The Battle For Blogland [FINALE] - Chapter 16: Beside The Dying Fire

Merry Christmas!

Theme: 'Hospital For Souls' by Bring Me The Horizon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohXmIcCHT9o

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16

BESIDE THE DYING FIRE

For a single moment, the world around me died. For a single moment, my mind frosted over and refused to operate. For a single moment, the ocean of pain I was drowning in was held at bay, as the prospect of a continued existence in which Nixion Strange did not draw breath jolted through my mind. Then the hellacious agony came flooding back and my arms ceased supporting my weight. They buckled and I was back on the ground again, pressed against the gravel, staring at Nixion. Desperately, I tried pushing the crippling pain away and attempted to focus on him, hoping he would breathe or cough or at least make a move. Anything to show that he was still alive. The bastard left me hanging on for three more seconds before he gagged and begun coughing up blood. It was a few moments before I fully comprehended what was happening – in which time he managed to push himself over onto his side. My mind cleared and I moved over to help him; or at least, I had intended to. The burning slit in my side prevented me from shifting an inch. I was cemented to the ground taking shallow, painful breaths while Nixion chocked and retched, now on all fours.

With what limited closer examination my brain was capable of at that time, his condition seemed far less severe than I had originally suspected. He was covered in scars, yes; but they appeared more like scratches and gashes rather than deep, penetrating wounds. He was covered in blood, yes, but he had been left alone with a vampire for a good ten minutes or so, so that was to be expected. In all seriousness, it was likely that he was in a better condition than the rest of us were at this stage.

He finally stopped coughing up blood and took deep breaths. Sounds were trying to tumble out of my mouth, but I didn’t have the brain power to assign words to them, nor did I possess the energy to utter them aloud. As my head continued pounding and my side continued smouldering, I saw Nixion turn his head and mutter something to me. I never caught what he said, and wouldn’t have been able to reply if I had. I made one last ditch effort to get my mind to focus and caught the words “hate” and “vampires”. I got the general gist of the message.

Nixion picked himself up off the ground and staggered off in the direction of Lorelei, machete held loosely in his hand. She was pinned against the side of a structure while the vampire on top of her tried to tear chunks of flesh out of her neck. The vampire she had previously injured with her switchblade was slowly getting to its feet while the weapon lay discarded a few feet away. Sparky was on the ground again and Flame was trying to ward off their vampire with the fireball in his palm. His backpack lay abandoned behind him.

Ivy appeared to have recovered enough to be aware of her surroundings again, and had fired off an energy blast which threw the vampire clawing at Death away from her. Death herself rolled onto her hands and knees and breathed heavily. Blood spilled over her chest and drenched what remained of her battered clothes. She was provided only a few seconds of rest before the vampire returned to its feet and pounced on her from behind, resuming its attack. This time it was successful in tearing a chunk of flesh out of her shoulder. Death’s scream split the night air through all the others, attracting the attention of the Vlaedr Wolf-Vampire. Ivy rushed over to help her, but was cut off as the Vlaedr Wolf-Vampire appeared between them.

It reached Death and swung its arm into the vampire already attacking her, making an easier target. The vampire was flung through the air and collided with the one battling with Nixion and Lorelei. Death did not make an effort to move away, and the Vlaedr Wolf-Vampire seized her in its clawed hand and slammed her into the building beside them. Splintered wood flew in every direction upon impact followed by the building collapsing in on itself. Nixion dragged Lorelei away to avoid being crushed, leaving the two vampires on the ground to whatever fate the wood had for them. There were no screams from underneath the wood and the rubble, so Death was either unconscious, or in a state so terrible it rendered her unable to scream. I didn’t want to think about it.

The Vlaedr Wolf-Vampire appeared unable to locate Death amid the wreckage and turned its sights on Nixion and Lorelei. The scene immediately in front of me shifted drastically as the ground came up to meet me. The fact that I was passing out didn’t even register. Everything darkened, my head went fuzzy and just like that a whole ten minutes of complete chaos passed by me.

I was roused as someone stumbled backwards, kicking my arm in the process. Upon awakening, my first reaction was to spring to my feet as my still not fully functioning brain attempted to discern the situation around me. Unfortunately, the moment when it recovered enough to recall what was happening was also the moment where it was clear enough to register pain again. My vision blurred while my knees gave out under the awful agony. I knelt on the ground, eyes screwed shut and every muscle tensed, just wishing it would stop, wishing I could move. It was minutes before I had the energy to even open my eyes again, and by the time I had, whoever it was that had kicked my arm was long gone from the vicinity.

The battle was still being waged. Everything was in a total chaos, probably increased for me due to my slurred brain processing power. Screams were coming from everywhere and all I saw was fire and fighting figures. I blinked a few times to try and get my vision to focus, trying to set aside the pain for a while. Ivy appeared to have finally succumbed to her rapid loss of blood and was lying motionless on the ground. Around her danced the figures of Sparky and a vampire – Sparky defending the girl on the ground while the creature tried to get at her. I could not locate the whereabouts of Thrust. Flame was leading the Vlaedr Wolf-Vampire away from an injured Lorelei with a trail of fire he was waving through the air as he ran. Nixion was holding off the two vampires still on their feet all on his own and, despite his continually increasing number of injuries, was somehow still conscious. Death was nowhere to be seen, presumably still buried under the debris and wood of the structure that had collapsed on her. The fourth vampire rested on the ground next to the remains of this structure, still bleeding from the neck and nursing whatever other injuries it had. It whined and cried in high pitched squeals that made me want to pass out again.

Lorelei, who was now on the opposite side of the street to the collapsed structure, moved tentatively for a few moments before grabbing the ledge of a windowsill and pulling herself up onto her one good leg. She clutched at the sill for a time while she got her balance and her bearings. Thrust had appeared out of nowhere and re-joined the battle at once, taking to assisting Nixion with his sword. They each took one vampire to themselves and set about defending and attacking in a wild and deadly duel.

A building to the right of the street splintered in an explosion of wood and rubble as Flame Phoenix’s flailing body came soaring through the side wall. He tumbled and rolled across the ground as the building crumbled behind him. His momentum carried him to a final halt next to the vampire that Lorelei had injured. It stirred and whined and clawed at him, and Flame kicked its face in before lying back and groaning in agony. The Vlaedr Wolf-Vampire roared in fury and came after him, each step it made making the ground tremble. Flame saw it coming and begun crawling backwards as fast as his worsening injured arm would allow him to.

Three loud bangs blasted through the air like gunshots and the Vlaedr Wolf-Vampire jerked to the side in its rampage, confused an injured and roaring with anguish. Its arms flew about in wild abandon, trying to kill whatever it was that had injured it. Lorelei fired off four more bullets at it from her position beside the windowsill and the creature’s legs eventually gave out. It was down, but it wouldn’t be for long, and Flame pulled himself onto his feet and stumbled away from it. He joined Lorelei and doubled over, panting and clutching his injured arm. His clothes were battered and torn and his face was covered in sweat.

“I was just thrown through a house…” he gasped.

“I noticed,” Lorelei said, checking her magazine for how many rounds she had left.

Nixion let out a yell of pain as the vampire he was exchanging blows with raked its claws across his lower stomach and he dropped, arm covering his freshly bloody injury. Thrust spun from his own fight and knocked the vampire backwards, but was immediately assaulted from the second one with a barrage of teeth and claws. His feet carried him backwards across the ground, drawing both vampires away from Nixion, who was breathing shallowly. Two more loud gunshots fired through the air, one of them managing to hit a single vampire in the side. It whined in pain and pulled away from the fight, leaving Thrust ducking and weaving around the last vampire’s attacks. A fireball flared through the sky and set the injured vampire ablaze and with that it retreated from the scene completely, charging wildly into an abandoned building and setting the whole thing alight. Thrust jabbed at the creature with his sword and it blurred out of the way, snarling. It raised a clawed paw and swiped and Thrust reeled backwards, his upper arm bleeding and damaged. It struck again, this time slicing open his upper chest. In a desperate attempt to keep the vampire back from him, Thrust swung wildly with his sword. It nicked the creature’s upper arm and it jerked backwards.

He swiped again and it snarled, going in for another attack. The vampire swung its claws at him and they became entangled in the blade of the sword. They struggled for a few moments, but Thrust being the weaker of the two eventually staggered back. He swung one last time and took the vampire’s paw clean off. It screeched and reared back, flinging blood through the air. The assault on Thrust ceased, and just in time; as the vampire vanished in a pale blur, Thrust collapsed to his knees, clutching at his bloody chest.

Thrust’s vampire reappeared behind Sparky, teeth barred, ready to rip her throat out. Before anyone could shout a warning, the vampire sunk what claws it had left into her back and her scream split the air. The vampire she had already been keeping away from Ivy pounced on her, taking both Sparky and the vampire to the ground. Flame came charging from his place beside Lorelei, fury lining his features. He snapped his palm and the air literally convulsed in on the vampire on top of her, sending it soaring and writhing across the air and into the building opposite them. The second vampire, splattered with blood, arched its back and roared at Flame. He reached the creature and socked it in the jaw with his bad arm, evidently having forgotten it. The injury apparently sparked back to life and Flame bent over, cursing himself as the vampire staggered away.

Meanwhile, the vampire that Lorelei had stabbed was finally nearing the end of its energy restoration. Pushing against the ground, it rose to its feet before stretching and growling, then looking over at me with flaming eyes. My stomach dropped as I realised that I was its next target. I was the one closest to it, and it was looking for anything to eat at that moment. Everyone else was occupied with their own battles, or unconscious. Within seconds it was ready to move again and in a second longer it was in front of me. I couldn’t move. Every muscle in my body was locked and rigid. The cut across my side was on fire, burning and killing me slowly, but at the same time preventing me from writhing and screaming. I had to do something. I had to find some way to move at least. But it was useless, my body wouldn’t allow it. Instead everything tensed further and my breaths grew shallower.

Out of nowhere, an arm wrapped around the vampire’s throat and it thrashed about, trying to throw whoever it was off it. A machete emerged over the other side of the creature, ready to slit its throat, but the vampire leapt to one side and Nixion was thrown off it. He landed heavily on the ground while his weapon spun off to the far right. He wasted no time in getting to his feet and all I could do was look on and continue wondering how the hell he hadn’t passed out yet.

The vampire roared and spit flew everywhere. It bounded forward and jumped through the air like a bullet. Nixion only just managed to throw himself to the ground in time to avoid the creature, and it overshot him. He leapt back to his feet and retrieved his machete as the vampire skidded to a halt and spun back around, madness in its eyes. It ran at him again and swiped. He weaved to the left and jabbed a fist into its ribs, making it snarl. He kicked at its leg and slammed his elbow into its face hard; once, twice, three times. The vampire stumbled back, injured and confused, and Nixion brought his fist up and slammed it into the side of its head. It staggered away struggling to hold itself up.

The vampire Flame had socked in the jaw had recovered long ago and was trying to take his head off while Flame himself tried to ward it off with a ball of fire with varying degrees of success. Sparky was on her side, breathing heavily but showing no signs of being able to move past that. Ivy was beginning to stir beside her. Flame cursed and hurled the fireball at the vampire. It dodged the fire with ease and pounced for him, but Flame had already raised his arms and the air shimmered and the vampire shot backwards through the air. It slammed into the side of a building with a yelp and left a gaping hole in the side as the wood splintered around it on impact. A small cloud of dust rose from the collision and drifted up into the air.

Flame’s eyes followed the dust as it ascended and then widened as they fell upon the sight of the writhing, billowing blanket of black smoke that stretched across the sky. He spun around, observing the rest of his surroundings that had been forgotten and neglected in battle. The vampire that he had set alight minutes previously had blindly crashed its way through four different structures – all made of wood, and all thriving in a brilliant, burning fire. And from them was spilling a constant, gushing stream of black smoke and ash. Embers flew from the flames like spittle and lined the edges of the cracked and withered roads we stood on.

A ground trembling roar signified that the Vlaedr Wolf-Vampire had returned to its feet and was ready to tear us limb from limb again. Furthermore, the vampire that had originally been exchanging blows with Sparky was slowly getting to its feet, looking weak but quickly recovering. Ivy was only on her knees, but definitely fully conscious again, and was looking over Sparky quickly. The sound of Lorelei’s gun blasted through the night air once more and the Vlaedr Wolf-Vampire let out several more roars. This time, rage drove it forwards, and it charged for Lorelei, ignoring its wounds – fresh and old alike. Lorelei ceased firing and stared into the creature intently. Then her whole body shimmered, and her transparency increased drastically. The Vlaedr Wolf-Vampire drew closer and charged right through her, crashing head first into the building she stood in front of. It caved in on the beast and it collapsed again, flailing and bellowing in rage and pain. Lorelei took three steps back from the wreckage before allowing her ghosting properties to fade.

All the while, the three vampires that had successfully avoided being set on fire had all regained their strength and with it their ferocity. The vampires moved in unison and vanished from the scene. All we could hear was their growls and cries as they crashed around the town, breaking through buildings to get to better positions to strike. Then one of them leapt from the second story of a building and took Flame to the ground. He cried out, and Thrust came running to his aid, still injured but determination driving him on. Ivy stumbled to her feet and shoved an energy blast into the vampire in front of her. It took a step back as the blast hit it, but snarled and leapt for her. She made her way around it and was ready once it landed. Her good arm was thrown forward in a fist and smacked the vampire in the face. She threw herself towards the vampire, face contorted in anger, bombarding it with blows.

Sparky was on all fours, eyes screwed up and ignoring the sounds of battle around her. She took deep breaths, waiting for the pain to subside or finding the strength to push it away. Her eyes flew open again and she threw herself brashly to her feet. The screams and the growls and the conflict around her were given no attention as she scoured the ground in search for Flame’s backpack. She stooped down, picked it up and slung it over her shoulders.

All of a sudden, every muscle in my body seized up again as my side exploded into a blaze of agony. It took me moments to think past the pain and realise that something had pushed me over and dug into my chest with claws. I still couldn’t move – my body was completely rigid, and even though the pain being inflicted by the vampire was minimal in comparison to my side, it was still killing me, making me want to scream, making me want to curl up and stop feeling. Desperately, I tired throwing my arm at it, trying to bat it away or hit its face, anything, but my body would not obey. I could feel a warm substance spilling everywhere – the blood pouring from my flesh – as the vampire pulled its claws out from my chest. A distorted sound that was supposed to be a cry of pain escaped from my lips and I could hear my own raspy inhalations.

Somewhere in the back of my head, a quiet voice was telling me to focus, to ignore the ocean of hellacious agony, and to strike the vampire before it tore me apart – but another voice was drowning it out. The voice was screaming, yelling on top of the other one, and they were my screams, my cries of anguish. But then the other voice was yelling as well, crying over the cries and screaming over the screams, screaming to do something, to move, to ignore the pain. Just to do it, to just force myself to move. Move my arm, just that, just to move my arm and hit the vampire. Hit the creature before it killed me; knock it off and save myself. Do it. Do it. Just hit it. Do it!

But I couldn’t do it. My body would not obey, not matter how much my subconscious roared at me – and now the other voice – the one representing all my fear and hurt and pain – was regaining control, blanking out the rest of my mind until everything was about the pain and nothing else mattered. My mind was pain. My body was pain. I was pain, and that was all I was. Everything was erupting in one enormous display of terrible, terrible agony.

And then the weight on top of me was gone. My mind did not have the energy to process what this meant, and all I could do was continue drowning silently as my eyes were left to pick things up at random intervals. I saw two blurry figures in front of me. I saw the ground shift drastically, and then fall further away from me. I saw the scenes of battle and struggle and fire withdrawing, growing darker and more distant. This was it. This had to be it. I was dying. That was the only conclusion my brain was able to reach in the state it was in. I was dying.

But I wasn’t. My vision blurred, returned to normal, and then darkened as the light from the flames and the night sky was blocked out slightly. The ground I was set on was not the same rough rubble as the road ahead of me. Instead, I felt hard, cold wood. A stray thought flitted through my mind, somehow bypassing the pain, and that told me I had been placed inside one of the buildings – viewing the distant scene of battle through a large hole in the wall. Someone was speaking but they sounded distant and muffled, and I couldn’t make out a word. The long gash across my side continued blazing in an explosive display of divine agony and all thoughts were wiped from my mind again as it returned to screaming.

The voices around me grew louder and I could feel my centre of gravity change as I was pushed over onto my side again, leaving my wound facing the ceiling. With my muscles still so firmly locked in place that it was beginning to make the rest of my body ache, I couldn’t do anything but choke on my own air as whoever was above me tore my jacket off. Waves of pain pulsed through my body, rippling from the wound site and the muscles around my throat tensed further, constricting my breathing even more. More voices again, and then someone was trying to get me to chew something. My eyes flickered open and I forced myself to concentrate for a single second. It was a leaf. It took a few moments for that to register, even after my vision had blurred again, but when I realised the relevance of that, I poured all the energy I had left into forcing my mouth open an inch. The leaf fell in and I chewed on it as quickly as my cramped jaw would allow. Slowly, the healing properties that the leaf contained were released and the agony in my side was eventually lessened enough to allow my muscles to relax.

I swallowed the rest of it, and accepted a second one. I continued chewing, eyes screwed shut as whoever was beside me lifted my shirt from around my side. My body was lifted from the ground again by a small fraction, and someone begun wrapping a wet bandage across the gash and around the rest of my torso. My muscles tensed up again as the pain flared and returned, but the leaf lessened the pain once more, so that when I was let back down onto the ground, I was able to breathe freely for the first time in what seemed like forever. The bandage was only a temporary measure, I know, and it would still be dangerous to even sit up at this point as I was losing too much blood. But it provided a small amount of relief, knowing that there was some form of support there.

Minutes passed where I simply lay there, breathing and savouring the newly found moments in which I could live without wanting to die, simply to escape the pain. I’m sure that the person or people standing around me were still talking and even though I had to ability to listen in now, I was ignoring them. Once my lungs had been fully satisfied and my body had been relaxed long enough for everything to stop aching, I shifted my head and looked up at the people around me. Nixion crouched beside me, machete in hand and observing the battle scene still being waged in the distance. Sparky stood next to the hole in the wall, her face lined with pain from her injuries, but anger was also there; anger at not currently assisting the rest of her friends.

Nixion looked down, saw I had recovered enough to focus on something, then looked back at Sparky. “Alright, get her,” he said. “We’ll be waiting.” Sparky exited the trashed building immediately, darting back to the screams and the flames. I examined our scene a bit further and saw the open backpack on the ground behind Nixion. The one Sparky had taken from behind Flame. Suddenly, a wave of guilt rushed over me as I realised how absolutely useless I had been in the events of that night. Most of it I had spent crouched on the ground, watching all my friends being torn apart throughout the battle. I couldn’t do anything. And I still couldn’t do anything. I was lying a good seventy five meters away from everyone and had forced Nixion and Sparky to tend to me.

I focused again and examined the rest of my immediate environment. Behind Nixion lay the backpack Sparky had taken from Flame, unzipped with the few medical supplies it had held scattered around it. The building we were in was old and musty, much like the rest of what made up the town. There were stairs off to the far right of the room and splintered wood covered most of the floor from the hole in front of us. I tried speaking, but my throat was too dry for the sounds to become coherent words. It took a few tries, but I finally got my voice working again.

“What’s happening?” I asked Nixion in a dry, croaky voice. He gestured to the battling and the screaming ahead with his machete.

“That’s happening,” he said. “Sparky’s getting Death out of whatever wreck she was thrown into. She knows the way out of the town. When she’s healed and when can move, we’ll let everyone else know and then we’re getting the hell out of here.”

I let my head drop back to the ground slowly and resumed savouring my breathing. They had a plan. It was barely a plan, and would probably go wrong at some point, but it was still a plan, and that they had managed to organise any sort of composed notion throughout this wreck was impressive. And it made sense. Go after Death because getting Thrust or Lorelei would draw the attention of the vampires. There was still the issue of the vampires coming after us even after we left the town, but we could deal with that once we had actually managed to leave. Looking around at the distant battle scene again, I could see that Sparky had reached the remains of the building that the Vlaedr Wolf-Vampire had made collapse on Death. Casting only a single glance over at the screaming figures to her right, she begun moving and sifting through the wood and rubble for Death. To the right of her, I saw Ivy scream in pain while the vampire on top of her sunk its claws into her chest. Behind her was Flame, staggering backwards from the two vampires advancing on him, panting heavily and clutching at his injured arm. Around them ran Thrust looking barely conscious with the Vlaedr Wolf-Vampire hot on his trail, gaining easily and being slowed only by Lorelei’s constant firing at it.

Had enough strength returned to me, I would have shaken my head. Instead, I blinked a few times and dragged my eyes away from my friends. It was more difficult than it would sound. Instead, I focused on my breathing again, focused on not letting whatever pain was left to come through, and stared intently at the side of a wall while we waited for Sparky to return with Death. Nixion kept his eyes fixed on the battle ahead, jamming his machete into the ground and pulling it out again in a continuous rhythmic pattern. I didn’t have to take note of his behaviour to know that he was agitated at not being in the thick of battle, assisting the others.

My eyes flickered back to Sparky and I saw her pulling a limp body out of the wreckage and hoisting it over her shoulder. Her eyes determinedly fixed away from the raging battle beside her, Sparky slowly made her way back to us, struggling with holding Death’s body up. Nixion sunk his machete into the ground one last time before turning to the medical supplies behind him and begun organising them, clearing a convenient space for Death to be set. The already dim light was further lowered as Sparky stepped in through the hole in the wall. When Death was set down in the space Nixion had provided, I glanced over at her and immediately felt sick again.

Her clothes were tattered rags – ripped and torn and soaked in blood. Scratches and gashes covered her skin while blood leaked from her many wounds. Her left arm had been forced into such an extreme position that her bones had snapped and were protruding from her skin. Large splinters of wood were jammed into her flesh, left hanging and dripping with blood. It was a good thing that she was unconscious.

I looked away while Nixion and Sparky set about pulling the splinters out of her and treating her wounds. After everything else through night, watching that was something I just didn’t have the stomach for. Looking away didn’t block out the sounds, though, and I heard every splinter being freed from her skin. After a while I resorted to focusing on the sounds of screaming and the roar of the fires, infuriating as it was not to be able to help and to be stuck, instead, on the ground; injured and useless. Minutes passed with an awful slowness to it all, during which some of the pain had begun seeping through again. It wasn’t long before I knew I was going to need another leaf or my muscles would soon seize up again. But Nixion and Sparky were tending to Death, and I knew it would be wrong to call them away from her. Another few minutes saw Death waking up, coming with it her terrible screams of anguish. She was given a leaf which relieved her pain a few moments later.

Even after the two had removed all the splinters and bandaged all her wounds and tended to her arm with excruciating caution, it was a while before Death was in any fit state to start speaking. I was pretty sure that she wasn’t actually aware of much for a long time. Either way, after they had finished with her, she gazed at the wall with blank eyes while she breathed in and out, focusing on nothing else. Much like I had. But we couldn’t wait around forever. I had been listening to the screams and the roars and the fighting for too long now, and that on top of the rapidly returning pain was driving me mad again. It seemed that Sparky was on a similar wavelength because shortly after, she moved herself into Death’s line of sight and spoke.

“How do we get out of here?” she asked her. “We’re leaving. Which way?”

Death nodded slowly, comprehension flickering in her eyes. She nodded a few more times, then rolled over onto her side and tried getting to her feet. Her first attempt left her sprawled on the ground again, but Nixion slowly helped her to her feet. Death took a few moments to get her balance; to make sure she wouldn’t topple over, but she seemed fairly steady, and she led the way out through the hole in the wall, Nixion and Sparky following her. She led them back onto the main road, and they vanished from my sight. By now I could feel the floodgates holding back the agony beginning to strain. I needed a leaf.

The few remaining medical supplies were still on the ground a few feet away, among them three remaining leaves. Slowly and cautiously, I begun edging my way towards them, arm outstretched. Every move sent a new pulse of pain rippling outwards from my side, but I persevered. It would probably be a while before Nixion and Sparky returned. They had to go and alert the others now. Upon glancing over at the battle scene again, I saw Nixion hurrying back to the burning buildings and the fighting figures. I suppose it would make sense for one of them to remain here in case anything happened. Sparky was probably still standing with Death.

Leaf.

Right. I refocused and spent the next minute edging slowly closer to the medical supplies. By the time I’d finished chewing on my third leaf that night; Nixion had long since re-joined the fight. I could see Death leaning against the outer wall, just beside the hole. How exactly she and I were going to make it out of here with any degree of speed was still a mystery to me.

Sparky came back in through the hole and crouched next to me. She muttered something to me which I didn’t really catch, and then begun hauling me to my feet. It was a good thing that I’d just had another leaf, because even with it, getting pulled up was near-unendurable. She guided me over to the hole in the wall and let me lean against it while we waited. I spent the next few minutes catching my breath and trying to ignore the returning pain while Sparky gathered up the supplies and the backpack again. Eventually, the leaf’s properties returned to effect and I was able to turn my attention to other things.

Thrust and Sparky were holding off the three vampires left standing, buying time for Ivy, Flame, Thrust and Lorelei to retreat from the battle. The Vlaedr Wolf-Vampire was roaring and screaming in a violently blind rage as flames licked at its flesh. The fourth vampire, the one that had caused the fires to begin with, lay on the ground silently, blackened and smouldering. Every one of both our friends and the vampires were injured in some way. Thrust in particular was looking battered; most of his clothes were soaked in his blood. He and Sparky warded off the vampires for a few more seconds before they struck again and they were forced back. Sparky swung with her makhaira as she reeled away from them, nicking the closest vampire on the chest. Thrust stumbled to the side, letting the vampire that had leapt at him overshoot. He brought his hand up and threw it to the side, hurling the vampire backwards with the air rippling around it. A blinding flash emitted from Sparky’s free hand and the third vampire dropped to the ground. She gestured with her head and Thrust followed her after the others.

“Time to go,” Nixion said. He pulled my left arm over his shoulders and hauled me forwards. White hot pain flared in my side and for a few moments I was blinded, lost amid it – but the three leaves I’d chewed earlier held their ground and slowly pushed it back again. I took a few breaths, then nodded once, and Nixion started towards the exit. Death had spent the last few minutes regaining her balance to a greater degree, and seemed capable of walking, even if running was currently out of the question. At the rate she seemed to be recovering, though, it probably wouldn’t be long. She even had the backpack full of supplies with her. She walked faster and led the way, leaving Nixion and I to trail along in a painfully slow walk per my request.

I turned my head to see that the others were beginning to catch up with us. Sparky, Ivy and Flame were in front while Thrust had dropped back to help Lorelei run, her mangled leg still very much a problem. We could hear the vampires leaping from building to building around them, leaving the fires and smoke behind. Death, Nixion and I stepped out onto the next street and then we could see the end of the town – the same abrupt change in environments; from road to plains. There was a curse from behind and I turned again to see a vampire drop from above, separating Thrust and Lorelei from the rest of the group. Lorelei moved to smack the vampire in the head with her when the two other vampires dropped down next to the first. Thrust and Lorelei took a few steps backwards from the snarling creatures and surveyed their situation. By now, Sparky, Ivy and Flame had realised something was wrong, and had turned around to help.

“Go!” Thrust shouted as he stumbled backwards. “We’ll take the long way around!” he and Lorelei ran off down the alley to their right, and that was the last time we saw them. Flame ran towards them, calling for them to come back, but the two vampires closest snarled and reared their backs at him and he cursed. Their growls grew louder and Flame spun around and ran after Sparky and Ivy. The two nearest vampires roared and tore after them while the third one belted after Thrust and Lorelei.

Nixion, Death and I had finally reached the edge of the town, and ahead of us I could see the black clouds again. They writhed above the plains, still spitting down rain – the same rain we’d been in hours earlier, but on the opposite side of the town. Nixion allowed me to slip out of his support and I slowly made my way towards the line on my own, one hand clutching my side. I stepped across the line distinguishing the town from the plains and allowed the rain to soak me once more, to wash away the blood from my clothes, before I turned around to wait for the others again. Nixion stood next to me, the rain already drenching him. Sparky, Ivy and Flame were fast approaching us, the two vampires hot on their heels. Death lingered in front of me, a few feet away from the edge of the town; watching the three run. I looked over to the left of the town, searching for any sign of Lorelei or Thrust or even the vampire that had taken after them, but I saw nothing. They could be anywhere by now and were completely cut off from the rest of us.

Nixion had his machete out, ready to take one of the vampires out if he had to. Sparky, Ivy and Flame had almost reached us and were running as quickly as their legs would allow. The two vampires bounded after them, saliva dripping from their fangs and fury lining their features – determined to catch them, determined to feed. But then they had reached Death, and were almost over the line when the first vampire pounced at Flame. Its claws sunk into his back and he cried out as he was thrown onto the ground. Sparky skidded to a stop and spun, but Ivy had been going too fast to slow down in time and had crossed the line into the rain. At once, she stopped herself, spun around and tried to charge back into the battle, but could not cross the line. Nixion bounded forwards as well, arm raised ready to strike, but hit a wall that was not there, blocking him from re-entering the town.

While Nixion and Ivy descended into yells of confusion and panic, Death dropped the backpack and rushed forwards to help Flame. Sparky had already socked the vampire in the jaw, her fist crackling with electricity. The vampire staggered backwards, dazed, but more ferocious than ever. Out of nowhere came the second vampire and in a flash it had knocked Sparky backwards and was on Flame again. Death had stepped forwards, prepared to fight, when the first vampire leapt through the air again and it took her down. Her screams resumed as the creature slashed at her chest, her throat, her legs, everywhere. Nixion and Ivy pounded at the wall, screaming into the rain as Death and Flame were slowly torn apart.

Sparky pushed herself back on her feet, and readied herself to take the vampire off Flame – one second too late. The vampire sunk its teeth into his neck, and Flame’s flailing ceased. It tore out a chunk of flesh and took its first mouthful of the night. Nixion and Ivy stopped pounding the wall; Flame’s body stopped moving; Sparky froze where she stood. Even the rain grew quieter, until it was just us, with our eyes fixed on Flame as blood spilled from his neck, onto the pool of red underneath him.

The silence was obliterated, ravaged and devastated, shattered into a thousand pieces, as Sparky let out a roar so full of anguish it made me take a step back in apprehension. Energy and burst from where she stood and forks of electricity flared in every direction. A single flex of the hand, took all the electricity she commanded channelling into the vampire. It screamed and writhed, and then dropped, smouldering. Black clouds gathered above the town and the skies opened up and rain fell, bringing with it more lightning. The vampire on Death had scampered from the scene, taking refuge in the closest building.

Slowly, the crackling lightning around Sparky faded until it was just her again, standing beside Flame, and then kneeling. There she remained until the gurgling in his throat stopped and Flame Phoenix was left for the rain.

And that was it. That was the final straw for us. Nixion, Ivy and I were blocked off, inexplicably locked out of the town. Death lay on the ground in a pool of her own blood, alive, but dying. Thrust and Lorelei were nowhere to be found – maybe fighting, maybe dying, maybe dead. And Flame was gone; which meant that Sparky would not leave. And even while Nixion and Ivy and I would scream and beg for her to come, would throw ourselves at the wall that was not there, she would not hear. And when she was ready, she would rise to her feet, and make her way back to the flames and the smoke. She would drag Flame’s killer with her, and she would drag Death along too; back to Vlaedr and to the last vampire. And we would scream after her, but all that would achieve was bring Death’s vampire out of hiding, and it would come for us. And we would have no choice but to run once it came across the line. So it was down to us; all three of us dying slowly. Cut off from Sparky, from Death, from Lorelei, from Thrust. Flame had fallen. Our group was scattered, divided. 

And we were broken. 

THE END

OF PART 1