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~o~Legs~o~
Leaves crunch beneath my feet. Red light from the moon shines between the branches of towering trees, painting the forest floor in blood-like shadows. I feel something stalking behind me. A beast. It’s large and heavy. It smells like iron. It looms over me, teeth bared, drool dripping onto my shoulder.
I just need to get to my lab. I need to get back to work. I need to find a cure. That’s the only way to keep the beast away. The beast of my past failures, the beast that knows another failure is imminent. I can’t fail again.
I stomp towards the entrance to my lab and practically throw myself at the stones blocking it. Once inside, I go straight to work. Only one candle lights the space, casting the room in taunting shadows– shadows that take the shape of people I used to know. People I’ve failed. People I’ve killed. People whose blood stains my hands.
My palms are stained scarlet. Rivers of red run down my arms whenever I lift them; drops of crimson dot the floor behind me wherever I go. My hands start to tremble as I look down at the blood stains. I force a shaky breath out of my lungs. Don’t panic. I can just wash them off. I just have to keep my head.
I stumble to the brewing stand and pull out one of the bottles of regular water. With trembling hands, I manage to pop off the cork and clumsily dump it on my hands. I rub until they’re tinted pink and feel sticky. It’s not enough. Blood still pools, the smell of iron still fills the air, my hands still stained.
I grab the next bottle, and the next. It won’t wash away. I scrub and scratch at my skin until it burns, dumping bottle after bottle until I reach for another and grasp at air.
“No,” I gasp, my breath hitching.
I need to clean it off. I need to get rid of it. There’s too much. There’s too much blood.
So much blood on my hands.
The stone floor is gone. I blink. I’m back in the woods.
My head is spinning. My breaths are coming much too quickly. My vision blurs, and I fall to my knees at the riverbank. I quickly plunge my blood-stained hands into the water and continue my frantic washing.
I have to wash it off. I can’t let the others see, I can’t let myself see! With this much blood on my hands, how can I help people? How could I heal them? After everything I’ve done.
~o~Owen~o~
Hunting in the woods is much more satisfying than just killing the chickens at the castle. The thrill of the chase, the pathetic attempt at running, the satisfaction of a successful kill. It’s almost more delicious than the blood itself. Or, at least, it would be if there were any animals!
The humans and other vampires have made it quite difficult to get a satisfying meal. It annoys me to no end. Can a vampire not be blessed by the universe just once?
I stop in my tracks as I hear a sound on the wind. I stay as still as possible and listen. Fast-paced, gasping breaths. A racing heartbeat. The smell of fear.
My next meal.
I follow the sound down to the river, not far from where Shelby was turned. As I stalk closer, I start to see its shape. A head, arms, legs, it looks humanoid. No, no, it is human!
“Doc?” I gasp.
Legs was in a state. Tears streamed down his face, his breath coming too fast, his hands scrubbing desperately in the river water.
My chest tightens. I know this. I’ve felt this before.
I glance around, half-hoping another human will appear– someone else who knows what to do. At this rate, Legs is going to pass out if he doesn’t calm down.
I take a step back. I should go get somebody. That sounds like a good plan. I turn and go to shift into a bat, then, behind me, Legs wheezes again.
The sound hits like a punch to the chest. It’s wrong to hear it come from someone else, because the last time I heard breathing like that, it was my own.
~o~O~o~
“Owen,” Louis says, calm and steady. “Touch my arm if you can hear me.”
I shake my head. I can’t breathe. My lungs hurt. I’m dying. That’s what’s happening.
“Hey, it’s okay. I know it’s scary, but it’s not gonna be forever. You’re gonna be okay. Touch my arm if you can hear me, okay?”
I tug at my hair, gasps for air, turning to sobs.
“I’m right here, Owen. You’re safe. You’re okay. Can you touch my arm if you can hear me?”
Slowly, I pull my hand from my tangled hair and reach out to grasp Louis’s arm.
“There you go.” Louis hums, placing his hand on top of mine. “Good job. You’re doing so well. Can you open your eyes for me?”
I let out another wheeze as I blink my eyes open. “That’s it. You’re here.” Louis grins. “Do you think you can tell me five things you see?”
I keep my eyes on his face. “I- I see your eyes.”
“Good, anything else?”
“Your sm- smile.” His smile is one of my favorite things about him. “I like your smile.”
“Aw, I like your smile too. What else?”
I tighten my grip on his arm. “Your hair and- and your shirt.”
Louis’s smile widens. “Good job, Owen. What color is my shirt?”
“Red,” I breathe.
“Yeah, it is. Can you tell me where you are?”
I look around and take in dark oak walls and red-carpeted floors. “Your- your house.”
“Good. Think you can take a deep breath for me? In for four, like this.”
Louis hesitates for a moment and makes a face, then he starts to breathe in for four seconds. “Then hold it seven.” He holds it for seven. “Then out for eight.” He squeezes my hand that’s still holding onto his arm for dear life. “And again.”
Louis starts over, and this time I try to follow. I shakily inhale for four, then only manage to hold it for five, then I exhale for eight. Then, when we go again, I hold it for the whole seven seconds. We breathe a few more times. On the final exhale, I let my head fall onto Louis’s shoulder.
“How are you feeling?” Louis asks, his hand coming up to run through my hair.
“Tired,” I mumble.
Louis chuckles. “I bet. Come on, you can sleep at my place tonight.”
Yes! His bed is the comfiest place I’ve ever been in my whole life! I never want to ask if I can stay there, though—that would be rude, even if I know Louis will say yes without hesitation.
“Thank you,” I mumble.
“Anything for you, my love.”
~o~O~o~
God, that was so long ago. A different time. A different place. A different me.
I sigh and move to crouch down next to Legs. I can’t leave him alone like this.
“Legs,” I say uncertainly. “Touch my hand if you can hear me.”
Legs just continues washing his hands maniacally while letting out pitiful gasps. Okay, what now? I shift onto my knees and fidget. What did Louis do next?
“Um… It’s okay, Legs. You’re not dying. I promise. It just feels like it. It’s gonna be over eventually, um, yeah. You wanna… touch my hand if you can hear me?”
Legs stops scrubbing and wraps his arms around himself, then brings his knees to his chest and sobs.
“Hey, hey,” I say hurriedly. “You’re okay. It’s gonna be okay.” I hold out my hand. “Touch my hand if you can hear me, alright.”
Shakily, Legs unfurls slightly from his huddled position and reaches his hand out to place it on mine. I cringe slightly at the physical contact, but it’s progress.
“Good job,” I encourage. What do I do now? The ‘where are you’ thing, right? Yeah, that sounds right. “Legs, where are you?” I cringe at myself.
Legs glances around, still hyperventilating, then looks back at me before mumbling, “H- hell.”
I bark out a laugh. “Ha! Oh, not far off, Doctor.”
Legs leans back a little but still keeps his hand resting on mine. “Um,” I start, “can you, uh, tell me five– yeah, five– five things you see?”
Legs’s green eyes turn on me. “You,” he says simply.
I fidget under his gaze. “Yeah, good. Anything else?”
To my relief, his eyes shift off me and start to flit around the area. I think nothing of it until Legs’s breathing starts to get faster and he begins to frantically shake his head.
“That’s okay, that’s okay.” Now what!? “Um- Legs, breathe, uh, like this.”
Ah, geez, I haven’t breathed in 200 years. I’ve pretty much forgotten how. Come to think of it, how did Louis breathe for me? I start to go through the motions of what I remember. I pull air in through my nose, my lungs seem to stretch and crack, then I hold for a moment before letting my chest deflate.
I repeat that a few times until I remember this is meant to be for Legs. I turn my focus back to Legs and see him following along pretty well. I breathe out one more time and let my lungs return to empty stillness.
“Now what do you see?” I ask quietly.
“You,” Legs says again, barely audible. He looks down at his hand, which is still resting on my palm, and shudders. “Blood.”
My eyes snap down to his hand. His skin is rubbed raw, but I don’t see any blood. I turn his hand over and inspect it further. There is a small drop of blood between his pointer and middle fingers. I bring his hand up to my mouth and gently lick the tiny wound. I look up when Legs sucks in a breath and see his face is bright red.
“S- sorry,” I stutter, letting go of his hand. “Vampire saliva can close wounds almost instantly, so I thought-”
“Wait. It can close wounds almost instantly?” Legs interrupts, voice scratchy.
“Yeah, I’m not sure what we need it for. Plot convenience, maybe? I guess it’s helpful if we don’t want prey to bleed out after we bite them.”
“How bad of a wound can it seal up?”
I shrug. “I’m not sure. As far as I know, it just heals the wound. It helps the skin generate and heal faster or something.”
Legs’s eyes light up. “With something like that, we could avoid needing to amputate on the battlefield. We could instantly seal surgical wounds. Infection and sepsis can be avoided. So many lives could be—”
His rant comes to an abrupt halt. Legs is staring down at his hands with a mix of sadness and fear. Did I do something?
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
I watch as Legs takes another deep breath, then clenches his hands into fists. “It’s just,” he sighs, “there are so many people I’ve failed. I’ve hurt even more than that. There is so much blood staining my hands. What gives me the right to help people with these hands?”
I look down at my own hands. I see my scars, my calloused fingers, but I can also see blood. The blood of children, the blood of murders, the blood of 2799.
“Our hands,” I start, holding up my hand, “they will always be stained by our… sins.” I let my hand fall back down to my lap. “Mine probably even more so than yours. So answer me this, Doc, why are you so insistent I deserve help?”
“Because everyone deserves a second chance,” he answers almost immediately.
I smirk. “Hate to break it to you, but you are included in everyone, Doc.” I look away from him and into the murky water. “You have a good heart, Doctor. You are at least trying to atone for your sins. I am making more.”
“You deserve better, Owen,” Legs says sternly. “You were never given a choice to be anything else.”
“Maybe I never had the choice whether to be a sinner or a saint, but I chose to be a vampire, Doc. And you,” I glare at him, and he seems to shrink under my gaze, “you are trying to take away the one thing I chose for myself.”
Legs keeps his eyes trained on the ground. Maybe I should have been less harsh. The man has just had a panic attack. I sigh and pull myself to my feet.
“Come on,” I offer him a hand. “Let’s get you back to town.”
He takes my hand, and I hoist him up. No words are shared on the walk to town. The only sounds are the crunching of leaves beneath our feet and Legs’s soft breathing. We stop at the tree line, the town only a short distance away.
“I hope you feel better.” I nod at the town.
Legs hesitates, then turns to me. “Thank you. You- you can be a good person. You are. You helped me. You can change—”
“Change!?” I laugh. “I don’t want to change! This is who I am, Doctor, so stop trying to fix me.”
I don’t wait for a response. My body shifts and rearranges as I turn into a bat. Despite being practically weightless in the sky, something heavy still clings to me as I fly away.
~o~Legs~o~
I watch the vampire disappear into the horizon. My hands are still shaking, the spot where Owen had licked me tingling. Owen didn’t want to change. But as I look at the town, full of people I know, I realize I’m not just trying to fix a vampire. I’m trying to prove that even the most broken things can be mended.