Chapter Text
The dirt was heavy and thick. Roots and other dumpy things were the only thing felt.
The air was dense, condensed.
The space, which there was none, was cramped.
The air is silent.
And yet a hand craws back towards the surface, fingers curdled. Nails meet the compressed soil of the ground. Rusty coloured nails gather the soils from beneath and drag them outwards, bringing space for a spec of skin to appear. The hands claw and claw, allowing the freedom of eyes to finally open. The red of the moon illuminates his face, bringing out his magenta-ish crimson eyes.
Waking up wasn't the main shock, as even waking up is the biggest shocker of all. He couldn't even imagine it happening, as he was literally turned to ash. Maybe questioning the small things was pointless because, well he's back isn't her?
His mouth, surrounded with soil gasping for the air that wasn't there, opens and clothes like a dying fish. His eyes want to tear up, but are dry. Every time he blinks, his eyelids stick down to the bottom. Hiding away isn't an option now he supposes.
Following his head, weak arms strongly push the remainder of his torso out, wiggling from the ground. He coughs out dirt violently, ejecting it out of his lungs. The searing pain, the sensation of helplessness sear through his loud, staring from
his hands to his feet. He screams, loud and clear, yet all that comes out is a pathetic gasp of air.
His chest still feels… compressed, burdened, still empty yet filled with pressure. And yet no matter how hard he coughs the pain is not relieved. He ejects not soil from his chest but a long, deep breath. It feels good.
He rubs his eyes and stares out into the landscape. The mist of something that wasn't the night obscured his vision greatly.
‘Fresh air… how long have I not felt that?’
His body wobbles, right foot attempting to step towards. His progression of movement is short lived as his body crumbles onto the ground in weakness, arms and legs numb from being trapped under the soil. His fingers twitch again. Sharp nails continue to scrape at the dirt, like it is a forced contraction. His legs slip back into the grave.
“Sh- Shelby? Drift?” His voice doesn't sound the same as it was, as it came out in choked sounds, throat bleeding a bit.He catches his breath, even though he doesn't actually need to breathe. Does he? When he finds Scott again he needs to ask. Or maybe the question is, if he finds Scott again. “Scott?”
His pleas go unanswered. He frowns to himself.
He swallows the nonexistent saliva in his mouth down his throat. He shouts with as much power as he has. “Hey? Is there anyone out there?” He's fragile and weak. Clothes once worn with some elegance to match with those of… Scott, now in ugly browns and with soil stuck on it.
The air is silent.
The air is so silent, some may think it was peaceful. But the gaze of something he can't pinpoint pushes him down, actually quite physically. It would only be peaceful for the dead, the long gone.
Maybe it was some vampire here watching him. But he can't really tell, could he? He was still a level one vampire, after all. ‘Though.. there seems to be an overload of animals in the distant woods. Well, at least more than what was there when the forest burnt down.’ When the arms move, if they do. Getting back to a better level is probably not his biggest concern, as right now his limbs still feel numb.
His head pounds at the door of his brain, demanding entry.
He closes his eyes again.
A scene replays in his mind. Moments before he was trapped, yet seemingly so foolish.
“Well, if I survive, I- I might go back home.” The birds chirp ambiently in the background as his feet step and step on the soft grass, as he admits his fears. “I feel like I haven't finished the work that I started back there with my partner. Her name was L.”
“Where's L now?”
“Well I killed her.”
The two older vampires are quick to begin mumbling. Their response was quick, like the steps they were taking. Avid followed behind like an animal on a leash. Not having gratitude for the things he has.
“Ah.. I see.” Owen says.
Avid looks away. He breathes in a sharp breath. “She attacked me.”
“Was she a vampire?” The only thing grounding him was the gentle footsteps below him.
“No, she wasn't a vampire. And I don’t think- I think she was something else. Something darker, something… more rabid. I- It's hard to say-”
Owen walks ahead. Another barrage of birds chirp behind them, or maybe above them. “Darker than a vampire?” He questioned.
Avid breaths out. “We’re… not so bad.” He admits, “I think I’ll go home and bury her body.”
Owen ponders. “She's just been.. exposed to the elements?” Avid makes a sound of confirmation.
“Well, I mean, she attacked me in our lab- I.. staked her and then I left. Pretty much just came straight here..”
Owen's response is the same cold voice. “I see.”
The birds stop chirping for a moment. The noise continues again.
Avid reminiscing about his childhood, continuing rambling about his past. “When we were kids, we were in the woods, and a creature attacked me and it was some kind of night creature. I never really figured it out.” His feet feel the upwards step of stone. He speaks more upbeatly. “I’m getting closer to getting an idea, but further everytime I learn something more but-”
His chest compulses with a sharp tinge, a compression waiting to be freed from its metaphorical cage.
He needs to breathe.
Avid sucks in a long breath, something he wishes he would be able to do now, so freely.
“I’ve never witnessed any other creatures like vampires”, Pryo replied, “But I suppose that doesn't mean it's out of the question, that there could be more..”
“Yeah.. They could be rare. They stay in hiding for a good reason.” He wouldn't even wish his worst enemy the fate of L.
“Did we pass it already?” Interjected the voice of Pryo.
Owen mumbles something again. Maybe he's paranoid, but he just can't remember what they were saying. “Uhh, I think it's on this hill.”
“Alright.” Confirmation always feels safe.
“Yeah.. Yeah.” Maybe he’s telling that to himself.
“I’ll go in first. Hold on.” Pryo is always reliable.
He then remembers speaking about fearing Appo, with then jinxing himself seeing her and some humans concentrating the beacons. Just his luck.
It was strange why this memory came up. Maybe that was when Pryo and Owen were plotting to kill him, or something to the sort.
He coughs again. His head feels like it's bursting with pain, an awful headache that electrifies his whole body with not electricity but pain.
His hands move staggeringly slowly to move forward. A worn and brown crumbled note in scrambled yet fascinating, familiar elegant handwriting is read. The paper feels ragged, like someone cried on it but it's been too long so the paper has to just endure the water and rebuild itself. The words in light brown read:
‘I tried. Feelings are new sorry. What did I expect? My gut told me that staying in that room would have protected you, yet against me you left. I always liked that about you. So stubborn. Look where that got you, huh?
For me you have fallen, and I see now that you're gone. Never returning. Faces of you haunt me.
So bravely you fought, against those you couldn't not beat. You may have wilted, but vigorously I fight for you in turn. When i can. Only time passes by, eternal without you. You would have loved my retort. Well, maybe.
Allow my heart to have enough to be broken, allow me to feel the sorrow of grief. It was turned to stone, polished into a rock. Yet it cracks, spilling blue blood. Allow my heart to hold enough love to be broken.
You’ll forever be dearly missed.
Yours forever,
Scott.’
So poetic, for someone like Scott.
Avid makes a sound of laughter, amused. Did Scott really think so highly of him? I mean sure he did.. He only wished he proved himself worthy to him. “My sire.” As Owen would put it in the weird way Owen was.
Ha.. Scott.
Does he really miss him? His intentions were never clear.
Does he.. like him? It's such a scary, sacred feeling. A practiced smile and facade of charisma to display at Oakhurst. That's what it was. Picking up broken shards of iridescent glass and scales and sticking them on the tail of a mermaid. It shines, yet it's never the same.
He still remembers losing just a bit of his restraint, kissing Scott. His cold dead lips soon became his lightly more alive ones. Would he remove his past, remove his memory of him? Would he? Would he reveal the cracks and scars that were proudly shown soon by a gazing scathing crowd? Never.
Such stupid ideas, stupid pasts and presents. Everything is so stupid.
He turns around. Behind him is a pitiful gravestone, dimly lit by moonlight and dark leaves of the trees around.
“Here lies Avid.”
Who made this? Something to remember someone who's body can't even be brought here.
It's thoughtful.
Avid closes his eyes.
God, or if there was one, brought him to a dreamscape, meeting the so confident and hardworking souls of the dead. The galaxy above would have stars glimmering, dancing with joy as they could watch together. Was this emptiness love? Some magical spell.
But yet reality is a muddy and soil filled vision of pain and struggle as he pegs his thigh up from the dirt. Dull and monotone, greyish and mundane. The birds chirping far away now squawk once or twice to convey pain. Vines grip his calf, refusing to falter and let go. Was this the world showing that he was symbolic? Heh… maybe.
A mental chokehold.
He begs for an answer, some reconfirmation, anything grip to hold on on the edge on a mountain.
The air does not respond.
The air is silent.
And his once dormant legs regain motion, torso wiggling forward with his legs kicking out. He's.. out. Crawled his way from a grave when he was reduced to ashes.
Nothing makes any sense. He should be ash. Yet his body still moves, eyes still blink, nerves still hurting. The colours, so vivid. The colours make him insane. My vision is insane. Am I the same? These colours run down my veins, into my
brain. So deep within.
“Seriously… Hello? This is not nice. Is anyone out there?”
The rustle of the leaves crinkle and out runs a wolf, fur a patchy with the majority of it being a bit of a pearly colour. It stares at Avid from its vantage point, doing everything but approaching. It looks cautiously, yet somewhat with familiarity, before scouring away back into the forest where it appeared from.
It looked nothing like the monster that tore L apart no… but just something about it just felt.. familiar.
“Hey Wolfie.. Eeeuhhh.. Come back! Come back please!”
The air is silent.
He signs, knowing that the creature had probally left already. All he could do is drown in his increasing thoughts.
So unfair, that it got to choose its silence, living beings who opened their mouths but others who didn't. Rhodes who weren't allowed to open their mouths again, mouths sewn shut by the thread of death. Silenced by the end of their story, the last pages of the book of their life.
But the book that was burnt to ashes is rewritten again, leaving the contents the same but never really the same. The book now has the wrong cover, wrong ink, just something to blame, something that can't compare to the original. But couldn't you appreciate the thought behind rewriting the book as a whole?
Avid could not.
He should have been dead, he really should be.
But he wasn't, and he now had to accept it.
With each step away from his grave, he slowly tried and embraced the gravity of his unexpected situation. He shouldn't really have any more situations to expect in the realm of being alive, as he really should be dead. Some would say he would have stayed dead, when they knew he was back. Maybe.
"I will not waste this gift," Avid declared with confidence of someone half dead, the words reverberating gently in the stillness of the night. The world, so vibrant sometimes yet daunting always, awaited him, and with it came both the weight of his choices, both old and new, and the eventual promise of potentially new beginnings.
Avid took a deep breath, savoring the sharpness of the air once again. If it could be described as taste, it was pretty darn tasteless, but that wasn't the point.
He really was back, and this time, he intended to live with more purpose—even amidst the non-existent chaos of his return. Just something telling him that him being back was something to worry about a bit. What if all vampires that died came back? Maybe the evil ones came back too.
He would really hope not.
Just in case. Maybe someone was really still here. “Hello? Anyone? Is there anyone here?” He says with the last of his current strength, drawing by thinking so hard and literally digging himself out of his grave, just with his own two hands. Maybe Scott would praise him for that.
Be would he really ever find him again?