silent as the struggle starts to die down.
"Hey Emizel?..."
"Is that all you got?" It speaks, you do not respond. "You think this will end everything, many things are already set into motion," No response. "This would only be a minor setback and you would have an even bigger thorn in your side, that being my sister." No response. "Or are you going to kill her too? Either way it won't mat-" You cut him off, pulling your arm up, and up, and up, and up until you're left with two perfect halves. It falls to the left of you, slowly leaking blood onto the floor, but not enough to notice. You step towards the table to the mound, it's still churning and flexing what used to be muscles, it's still... Well, it’s not alive but not dead either. Doesn’t matter, this isn't a way to live, so you decide to put it out of its misery and stab straight through it once, you can't even bother to look at it as your arm protrudes one side and out the other. Once you feel it stop you pull your arm back out and turn to the door. He does have a point, about his sister, so you move on to the next target.
"Emizel..."
You feel the world shake around you, stomping your way towards the door. You are fervent with anger, you can feel heat return to your dead body as you grit your teeth. You basically body check the door, nearly knocking it off its hinges. Scanning the hallway for any signs of where to go next you see, just three doors down, there's a very bright white light emanating from a window. There's also some ghouls making their way away from you carrying another victim, for Viv or Vex you aren't sure but you do know that you have to stop them too. You sprint up behind them with the swiftness of a gazelle, you jump up and side-swipe at their necks, cleanly decapitating them and they fall to the floor. You continue forward towards the light with haste.
"Theo he's not waking up?"
"Huh.... oh..."
You slam the door open. She doesn't notice. She's slightly swaying back and forth, seemingly to a rhythm. You flick your bladed hand to the side and begin to walk up to her. You grab her shoulder and -
Emizel wakes up on the floor after being flung off the couch in the upstairs apartment of the mechanics shop he's lived in his entire life. He scrambled up and rubs his head, above him is his twin brother concerned and his best friend slightly annoyed. He looks over to his left to see his hand starting to morph back to normal. He did it again.
"Did I -"
"Yes. You did... again. What is this the 4th time in a row now that you've had this nightmare? What is the matter dog? What is happening in these dreams that makes you go haywire?" Theo said with the utmost concern over the actions of his best friend, he truly wants to get to the root cause of this because he knows Emizel is going to hurt someone in his sleep eventually. Theo sighs, knowing full well he won't be getting an answer to that any time soon.
"I don't know what to tell ya, man. All I ever remember is it being so... bloody in the end. It's almost like a out of body experience but it's aways in, like, first person." Emizel gets back up onto the couch at this point, slowly cleaning the space caused by his thrashing. This time, a very nice throw pillow has been lost in the battle, being stabbed through the middle and half-way pulled apart in two perfect halves.
"Well... Do you think you can remember who else was there? In the dream..." Shilo spoke up, this being the first time witnessing the unconscious battle. Emizel stopped dead in his tracks, he does know who it is, he does remember what happens in his dreams as of late. It's always what he could have done instead. It's always the same scenario and he always wakes up at the same spot. The better question here is can Emizel admit he's been dreaming of the Weylins or is he too stubborn to ask for help. He knows what can happen if these dreams get too out of hand in the real world. He knows he should ask for help, but breaking a habit is more difficult than most people make it out to seem. This hesitation, though, came with a problem, the facade cracked right in front of Shilo and Theo, and there was no time for damage control. Shilo, still confused, looked over to Theo who gasped so loudly the dogs in the next town over could hear.
"You DO remember!" Theo walked around the couch so he was on the same side as Emizel, trapping him in his spot. There really was no running away from this one. "Explain... now..." Theo looks down on him, Shilo eventually joins the left him to stare, still confused about the situation. How long has this really been an issue, was it from before the vampirism or was this because of it. Emizel searches for the words, the right words that won't make him look weak. Then, it hits Shilo; who is the only person who has made Emizel so angry that he would threaten physical violence, a certain someone who within their first encounter Emizel had, somewhat of, a concise plan but utterly fell through. Maybe people.
"Is it the other twins... the Weylins?" Shilo adds after a few minutes of waiting for an answer. Emizel shoots his head up in an instant and with a slightly scared look, like a frightened puppy that's just been caught by animal control.
"Well shit... fuck it, fine. Yeah, I keep having the same dream every night about destroying the Weylins and it always ends right before I can get to Viv. Okay, ya happy?" Emizel admitted, crossing his arms and looking away from the other two in front of him, "Look, im sorry that I'm not forthright with my dreams or whatever, but this is just something I'm gonna have to deal with on my own, it's not like you can just jump into my brain and 'fight my demons' for me... actually come to think of it-"
"Is this a vampire thing or is he just traumatized?" Theo whispers over to Shilo as Emizel continues to talk to himself, pondering the logistics of recreating The Matrix.
"Probably both..." They both watch him. This is going to be a long day.